“You have one of these statues?” Professor Lefevre sounded slightly disapproving.
“It’s not one of the best ones, but I like it,” I said. “If you’d like to see it, I have it in my bag back at the house.”
“You brought it to Philadelphia? And didn’t mention it to anyone?”
“I thought Lan would be interested,” I said. “And it’s my personal sample. I brought it back my own self, for a memento, not for some laboratory to take to pieces.”
“I beg your pardon,” Professor Lefevre said stiffly. “I meant no offense.”
“I expect not,” I said. I gave another little sigh. “You can still look at it if you like, but you’ll have to come by the house tomorrow. We’re leaving the day after, and Mama and I are going to be packing.”
“I shall make time to stop in,” Professor Lefevre said. “It’s a pity your Professor Torgeson won’t send more samples for testing; I’m sure that with the laboratories here we could find out a great deal.”
“There aren’t any more samples to send yet,” I said, feeling annoyed all over again. He gave me a skeptical look, and I glared at him. “We had one packhorse for the three of us, and we’d already collected a fair lot of wildlife samples. And whatever they were once, now they’re rocks. There’s only so much room in a couple of saddlebags, and only so much weight a packhorse can carry.”
“Yet?” the professor said, ignoring all the rest of what I’d said.
“I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to say anything about it,” I said. Then I shook my head. “I suppose it’s too late now. Professor Torgeson is planning to take a string of mules out to Daybat Creek to pick up some more samples. Just the loose ones in the part of the hill that collapsed,” I added quickly. “She wants to leave as much as she can just how it is, in case they can get some historical excavators interested.”
“I won’t mention it to anyone,” Professor Lefevre promised.
“I can ask Professor Torgeson to send you some of the ones she brings back,” I offered.
“I would appreciate it very much, Miss Rothmer.”
Right about then, the president of the college stood up and everyone in the refectory quieted down. By then, all the seats were full of people, so it took a minute for the noise to taper off. The president gave a little speech about how welcome everyone was and how we were all there to honor Lan for being a hero. I could feel Lan getting tense and twitchy again, so I reached over under the tablecloth and patted his hand. He gave me a grateful look and settled down.
Dinner was served by a lot of young men wearing vests with the Simon Magus College crest on the left side. Lan whispered that they were mostly freshmen, and they’d probably volunteered because it was the only way they could get in to such a good dinner. After dinner, there were more speeches, and a man came up to give Lan a gold pocket watch from the families of all the students he’d saved from being injured.
When he realized what was going on, Lan went white and grabbed my hand under the table. He held on so hard it hurt all the way through the speech, and almost didn’t let go when he had to stand up to take the watch.
“I don’t deserve this,” he said to the man holding the watch.
The college president smiled. “Let us be the judge of that, my boy,” he said.
For a minute, I thought Lan was going to refuse completely, but then he just nodded and took the watch. He held it for a minute, staring at it without speaking. Mama gave him a little frown. He looked at her blankly for a second, then turned back to the college president and the man who’d brought the watch and thanked them politely before he sat down.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to watch Lan without anyone noticing that I was worried about him. Lots of people came up to him to talk once all the speeches were done, including most of the students who’d been hurt and their parents. Lan seemed on edge and unhappy for the whole time. Even Mama noticed. She persuaded the college people that we needed to get home early, since Lan was still recovering.
On the way home, Mama gave Lan a gentle lecture about manners and modesty and not insulting people by refusing their gifts or telling them they were wrong when they spoke highly of you. Lan almost said something to her, but he stopped. Then he just nodded.
When we got to the house, I told Mama I wanted a glass of water from the kitchen. I was hoping to catch Lan by himself and find out what he was brooding about, and sure enough, when I came back a few minutes later, she’d gone up to bed, just as I’d hoped. Unfortunately, Lan seemed to have gone, too. Then I saw the sitting room door ajar, even though it was dark on the other side. I peeked through.
Lan was standing at the front window in the dark. He’d drawn back the curtains, and I could see his silhouette against the yellow glow of the gas lamps all along the street outside. I slipped inside and closed the door.
“Lan?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“They all think I’m a hero,” he said, so softly I hardly heard him. “But I’m not.”
“Lan —”
“I’m not, Eff!” He shuddered. “It was my fault.”
“The accident?”
He bowed his head. “I’m the one who made the spell go awry. It’s my fault that all those people were hurt and Professor Warren is dead. I tried to tell Dean Ziegler and Papa, but they think I’m just being hard on myself because I couldn’t save everyone.”
“But you did save some people?” I said uncertainly.
“I suppose,” Lan said. “After it all went wrong. But I’m the one who sent it wrong in the first place. And they don’t believe me, and they wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain, and now it’s too late.”
I walked over to one of the chintz-covered chairs and sat down. “It’s not too late for me to listen,” I said. “And I will.” I tightened my fingers around the glass I was holding, and waited.
CHAPTER 23
LAN STOOD SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE WINDOW FOR THE LONGEST time. When he finally began to speak, he kept his back toward me, as if he could pretend he was just talking to himself as long as he couldn’t actually see anyone else in the room.
“I wrote to you about Professor Warren last summer,” he said after a while. “When he had Michael and me working on spell classifications. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” I said very softly, once it was clear that he expected me to answer.
“I didn’t like him.” Lan was quiet again for a long time. “Now I wish I had, even though that would make everything worse, some ways.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“He taught the class in comparative magic,” Lan went on. “You know, Avrupan and Aphrikan and Hijero-Cathayan magic, and how different they are. He says — he said — that Avrupan magic is about analysis and control, Hijero-Cathayan magic is about passion and direction, and Aphrikan magic is about insight and assurance. I never understood what he meant.” He paused. “I don’t think I ever really tried to understand.”
It seemed to me that understanding such a fuzzy description would take a powerful lot of trying, but I stayed quiet.
“Last summer, he had a bunch of us working at classifying some of the new spells the Hijero-Cathayans have been developing. They’re really interesting, Eff — the Zhejiang Provincial School of Advanced Magic has done some amazing … never mind. The point is, Michael and I wanted to learn some of the spells, but Professor Warren said we didn’t have enough control.” His shoulders twitched irritably. “So we started working on them by ourselves.”
“Lan!” I burst out, horrified. “How could you? Hijero-Cathayan magic is horribly dangerous!”
“It’s not that bad,” Lan said. He half turned to look at me, and I could see his frown in the dim light from the street lanterns. “They’ve been doing it for nearly three thousand years, after all. And we didn’t have any trouble.” He turned back to the window. “Not then,” he added so softly that I almost missed it.