Instead of answering, he spun the chair around and booted up her computer.
“Hartgrave—”
“Yes, yes, I’m reveling in theSchadenfreude,” he muttered. “Thanks for that. I was running low.”
She watched him at the computer, keys clacking under his agile fingers. It was so easy for him and so depressingly difficult for her. Hadn’t she always felt different? Wasn’t that why she used to pretend she was magical and everyone else wasn’t? And all along, it was the other way around.
A pensive tune wended from her speakers.
“‘Mood Indigo,’” Hartgrave said.
“That’s appropriate.”
“What an astonishing coincidence.” He stood. “This is my collection. Log me off the computer when you don’t want to listen anymore.”
She squinted at him. He was behaving like a person trying to make someone feel better, or as close to it as he probably could get.
“Wait.”
He stopped under the arch and looked back, eyebrows raised.
“You can stay,” she said. “If you want.”
“Oh?”
“Misery loves company.”
He snorted. “Misery loves making company equally miserable.”
She probably owed him an apology—again. But the best she could do was a murmured, “It wouldn’t be seven o’clock without you.”
She gestured to the couch and he stretched out on it, draping his long legs over the arm, making himself fit in a space sized to her nearly foot-shorter frame. He looked at her—really looked. “Will you be all right?”
She shrugged. She didn’t mean to say anything, but the words bubbled up and spilled out. “Why didn’t you tell me from the start that I’m anti-magic? Why did you let me scheme and plan and—and hope?”
“Because the misguided belief that something good might happen is better than despair,” he said, and she was struck by the intensity of the words. “At least, I thought you would see it that way.”
She didn’t. Better to know the truth, as painful as it was. Better to know straight away. But she couldn’t faulthim for trying to spare her this heartache—a strangely touching act from this man of all men.
She turned back to the essays, his music almost tangible in the air around her, his silent presence more comforting than it had any right to be. Not ginger snaps, but far, far better than nothing.
7
The Convincer’s Apprentice
Emily had problems unrelated to magic, and they caught up with her the next morning between her last classes of the semester.
“Oh, there you are,” said Professor Fletcher, standing in the doorway that led into the honeycomb of history offices. The department chair looked even more no-nonsense than usual in a charcoal-gray suit, her dark hair twisted into a tight knot. “Step in for a moment.”
Emily followed, clutching her bag full of final exams and hoping for a lecture on proper meeting etiquette—not a conversation beginning withwe have reevaluated the necessity of your services next semester.
Despite the workload, despite the low pay, despite everything, this job was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to waste. People with doctorates in history were far more numerous than full-time faculty positions. Sheneeded Ashburn to ask her to stay once her one-year contract was up.
The instant Fletcher closed her office door behind them, Emily blurted, “I apologize for my behavior yesterday.”
Fletcher’s expression was difficult to read. So was her tone of voice. “I’ve been asked to get your assurance that it won’t happen again.”
“It won’t. I promise.”
