“No, not that I would put myself in harm’s way,” Maggie clarified. “I told him I would enter the pall for myself and collect my own data.”
“The same pall that nearly killed him? The one he doesn’t want anyone anywhere near?”
“What are you getting at?”
Dahlia shrugged, pursing her lips slightly, but she had a glint in her eye. “Like I said, I’m just trying to get the facts!”
“The facts are that he’s got a serious case of pathological guilt,” Maggie said, and even though she felt a little mean, she added, “and maybe some mommy issues.”
“I’d have mommy issues, too, if my mother was Rowena Taliesin.” Maggie couldn’t imagine growing up in the shadow of someone like Rowena. Rowena, who had come up in academia when it was even more openly hostile to women. Who didn’t let getting pregnant and having a child derail her career, instead raising her son to be just as brilliant, just as ambitious. Rowena was a powerhouse, and every woman in academia had looked to her story at some point for inspiration or commiseration, Maggie and Dahlia included.
Maggie told Dahlia more about their agreement and their meeting at Bean There, Done That; about their walk home together. Dahlia was just as fascinated by the revelation that the other side of Taliesin’s family was local.
Dahlia pushed her glasses up. “So,” she began, steering the conversation in the direction Maggie had been trying to avoid. “What was he like?”
Maggie chose her words carefully. “He’s a different person off campus.” Translation: Kind. Generous. Candid. “I don’t think he scowled the whole time we were there.” Translation: She kept catching him staring at her. Making him laugh was the highlight of her night.
“Maybe he just really hates his job. We’ve all been there,” Dahlia said. “Maybe he finds Dean Clearwater to be insufferable. Honestly, that’s a point in his favor if he does.”
Maggie snorted and tried to drive the conversation away from how Taliesin was off campus. “I didn’t come here just togossip, I swear.” She held up a file folder she had brought home after her meeting with the alchemist. “Will you look over Taliesin’s runes for me?”
Dahlia took the file folder from Maggie and made some space on her desk to lay out the work. She compared the alchemical equations with the subsequent runes, writing down annotations as she went. She looked over the spell that went wrong and the variations in the dissipation spells Taliesin had tried.
“As annoying as it is, these are pretty perfect,” she finally said. “I thought there was a calculation error from the original spell, but I found the variable that he was factoring in, and it made the spell stronger.”
“I thought the same thing when I looked at them earlier, but I wanted to make sure a runologist saw them.”
Dahlia reached into the paper bag for more of her apology croissant while she went over the calculations in front of her one more time. Dahlia looked up at Maggie, tilting her head to the side. “So, you’re putting your research completely on hold to help him with this? To spend every working hour with Arthur Taliesin, for what could be weeks of your summer?”
“Not every working hour,” Maggie hedged, looking away from Dahlia, who was always too good at seeing to the heart of things.
“Did he tell you what happened that day?”
Maggie bit her lip. “He was interrupted during the incantation. A family emergency,” Maggie explained, but she didn’t give any additional details. That wasn’t her story to tell. “It wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Huh,” was all Dahlia said in return. She popped the last biteof croissant in her mouth, balled up the bag, and threw it in the trash. Dahlia had the same expression on her face as when she was trying to work out a difficult rune, and Maggie waited for her to say something snarky about Taliesin, but instead, she said, “Oh! I heard from Rodrigo last night.”
Maggie brightened. “How is he? Have there been any more ghoul sightings?”
“No, everything has been quiet. He only called to tell me he hasn’t seen anyone fitting the description of your mystery man, yet.”
She realized then that she hadn’t thought about the Beltane kiss except in passing in days. It had so consumed her thoughts after it happened. She wasn’t as invested in finding him as Dahlia was, but even still, the memory of the heat of that kiss, of the way her heart had beat faster as they’d danced, would come to her unbidden, derailing whatever she was doing. But something had changed. Maybe some of the shine had worn off now that she had other things occupying her mind.
She didn’t want to admit, not to Dahlia and certainly not to herself, that maybe she hadn’t thought about the Beltane kiss because of the strange electricity between her and Taliesin. There wasn’t room for two men in her brain, and, infuriatingly, Taliesin was taking up all the space. And if, maybe once or twice, she’d wondered how he kissed, that wasn’t her fault when she caught him staring at her the way he did.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” was all she said to Dahlia, with an indifferent shrug. “I haven’t thought about Beltane in a while. It’s just not in the stars for me and the mystery man, I guess.”
Her friend wasn’t one to let things go unsaid, but Maggiehad the distinct impression that Dahlia was holding back when all she said was, “Interesting,” one last time as she returned Maggie’s file folder of runes to her.
—
Maggie ended herlast class of the day fifteen minutes early. “Remember,” she told her students as they packed up their belongings, “you will need fresh chalk for your final next week. Please bring pure chalk—no enhancing decoctions are allowed.” She would remind them again by email next week, but still every year someone tried to use chalk mixed with silver dust or moon water. Neither of those additions would do anything to help a student who hadn’t studied, but it didn’t mean they weren’t going to try.
Maggie almost convinced herself that ending her class fifteen minutes early was a gift to her students—a little extra time for them to cram for another class, finish last-minute coursework, or just rest—but truthfully, it gave Maggie time to snoop before she had to meet Taliesin. When she was sure that none of her students had any pre-finals questions, she said hasty goodbyes and left for the south staircase.
Ilex Hall had its quirks since it began its life as a manor house, built at the edge of the Wilds by an eccentric architect and philanthropist when Galloway was nothing more than a few farms. He had intentionally built the manor to be an observation point for the Wilds, with wide, tall windows on the upper floors and covered brick walkways that dipped into the edge of the forest. In the center of the building was a large courtyard, where plants found within the Wilds were once cultivated and observed.
Now the courtyards and gardens on campus doubled asteaching plots for the Botany and Mycology Department. Some of them were still relegated as observational plots for local flora, but the courtyard in Ilex Hall, due to its proximity to the alchemy labs, was full to bursting with plants that could be used in the decoctions added to chalk to enhance runes. Vervain and yew were for many things but primarily warding spellwork that repelled or banished fantasmia; wormwood and mugwort were for scrying and other, murkier divination spells; mountain laurel and wild aster were frequently employed as a calming decoction for spellwork with unfavorable astrology or other sticky details. They could reduce the likelihood of a pall, and early career alchemists often relied on them. If only Taliesin still had his chalk training wheels on.
