Page 19 of Strength of Desire

“I don’t think anything,” I said. “I’m just trying to cover my bases. For a few days, anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Isaac said. “We don’t know what to expect. This entire situation is unprecedented.”

He sounded very angry about that.

“I take the safety of our students very seriously,” he continued. “And I have no idea what happened today. Do you have any notion of how disconcerting that is?”

I sighed. “I do.”

“Good.” His voice warmed half a degree. “Because I need your help investigating.”

I blinked. “Investigating?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard the word before.”

“Yeah, obviously. But—”

“I want you to find out what happened. Talk to the other staff. The wardkeepers in particular. See if you can pick anything up. Discreetly.”

“Pick anything up?” I asked.

“Anything suspicious, or out of place. Watch. Listen. Explore.”

“Spy, you mean.”

“If you’d like to describe it that way. Be amicable, and see what they let slip.”

I frowned. “You want a witch for this. Magic allows for more subtlety than anything I can do.”

“I’ll work with what I’ve got.”

“But you’ve got your entire faculty. Why me?”

“Because you’re the one person I’m sure had nothing to do with breaching those wards. You were in class when the moraghin attacked, and you don’t have the power to lower the wards yourself.”

I pressed my lips into a flat line and blew air out my nose. “People are going to think it’s odd, if I’m suddenly chumming it up with Hans and Autumn and the others. We’re hardly friends.”

“It would be even odder if I were to do it. Just tell them you’re worried, since the moraghin appeared in your class.”

My brow furrowed. “You really suspect one of the wardkeepers is responsible?”

“I suspect everyone,” Isaac said.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to work out a knot that had crept up between them. “Everyone in the meeting just told you they’d look into what happened and tell you what they found. No one’s going to be dumb enough to say one thing to you, then something different to me. Spying isn’t going to work.”

“You’re welcome to think that. But you still have a job to do.”

I rolled my eyes. “I already have a job.”

“I’ll talk to Eddie and Hans,” Isaac said. “You did say you were looking for extra help with your classes. Both of them should be suitable, and it will give you an excuse to talk to Hans, for starters.”

“Bodies,” I corrected him. “I said I wanted bodies, not help.”

They were good choices, though. Eddie practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu and sparred with Leon sometimes. Hans ran marathons for fun. Both were in shape enough to keep up with my classes as we ran.

“Regardless,” Isaac said. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to oblige.”

“Well, thank you. But I still think I’m not the best choice for—”

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