90
It had been only a matter of time, Milo thought.
Finally, a special investigator had been sent from the Mage Court. Someone whose job would be to determine if there was anything strange happening in the Academy.
It wasn’t a surprise that it had come to this.
With the Paddstone’s knocking on their front door, and the Farringhams no doubt whispering at the back, the Court must have known it needed to do something.
What did surprise Milo was he recognized the man.
Harry Jellickson.
One of the men who’d first tested him when he was a simple clocker.
Sitting in the Security Room with Tania on one side of him and Selma on the other, Milo shook his head at the recording. The sound of Jellickson’s voice grated on him, though he admitted it was mostly the remnants of his bitterness at being ripped from his former life.
A life he’d loved.
Selma wrapped her arm around his and leaned her head down onto his shoulder. The weight of it made it difficult to move around the control panel, but it also made him smile so he tried not to disturb her as he moved the recording along.
“Honestly,” Tania said. “It’s no trouble. We can drag him to an alley somewhere. Get Stonks to stomp on his head. It’ll be peachy.”
“Peachy,” Selma agreed with a dreamy sound.
Tania rolled her eyes at the other golem. Then she reached over and snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Wake up, ya ditzy old dame. We’re talking about the bum who badmouthed our man!”
“Huh?” Selma’s head shot off his shoulder, and she gave the screen a foul squint. “Is that him? Where’s my sword? I’ll do it now.”
“I said calm down,” Milo hissed through his teeth and waved his arms. “He’s an investigator sent by the Mage Court! If he disappears, it’d be bad.”
“It’d be worse if he stays,” Tania growled.
“I agree,” Selma said. “Let me splat him.”
Milo shook his head and wondered at what point in his life he’d started to think of people as things which could be murdered just because they were inconvenient.
“If he dies in an alley like that, they’ll know something is wrong,” he said.
“They’ll come in numbers. I know you were able to kill Stern, and he was a ten, but you almost died, Selma.
And the only reason you didn’t was because he didn’t know what you were.
He didn’t know to increase the power of his spells until the end.
What if they find out? There’s a good reason there aren’t many golems left. ”
Turning back to the screen, he listened as Jellickson discussed the note found on Tamper’s corpse.
It implicated the Farringhams in an attempt to kidnap Milo and hand him over to the Paddstones, implying there was a relationship between Vesna and Fergus’ brother. A relationship which was close.
Possibly intimate.
Milo turned slowly at that revelation, and stared at Tania.
Who grinned back at him.
“Did you write that note?”
Tania threw him a horrified expression. “What? Me? It ain’t in my handwriting. It’s in hers. And ain’t no one can prove otherwise.”
“Tania’s the best,” Selma said absently. “She does all my homework for me and no one ever thinks it’s not my writing.”
“Tattletale,” Tania growled. She reached around to poke Selma in the forehead. “Since ya did all the pash stuff with Milo, you’ve turned into a big old clothesline, ain’t ya?”
“Huh?” Selma giggled, squeezing Milo’s arm. “Sorry. I’m just so happy…”
“Ah, your core is mush.” Tania sighed. Then she looked at Milo. “I think ya need to make us another Tank. This one ain’t no good for nothing anymore.”
“I can Tank!” Selma said, scrambling to sit up properly. She pulled her arm reluctantly out of his and pushed her face into a serious expression. “What are we talking about again?”
“About how Tania forged a note from Vesna and tucked it into the body of a mage you murdered,” he said.
“Ah.” Selma nodded. “That’s right. Wait. No, that’s not right. That ain’t how it happened.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” Selma sounded firmly confident. “Mila put the note into his pocket. Tania forged it. I did the murdering. I’m not good at the other beany parts.”
“Beany?”
“Thinky?”
“Right.”
“Ditz,” Tania muttered.
Milo frowned at the screen as Harry Jellickson and the Headmaster continued to discuss his task. Which was breezily open for him to do what he wanted. He was smugly refusing any limitations Headmaster Kendrickburn was trying to put on him.
He kept pulling out a slip of paper which apparently held his orders and a seal.
“Unlimited access, Headmaster,” he repeated.
The discussion was clearly frustrating the Headmaster, who looked almost ready to blast Jellickson in the face.
Something which would have solved their problem.
Milo leaned back in his chair, thinking.
Padrick Paddstone was due to arrive soon. Very soon. There were rumors he was already in the city. Tania had discovered the family had a few properties through the city.
Some were expensive.
Others were real dumps, she said.
Safe houses. Places where dirty work could be conducted.
Like the kidnapping of a fellow student.
Why did everyone want to kidnap Milo? It was getting boring.
But the danger wasn’t something to be scoffed at. While Vesna seemed to be trying a light touch approach, he doubted Padrick would be so accommodating.
No, he’d come in hard and fast.
Angry.
Impulsive?
He was Fergus’ younger brother. Would he be more immature?
Milo would need to wait and see.
And how would he interact with the special investigator? And with Vesna?
It seemed the special investigator was reluctant to accuse the Farringham’s of anything. Their official statement was that Stern had been a contractor who’d had dreams above his station.
He was bitter and resentful.
In the end, he’d abandoned his task, which had been to protect Vesna. He’d instead apparently gone hunting a golem through the city streets. They’d put forward the theory themselves that the golem must have killed him.
But that didn’t explain how he got split in half.
Maybe the golem had a secret saw it hadn’t used before.
The special investigator doubted this as much as the Headmaster did, but he wasn’t stupid enough to accuse them of anything based on something so convenient as a written note.
He’d need more than that.
Listening to the two men verbally joust, Milo started to wonder what would happen if they were all put together. Vesna. Jellickson. Padrick.
What would happen?
Would they all kill each other?
Would the Paddstones blame him or the Farringhams in that case?
And what of the Farringhams? Would they join the Paddstones?
So far, the Farringhams had been irritating but tolerable. But Milo had to remind himself they were a nest of bees. You don’t disturb a nest of bees unless there’s a lot of honey ready for you to harvest.
And right now, there was no honey.
No need to attack them.
He sighed. That left him with the burden of trying to figure out what to do with Padrick. And how he could use the special investigator to resolve it without his own involvement.
Gears, he told himself.
Think of them as gears in a clock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Suddenly he noticed a pair of beautiful eyes only inches from his own.
Tania had slowly turned his chair towards her. Behind him, Selma had slid her arms around his chest and her head was nestled into her neck. She was practically purring.
“I see that brilliant mind of yours is waking up again,” Tania said. “And I’d like to say that you just told us off for planning a murder.”
“I wasn’t planning a murder,” he said with a gulp. Her eyes were really beautiful.
So was the rest of her.
He felt his body start to respond.
Selma’s breath on his neck wasn’t helping.
“Really?”
“Really,” he said. “I was just considering options.”
“Like murder?”
“I’m not sure this is really the time to talk about that,” he said as Tania leaned even closer. “It’s making me confused.”
She kissed him gently on the mouth. Her soft lips drove thoughts of killing Paddstones out of his head.
Leaving only thoughts of the frightening logistics of managing two golems at once if this went on.
But it didn’t.
He wasn’t sure whether to sigh in relief or disappointment as Tania pulled back with a knowing grin and reached out to snatch Selma by the ear.
“Come on, ya ditz,” she said. “Let’s go make sandwiches. He looks hungry. Ain’t ya hungry, Milo?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes drifting. “A little.”
“Tch,” she said, booping his nose. “I betcha you’re more than a little hungry.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.
“Hmph.” She poked out her tongue, and tugged at Selma again. “We’ll make sure your sandwiches are just like you, then. Full of baloney.”
He really didn’t know what that meant.
Selma giggled, reluctantly pulling herself from him and letting Tania drag her to the door. She looked back and wiggled her fingers. “I love ya, Milo!”
“I love you too,” he said automatically.
Then he blinked as the door closed behind them.
Because he did.
He did love her.
When did that happen? Was it because of the sex? Did the chemicals surging through his body at climax rearrange his brain and make him feel so strongly?
“Blasted fool,” he told himself. “You’re overthinking.”
On the screen, Jellickson was walking out of the Headmaster’s office.
A confident peacock strut.
Thoughts of love and lust ebbed from Milo’s mind to be replaced by thoughts of the intricate patterns of human behavior.
And murder.