“How badly did—did you get hurt?” she asked, unable to bring herself to sayhow badly did I hurt you. Only one of them had been injured on purpose, and it wasn’t him.
He glanced at her, still rubbing. “I slowed my fall just before I hit the floor, or it would have been very bad indeed. You’re tentimesthe menace I thought you were.”
When she was young, she had wished, hoped, dreamed she would find a wizard. He would have silver hair (of course), teach her how to use magic (obviously) and send her on grand adventures. Instead, the universe gave her this hairless, thirty-something, sardonic IT director.
She did her best to out-glare him. “You more than paid me back, don’t you think?”
“I apologize.” The words came out strangled to a fare-thee-well. “It was all I could think of, with the wind knocked out of me and the door—” He stopped short.
“What about the door?”
“It doesn’t matter—it’s no excuse,” he muttered. “Are you seeing double?”
“No.” Thank goodness for that. One of him was already too much.
“Any lingering dizziness? Nausea? Ringing in the ears?”
She shook her head—gingerly—and found the movement wasn’t too awful.
He passed a hand over his eyes. “Then it’s less likely your concussion is severe. For which mercy I am properly grateful.”
She supposed she ought to reciprocate, though he had more to apologize for than she did. “About your fall ... I’m sorry.”
He fixed her with a look that put all previous piercing looks to shame. “So, Dr. Daggett—what am I to do with you?”
That sounded more like the evildoer script. She sat a bit straighter. “Haven’t you done enough?”
He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
“I know, I know, you don’t want anyone else to learn your secret,” she said, putting up both hands to stop the inevitable objections. “But who’d believe me if I told them?”
“The salient point is that I won’t be able to use this room for fear you’d bring someone in.”
She saw how she could turn this to her advantage. So she didn’t like him. So what. He was awizard—the salient point to end all salient points.
“Let’s make a deal.” She clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “I won’t compromise you, and you’ll do something for me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What ‘something’?”
“Teach me magic.”
His reaction was not what she’d hoped. He laughed—a black-humor sound, a why-is-this-happening-to-me sound. She needed to appeal to his better nature, if he had one, and fast.
“Alexander—”
“No. Absolutelynot.”
She made a mental note to never call him by his first name again. “Please—you have no idea what it would mean to me.”
He snorted. “I’ve some idea. I’ve seen your office.”
She supposed the sword-and-sorcery posters were a bit over the top. But they went well with the setting.
“I’ll pay you like I would any tutor,” she said, trying to figure out how, exactly. Skip meals?
“I don’t need your money. I’m fairly certain I make twice as much as you do, Professor.”
She was a lecturer on a two-semester-only contract, not a professor—most professors made twice as much as she did, let alone IT workers. But she didn’t correct him. She cast about for a lever to shift an immovable object—what did he really want?
