Page 42 of Foresyth Conservatory
I turned around, rolling my eyes. Was there a man at this school who wasn’t pompous? But if the competition had favored Leone, that would remove his motive. So much for Aspen’s currency of secrets.
“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Leone noted.
“Oh, I’m just curious. Students dying isn’t something anyone should get used to,” I said, switching out the calibration tube for one of Leone’s test samples.
Leone nodded absently, but I could tell his mind was elsewhere, deep in thought.
“You said only you and Julian were next up for the Advisor role. What about Aspen?”
Leone scoffed. “Aspen is a second year—Advisor roles are reserved for graduates. And despite how impressive Aspen thinks his curriculum vitae is, he’s not eligible for another year.”
I furrowed my brow. That eliminated an academic rivalry as a motive for Aspen and Julian, but there was still the issue of Julian’s relationship with Sequoia, and the jealousy it might have stirred. But Aspen’s theory on Leone seemed to hold true. It seemed like Leone and Julian hadn’t seen eye to eye, either. But why would Aspen be helping me?
“Is something wrong?” Leone asked.
“No, no. The test is running as expected. Here, this is the spectrum of the first one,” I said, handing him the output with the spectrum lines. It would be foreign to anyone but me, but I could teach just about anyone how to read it. “I’ll just cross-reference them with my book, and then I can tell you the approximate age of the compounds in the sample. I can show you how it’s done.”
“How long will that take?”
“About an hour or so.”
“Very well,” Leone said, cracking open his book again. That was indication enough that he wanted me to do the analysis on my own.
We spent the next hour in silence—me pouring over the spectra of the two research samples, and Leone engrossed in his esoteric tome. It was a comfortable silence for the most part. There was a part of me—perhaps just my intuition—that urged me to trust Leone, and that almost disqualified him as a suspect. But I couldn’t tell if that was just my bias, ruling him out because he was simply unsuspecting. As it stood, I didn’t see a clear motive for why Leone would want Julian dead, unless I bought into the idea that it was still the philosophical differences between the two. I couldn’t imagine Leone being that spiteful, or Julian that competitive. But I couldn’t rule out Leone, or anyone else—not yet.
“It’s done,” I said, looking up from my notebook. “It looks like Sample B is a good five years older than Sample A, based on these spectral lines.”
“Map dowsing wins. Interesting,” Leone said, looking over the spectra I had marked up with my reference text. “I can use these in my research paper?”
“Certainly. I’d be happy to write up the methodology section for you,” I said, closing the lid of the analyzer.
“That would be very nice, thank you,” Leone said, opening his own notebook and jotting down the findings.
“Not to make this transactional, I would’ve helped you either way, but I do need advice on how to approach the Council,” I said, readying my own pen and notebook.
“Oh, that. Of course, I’ll tell you what I know,” Leone said, pushing up the bridge of his glasses and turning toward me. “I’ve submitted a handful of proposals to them during my time at Foresyth, and about a dozen or so papers. All but one has been accepted, with varying degrees of critique,” he started.
Curiosity flared—I wanted to press him about the one paper that hadn’t been accepted—but I held my tongue. Better to focus on what mattered: getting my proposal approved. Of all the things to worry about, publication ranked lowest. With any luck, I’d be gone from Foresyth long before that ever became necessary.
“There are two things you should know about the Council. Number one—they value academic rigor. If you have a hypothesis, you better be willing to defend it. They don’t like to waste time or resources on half-formed ideas,” he said.
“Fair enough, I wouldn’t either,” I agreed.
“Secondly, they value magickal devotion. They can see right through those who aren’t true believers.”
My heart sank. To me, magick had always been a parlor trick at best—a relic of forgotten histories, conjured by people who lacked the science to explain the world around them. Would the Council sense that? Would they see through my skepticism and tear my carefully constructed cover apart, like a forbidden book marked for burning?
“I don’t know exactly how they do it—but it’s necessary and part of their line of work. They advise clients using magick, but if the clients don’t fully believe their methodology, it’s hard to take an Advisor’s advice. That’s why observance to the sacredness of magick is so important to them.”
“Is there anything I could do to strengthen my . . . observance?” I asked.
“There isn’t really a prescription for believing. It’s rather binary—you do or you don’t. But my best advice is to experience it for yourself. It’s sometimes difficult for me too. I gravitate too much to the facts of the matter,” Leone admitted.
And for the first time, I felt like Leone and I were two sides of the same coin. I searched the clear blue of his eyes and saw an intensity there I hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps he only reserved it for the things he was truly obsessed with. But now he was sharing it with me.
“It’s why I’ve gravitated toward fencing.” He shrugged. “Because when you are faced with no choice but to fight—tobelievein your own power over your doubts—that’s when something magickal can happen.”
I furrowed my brow, considering him. “That’s right, the others mentioned you’re a swordsman. Books, magick,swords—they are all methods of claiming power, are they not?”
