He couldn’t say it. It might even have been trying to lure Matthew out. That would explain why it had left its safe haven at the north end of the island, and gone where Prometheus would notice it. Matthew cringed. If his organization had some wardens in the bad neighborhoods, it might have been taken care of years ago. If Matthew himself had gone into its court unglamoured that first time, it might just have eaten him and left the girls alone.
A long time, staring at the skim of fat on the surface of her coffee. She gulped, then blew through scorched lips, but did not lift her eyes. “Doctor S.—”
“Matthew,” he said. He took a breath, and made the worst professional decision of his life. “Go home, Ms. Martinchek. Concentrate on your other classes; as long as you show up for the mid-term and the final in mine, I will keep your current grade for the semester.”
Cowardice. Unethical. He didn’t want to see her there.
He put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against it, and he let her for a moment. Her skin was moist and hot. Her breath was, too.
Before he got away, he felt her whisper, “Why not me?”
“Because you put out,” he said, and then wished he’d just cut his tongue out when she jerked, slopping coffee across her knuckles. He retreated behind the desk and his own cup, and settled his elbows on the blotter. Her survivor guilt was his fault, too. “It only wanted virgins,” he said, more gently. “Send your boyfriend a thank-you card.”
She swallowed, swallowed again. She looked him in the eyes, so she wouldn’t have to look past him, at the memory of her friends. Thank God, she didn’t ask. But she drank the rest of her too-hot coffee, nerved herself, licked her lips, and said, “But Gina—Gina was . . . ”
“People,” he replied, as kindly as he could manage with blood on his hands, “are not always what they want you to think. Or always what you think they ought to be.”
When she thanked him and left, he retrieved the flask from his coat pocket and dumped half of it into his half-empty coffee mug. Later, a TA told him it was his best lecture ever. He couldn’t refute her; he didn’t remember.
Melissa Martinchek showed up for his next Monday lecture. She sat in the third row, in the middle of two empty desks. No one sat beside her.
Both Matthew and she survived it, somehow.
Elizabeth Bear is the author of over a dozen novels and a hundred short stories; she has been honored for some of them with the John W. Campbell Award, two Hugos, and a Sturgeon Award. Her second collection of short fiction, Shoggoths in Bloom, was published last year. Two novels, Shattered Pillars and One-Eyed Jack, will be published in 2013, as will An Apprentice to Elves, a novel written in collaboration with Sarah Monette. She currently lives in Massachusetts with a giant ridiculous dog.
The Case: Lord Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite since childhood, has been rumored as possible husband for the queen. But he is already married. When his wife is found at the foot of a staircase with her neck broken, Dudley’s hopes for a royal marriage die too. How can a murderer wed a queen? Proof must be found that his wife’s death was by chance or someone’s evil design.
The Investigators: Dr. Erasmus Pilbeam, assistant to magician and alchemist Dr. John Dee, and Pilbeam’s young apprentice Martin Molesworth.
THE NECROMANCER’S APPRENTICE
Lillian Stewart Carl
Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen’s Horses, was a fine figure of a man, as long of limb and imperious of eye as one of his equine charges. And like one of his charges, his wrath was likely to leave an innocent passerby with a shattered skull.
Dudley reached the end of the gallery, turned, and stamped back again, the rich fabrics of his clothing rustling an accompaniment to the thump of his boots. Erasmus Pilbeam shrank into the window recess. But he was no longer an innocent passerby, not now that Lord Robert had summoned him.
“You beetle-headed varlet!” his lordship exclaimed. “What do you mean he cannot be recalled?”
Soft answers turn away wrath, Pilbeam reminded himself. “Dr. Dee is perhaps in Louvain, perhaps in Prague, researching the wisdom of the ancients. The difficulty lies not only in discovering his whereabouts, but also in convincing him to return to England.”
“He is my old tutor. He would return at my request.” Again Lord Robert marched away down the gallery, the floor creaking a protest at each step. “The greatness and suddenness of this misfortune so perplexes me that I shall take no rest until the truth is known.”
“The inquest declared your lady wife’s death an accident, my lord. At the exact hour she was found deceased in Oxfordshire, you were waiting upon the Queen at Windsor. You could have had no hand . . . ”
“Fact has never deterred malicious gossip. Why, I have now been accused of bribing the jurors. God’s teeth! I cannot let this evil slander rest upon my head. The Queen has sent me from the court on the strength of it!” Robert dashed his fist against the padded back of a chair, raising a small cloud of dust, tenuous as a ghost.
A young princess like Elizabeth could not be too careful what familiar demonstrations she made. And yet, this last year and a half, Lord Robert had come so much into her favor it was said that her Majesty visited him in his chamber day and night . . . No, Pilbeam assured himself, that rumor was noised about only by those who were in the employ of Spain. And he did not for one moment believe that the Queen herself had ordered the disposal of Amy Robsart, no matter how many wagging tongues said that she had done so. Still, Lord Robert could hardly be surprised that the malicious world now gossiped about Amy’s death, when he had so neglected her life.
“I must find proof that my wife’s death was either chance or evil design on the part of my enemies. The Queen’s enemies.”
Or, Pilbeam told himself, Amy’s death might have been caused by someone who fancied himself the Queen’s friend.
Lord Robert stalked back up the gallery and scrutinized Pilbeam’s black robes and close-fitting cap. “You have studied with Dr. Dee. You are keeping his books safe whilst he pursues his researches in heretical lands.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“How well have you learned your lessons, I wonder?”
The look in Lord Robert’s eye, compounded of shrewd calculation and ruthless pride, made Pilbeam’s heart sink. “He has taught me how to heal illness. How to read the stars. The rudiments of the alchemical sciences.”
“Did he also teach you how to call and converse with spirits?”
“He—ah—mentioned to me that such conversation is possible.”
“Tell me more.”
“Formerly it was held that apparitions must be spirits from purgatory, but now that we know purgatory to be only papist myth, it must be that apparitions are demonic, angelic, or illusory. The devil may deceive man into thinking he sees ghosts or . . . ” Pilbeam gulped. The bile in his throat tasted of the burning flesh of witches.
“An illusion or deception will not serve me at all. Be she demon or angel, it is Amy herself who is my best witness.”
“My—my—my lord . . . ”
Robert’s voice softened, velvet covering his iron fist. “I shall place my special trust in you, Dr. Pilbeam. You will employ all the devices and means you can possibly use for learning the truth. Do you understand me?”