The witch rolled her eyes. “Yes, I spelled it correctly. She’s not here.”
I leaned over the desk to see her screen. Sure enough, a little window had popped up front and center:
No record found.
“Does this only search for students from the business school? She was double majoring in computer science. Would that make a difference?”
She shook her head. “Any student who took a business class would be here, and there is no Sage Hexwood.”
“Sage Hexwood?”
A werewolf beta in his late forties walked in, brown leather messenger bag strapped across his chest and bicycle helmet inhis hand. A reflective band was Velcroed around his pant leg, and small circles of sweat had formed under his armpits.
He pushed up his glasses, his graying curly hair an artful mess on top of his head. “I know Sage. What do you mean there’s no record?”
He walked around the desk and the witch rolled her chair out of the way, letting him give it a go. Leaning over the keyboard, he hit enter after typing her name and then furrowed his furry brows. “Huh, that’s really weird. I know she was here. She was one of my best students in that cohort.”
He stood up, chewing his lip in thought before he finally looked back at me, eyes darting up towards my horns and growing suspicious. “Why are you asking about Sage?”
I took out my license again. “My name’s Ronan Blackthorne. I’ve been hired to track her down,” I replied in a calm, even tone. Better to make it seem more like she was an innocent missing person and not, you know, a thief wanted by the Premier himself.
The werewolf shifted his weight on his feet. “Well, I haven’t seen her in, gosh, five years, I think? She dropped out just a few months before graduation. Didn’t even stop by to say goodbye.” He looked down, the fondness for the missing witch clear in his pained expression. A strange, possessive growl in the pit of my stomach threatened to be unleashed, and I covered it with a cough.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about her, Professor…?”
“Silas Howland. My office is this way, follow me.”
I put away my license and nodded to the student, who flattened her lips and raised her eyebrows, already washing her hands of the problem as she went back to work, which looked suspiciously like updating her MagikGraph profile.
Professor Howland’s office overlooked the lawn outside. One side was a glass wall, the bottom half frosted for privacy. Shelves lined the other walls, filled to the brim with dry-looking texts, titled things like “The Fundamentals of Marketing Strategy” and “Principles of Advertising.”
My eyes were already glazing over at the thought of their contents. It was probably a good thing I’d never attempted to go to college, because there was no way I’d have paid attention in any of my classes.
I liked to read, but nonfiction just put me to sleep.
He set his stuff down and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a little towel, tucking it into his pocket. “Please, have a seat Mr. Blackthorne.”
I did as instructed, and he took his own seat behind his desk, shaking his mouse to wake his computer up. After typing in his password, I saw the reflection of his screen in the glass behind him—an email inbox with hundreds of unread messages. His eyes quickly scanned the page and then he returned his attention towards me. “So, what would you like to know about Sage?”
I took out a small pad of paper for notes and my phone. “Do you mind if I record this conversation?” He shook his head and I continued, tapping the button. “Just start from the beginning. When did you meet Sage, and what kind of student was she?”
He took off his glasses, cleaning the smudges with the corner of his shirt. “Well, let’s see. Sage wasn’t your typical student. Most are in and out in four years, but she had extended her program by a bit longer, and was one of the oldest students in my classes. She never really talked about her personal life too much, but she’d alluded to some health problems that had side tracked her a bit.”
If she had health problems severe enough to slow down her education, she might have been treated at one of the larger hospitals in Elmaris, the elven city-state. Elves were particularlyadept at healing magic, and everyone knew that if you came down with something your local doctor couldn’t treat, Elmaris was your next stop.
I jotted down a note to check there later.
“I remember she also had a part-time job and worked a lot. She didn’t come from wealth, and had to cover her own living expenses.”
“Her job at Sable Mansion?” I asked, recalling her MagikGraph post.
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I just know she had to miss a lot of social gatherings and study groups due to her job or for doctor’s appointments. I mean, I really didn’t know her that well outside of class or office hours, to be honest. We mostly just discussed her school work and her future business plans.”
Tension I didn’t even know I had began to ease at hearing that.
No personal relationship. That was good.
