The Unskillful Thaumaturge

IX

Focusing on the meeting does sound more interesting than criticizing you. The voice clammed up and did not speak again.

"Perfect," Dakota murmured. "What did she say again?" The Crave lobby by the microwave, two o'clock. He would make sure to get his lunch ready before she arrived, then claim the table in front of the microwave, which he was certain she would ensure was unoccupied. He shook himself out of the thoughts- that was the voice's job, not his- and returned to his grading, marking the score neatly next to the third survey question.

☙❧

"What did you just say?"

Galena's expression displayed a mixture of confusion and surprise as she gave her mother a significant look. Even more disconcerting, Ashley turned away from the road and returned the look, adding a dash of puzzlement.

"Mom! I've told you to keep your eyes on the road!"

"I'm safe, you're safe, the car's safe, Galena," her mother reassured her, although she did turn her head to gaze out of the windshield. "And yes, I did tell you I was going to meet with someone today. I have friends too, you know."

"Yeah, I know, I just didn't think you had any friends in Dorena."

"Well, it's all right to be wrong sometimes. I'll walk, it's only at the university."

"But that's a few miles away from home!"

"I'll walk," Ashley repeated. "I would like to go sightseeing again afterwards, though."

"Oh, come on, what is there to see?"

"The university," she replied matter-of-factly.

Galena rolled her eyes. "Trust me, there isn't much." Ashley pulled into the parking lot of her daughter's apartment and carefully parked the car in a tiny compact space, trying her best to slip out the door without scratching the neighboring vehicle. Galena barely fit through the tiny opening but finally made it through scratch-free. Trotting after her mother, she entered the building, bypassing the elevator and levitator, and headed up the stairs. She pulled the key out of her pocket and fit it into the lock, entering the apartment and flopping down on a chair. Her mother walked in behind her and did likewise.

"So, why are you so interested in seeing the university?" Galena asked.

☙❧

Rolf paced around his apartment, from one side of the tiny kitchen to the other, trying to fit it all together. In his hand he held a small red spiral notebook in which he was attempting to take notes about the case.

The leads?

Lillian's blood test had come out normally. Yes, she was smart, smart enough to be in college at fifteen, but Rolf didn't see that fact as exceptionally relevant. The man who had visited her... well, it could be a man or a woman or a potted plant, since it was really just an illusion, but had for some reason decided to put up an illusion of this dead boy from forty years ago. Not only that, but this man or woman or potted plant had dropped a key. And the key, as Rolf could attest, was not an illusion. They hadn't yet figured out what it opened, but their best guesses were either a desk drawer or a filing cabinet. The fingerprints on the key matched Lillian's and the dead kid, and Rolf had no idea how those fingerprints could have been faked so perfectly. It was certainly complicated, and he couldn't quite figure out how to solve it.

Yes, they were still waiting for the DNA results, and yes, the DNA results could bring something important into the case, but then again, they could also be normal like the blood test. Rolf wouldn't know whether to be surprised if they were. After all these years, the DIAO was making progress, but only a little progress before another dead end. At least there was something to investigate.

They couldn't even do tests on the dead kid. Along with all material traces of his existence, he had been buried shortly after he died. No known cause of death. The clothes and the mirror with him.

A hand mirror, Rolf thought curiously. Strange thing for a vagrant to be carrying around. I mean, you think he would care more about getting food and finding a place to sleep than how he looked. No thaumaturgy involved, either- it had taken place in an age where young children read stories about magic and their parents shook their heads forlornly when asked whether it was real.

Of course, Rolf couldn't really know- he had been barely thirteen at the time of the Thaumatogenesis, and was never interested in that kind of thing anyway. He was indeed part of the lucky generation, the group who had been children when thaumaturgical research began and had slipped into college thaumaturgy programs just as they began to flourish. Rolf's thaumaturgy degree was a testament to this era.

Galena, who had been seven when the Thaumatogenesis occurred, was in a different group altogether, which in some ways made it difficult for them to work together- he, who had given up "magic" several years before the Thaumatogenesis, and she, who was just starting to get excited about it at the time. As a result, he had noticed that she was more creative in thaumaturgical matters, perhaps because she was not inclined to view it as a fully serious field of study. True, tell anyone twenty years ago that you were studying "how to do magic" in college and they would laugh in your face, but now, it was gradually being taken seriously.

Rolf shook himself out of this tangent and scribbled something down in the red spiral notebook with a blue pen.