He sucked in a breath—no doubt of relief, though it sounded more like alarm—and ran off.
“Wait!” she shouted. No computer emergency could be so dire that it required him to sprint. And he was headed the wrong direction, toward his room rather than the stairwell.
His voice floated back, echoing off the walls. “Tomorrow.”
. . . ..
“Well?” she said the next evening, pushing aside her notes for a paper on magic and gender in the Enlightenment. “What important role does magic play?”
His raised eyebrow was positively aggressive. “Guess.”
“What? That’s my question! You have to answer it.”
He shook his head. “I made no promise to answer any question, only that I would answer one a day.”
“You ... bastard.”
“Oh, shecanswear.”
“I suppose you think you’re funny?”
“Yes,” he said. “That was easy. Goodnight.”
“Hartgrave!”
. . . . .
The following evening, she got her question out before he’d fully crossed the threshold. “Is it used deliberately? Answer that, and I’ll make my first guess tomorrow.”
“No.”
“No, it’s not deliberate?” she said, wanting to be sure.
“No, I won’t answer that.”
She took in several calming breaths. “Politicians, then. Are they the ones using magic?”
“What, all of them?”
“The inexplicably successful ones, at least.”
His lips twitched. “No, I’m afraid you can’t blame magic for your elected officials.”
“Oh really? Can you tell who’s a practicing wiz—er, convincer just by looking at them?”
“Yes.”
She gaped at him. She’d done that a lot lately. “How?”
“Feel free to guess as soon as you finish the first puzzle. If you finish.”
“You think you’re going to keep me out of there”—she gestured toward his side of the basement—“by stringing me along, don’t you?”
“What I think,” he said, leaning casually against the archway into her office, looking rather sharp in a silver button-down shirt and dark tailored pants, “is that you’d be willing to give up quite a lot to know what I know.”
It brought to mind her dream the week before—Hartgrave as the devil, bartering for her soul.
And he was right: Shewouldbe willing to give up a lot. But she wasn’t about to admit it. She lobbed a pointed question his way instead. “What did you have to trade to get that knowledge in the first place?”
