For an instant, she thought she’d shocked him speechless. The effect was fleeting. “Nothing of importance to anyone but myself,” he said, and was gone.
. . . . .
“Surgeons?”
“No. What do you expect them to do—convince someone’s tonsils out?”
“It’s magic. The sky’s the limit.”
“You’re confusing life with fairy tales, Daggett.”
“Says the man masquerading as Rumpelstiltskin!”
. . . ..
She didn’t expect Hartgrave the following evening. He had no reason to expect her there on a Saturday, and even if he did, he was adept at wriggling through loopholes. “One question a day” could, no doubt, be interpreted legalistically as “workday.” But as she sat on Bernie’s sofa, eyes on a student’s paper, the sharp noise of a cleared throat interrupted.
“You realize you’ve forfeited today’s question,” the convincer said.
She was too surprised by his presence to follow his logic. “What?”
“Think, Daggett.”
She did—and sighed. “I’m in the wrong office.”
“But go ahead,” he said. “As long as I came all the way out here ...”
Nearly as much a shock as Hartgrave appearing at all. Before he could change his mind, she said, “Composers?”
“No.” But it came out slowly. Uncertainly.
“You don’t know.” She wagged a finger at him. “Admit it. Ficino said way back in the fifteenth century that words set to music had an otherworldly power.”
“I concede that someone long-dead—”
“As many composers are, coincidentally,” she said, laughing.
“That someone long-dead,” he repeated, “could have used magic. Probably without realizing.”
She asked “how?” reflexively. Instead of adding the question to her tab and stalking off, he said: “Pulling magic toward you and letting it justbefeels like—likeconnecting with the universe at an elemental level. An ideal state for composing, no doubt.”
Oh, she wanted to try that—the magic part, not the composing. She felt remarkably disconnected from the universe. (Losing touch with old friends and not bothering to make new ones probably had something to do with that …)
Hartgrave still hadn’t left, so she tried for a third question. “You’re sure magic isn’t sentient?”
He nodded. Something about his unsettled expression made her add, “But?”
“If you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
Goosebumps sprang to life up and down her arms. “Are you saying magic changes you?”
“Yes,” he said, then bit his lip. “No.” He made a frustrated movement with his hands. “I don’t know. I want the answer to be yes.”
“Maybe it acts like an amplifier,” she suggested, trying to unravel his meaning. It would explain why he seemed like a portable speaker cranked up to unhealthy volumes. “Or ... or it strips a person down to their essentials?”
He blinked, and it was as if he suddenly realized he was having a conversation with her.Her. A scowl took over his face.
Striking first, she added, “Like unpleasantness.”
