“Why do you dislike me so much?”
“Because you’re here.” He held out a hand and a bottle of water whizzed into it, apparently pulled from somewhere behind the bed. “Was that trick sufficient?”
“No,” she said, though it did take her breath away just a bit. “And hey, you objected to me at first sight, judgingby the rudeness. I hadn’t said anything besides ‘thanks for coming down,’ so you can’t claim I’d done something to irritate you. Unless requesting help qualifies.”
“I sensed many future irritations.”
She rolled her eyes. Obnoxious man.
He uncapped the bottle and took a sip of water. “Proved spot-on, didn’t it?”
She wanted to zing him, but nothing clever suggested itself. “Oh yeah? Well, you ...”
He smirked when nothing followed. “Yes?”
“… look like a vulture.”
The timing, at least, was impeccable. He’d just swigged from the bottle, and he choked. Gratifying, shutting him up.
Also immature and counterproductive, but one couldn’t have everything.
“Charming,” he said, once his coughing fit subsided. “Shall I think of a bird to compare you to? One that blends into the background when not making an utter nuisance of itself?”
She did look relentlessly ordinary. Unremarkable face, indifferently brown hair (neither short nor long), barely curvy figure. Pleasant enough but not interesting, while Hartgrave by contrast looked intriguingly unpleasant with his bald head, cheekbones as sharp as his tongue and longer-than-necessary nose.
In any case, she was comfortable in her own skin. She grinned at him. “Ruffled your feathers, have I?”
Without looking away, he put out a hand in the direction of the door and the blue fire disappeared,leaving no scorch marks. Illusion? (Effective either way. Who would call that bluff by sticking their fingers in?)
“I,” he said, jaw tight, “am getting back to what I was doing before you interrupted. Stay in this seat or leave the room. Get up for any other reason, and I’ll toss you out.”
He stalked off, retrieving his hat mid-stride.
A thrown-down gauntlet if ever she’d seen one. (Wait,hadshe ever seen one? Never mind, that wasn’t the point.) She would show him. She’d sit as long as humanly possible, which ought to be a while, considering she’d had nothing to drink for hours.
This presented other problems, but she could keep her mind off her dry throat by thinking of other things. How bone-sore she was, maybe.
Then Hartgrave’s feet left the floor, and she forgot all about her bruises.
He rose slowly, arms thrown wide. Somehow this didn’t increase the carrion-bird effect. He embraced the air, and the air embraced back. Dust motes swirled in wild eddies around him, glowing in the light from a massive chandelier overhead. She could understand how a medieval European would be hard-pressed to decide if such a feat suggested the divine or the demonic.
This really undercut the academic assumption that centuries-old reports of flying, when not simply made up, were just hallucinations brought on by so-called witches’ ointment. Heck, this undercuteveryacademic assumption about magic.
She watched as Hartgrave settled into a routine that looked like a bizarre game. He held his hat out, let goand watched intently as it fell. Sometimes it dropped unimpeded to the floor. Sometimes it paused midway before continuing down. Most often it stopped there, balancing on nothing until he retrieved it.
An experiment—either that or an attempt to bore her into leaving, not as if that would work. She watched, mesmerized, blinking only when absolutely necessary.
If—when—she persuaded him to try to teach her magic, and if (oh if) she could actually manage spells, the very first thing she would do was fly. Over fields. Into the night sky. Through falling snow. Then she would settle in and cast useful spells, magic that would help people and fix problems.
Proving magic existed would change the world, not to mention her career, but at the moment she didn’t care. It wasreal. What else mattered? Besides learning how to do it. She’d get Hartgrave to instruct her if it was the last thing she did.
Actually, that sounded like an invitation for an ironic death. She rephrased the vow. You could never be too careful about irony.
When Hartgrave eventually touched down and vultured over, he looked not one whit happier about her presence. “How did you find this room?”
“I was in Bernie’s office when you came in—I thought you were a prowler, so I made myself scarce. Then I heard the door and went looking for it.”
“You thought I was a criminal and wentlooking—” He held up a hand and closed his eyes, as if to saynever mind, par for the course.
