Chapter 30
THIRTY
KINGSTON
On Monday morning, Gwenna and I stand before Dr. Emrys’s desk expectantly.
Class has ended. Another fascinating lecture about the development of punctuation throughout medieval monastic traditions. And I’m ready to turn this in so that we can get to the next thing.
Hopefully something actually meaningful this time.
Emrys is settled in his chair, looking over various printouts of articles, and only seems to notice we’re standing there when Gwenna gives a slight cough.
“Dr. Emrys,” she says.
He looks up. “Ah, yes. How can I help you?”
“We—” she throws a glance at me, her cheeks pink.
I nod, picking up the mantle. “We completed your assignment,” I say. “The one you said you wanted done by Monday?”
I feel my muscles want to tense in frustration, but resist. My arm’s out of the sling now, thanks to the concoction Morgan pulled together yesterday, but it’s still stiff, and I’m not going to risk anything.
“The…” Dr. Emrys says, but when I produce the sheaf of papers, his eyes light up .
“Ah, yes, my little game.”
“It’s an ambigram,” Gwenna says, the flush still in her face. “It took us a while to figure it out, because the writing was so cramped, but once we did?—”
There’s something about the way she talks when she’s excited about something, I’ve noticed. It’s…infectious, energized, like she stops forgetting to hold back and just unloads everything that’s in her mind.
Magnetic. Attractive.
No. Focus.
A sly smile crosses Dr. Emrys’s face. “I thought you’d like that,” he says. “Very cheeky, the way they turn that little bit of the hermetic text into a literal bit of text painting, eh?”
“Hermetic text,” Gwenna repeats.
“Yes.” He folds his hands on the desk. “The Emerald Tablet, a masterwork of pseudo-religious writing from the 14th century. Something of a foundational text for modern magical practices of all sorts.”
He murmurs a laugh, and I feel heat crawl up the back of my neck. Careful, old man . Don’t reveal any more to her than she needs to know.
As far as Gwenna knows—as far as anyone knows—he’s just an eccentric old professor.
He looks around the room, as if casting for something new to offer us. “Well, now that you’ve polished that one off, let me see?—”
“May I speak with you privately, Dr. Emrys?” I say shortly.
He looks up. “Mr. Pendragon,” he says. “What’s the matter?”
“I’d like to speak privately,” I repeat, looking at Gwenna. “Would you excuse us?” I ask her.
“I…” She blinks, nods. “Of course.”
All the light that had brightened her face when she was talking about the puzzle blinks out in a second. Now she…she’s curling her shoulders, biting her lip, pushing her way to the door, through desks and chairs.
I wait until I hear the click of the latch before speaking to Emrys again.
“Games?” I say. “Puzzles? We’re wasting time. I don’t understand what we’re doing here.”
“I’d say that much is obvious,” he says dryly.
God. His refusal to be serious, even now, infuriates me. Before I can even form a retort, Dr. Emrys looks at me with curious, peering eyes. “You’ve known me for how long, Mr. Pendragon?”
I resist the urge to tense again, thinking of my injury.
“Since I was eleven,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “And it stands to reason I’ve known you just as long, eh?
So trust me when I say this. You are far too serious a man, Mr. Pendragon.
” He tips his chin down at me. “You were serious as a boy, and you’ve only…
hardened since then. In many good ways, to be fair. In discipline and strength and skill.”
In everything I’m supposed to be better at , I think.
“But you’ve lost that sense of play.”
“The sense of…” I trail off, incredulous. “Is this just a game to you?” I demand. “The research, the books, the quest. Do you know how much my father has?—?”
“Yes, yes,” Emrys says, waving his hand.
“I assure you, I’m very well aware of the extent of his generosity.
Monetarily and otherwise. But you mustn’t forget, Mr. Pendragon—” He corrects himself.
“Kingston. Play is vital. Play is what keeps the mind open to see what is beyond the surface. You won’t find anything if you look only along straight lines. ”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
“I sense your frustration,” Emrys says. He leans forward a little.
“Let me put it this way. If the Grail were hiding in plain sight, don’t you think someone would have found it by now?
Because, forgive me if I sound condescending, but many, many intelligent men—and perhaps even a few women”—his eyes sparkle—“have dedicated their lives, their careers, their every ounce of energy and vigor and spiritual commitment to finding it. Yet none have.”
I know that. I know that all too well. If there’s anything the Consistory has impressed upon me—on all of us—it’s how long this quest has been. How many generations have attempted it. How fruitless it’s always been.
“What’s your point?” I say, a bit tersely.
“My point,” Emrys says, “is that perhaps you should take a leaf out of your classmate’s book and enjoy some of this work once in a while.”
My heart twists. “My classmate.”
“Your partner in crime,” he clarifies. “Your co-transcriptionist. My newest student. Gwenna.”
Of course that’s who he means.
“She’s a lively one, isn’t she?” he says. “Quick mind and a quick study.”
“I suppose she is,” I agree. “I hadn’t really noticed.”
“Hadn’t noticed?” he cries. “My dear boy, you’ve been spending hours with her in the library, in class. You’ve been working through some of the thorniest and most hair-pulling manuscript texts in the Western world. Surely you’ve had occasion to notice her talents, her attitudes.”
I swallow hard. “With all due respect, Professor, I’m trained not to notice more about someone like that than I absolutely have to.”
“Ah.” He lifts his head slightly, drums his fingers against his lips. “And therein lies the problem, methinks,” he murmurs.
I swear to God, if this man weren’t so well-connected, weren’t the conduit to getting us every codex and folio and manuscript we needed, I’d have resigned from his class a long time ago. It’s like he both understands and completely misinterprets the nature of everything we’re trying to do.
“Do you know the book of Tobit, from the Apocrypha?” He leans back, studies the ceiling. “Chapter twelve, verse seven. It is good to guard the secret of a king, but glorious to reveal the works of God. ”
I shake my head—because no, I don’t know it, and no, I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.
“We have rules,” I say, my voice hoarser than I want it to be. “Vows. A tradition?—”
“And I am well aware,” Emrys says. “I’ll be the first to say that self-abnegation is beyond a noble cause, but the point of all this”—he spreads his hands wide over the sheaf of papers we’ve turned in, a few assignments from before then—”is to question the premise.
Is it not? See the rules from a new angle.
Understand that what goes on in here”—he presses his index finger to his breastbone—”affects what’s in here.
” He taps his temple. “What’s that saying again? As above, so below?”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” I bite out.
That I’m supposed to, what, grab her by the shoulders and plant a kiss on her?
Ruin everything I’ve worked for, everything I stand for, just because of one infuriatingly brilliant girl I can’t get out of my mind?
“I’m not getting at anything,” Dr. Emrys says mildly. “That, I’m afraid, is entirely your job. And I ”—he glances at his wristwatch—”I’m afraid, am due to catch an airplane to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. A few days’ visit—productive, hopefully. ”
He rises, puts his hands in his jacket pockets, and surveys me down the tip of his nose.
“All I’m saying is, Mr. Pendragon, is that that is no ordinary young woman you’re dealing with.
But…what do I know? I’m just a silly old man.
” He pushes a sheaf of papers into my chest. “Transliterated by Monday, if you please.”