"And why did they exist there to begin with?"
"Emissaries from Chaos sent them, or they were possessions you had on you when you were taken."
I said, "And what about our education? Lamia thought you were training us in our powers, that you intended to use us in the wars."
"My dear, I hope you are not bringing up an entirely new issue, while my curiosity remains unsatisfied. Where are your companions?"
I said, "Why else would you teach us everything we needed to know to use our powers correctly?"
He frowned.
Boreas leaned, dipped one finger idly in the water.
Steam stopped rising from the tub. The water turned cold. It was no longer comfortable.
I yelped, started to get up, remembered I was naked, and shrank back down again.
It was not icy, but it was no longer warm and inviting. He did not make it numbing, or painful, or coated with ice. Not yet.
"Miss Windrose, I do not wish to pressure you unduly, and yet, in all honesty (if that phrase has any meaning, under the circumstances), I would be remiss in my duties, not to mention personally placed in a very awkward position, if the material universe were to come to a bloody and abrupt end, merely because I was too gentle-hearted to do what it was necessary to do in order to maintain our security. I can make myself be a rather harsh and cruel man, even a barbarian, should circumstances warrant. I leave it to you to determine-yes, that is the word, determine-whether events shall progress in a civilized or in an uncouth fashion. I am, indeed, a terrible person, Miss Windrose. I trust you have not forgotten the messages, written in the language of pain, which I caused to be written on the bodies of Grendel Glum and Mestor the Atlantean, whom you knew by the name Dr. Drinkwater?"
While he spoke, he pushed his hand more deeply beneath the water, and it grew colder and colder.
I was staring at his hand in horror. His knuckles, his wrist, his forearm were now below the water level. The suds in that section of the tub were wilting and dying; the water was taking on the crystal clarity only truly cold water can display. I was huddled up against the far side of the tub, as far as the confined space would allow.
The picture I had in my imagination was me, nude, inside a solid block of tub-shaped ice, being carried on his shoulder back to the school.
He pulled his hand back, smiled unpleasantly. The water dripping down his forearm turned white and formed a little glove of frost, which he shook contemptuously to the floor tiles.
"Are you threatening me?" I said, trying to sound stern.
He swallowed a snort. Apparently I did not do stern that well. "Ah... Not in so many words, Miss Windrose: But to a person of even limited intelligence, I deem the implication would be clear. One might be tempted to say, 'painfully clear'; but, in order to avoid disproportionate drollery let us simply say, pellucid. Surely the matter is... ah... pellucid to you, Miss Windrose?"
"You are going to rape and torture me if I don't talk."
A slight tension pulled at the corners of his mouth. Embarrassment? Humor? Temptation?"
"Ahem. I had not been planning on any acts of rape. Such things generally turn out badly. Ask my wife. But I compliment you on the fecundity and liveliness of your imagination. I will be disaccommodated if you allow things to degenerate to the more brutal state to which they might devolve. Please consider answering my question."
"I left them. I knew you could follow me; I knew you could not follow them. So they are safe."
"You must have arranged some system of rendezvous, or exchange of messages? Dropboxes, letters to the Times signed in code, colored smoke signals, that sort of thing... ?"
"You and your people can erase memories. Why not read minds? I thought it would be safer if I didn't leave myself any way to reach them."
"But they can reach you, one supposes?"
"I promised Colin I would have sex with him."
"Hphfnah? I mean, I beg your pardon... ?" Disgust, and even anger, broke in his voice. The noise he made was like the snort a large black bull makes when a younger bull comes nosing around his harem. The contemptuous blow of a bull lowering its head to gore an insolent opponent.
"It is like my promise to you. An oath. Colin and Quentin can use it to find me."
"Miss Windrose, sometimes I just wonder what on Earth goes on in that head of yours. Did you actually promise an amorous liaison with... Oh, it boggles the mind! With Mr. mac FirBolg?"
"What's so wrong about that?"
"What's so wrong? What's so wrong? Did I really teach you so poorly, Miss Windrose? Have you no sense of propriety, no sense of pride, no sense of self-esteem? Have you no sense? What about taste? Have you no taste?"
I looked at him with my eyes half-closed. "You don't think he's good enough for me."
"I assume, with the natural perversity of teenagers, this will merely recommend him to your favor.
But, as a mental exercise, envision a delicate and graceful rose, the fairest bloom of the fairest spring. Now picture a slug dropped on it, leaving a trail of ooze. I am aghast."
"Do you not like Colin so much?" I said, my voice light and airy.
"Mr. mac FirBolg has no capacity to apply himself, and, were he not graced with dangerous supernatural powers, would have no doubt found a satisfactory life as a fast-food-restaurant clerk, or a heroin salesman. But you, you, Miss Windrose, whether born a princess or goddess, common or mortal, you could make of your world what you will of it. You are much too fine a creature for a dull-eyed sluggard like Mr. mac FirBolg. What of your Mr. Triumph?"
"Victor... ?"
"Of course, Victor. That he is the only fit man for you, a blind monkey could perceive from half a mile off on a foggy day."
"I really think my private life is none of your damn business, if you don't mind my saying so, Headmaster."
He spread his hands, and "Your promise is a nullity in any case. Promises of marital favors are meaningless outside of marriage, which is a sacred institution. The Great Queen Hera Basilissa established the rules of the universe along these lines, and the rules of magic follow them."