“I wish I had a thaumometer on me,” Elodie was enthusing. Everything about her seemed in motion: hair, hands, intelligence. “Such atmospheric excitation due to the propulsive reverberation of intensate kinetic thaumaturgic energy is not usually—oh, hello! I say, do I know you?”
At this abrupt swerve in subject, Gabriel turned to see whom she addressed, and his expression became so dour, students still abed two miles away shuddered instinctively.
A woman stood before them, dark-eyed, dark-haired, and dressed in a sober traveling suit. She had a small leather suitcase in one hand, a book in the other, and such an aura of dignified unflappability that Gabriel saw Elodie grow calm within its influence, even while his own nerves began to twitch. She scanned Gabriel from head to foot, her demeanor suggesting that, if he was experiencing some problem, she would fix it (whether he wished her to or not) and then, as a helpful bonus, advise him on how exactly he went wrong. Determining that he was uninjured, she turned with a polite smile to Elodie.
“We haven’t met,” she said before Gabriel could think of a way to stop her. “I know I would remember that.”
“Amelia,” Gabriel interrupted brusquely. “What are you doing here?”
Blinking long, thick lashes, she turned the smile back toward him. “Well, this may seem incredible, considering our location, but I’m waiting for a train. I noticed the disturbance and wanted to check you were unhurt.”
“I’m unhurt.”
“That’s a relief. So…”
“So goodbye,” Gabriel said brusquely.
Amelia ignored this with perfect equanimity. “Are you going to introduce me to the lady?”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched. But Elodie extended her hand without hesitation. “Professor Tarrant,” she said.
“How interesting,” Amelia remarked. “That’s my name too.”
From somewhere in the crowd behind them came the murmur,“Oh God, there’s three of them.”Amelia took Elodie’s offered hand and shook it firmly. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what has become of my manners.”
Elodie laughed. “Manners are for people who don’t have anything more interesting to say.”
That brightened Amelia’s smile. “I’m Miss Amelia Tarrant, a history professor here at Oxford,” she said. “Also, Gabriel’s sister. And you must be his w—”
“No time to talk,” Gabriel said, grasping Elodie’s elbow and turning her away from his sister’s fascinated scrutiny. “I’ll see you at Aunt Mary’s Sunday dinner.”
“Nice to meet you!” Elodie called over her shoulder. Then she snatched her elbow from Gabriel’s grip, speared him with a look that made it clear meetinghimhad been the opposite of nice, and redirected her attention to Beetleson, who was sitting up, wiping the blood from his forehead. Concern suffused her face. “Oh dear, are you all right, lad?”
The lad (actually a twenty-three-year-old man with a master’s degree) gave her a wan, piteous look. Then, noticing Gabriel’s frown, he went from pale to bright scarlet in what was obviously a very rapid heartbeat.
“F-fine,” he stammered—inaccurately, since in addition to his head wound, he was on the verge of being suspended from Oxford, or by his ankles over a pit of snakes, whichever Gabrieldecided was sufficient punishment for his endangeringElodie’severyone’s life with his careless handling of thaumaturgic equipment. “I don’t understand what happened. I only twisted the dowsing rod’s branches so I could fit it into the pack better.”
“Twisted them? Without first ensuring there was no residual energy contained in the rod?” Gabriel was furious. “You should know better than that, Beetleson. It’s basic safety.”
“Sorry, Professor,” Beetleson murmured dolefully.
“Accidents happen,” Elodie said, casting a chastising frown at Gabriel before she handed Beetleson a lace-trimmed handkerchief and winced with gentle sympathy as he pressed it to his forehead.
Gabriel bristled. “Accidents certainly donothappen. Not with my students. Beetleson is wholly responsible for both the explosion and the fact he now has magic eating at his face.”
“What?!”Beetleson exclaimed in horror.
“Maybe he was in a hurry,” Elodie suggested.
“Eating at my face?”Beetleson scrubbed his cheeks and then wailed, aghast, when blue sparks shot out, buzzing as they formed a swarm and rushed him again.
“Even a child knows to perform a fundamental Hesselthop maneuver to safely ground and discharge thaumaturgic residuum before reconfiguring a thaumaturgic dowsing rod,” Gabriel said. “Beetleson’s ineptitude cannot be excused.”
“Oh my God!”Beetleson could be heard crying from within the swarm.
Elodie set her hands on her hips. “You’re being too harsh.”
Gabriel crossed his arms. “You’re being too lenient. People could have died.”
