I supposed either was really possible.

“As most of you are probably aware,” he said, his eyes slipping over Keri La Belle as he said “most”, “Chancellor Davies is going to be holding a press conference at five P.M. tonight. We have been ‘asked’ to show the conference in class. Now, we don’t have a whole class period before the conference starts, I don’t know how long it will last, or what will be said in it. I don’t even know for certain what the subject of the conference will be.”

“I wasn’t aware, actually,” La Belle said.

“Yes, I knew that,” Hart said.

“You looked at me like you thought I did.”

“Anyway,” Hart said, “there’s not a lot that we can cover, under the circumstances… I’m not sure whether it’ll be worth trying to continue class after the conference ends, so I’d like to get…”

“Hey! Do you think it’s about the dead swan girl?” La Belle said. “Don’t you think it’s a bunch of crap that one non-human dies and it’s this whole big thing, with imperial agents and press conferences and things?”

“Don’t you think if any of the humans had been royalty from a politically sensitive area, they would have received the same attention?” Hart asked. “If not more?”

“Hell no,” La Belle said. “Humans don’t get shit… we don’t have special dorms, or special meals. Nobody organizes a protest when we go missing. If we had a group for the advancement of humans, people would say it was racist.”

“Or normal,” Ms. Carter said. “There are plenty of groups that advance humanity.”

“Yeah, but, we wouldn’t be allowed to say it right in the group’s name,” La Belle said. “If we had a human channel or a united human college fund or a… a… human league, everybody would jump on their ass and call them racist until they gave up.”

“An organization doesn’t have to say they’re for humanity,” Carter said. “It’s the default state in human-controlled society.”

“What human-controlled society? Like, Hart says it’s okay that she’s getting all this attention because she was a princess, but we humans don’t even have royalty,” she said. “We’re like all advanced past that, and stuff. Oh, unless you count the emperor and empress, but that’s not inherited… is it?”

“The imperial titles are not explicitly hereditary by law, but the emperor traditionally names his successor, and in most cases the person he’s named has been both a descendant or collateral relative of his and in a strong enough position to enforce their claim. Let’s call it semi-hereditary and move on,” Hart said. “But the empires are not the only human states in the world, and there are a number of feudal states and a few constitutional monarchies with human royal families at the head.”

“Whatever, none of them even go here,” La Belle said.

“Well, that would be a very good reason for their deaths to get less attention around campus,” Hart said. “Now, ladies… I wouldn’t mind giving up half of a class period to discussing this kind of topic if I thought it would lead anywhere interesting, but since we can’t do anything more than speculate about what the Chancellor will have to say…”

“We can do that, though,” La Belle said.

“Do what?” Hart asked.

“Speculate.”

“Not in an informed way,” Hart said. “And it seems pointless when we’re going to be find out for sure in… twenty-five minutes. So, let’s talk about Republican History until then.”

“But why do you think it took…”

Thankfully, he just started talking over her at that point. It ended up being more like twenty minutes, because he got the TV set up and attuned to the university’s news feed at a few minutes before five.

“Can we speculate now?” La Belle asked.

“It seems even more pointless to do so, which makes me think there’s less chance I’ll be able to stop you,” Hart said.

“I just want to know why they waited until now to say anything about this,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure the university’s been giving statements pretty non-stop for the last four days,” Hart said. “I imagine they didn’t hold a press conference until they had something worth holding one for.”

“Don’t you think it might just be because the royal family’s coming?” someone asked.

“Well, that would fit the definition of ‘worth holding a press conference over’,” Hart said. “Guys, seriously… I don’t know any more than you do what’s going to happen and what they’re going to say.”

“Would it be the university holding the conference if they actually have something to say about the case?” some guy sitting on the end of the second row asked. “I mean, I’d think it would be the imps announcing if they’d solved anything.”

“That could be,” Hart said. “I really don’t know.”

“That’s a bunch of crap,” La Belle said. “Like you wouldn’t ask what it’s about when they told you to show it in class.”

“Who said I didn’t?”

“And they didn’t tell you?”

“No, even though the folder the dean was carrying was stamped ‘top secret and confidential unless anyone asks’,” Hart said. “One more time: I really don’t know anything. Now, let’s all be quiet… I think this is it.”

The image in the box had just dissolved from a static image of the university… one unfortunately highlighting the fountain… overlaid with floating announcements to a fixed shot of a raised platform in front of the administration building. A large number of people, students and others, were gathered in front of it. The view was pulled too far back to make out a lot of details about the people on the stage, but it looked like a lot of guys in suits. There were a large number of campus guards and provincial officers in between the crowd and the stage.

A man stepped up towards the podium and the image zoomed in on him. He looked a bit like a lawyer, and a lot like he hadn’t slept all week. His short, dark hair was neat in an air-puffed sort of way and his suit looked well-made. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he began.

“Good evening, students, members of the press, and esteemed representatives of the Lebedev family of Mariinsky Lake,” he said, and the view swung around and zoomed in on a group of people sitting in chairs near the stage. The cordon of security around them made it impossible to see much more than a mass of fur hats and coats. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Mitch McSmeagol, director of public relations for the university here. In regards to the ongoing investigation into the death of Her Royal Highness, the Princess Lidiya Petrovna Lebedeva… a matter which concerns us all very deeply… we have been informed by the Imperial Bureau of Finding of this Republic, appointed by the grace of His Excellency Magisterion XIII, that the case has been brought to a close. Chancellor Bethany Davies will be reading a statement, after which we’ll be taking a number of questions.”

There was a tiny amount of scattered clapping. He stepped back from the podium and put his hand on Chancellor Davies’s back and said something to her as she stepped up to take his place. She nodded and waved him away.

“Good evening. After a thorough inquest, the Imperial Bureau of Finding has determined that the death of Princess Lidiya was due to natural causes, relating to a monster or monsters who were able to strike due to a previously unconsidered aspect of the university’s protective spells,” the chancellor read. “We stress that there is no reason to worry about the integrity of our protective spells, which are the strongest and most comprehensive in the province. There was more than one casualty of Veil Night frivolities, and in each and every case the victim was found outside the lighted areas protected by our paths. This was also true in Miss Lidiya’s case. While no doubt she felt safe being surrounded by the protective sidewalk that ringed the fountain, the fountain itself was not so protected.”

This was about the last thing I’d expected to hear, though it was all arguably true. If the fountain didn’t have its own separate protective spells woven into it, a ghoul could drop down into the middle of it and be perfectly safe. How it would have got there was the question, and the obvious hole in the story… unless they were claiming that a flying creature had gone after Leda?

Of course, they weren’t actually claiming anything had… just there had been an unspecified “monster or monsters”. That could be a ghoul, it could be a winged terror… it could be a transformed mermaid whom the safety spells didn’t even recognize as a monster and who could just as easily walk up to the fountain and step in as Leda herself had.

Were they trying to fob this story off on the family as a quicker alternative to actually solving the case? That was a better outcome than picking a scapegoat, but only marginally so… what would stop her killer from restraining her appetite after she’d literally got away with murder?

“The death of Princess Lidiya was as tragic as it was unforeseeable, but there is a lesson in it for all of us: be careful. None of us could have guessed a person would be so vulnerable in the fountain after dark…”

“I could have,” Steff whispered.

“…but that’s all a part of why we urge students not to linger out of doors after sunset. When you have to go somewhere, travel with friends and stick to the paths. There has never been a monster attack on a student within the network of sidewalks and footpaths since it was put in back in 198. We extend our deepest sympathies to the family of the victim, the ruling Lebedev family of Mariinsky Lake, and are pleased to be able to offer them our hospitality during these trying times. We hope they will join with us in looking for a way forward, a way to prevent such future tragedies before they happen. Agent Greer from the Imperial Bureau’s field office in Enwich will now discuss his team’s findings.”

I didn’t recognize the man who stepped forward. The fact that they were using someone other than Mike Gregory to deliver the “findings” screamed cover-up to me… maybe he simply wasn’t available, but from what Lee had said it seemed like he’d be unlikely to go along with a story that served political expediency over justice. Greer mumbled his way through a statement that said nothing more than what Davies had already said, which was almost nothing.

I wondered what it would do to the official story when my information reached the authorities, but then I realized that unless Lee had been unable to get a hold of Mr. Embries completely then it was unlikely that he wouldn’t have spoken up before this plan was put into motion. Even if he was only the Vice-Chancellor, he was probably among the people on the stage, and he would probably have been in on the plan.

If they knew but were doing this anyway, what did that mean? Would they rather blame things on some unknown flying creature or mysterious hopping ghouls than go after the mermaids? What exactly would stop them?

“Did you hear Davies? ‘We hope the family will join us in not suing our asses for using their daughter as ghoul chum’,” someone said, to general snickering.

“Hey, it’s not their fault she couldn’t stay on the paths,” La Belle said. “If they sue, I hope they lose… because any money the school pays will just come out of our pockets. Why should I pay for someone else’s stupidity? I pay my fair share already.”

“No argument here,” Hart said.

“If she wanted to swim, we do have a swimming pool,” La Belle said. “Though I don’t think animals should be allowed in it.”

“She wasn’t an animal,” I said, my frustration at the situation boiling over. “She was a person.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want people-feathers and people-poop in my pool, either,” La Belle said.

“Do you even go to the pool?” one of the other girls in the front row asked her.

“I haven’t yet, but I’m paying for it with my fees,” La Belle said.

“Well, so was she,” someone else said.

“Shh,” Hart said. Mitch McSmeagol had rejoined Davies and Greer at the podium and they were getting into the question-and-answer part of it. Whoever was working the camera for the university’s news channel was having a hard time getting the view and audio pickup focused on the person asking the question. He zoomed way in past the head of the man who was speaking, getting a close up of the lip of the stage. The view jerked upwards as he pulled back, giving us a glimpse of the row of men backing the Chancellor up. They were other high-ranking university officials, probably. Vice-Chancellor Embries was indeed among them. After whizzing past him, the camera came back and focused on him, like he was the most interesting thing the cameraman could see.

The Vice-Chancellor looked entirely too pleased with himself… I meant that both in the general sense that he looked more pleased with himself than was probably altogether healthy for an individual, and in the specific sense that he looked way too happy about the idea that the institution he helped to head up was likely to be facing a lawsuit from the family of a slain student, especially since it seemed really unlikely he’d be able to claim any reward from the family in that case.

“Yes. We have already been meeting and working with the royal family, today, to come to a private solution to… any lingering… issues they may have,” Chancellor Davies was saying, as the view continued to hold on Embries. It was a little muffled, but it was easy enough to make out now that the classroom had fallen completely silent. “They are our guests in the Imperium, and we’ve extended every courtesy and cooperation to them, trying to come to terms with… with what has happened.”

“We would ask that everybody please try to respect their privacy in this time of grief,” the PR head added, quickly and smoothly cutting her off. “Thank you.”

I gathered that the “good question” she was avoiding answering had been about the possibility of a lawsuit… the mention of meeting with the family in private made me wonder just how much pull Embries could have. Enough to all but own a law firm, it seemed. Enough to broker a “private resolution” between Leda’s family and the Imperium that kept the university insulated from the worst fallout?

Pinning it on a totally random wandering monster encounter didn’t exactly make the school look blameless, but it would probably be better than the panic and outrage when it was proven that one of the school’s non-human students had done it. Back towards the coast there would probably be a panic and furor over mermaids, but here in the midst of the woods and plains of Prax there wouldn’t be any targets for people’s worst instincts except for the other residents of Harlowe and the university itself.

But what would become of Iona and Feejee, if neither were officially implicated in Leda’s death? I doubted her family would go along with any plan that didn’t involve bringing the killer or killers to justice, but I wasn’t sure that it could be called “justice” when a representative of the Imperium stood up and read a bit of creative writing and then a “private resolution” took care of the killer.

I didn’t know whether I wanted to be right about all this or not… I supposed it would be better if the panic could be avoided and the threat of mermaid attacks ended at the same time, but for all that this might be a nice, neat solution, it didn’t feel like a clean one. If I was right, then I was really glad I’d kept my name out of things.

I turned to ask Steff what she thought of it all, only to find her staring at the TV with a look that could only be called slack-jawed wonder. Like, her jaw was literally hanging over. There was even a bit of drool in the corner of it. The image in the box was still the same close-up of Mr. Embries… I would have suspected the cameraman had wandered away, but the focus stayed on him too perfectly even when he shifted slightly.

He was really kind of handsome, in a silver fox kind of way. Kind of dashing, kind of stately, with an odd sort of presence that you could feel even through the TV… he didn’t exactly seem like Steff’s type, though.

“Steff?” I said quietly.

“Shh,” she said.

“Steff, come on, what’s the big deal? You’re drooling over this guy,” I said.

“Shh!” several other people said. I looked up and saw that everyone in the room was as transfixed by the image in the TV as Steff… and apparently the cameraman… were. I stared at Embries, wondering exactly what it was about him that demanded this much attention, but I still didn’t see it. I mean, he was handsome and well-dressed, but he was also… old.

He’d been looking slightly to the side… focusing on the podium, probably, but then his gaze slowly turned and focused on the camera, like he’d just noticed it was pointing at him. As he stared out from the screen, there were a few gasps, sighs, and even a moan from around the room. A look of irritation flashed across his face, and the image in the box flickered away, then became the static image of the fountain again.

“Uh… looks.. looks like they’re having some mystical difficulties there,” Hart said, sounding like he was just waking up. “Well, I guess we have all heard the important parts. Class… um… dis… let’s pick it up on Friday, okay?”

“Dude, who was that old guy?” La Belle said. “I kind of think I want him to eat me.”

“Oh, shut up, Keri,” one of the other front row girls said.

Next: Everybody goes to dinner like nothing happens. Or else something happens. You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?

Discuss this story on the Livejournal feed.

“Mr. Embries, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me,” the woman said.

She was of a human-like size and complexion, but Edmund Embries had the eye of a connoisseur when it came to the forms of humanoids, and of human women in particular, and he was not fooled. Her limbs were lithe and muscular, but they bulged inhumanly when she moved. Her jaw line betrayed a hint of orcish ancestry. Her forehead belonged to the helmet-like skull of a dwarf. She had an aura of grace and brutality… brutal grace and graceful brutality, even… about her skin.

He had not inhaled since she entered the outer office, wanting to freshly experience this brazen anomaly who had been corresponding with him for the better part of a year. Her letters had carried a deliberately confusing muddle of scents, all but obliterated by a cheap and tacky perfume.

He took in the tiniest of breaths now, and was not at all surprised to find no trace of that cloying scent. Her own aroma was a mixture: elf, dwarf, ogre, and orc. The combination was surprisingly close to human, but still markedly different.

“Yes, well,” he said. “I’m afraid this meeting is nothing more than a courtesy… you were determined to travel to Prax no matter what I said, so the least I could do was tell you in person what I have told you before: there are no positions for you here.”

“Positions can be opened,” she said.

“It isn’t a matter of availability,” he said. “It’s a matter of qualifications. The resume you’ve sent us contains scant information about your relatively lengthy past, to say the least.”

“I have a lot of practical experience,” she said.

“That might well avail you in establishing yourself as a private instructor, or an assistant at a high school,” Embries said. “But this is a major university, Ms. Callahan. A professor of a field… any field… must not only be an expert in that field, they must be a professor. There are minimum qualifications…”

“This is a major university,” she said. “You could give me the degrees.”

“We don’t give degrees, Ms. Callahan,” he said. “They must be earned.”

“So maybe you total up my experience and you see that it’s enough to earn some,” she said.

“That would require a considerable amount of experience, indeed.”

“Well, I’ve fought in every major human conflict in the past two centuries,” she said.

“That’s an incredible claim,” Mr. Embries said. “In the classic sense. I do not credit it in the slightest, especially as your background check turned up no military records. While that could be understood for some older conflicts, had you actually served in the Chaos Wars…”

“Oh, yeah… that,” she said. “See, I have a bad habit of picking the wrong side to fight for… but it turns out that if you do that often enough, eventually somebody will pardon you for the rest.”

“So you’re saying there are no records of your military service.”

“By imperial fiat,” she said.

“Then we are back to the same basic impasse, regarding your qualifications.”

“There’s always the matter of a practical demonstration of my skills,” Callahan said. “Actions speak louder than words, and all that… and I can be a very persuasive speaker when I get loud enough.”

“Ms. Callahan, if you intend to threaten me, I want it to be known that I will not relish what follows in the slightest,” he said. “As much as I appear to be nothing more than an erudite gentleman scholar…”

“I’m aware of your nature, Mr. Embries,” Callahan said. “And I wouldn’t threaten you. I’m aware that you have me at a huge disadvantage.”

“Naturally,” Embries said. “However, may I just say how refreshing it is to hear someone come out and calmly admit that instead of either running for the hills or putting on a lot of puffed-up posturing.”

“It’s true, though. I couldn’t imagine how many humanoids you must have killed throughout the ages,” Callahan said. “Thousands? Tens of thousands?”

“One loses track,” the vice-chancellor said. He chuckled. “Although I would like it noted that the vast majority of those deaths occurred in earlier, less civilized ages. I’m more… particular… about such things these days.”

“Naturally,” Callahan said. “But the point remains, you’ve brought down innumerable members of my kind, while I’ve only slain seven or so greater dragons.”

“I… did you say seven?”

“Possibly eight,” Callahan said. She smiled, not bothering to conceal the points of her slightly oversized canines. “One loses track.”

“I… er, I don’t mean to pick at nits, Ms. Callahan, but to the average mortal humanoid, any true dragon is, perforce, greater,” Embries said. “I doubt very much…”

“Oh, believe, I’ve fought enough great, regular type, and lesser dragons to know the differences,” Callahan said. “Anybody who’s never encountered and fought a greater silver dragon… for example… could mistake a more run-of-the-will wyrm for one, but once you’ve seen one face to face, in all its naked glory… there’s no comparison. There’s nothing in the world quite like it. And when you’ve actually killed one… well, I have to confess, I love killing immortals. It’s like knocking down a tree that extends all the way to the dome of heaven. It’s like wiping my ass on eternity. I could slaughter a whole village of elves, for instance, and it would get me so… well, I digress. The point is, there’s no rush like bringing down a being who isn’t only immortal but remembers the age of primordial creation. If I haven’t killed more greater dragons, it’s mainly because you’re so kosh-darn hard to find. It’s like hunting an endangered species.”

“Ms. Callahan… I don’t know how much of what you’re saying is poorly calculated bravado and how much may approximate the truth,” he said, and he was disconcerted as he spoke to realize it was true… all the little cues he could reflexively see, hear, or smell in a human were muddled and masked in the person of Jill Callahan. “But however many greater dragons you may have slain in well-prepared ambushes, you face me unarmed in my place of personal power… I am well-rested, I am alert, and I am capable. What exactly do you imagine would stop me from squashing you like the insect you are, as you sit there before me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you imagine would stop you? And would you care to find out? Anyway, my understanding is that you were put in this position to be the university’s ace in the hole in order to prevent the campus from being laid to waste again… I don’t think your employers would be too happy if you went and brought the administration building down around yourself trying to squash an insect like me.”

“This is an interesting intellectual diversion,” Embries said. “But no matter who slays whom, it simply doesn’t change the basic fact that there is no position for you here. You could slay every single member of the combat program…”

“May I say how refreshing it is to hear you come out and calmly admit that?” Callahan said with a grin.

“…and there would still be boatloads of more qualified applicants we would hire to replace them before you.”

“Fine, let’s quit beating around the bush,” Callahan said. “How many people do I have to kill to get this job?”

“Ms. Callahan… Miss Jillian,” Embries said, throwing out the pretense of her humanity. He got to his feet, and was pleased to see a slight twitch in the warrior woman’s face at the effect his standing over her had… she was not completely immune to his aura of majesty, it seemed. “I will say this once and for all: there is no job.”

“I see,” she said. She got to her feet slowly, and just as slowly reached across the table, extending her hand towards him. He regarded it as an adventurer might have regarded an apparently unlocked and unguarded chest in a dragon’s lair: as an item threatening obvious and unimaginable danger. Unable to believe he was being cowed by a mere humanoid, he grasped and shook her hand. “Thank you for your time, Vice-Chancellor… and if I can just ask one small favor?”

“Certainly you may ask,” he said.

“Could I have the name of someone I could contact about a charitable endowment?”

“Miss Jillian, please… if you’re thinking of trying to buy your way into…”

“Oh, nothing like that,” she said. “It’s just… all those dragon hoards. It’s more money than I know what to do with, you know?”

“I… er… I…”

“I’ll be honest,” she said. “Some of them, I just left where they were. I didn’t have any way of transporting the contents, and the lairs were secure enough, hidden as they are. I always meant to go back and clean them out, but you know, I’ve got simple needs and…”

“Er, Miss… Ms. Callahan…”

“Something you want to say, Master Edmund?”

“I… that is enough of that,” he roared, pens and papers flying off his desk in a maelstrom of power. Callahan was pushed back more than a yard by the sheer force of the sound and breath, though she managed to keep her feet. “I do not like games, Ms. Callahan.”

“Fine,” she said, wiping flecks of foam off her face as Embries dabbed at his lips with a silver silk handkerchief. “Let me put it on the line: you hire me as a full professor, you let me create my own courses, and you let me teach with a free hand. I’ll give you the name of a greater blue dragon I slew, the location of her hoard, and instructions on bypassing the wards.”

“Give me the name,” he said.

“If you recognize the name, you might know where the lair is,” she said.

“I’m a noble dragon,” he said. “I won’t go back on my word.”

“Give it, then,” she said. “Swear you recognize my claim to the hoard and will not act to take it until I sign it over.”

“I swear it.”

“The elves called her Zanita,” Callahan said. “Zanita Sappheiros.”

Embries closed his eyes.

“Zanita and her elves,” he said, shaking his head. “She collected them… I suppose you killed them, too?”

“Every last one. Was she a friend of yours?” Callahan asked.

“I hadn’t realized she’d died,” he said. “I loved her fiercely, at intervals.”

“Are we going to have a problem?”

“She stole a tureen from me, from one of my favorite dinner service sets,” he said. “I still have the rest. Fine Athanasian silver, exquisite elven crafting… but… it’s incomplete. I can’t stand to look at it. We took quite a bit from each other over the ages, actually, but that was particularly galling.”

“It could be yours again,” she said.

He sighed.

“We really are an endangered kind,” he said. “Dwindling.”

“Do we have a deal?” Callahan asked.

“Did Zanita still have her vase collection?”

“I didn’t do an inventory,” she said. “I don’t kill dragons for the treasure.”

“Fine,” Embries said, opening his eyes. “It’s done. We have a deal. Though I’m perplexed that you did not think to explore this option to begin with.”

“What, I should have thought to bribe you as a matter of course?”

“Bribe?” Embries sputtered.

“We can call it ‘exploiting a racial weakness’ if that’s somehow less distasteful,” Callahan said. “But it is what it is. You’re doing something you don’t want to do, something that’s against the letter and the spirit of university’s rules, because I’m paying you to. If it’s any consolation, you’re doing the right thing.”

“I’m doing it for the memory of dear Zanita,” Embries said. “Better that her collections should be curated by…”

“Yeah, whatever,” Callahan said. She started to head for the door. “I’ll start writing down the directions… I’ll put them in your hand when I have the job. Even if you do run the joint, I’m sure there’s more to it than you saying so, after all.”

“Quite,” Embries said. “But I will manage.”

“I’m sure you will,” Callahan said, and she left.

The tureen. His favorite set, his pride and joy, was going to be complete again. As frankly embarrassing as it was to think that he’d allowed himself to be manipulated over something so comparatively small and trivial, he supposed that once he had it back that would make him effectively immune to further such manipulations.

And as important as it was to him personally, the tureen would be the smallest part of the bounty. Zanita had been a peer of his in a very real sense… he would be effectively doubling his already considerable wealth. Perhaps he would finally have a sufficiency of riches that the hunger for more would be sated… though probably not.

On the subject of hunger… Embries had enjoyed a large lunch, but he was feeling a rumbling down below. Was it too early to be thinking of dinner? Perhaps a celebration was in order, he thought… and in any event, dealing with an avowed hunter of his kind had left a bad taste in his mouth. He needed something to cleanse the palate, emotionally.

He activated an orb on the corner of his desk.

“Helen,” he said, “would you be a dear and come see me before you leave for the day?”

“Yes, Mr. Embries,” she said.

He tried not to overindulge, but this was a special occasion… he would give in just this once, and then not again, at least not for however long the university and his employment with it lasted. He was effectively a guest in the midst of the humans, and feasting on them would be singularly ungracious, as well as indiscreet.

Just this once, though… and maybe once more afterwards, when the deal was done and he could celebrate properly.

When I have the tureen again, perhaps I’ll actually put the set to use for once, he told himself. This is a more civilized age, after all.

Discuss this story.

The halls were dark, except for the faint glow of the emergency lights, orbs nestled in old-style sconces high on the walls. She headed past the row of chancellors’ portraits, past the office of the school’s current chancellor, down a spiral staircase that was not quite hidden in a recess, then through the double doors under a plaque reading “Edmund M. Embries, Vice-Chancellor” into the dark outer office that was her own. Turning on the light, she was surprised to see a red envelope left in the otherwise empty wire basket on her desk.

She picked it up. It was addressed to the vice-chancellor. The sender’s name was familiar, in a niggling, back-of-the-brain sort of way. The address was in town. Instead of a postmark, there was a courier’s seal over the envelope flap.

She licked her lips and looked at the solid oak door of the vice-chancellor’s office. She’d only been hired at the start of the previous summer term, but in her brief tenure, it always seemed like Mr. Embries was usually the last person to leave the building, apart from any janitors or maintenance folk who were working late. Quite often, she came in first thing in the morning to find him looking for something in her desk. If he arrived and found that not only had his assistant beaten him to work, but that there was already a letter on his desk… that would feel a tiny bit of a coup for her.

It wasn’t a huge thing, but it was too rare an opportunity to pass up.

That, and it would give her a chance to look around and get a feel for the office, and by extension, its owner. During the work day, she was either hurrying in or out, or she was interacting with him, and he sort of… demanded attention. She knew there was a gorgeous tapestry behind his desk depicting a majestic silver dragon. It looked very old, and she didn’t know if it was his personally or if it belonged to the school.

She felt like she could stare at it forever… but not while he was there. She was very lucky to have landed this position fresh out of college. She wasn’t going to stand there like a slack-jawed yokel, ogling her boss’s wall art in front of him.

She’d go in, put the letter on his desk, take a moment to admire the tapestry, and then maybe have a very quick look around.

She took a deep breath, then opened the door to find the vice-chancellor already inside, freezing in place in the act of closing his closet door.

He was a tall, silver-haired gentleman with sky blue eyes and a very slight beakishness to his nose. He was an older man… how old, Ella wasn’t sure, but he always seemed full of vitality and strength. He moved like a cat, Ella thought, and he was always so well-dressed… she had to admit she had a bit of a crush on him… well, more than a crush… even as there was something terribly disconcerting about him.

Without moving his head, one of his eyes slid to the side to spot her, locking with hers. He didn’t often look directly at her. Usually he spoke with his head bent over his desk, his eyes on a letter or form. When he did turn his gaze in her direction, she often felt like he wasn’t seeing her… he was looking past or through her.

This time, she felt like not only could he see right through her to the other side, but he was searching everything he found within. She felt sure that he could see the crush, that he knew that she’d broken off her long-standing engagement because she couldn’t picture anyone but him during the act of pleasure… that she’d taken to picturing him when she was alone; once, even while she was sitting in her outer office.

She felt dead certain that he knew all of this somehow, and just as certain that he didn’t care in the least one way or the other and would never say a word about it… that as long as she got her work done, she could diddle herself under her desk all the livelong day, thinking of him or anyone else, and it would neither excite nor displease nor even interest him.

Not that she could think of anyone else.

Maybe “bit of a crush” wasn’t the right phrase.

“Ella,” he said, pleasantly, turning away from the closet to face her as he finished shutting the door. His gaze was so constant that she had the impression that the one eye managed to stay exactly where it was while the rest of his head moved into position around it. “You’re here early.”

Maybe “disconcerting” wasn’t the right word, either.

Mr. Embries was scary. There was something frightening about his very presence.

“Oh! Mr. Embries!” she said. “I came in early so I could finish up the, um, the revisions… I-I-I didn’t expect you to be here…”

“Why ever not?” he asked. “They haven’t promoted you over me already, have they?”

She colored, as she always did at his little joking admonitions at her expressions of shock… things like “I’m not interrupting an assignation, am I?” or “I didn’t stumble into the wrong office again, did I?” or “You weren’t planning a surprise party, were you?”

“I was just coming in to put this on your desk,” she said, holding up a red envelope.

“What is that?” the vice-chancellor asked, frowning. He reached out and took it from her hands. “Do I have a secret admirer to worry about?”

“I, uh, don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so. It looked personal, so I didn’t… anyway, it arrived by courier yesterday.”

“Why wasn’t it brought in immediately?”

“A-apparently it was after you’d left for the day,” she said. “It was in my inbox this morning.”

“‘M. Blaise’,” he read. “Why does that… wait, M. Blaise?” He scrutinized the letter as if peering through it, his nostrils puffing out slightly before he sniffed. “That’s very odd.”

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said. He waved her away. “Random recollection. I’ll just go see what this is.”

She left his office, closing the door behind her. He sat down at his desk, on a high-backed chair cunningly covered in illusion to look like it was made of wood. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he always felt as though the cold, soft metal shifted a little beneath his weight, in such a way as to very lightly embrace him.. He picked up a slim wand from the edge of the desk. It was shaped, rather appropriately, like a conductor’s baton, and waved it at the music box on the sideboard where he kept his brandy glasses.

An air for strings began to play as the vice-chancellor of Magisterius University set about the day’s work, beginning with the unexpected letter. He opened the center drawer of his desk and pulled out his favorite letter opener, a silver blade with a curved handle made from a discarded claw. He slit open the envelope and pulled out the contents, a letter handwritten on heavy but inexpensive-looking parchment.

“Dear Mr. Embries,” he read aloud. “I write to you concerning the continuing education of my granddaughter and ward, Mackenzie Jo Blaise, who has made such a spectacle of herself already that the news media, grown tired of covering the whorish behavior of… blah, blah, blah, blah, look forward to speaking with you in person. Yours in Khersis, Martha Blaise. Martha. Ah.”

He put the letter aside, opened up the top drawer of his desk, and extracted a cream-colored sheet of letterhead paper. He took up his pen, tapped the envelope the letter had come in, then tapped the paper near the top. The address and salutation filled in. He then wrote, in large, looping letters, the words “terse refusal; student privacy” across the page. When he lifted the pen up after finishing the final letter, the ink migrated outwards in all directions, filling in a form letter explaining the vice-chancellor’s regrets in being unable to discuss the matter with her.

He signed the resulting missive, then placed it in his outbox and began composing a few other necessary letters, some of which required more actual composition than others. After an hour, Ella came in with a short stack of letters written by the chancellor, Bethany Davies, and other high officials, for him to look over before they were mass scribed and sent out.

“How many more do you suppose I’ll have to do before they make me a doctor of letters?” he asked Ella as she picked up the contents of his outbox. She smiled but didn’t answer. Neither did she make a move towards the door. “Was there anything else?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. One more thing,” she said., holding up another letter, this one written on a piece of lined notebook paper “Miss Jilli… uh, I mean, Coach Callahan is appealing to you again.”

Mr. Embries covered half his face with one immaculately groomed, long-fingered hand and scowled. Ella had never known anybody who could irritate the man like Jillian Callahan… Ella didn’t know how she could stand to keep doing it the way she did.

She felt sure that if she ever made the vice-chancellor look like he did at that moment, she would be forced to kill herself from the shame of it all.

She almost wanted to, anyway. Even though she had nothing to do with his pain and frustration, she felt the irrational urge to offer herself up as a not-quite-maiden sacrifice on the slim chance that it would somehow ease his burden, even a little bit

“Is this one about students or faculty this time?” he asked.

“Students,” she said.

“Does she have anything new to say this time?”

“She says ‘please’ a lot more often than usual,” Ella said, smiling lamely.

“By the Star Drake, I’d like to find out whoever pissed her off and kill him myself… most years, she drops this after the start of term. Right,” he said. “I need you to take a letter for me. If I try to hold a pen right now, I’ll break it.”

“Yes, Mr. Embries,” she said, and she took the notepad she had tucked under her arm and got ready.

“Letter begins: Unfortunately, the university’s charter and the board’s resolution on student safety are in agreement on this matter, to say nothing of the law. Therefore, the university will not be revising its policy on the deliberate killing of students at any time in the foreseeable future. While I understand that it is no doubt as effective a motivational tool for the survivors as you have claimed it to be, at least one participant comes away from the exercise unlikely to learn anything of immediately applicable value. I believe the best teachers work to find ways to motivate the entire class. Yours, etc. Read that back.”

She did, and Embries said, “Take out that word, ‘deliberate’. Just say ‘killing’. We don’t want any misunderstandings. That woman needs to learn that we don’t kill students here. Or faculty.”

“What about assistants?” Ella blurted out.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Um, would you like me to read it back with the change?”

“No, thank you,” he said. “Wait until the end of the day to send that through, you hear? There’s a reason she’s up at six… I’m not going to spend the whole day crossing pens with that creature.”

“Of course, Mr. Embries,” she said.

“Is Ms. Davies breakfasting with the governor today?”

“Yes, Mr. Embries,” Ella said.

“And that’s at nine?” he asked, looking up from his work briefly, his eyes rolling over her so quickly that the movement reminded her strangely of a snake’s tongue flicking out, a serpent licking its lips.

“Yes, Mr. Davies,” she said. “Embries!” she corrected. “And uh, you’ll be taking your usual breakfast in the office?”

“Possibly… I’m thinking of trying something new,” he said, and his eyes flicked back to her and stayed, and for once she didn’t feel like he was looking past her at all.

“Yes?” she squeaked. She cleared her throat feebly, and then said, in a more passably adult voice, “Yes, Mr. Embries?”

“I’d like to try those multigrain pancakes they’ve been talking about, with a dollop of light cream instead of butter or syrup,” he said, looking back to his work.

“Multigrain pancakes,” she noted.

“Maybe if I start eating better on a regular basis, I’ll feel less guilty about the occasional indulgence,” he said.

“Maybe,” she agreed, and hurried from the room.

At seven, Ella went to the faculty dining hall on the back of the administrative building, for her own breakfast. She gave the cooks Mr. Embries’s revised instructions. She also amended her own customary order, having her egg white omelet made with whole eggs and with ham in addition to the cheese. Normally she took her time over her breakfast, eating slowly and enjoying it while she read the newspaper. Today, she gulped it down without even tasting it, then realized she’d left the newspaper back in her office.

She looked around the hall to see if anybody else had one that she could borrow a section of, but she realized that while she recognized a lot of the men and women sharing the facility, she didn’t feel like she knew any of them enough to approach them like that. She wasn’t ready to go back to the office just yet, though, so she had a few more cups of coffee to cover for the fact that she was just sitting there.

Just have another omelet, she thought. Or a waffle, covered in strawberries and cream. It wasn’t as though she were watching her figure.

At twenty till eight, she abandoned her table to collect Mr. Embries’s breakfast order and brought it around to the other side of the administrative building on a tray. Twelve sausage links, fifteen strips of bacon, five pieces of ham, and a neat stack of multigrain pancakes with a dollop of light cream.

Back in the outer office, she set the tray down in order to pick up the few interoffice items that had popped over while she was out and check the a-mail and echo trap so that she could bring Mr. Embries everything that required his attention at the same time she brought him his tray. She’d learned right away that he liked to eat alone, and that extended to not being disturbed while he did it.

She copied the important messages, put them along with his mail on the side of the tray. Precisely at eight, she knocked twice on his door before opening it and announcing, “Breakfast, Mr. Embries!”

“Thank you,” he said, waving at the corner of his expansive desktop. It was ebony, inlaid with silver in an abstract pattern that had always reminded Ella of wings. He eyed the stack of notes and memoranda. “Anything important?”

“Lynette Havilland is petitioning the board for reinstatement,” she said.

“She’ll be denied,” he said. “We can’t even think about that while the case is ongoing. Does that need a response from me?”

“No, but you’re being copied on everything, like you asked,” Ella said.

“If it were up to me, we’d be paying her on her old wages,” he said. “Odds are dead even we’re going to end up doing so retroactively. It seems like we could save a lot of paperwork and headaches that way. She was absolutely an idiot in the case, of course, but you can’t really blame a person for being an idiot around something as strong and powerful and traditionally ravenous as a half-demon, can you?”

“I… I suppose not,” Ella said. Automatically, her hand went up to the silver Egg of Khersis she kept on a slender chain on her neck, the only jewelry she wore on a daily basis since giving back the engagement ring. Mr. Embries had admired it the first time he saw it.

She felt guilty for leaving the holy symbol on when she was alone and fantasizing about him… but… he’d actually reached out and touched it, and for a moment his fingertip had brushed so close to her chin that she’d felt it.

“How one student can be at the middle of so many messes… if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect she’s doing it on purpose,” he said. “Actually, I don’t know better and I do suspect that. Is that racist?”

“It… wouldn’t be for me to say,” Ella said.

“I’m half tempted to tell Callahan I’m willing to make one specific exception,” he said. “Of course, that would look very bad for the school, and if we tried to put it all on her… I’d rather have the half-demon as an enemy, frankly.” He sighed. “No, I wouldn’t have Callahan do it. But it would be a satisfyingly simple solution, to just get rid of her. What else?”

“What… oh. The healing center is generating more complaints,” she said.

“About?”

“Wait time, probing questions,” she said.

“They are sticking to the questions on the form, aren’t they?” Embries asked.

“Yes, they say they are… and it seems that way from the complaints,” she said. “Students are just used to getting healing no questions asked.”

“Complaints are up… are costs going down?”

“Actually, yes.”

“I rather thought they might,” he said. “Nobody wants to wait around for a hangover cure or a paper cut heal. If nothing else, I’m glad this whole debacle gave me an excuse to reform the healing center practices. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a net decrease in brawling and dueling, and stupidity-related injuries, too. Get a message to Campus Safety for them to keep an eye on that.”

“Yes, Mr. Embries,” she said.

“Anything else out of the ordinary?”

“The latest updates from the legal department,” she said. “They’re still waiting for Miss Mackenzie’s lawyer to return their questionnaire.”

“Funny, I thought everybody wanted a speedy resolution,” Embries said. “Do we get to take five points off for every day it’s late, I wonder?” She smiled again at his joke. “Is the rest just the usual noise?”

“I think so,” she said. “Would you like me to leave now, so you can have your breakfast?”

“Actually,” he said, reaching for the tray and pulling it towards him, “I’d like for you to stay.” He picked up a fork and knife, and began to cut the stack of pancakes with neat, economical motions. The faculty dining hall had real china and real silver silverware. “There’s a question I’d like to ask you.”

“Yes, Mr. Embries?” she asked, as he took a bite of pancakes.

She waited while he chewed it up and swallowed.

“If I told you that I had to let you go, what would you do?” he asked her.

Kill myself, she thought. Beg you to kill me. Find a replacement who is better than me in every possible way, make her swear undying fealty to your greatness, and then beg her to kill me in your name.

She said nothing. He went on eating the pancakes. When he finished, he dabbed his lips with the cloth napkin and then looked at her, expectantly.

“Sir?” she said, confused.

“You didn’t think I was in yet, when you came into my office this morning,” he said. “I was, and so it’s no harm done… but you thought I was out and you came in.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I want you to understand that my office is off-limits, if you ever happen to be here working when I am not,” he said.

“I-I w-wasn’t…”

“Certainly you weren’t planning on doing anything untoward,” he said. “But urges… urges can be strange and powerful things, and you never know when an urge will strike you. I like you as an assistant, Ella,” he said, and she felt pathetic for the gratitude she felt at the first thin bit of praise he’d ever given her, “and that’s why I’d rather not have to worry about whether or not you’ll feel the urge to start prying if you ever find yourself in here alone. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mr. Embries,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” he said.

“May I go back to my desk?” she asked, feeling every inch of her like a naughty schoolgirl asking to be excused. “The revised…”

“No,” he said. “Please. Stay. You can carry the tray back for me when I’m done.”

And he proceeded to finish his breakfast with painstaking slowness, while she stood on her three-inch heels and watched. He cut each sausage fine. He shaved the ham. He slivered the bacon. Between each individual morsel, he did a bit of work, not looking at her and not speaking to her.

The longer she stood there, the more she felt certain she should have eaten another omelet or the waffle, if not both… and not because she was getting hungry from watching him eat. It wasn’t Mr. Embries she was envying… it was the meat that was getting so much more of his attention than she was.

The realization of that fact, the articulation of the thought inside her head, made her want to run screaming from the room and send in her resignation from her mother’s house, in Ravenport. It made her want to go back to her desk, sit down, and find a way to remove her pantyhose and underwear without the odd visitor noticing.

For an hour and a half, she stood there, terrified out of her wits and more aroused than she’d ever been. When he finally finished, he gestured for her to take the tray, and then said, “I have a few reflections to make, so I don’t anticipate having to leave my office for the next hour or so. If you could see that I’m not disturbed in that time, please?”

“Y-yes, Mr. Embries,” Ella said.

“And take your lunch a little early today,” he said. “You’ll be joining me for mine.”

Ella hurried from the room as fast as she could walk and still be walking, but the tray and dishes didn’t make it back to the kitchen until the allotted hour was almost up. She locked the outer doors, sat down on her desk, and… not to put too fine a point on it… she proceeded to go to town on herself.

Urges, as Mr. Embries had said, were a strange and powerful thing.

This is horribly unprofessional, she thought, after vigorous activity restored some clarity to her thought. What kind of a man am I working for?

She wasn’t able to get much work done, even after that release. Lunch was even longer and worse than breakfast had been, in every regard… and somehow better than breakfast had been, in every regard, except that she had no chance of repeating her solo performance afterwards. Mr. Embries was keeping his door open, as he was expecting a stream of visitors in the latter half of the afternoon, and she had to get her work for the day done, or she’d end up coming in at five again the next morning.

By the time she went to take Mr. Embries’s dinner order, she felt like she wouldn’t be able to contain herself if he made her stand and watch him eat, she’d start pleasuring herself right there in his office.

And he wouldn’t even care.

“And… will I be joining you for dinner, Mr. Embries?” she asked him after taking down his order.

“Oh, no. You won’t be doing that for a while,” he said. “And then, only if you really want it.”

“I want it,” she blurted out.

He smiled a sad sort of smile at her.

“Not just yet,” he said. “Not just yet you don’t. Not badly enough. But in time, I think you will. Urges, after all, are strange and powerful things. You may go.”

She hurried from the room, and alone, he clicked his tongue, chiding himself for not maintaining better control. It wasn’t like he could expect any better of Ella… she was only human. However toothsome she might be, he’d have little room to criticize Jillian Callahan’s teaching methods if he went through assistants like a glutton.

“Few people mistake a noble dragon for a nice one more than once.” — Professor Hall.

Discuss this story.