Karigan leaned back against the shelving, trying to remain standing, but she sank toward the floor inch by inch.
“I will take good care of you,” the professor said, his voice sounding miles away.
She blinked, fighting to stay aware. Why? The word rang out in her mind but did not reach her lips. She knew the answer anyway—he could not allow her to leave. She had made the mistake of letting her guard down. She had trusted too much.
She was out before she hit the floor.
The professor grimaced as his shoe crunched on the shards of rare Second Age pottery, but it was a small sacrifice compared to what might happen if he allowed Karigan G’ladheon to leave. She would undoubtedly be captured, and she knew too much. He knelt beside her, relieved to see her breathing normally. The morphia had been left behind by Mender Samuels after Karigan had first arrived with her painful wounds. She had refused further injections after she regained consciousness, so there had been quite a bit left over.
The professor had not known the correct amount to administer, so he had filled the syringe and injected it all. He could keep Karigan dosed for a good long time. He would tell anyone who questioned him about her that she had relapsed into madness, but he hadn’t the heart to send her to the Mill City Asylum after her terrible experiences in the east.
He knew that those treated with morphia often developed a deep, addictive yearning for it. He would not have to force doses on her after a while. Before long, she would be begging him for it. It was all very simple, but regrettable. Still, it was a small price to pay for protecting his secrets.
He brushed her hair out of her face. “Indeed, I am very sorry, my dear. You’ve a bright spirit, but I’ve my own home to look after.”
But now he faced a conundrum of practical dimension. He had to bring her back to the house, but he didn’t have the strength to carry her all the way by himself. He needed Cade. What would Cade make of this, what he’d done to Karigan? Cade, he was sure, would see that they had no choice but to ensconce her at home, keep her weak and unable to act. Bedridden. It would keep the opposition safe—surely Cade would see that.
As it turned out, he did not have to wait to find out what Cade would think.
“Professor?”
The professor rose and slowly turned to face his protégé. Cade stood just paces away. His face was colored with bruises. So the students had been right about a brawl. But Cade? Brawling? It had sounded so unlikely.
“Your timing is good,” the professor said. “I could use some assistance.”
To his surprise, Cade brushed right by him and knelt beside Karigan. “What happened here?” He patted her cheek, but she did not respond.
It did not take long for Cade to espy the remains of the syringe. He picked it up carefully, the long needle pointed away from him. “What have you done?”
“Listen, Old Button—”
Cade rose in one swift move. Anger suffused his face the likes of which the professor had never seen before. “What have you done?”
“It’s just morphia,” the professor said. “She’ll come out of it soon enough. She was trying to leave, Cade.”
“How much?”
“What?”
“How much did you give her?”
“Well, er, the whole thing, except for a little that didn’t get in before she pulled the needle out.”
Cade smashed the glass tube at the professor’s feet. The professor stepped back, stunned by Cade’s ferocity.
“A full syringe? You old fool, were you trying to kill her?”
The professor hastened back another step, astonished by this side of his student, a side he’d never witnessed before. “She’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”
“You had no right.”
“I had every right. I could have given her to the Inspectors long ago.”
“But you did not because she is an artifact of the old realm.”
“I did not because, yes, her presence here is fascinating. I thought perhaps she’d have some knowledge the opposition could use, as well.”
“She is a human being,” Cade said.
“And so are we all. By not giving her to the Inspectors, I’ve kept her from harm at great personal risk. And you should know more than most that I’ve grown very fond of her.”
Cade’s expression of disgust rocked the professor. No, not just disgust, but something far worse: disappointment. He saw it in Cade’s eyes, how he had failed him, his student, his protégé, his young friend. Cade had thought better of him. Thought his professor better than one who would stoop to such a tactic to silence Karigan. The professor saw it now, how he’d acted as thuggishly as one of the emperor’s minions. He saw it reflected in Cade’s eyes.
Not only have I wronged Karigan, he thought, but I’ve betrayed the values I was teaching Cade, that we could be better than the empire. Now he’d lost Cade’s respect, the last person he’d ever wanted to hurt. Something withered inside him with the shame.
Cade pointed at him, ready to make another accusation, when he was interrupted by pounding. Pounding that rang all the way up the nearest stairwell. Someone was hammering on the boarded up door that was one of the original entrances to the old mill.
Both men froze, then the professor said, “We’ve been found.”
THE TAILRACE
“Inspectors?” Cade asked anxiously.
The professor did not answer, but ran to the stairwell. In the light that leaked out of the room onto the landing, he spotted the discreet cabinet mounted on the wall. He opened it, and within gleamed the brass eyepiece and hand-crank wheel of a periscope. He’d installed one in each stairwell. He’d had to purchase the parts and build them himself. Buying a finished device would have drawn unwanted imperial scrutiny.