Maggie tried to keep her expression neutral, but a bubbling fury rose in her. Her arm ached, she was freezing, she hadn’t seen the sun in days, and she couldn’t focus for five minutes in her office without someone looking for him. And she couldn’tbelieve he would miss his own office hours. It was so inconsiderate to his students. “Hmm, well, I’m afraid he isn’t here. You can send him an email to schedule some time. Or”—she nearly stopped herself from saying it, but she did feel bad for the kid—“you’re welcome to wait for him here if you want.” She gestured to the couch, and the student followed her into the office. He gave her a nod of thanks and then sank into the cushions, putting in a pair of headphones. The faint beat of a song she recognized played, and he tapped his foot while he waited. After fifteen minutes, she gestured for him to take his headphones out.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sure something just came up.”
The student nodded. “Thanks. I hope everything is all right.”
Maggie frowned as he left. She hadn’t even considered the fact that anything might be wrong, and she felt a momentary wave of guilt wash over her.
The guilt vanished, though, after the second, third, and then fourth interruption, when students looking for Taliesin during his office hours knocked on the door. She finally took out a piece of paper and wrote in block letters:
DR. TALIESIN IS NOT HERE. IF YOU NEED HIM, EMAIL HIM.
When she couldn’t find her tape, she stuck it to the door with a quick bit of magic and, pleased with herself, got back to work.
If more students or other professors came by to find Taliesin, they didn’t bother her. The afternoon stretched on, and Maggie completed most of the exam prep work she had set out to finish, relieved to finally get something substantial done. As she packed up her work, filing it in folders she would carry to the exam, the door to her office opened.
She was about to announce that Taliesin was still out when she turned. It wasn’t a student or another professor in the doorway, but Taliesin himself.
He gripped the door frame as if he might collapse if he let it go. He sighed and heaved himself into the room, every step an effort, before he collapsed onto the sofa, the fainting couch nearly earning its name. The sign she’d attached to the door was crumpled in his hand.
She jumped to her feet. “Taliesin!” She had meant to yell at him, to hold on to her anger and give him a piece of her mind, but instead she was closing the small distance between them. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, and he couldn’t catch his breath as he leaned forward, his head in his hands. “Please do not vomit in our office,” Maggie begged.
Taliesin didn’t respond right away, steadying himself against the nausea, but then managed to eke out a single word. “Ours?” he asked, peeking out from his hands. He immediately groaned and lowered his head back between his knees.
Maggie opened her bottom desk drawer and rummaged through it until she found what she was looking for. Ginger oil and ginger chews. She unwrapped the candy. “Here,” she said, and he managed to sit upright, taking the candy from her open palm and placing it between his lips.
“Thanks,” he muttered, sucking on the ginger chew with obvious relief. He leaned back, eyes closed, and took deep breaths. His skin was pale, with a sickly green pallor that was fading, and his breathing slowly became more natural. “I’m sorry for whatever caused you to put this up,” he said, holding the crumpled paper up for her to see.
“You missed your office hours.”
“Shit,” he swore, and she raised an eyebrow. She knew Taliesin couldn’t be professional all the time, but she didn’t think she’d heard him curse once. “Shit,” he repeated and made a move to stand up, but he immediately sat back down, swaying slightly.
“This is pall sickness,” she said gently, unwrapping another candy and holding it out to him. “How long were you up there today?”
He took the candy and stared at it a moment. “All day,” he finally said.
“All day?” she repeated, her voice surprisingly shrill. “No wonder you’re about to barf.”
“Please,” he said. “Do not say that word.”
“Upchuck?”
“Maggie.”
“Hurl?”
“Maggie,” he practically growled.
“Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t particularly feel it. Instead, she felt a surprising thrill at the way he’d said her name. “Look, this has gone on long enough. You know how dangerous it is to stay within a pall. What are you doing up there?”
He shook his head, jaw clenched. His tone was cold when he spoke again. “We don’t need to change the status quo now, Dr. Linden. You keep to your work, and I’ll keep to mine.”
She leaned against her desk and crossed her arms. She wore an oversized sweater with bell sleeves, anything to keep the fabric from touching the ghoul burn on her arm. Taliesin looked up at her from the couch, and his expression held something shecouldn’t name, but it felt like a dare. “Who is helping you develop the counterspell?”
“No one. And I want it that way.”
She threw her hands up, feeling the skin pull at the edges of the burn. “What kind of masochistic…You know, if you were as good as you think you are, that pall wouldn’t have been cast in the first place.”
He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “Believe me, that is not the problem. I know exactly how good I am.”
