Chapter Eight
Maggie’s arm was fine. Sure, she hadn’t slept in days, because the skin was aching and tight across her forearm.
The ghoul’s handprint was seared into her skin, but the nurse in the infirmary promised it would disappear in a few days as the wound healed.
She had given her a medicated cream, and it was helping, but the handprint was red and raw.
Still, if you asked Maggie, she was just fine.
Dean Clearwater had already given her an earful on Monday morning about putting herself in danger. He had been waiting at her office, actually pacing in front of the door with nervous energy.
“Why didn’t you call a wardsmith?” he demanded instead of starting with hello or good morning.
It was nice, actually, to have someone be so worried about her.
She hadn’t bothered to tell her parents about her run-in with the ghoul during their weekly phone call, concerned she would worry them or, worse, that they wouldn’t care at all.
“We did,” she explained. “But Rodrigo already had one ghoul attack last week, and the wardsmith didn’t bother to banish it. They just put up some shoddy ward that clearly didn’t work.”
Dean Clearwater sighed. “You and Dr. Hawberry are very talented, but you put yourselves in unnecessary danger. After a night out, I presume?”
Maggie’s face flushed. That wasn’t really his business.
She bit her lip, thinking of the dean’s warnings about keeping Taliesin happy, about the precarious position she suddenly found herself in at Hawthorn.
She didn’t want to anger the dean more, but after Friday night, she couldn’t quite stop herself from asking, “Clearly this pall is dangerous. That ghoul never would have been in Rodrigo’s basement if it weren’t for the pall’s magic feeding it and wearing on his wards.
Why hasn’t the pall been dissipated yet? ”
The dean rubbed one of his fluffy white eyebrows. “Dr. Taliesin has taken the lead on developing the dissipation spell, and he is working diligently on it.” Maggie crossed her arms, avoiding the aching burn, and raised her eyebrows. Dean Clearwater sighed.
She wanted to yell that Taliesin was putting an entire town in danger, but Maggie managed to keep her cool. “What about Galloway?”
“This incident has made it clear that we need to fortify wards beyond the campus boundary. I’ve already sent a notification out to the local wardsmith office, who will take care of the spellwork to strengthen the wards around town.
” Maggie opened her mouth to say something, but Dean Clearwater interrupted her.
“I’ll make sure it’s good work. Not the subpar warding done at the bar. ”
It wasn’t enough, but it was something. After Maggie promised him she wouldn’t put herself in danger or allow Dahlia to confront any more ghouls, the dean seemed satisfied, giving her a small pat on the arm before returning to the admin building.
The rest of the week, Maggie went through the motions, avoiding Taliesin as much as she could.
If he had heard about the ghoul in Rodrigo’s basement, he certainly hadn’t bothered to see if she was as fine as she claimed.
The few times Maggie had seen him over the week he’d looked as drawn and weary as she felt.
Even her students were subdued. She didn’t know if it was their approaching finals, the gloomy weather that had stuck around all week, or the effects of the pall seeping down through the floors, but there was none of the usual excitement that should have accompanied the end of a semester, buoyed by warm weather and sunny skies.
On Friday afternoon, after a particularly glum session of Advanced Translation, she was relieved when she returned to her office to find it empty. If Taliesin had been in their shared space that morning, there was no evidence of it.
Maggie turned on some music, kept the lights low, and began working on the spells she was preparing for her final exams. It wasn’t long before she was interrupted by a knock on her door.
A student with a backpack slung over one shoulder stood waiting, looking around her and into the office. “Is Dr. T here?”
“He’s not. Did you have a meeting with him?”
“No, but these are his posted office hours.”
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’t believe 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 she couldn’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.”