The Last Page

“Miss Iilool . . . what were you doing alone in the library after bells with a boy?” He impersonated the slow deep voice remarkably considering the pressure on his throat. Sena’s smile at the mimicry was brief and unpleasant.

“What were you looking for?” she asked.

“If I tell you, it will sort of defeat the purpose—”

“You were doing something in the library yesterday.” She scowled thoughtfully and kept the blade on him. “Pranking someone, were you? Stealing a book before finals?”

Caliph looked into her face with an expression of profound malice. For an instant she drew back.

“You think I’d tell?” She extricated her leg and pulled herself up. Caliph picked up a piece of Tanara’s nose. He flipped it, then used it to point at her.

“If you cross me—”

“I won’t!” She sounded deeply insulted, almost hurt by the insinuation. “I promise.”

“You don’t strike me as particularly trustworthy.”

She snorted. “Probably the same as you.”

“What can you possibly know about me?”

“Everyone knows Caliph Howl, carnally or otherwise.”

“Of course. So stupid. I’m one of the Naked Eight.” There was an element of shame, a hint of vulnerability in his voice that he recognized and quickly hardened. “You were in the courtyard with everyone else that day—”

“That’s who it is then. You’re sabotaging Roric Feldman’s senior exam. For that wretched joke he played on you when you were a freshman.”

When he didn’t answer she went on. “You must’ve been planning this . . . for a long time.”

“I don’t care if you think . . .”

“Relax. Why should I care?” She stood up and took a step backward. “I don’t just know you from the pillory, you know?”

She leaned back against the railing, her posture seemed to communicate a series of wordless invitations.

“Oh? Where else have I been locked under your view?” He glanced up furtively. The memory of her body pressed against him made it difficult to think. She had been warm and light, yet surprisingly strong. His voice leveled, turned cautious. He wasn’t about to take her bait. Though he had pretended not to know her, everyone knew Sena Iilool.

“You were ranked second best swordsman last year,” she was saying.

Caliph couldn’t tell if she was being serious.

“You’re not even supposed to know that legerdemain. That’s way beyond sixth year holo . . .”

“Thanks,” Caliph interrupted, “for the documentary. But I’m not your fool.”

“I didn’t say you were . . . yet.”

“Go piss up a rope.”

“I’d get wet. And besides, holomorphy is my first discipline. I think we should study together.”

Caliph snorted.

“You think I need you? Just because every boy here follows you around like a trained sledge newt . . . I’m well ahead in my studies. I don’t need a . . .” He didn’t know what to classify her as and classifying her as a distraction would betray the what? Infatuation? Lust? . . . that was rapidly thickening inside him.

“Co-conspirator?” Her suggestion startled him. “Look,” she said, “I know you don’t want to wind up teaching here like everybody else. I know who you are.” She floated from the railing and sank down in front of him.

“I’m Caliph Howl,” he said directly into her face as though it were the most ordinary name in the world.

She grinned.

“I’ve got myself a king.”

Her face was uncomfortably close, her breath sweet and startling as black licorice. Caliph could barely keep from kissing her lips despite the arrogance that snarled behind them.

“I thought you were seeing a lad,” he mumbled.

“I was,” Sena deadpanned. “Did you get the tickets?”

Caliph made the southern hand sign for yes.

“Then come on, we’re going to be late for the play.”

CHAPTER 3

It hits Sena on her second visit that Morgan Gullows’ office is not on the brink of relocating to one of Githum Hall’s sunny upstairs chambers. The pile of laundry, the lopsided stacks of cardboard boxes, the books, the coffee mugs: none of it has moved.

The mushy darkness is riddled with pipes and objects shrouded in deeper gloom. Sena is familiar with the smell, a previously unidentifiable mustiness she recognizes from all face-to-face encounters with her employer.

Teacher’s aide. Hmphf. Teacher’s maid is what he needs!

Sena wrinkles her nose. There is a leather chair behind the desk, crippled from years of supporting the professor’s enormous carcass. It leans heavily to one side, seams burst, stuffing quite literally pressed out of it.

Sena gets straight to her task, following the bizarre instructions Morgan has given her for locating Brunts’ A Dictum of Calculating Light in the office- shaped waste bin.

She hoists a pair of soiled trousers and discovers a crumb-covered saucer and a foil wrapper whose yellow oil has drained down half a sheaf of midterms. These, she pushes aside. Below, are a stack of books whose weight has caved in the top of a cardboard box. Under the box is Brunts’ work, which she jerks free. Coming with it into her hand is a careless half-sheet, brown with dry spillage. It is written in Morgan’s handwriting and she can’t help glancing it over.

Csrym T?

The little sheet contains two references to Bode Royal wherein a codex is described, bound in clshydra hide. The references sound amusingly theosophic but after delivering Brunts’ work to the professor, Sena goes to the library on a whim and fills out a form that grants her twenty minutes with Bode Royal.

The references are real.

She gets a twinge in her stomach and decides to start chipping at the legend of the Csrym T. The more she chips the harder it becomes to dig out new leads. After several semesters, the amount of information she’s gleaned fills only two and a half pages. The legend jumps between books, like a bird darting through trees, tracing its history across millennia, in and out of obscurity. She chases it relentlessly. One of the most outlandish rumors linked to it concerns the lock and a corresponding recipe supposedly needed to open it. No key. Just a list of ingredients. The formula makes her stomach turn.

She spends two weeks cross-checking the recipe’s veracity on the top floor of the library, coming to the conclusion that it has been translated exactly in four different languages when, out of a glaring white ogive, Caliph Howl invites her to a play.

When she learned about Caliph’s plot against Roric Feldman, she took a hiatus from her pet project in order to analyze the heir.

But getting inside his head, she realized, would require a seduction. She baited him, employed several previously infallible methods to which he maddeningly did not succumb. She could tell that he viewed the school code as a narrow ledge and her as a liability. Getting him to crack became a game . . . there was a certain purity to him that poured warmth into her stomach. But his crush on her was growing.

It happened later in the Woodmarsh Building, against a backdrop of gray paint and bloodless creatures floating in jars. They had been alone, doing labs, looking through the monocular at slides and taking notes.

She was intentionally unbuttoned, just enough to reveal the ruffle of lace cupping her breasts. She had worn