Michel Rosenthal (michelrosenthal) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2009-01-07 17:18:00 |
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Current mood: | uncomfortable |
Thursday afternoon, 17 September 1942, at the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Michel Rosenthal was annoyed with Hypatia Scalara. She was being incredibly petty and for someone who loved arithmancy, she had no appreciation whatsoever for the students she should have treasured the most. He would probably have taken the time to tell her exactly what he thought of her, without sparing anyone’s feelings—after all, he was here with the War Bureau behind him—but he had a seminar or two to plan.
And Juliana was with him again. Michel had had other students who loved the field as much, and who were probably equally talented, and her real talents lay in applied harmonics, more than pure arithmantic theory. But she was just so…sparklingly brilliant. She lit up a room and suffused it with energy. She cared so much about everything. Even him. Maybe even especially him, which he had always found something of a mystery. Callebaut and de Valois had been equally impressed with her mind, but she liked him best, even though Callebaut had been his teacher, once.
Liane was leading him down the halls now, and he was thoroughly lost. She was setting such a fast pace that he was reminded of the way she’d run through the halls at Ker-Ys as a child, losing ribbons and pins and catching her skirts on things, bouncing and jumping and…well, she’d laughed before. Now she only laughed when they were working. Her expression was grim as she marched through the halls, glaring so that people got out of their way without speaking, and he wondered what had happened to change her so much. Was it his fault? She’d always had problems getting along with other people her age—so had he, after all, and so had Yvon and Séverine—but never like this. She’d never let it bother her this much, before.
It took him a moment to register that she was grumbling under her breath; fortunately, she repeated herself for his benefit. “I have never been so tempted in all my life as I was to tell that woman I quoted her when I needed to convince the German arithmancers that I was a stupid whore and not someone who was worthy of their attention.”
Michel laughed out loud. “You didn’t! You’ll have to tell Lavinia that.”
“I did, I actually mentioned that in one of my letters, I thought…maybe it was in my diary?” Liane stopped in her tracks and looked up at him; her voice had softened. Her face was red, flushed—with anger, maybe, or embarrassment—he wasn’t good at naming those things. “Yesterday was a blur, I’m afraid. It wasn’t even one of the top ten worst days of my life, because I did survive an occupation—but it wasn’t what I’d call fun.”
“I’m sorry,” Michel said; he wanted to say that to her all the time, just in case it was his fault that she had changed so much. He couldn’t help thinking he should have done something, even though he had had numerous protégés over the years and she was hardly the only one he had left behind. He felt responsible for her. Maybe it was because her father had all but dumped her on Séverine, who had been little more than a child herself, and he’d been teacher and mentor to both of them once. “But today is better, I hope?”
“Today is the best day so far,” said Liane, and stopped right in the middle of the corridor and looked up at him seriously. “I mean that. I know that there will be better days than this, but today…is the best so far. And it was your letters that got me through yesterday.” She flushed. “I can’t wait to get started on some serious work. I want to win this bloody war and grind them into the dust. So deep in the dust that they don’t ever dare to come back!”
Michel nodded, a little alarmed by her fervour. He understood the sentiments. He just wasn’t used to seeing her like this. “We can’t talk about anything you’ll be doing until we’re back at the Ministry, but I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.”
“Just the chance to do my own research without having to hide it from everyone around me, and to win this, so we can set everything right again…and to do it with you…” Liane sighed, and glanced down at her feet. “It’s more than I’ve dared to hope. For a long time.”
Michel smiled at her. He didn’t know what she’d been through or why he was so important to this. He only knew that her work was elegant, sometimes chillingly so, and that he would have done almost anything humanly possible to see her smile the way she had as a child. And there were lesson plans to write. “Well, first we have another seminar to teach. I’ve really missed teaching—it’s a shame I can’t talk about anything I’ve been working on, but I was thinking about doing some practical examples on how easy it is to accidentally reveal secrets.”
Liane laughed and looked back up at him; she was almost her old self again when they talked about teaching. “Yes…and I think also we need to get out of the hall, we’re blocking traffic.”
They were. Students were walking around them, but some of them were hanging back and staring at them, too. She was right, they needed to go. “Where?”
Liane thought for a moment; he could almost see suggestions flit through her mind as she rejected them. “There are some empty classrooms on the second floor,” she finally said.
“That sounds good,” Michel agreed.
Liane took his arm and led him through the halls at the same fast pace. “I barely remember where things are myself, but you’ve never been here before,” she said, pointedly ignoring the looks people gave them.
Michel nodded. “I’ve heard stories about this place. Things move around, don’t they?”
Liane groaned. “Not down here in the main part of the keep, at least I hope not,” she said. “They’re only supposed to move when Goyle or Mathers tells them to, but you know all about ‘supposed to’. Valeria Malaspina—she came here with me—went on a tour with Tom Forrester last night, but from what she told me she learned more about Tom than she learned about the castle. Of course I think that was the plan in the first place.” She flushed, then, again, her face even redder than it had been before.
Michel grinned. He didn’t have any idea who those people were, but students were the same no matter where they were. “Sounds like you’ve made at least some friends here.”
“I met Valeria at the Leffoy estates. She’s Nicodemo Malaspina’s daughter, which makes her Lady Dracaena’s stepdaughter. I…haven’t really had time to make friends here. Some of your cousins made a point of making friends with me, but I think they were checking me out to make sure that I didn’t have awful designs of some sort. And Colette Saint-Germain’s been busy making me enemies, so most of the friends I’ve made here, were made for me by the papers I published two years ago.” Liane shrugged.
“Oh, yes. The boy with the dangerous designs.” Michel grinned, although he couldn’t imagine why his cousins would think Liane had any unpleasant plans for him. “I know a couple of researchers at the Ministry like that. But why would Colette want to be your enemy?”
Liane’s cheeks darkened and she glanced away. “I suppose I should tell you,” she said. “I did promise I would. But…not yet?” She glanced at him. “Not in the halls.”
Michel nodded. It was probably better not to discuss this where people could hear them. He had noticed that some of the people in the afternoon lecture had been staring at Liane, and that some of it had been curiosity, and some of it had been outright hostility. People were talking about her; he noticed patterns, and that was a pattern he hadn’t much liked. Even now, they were being talked about. But young teachers with pretty students—and Liane was so beautiful—were always talked about. His mother had warned him about it, he’d been through it with other girls, and it hadn’t been true, then, either.
Once they were well out of earshot of anyone else, Liane began to speak softly. “I did some undercover work. I think I told you that. I didn’t have a lot of good choices; but I was able to turn a bad situation to my own advantage, and the advantage of the Resistance. For a while.” She swallowed, and thrust open the door to one of the empty classrooms. It was empty, and she turned and looked up at him. “You won’t think less of me? Because I set my work aside and pretended to be exactly the thing you were most afraid I’d become?”
“Oh,” said Michel, surprised, and shook his head. He had worried that she would give up her work because he worried like that about all of his talented students, and because Séverine had done that, but he hadn’t been nearly as worried about her as he had about others. She loved her work too much; it would have been like giving up breathing. He just hated to see her trying to fit herself into the moulds that other people had made for her. “No, of course not. That’s actually one of the things I was planning on talking about—sometimes, in order to keep a secret from the enemy, you also have to keep it from your friends. Even if it means they have to think the worst of you.”
Liane nodded, and glanced down at her feet. “I was Albrecht von Thorwald’s mistress for nearly a year,” she said quietly, “and he took over the Académie de Ker-Ys, you know.” She shrugged, as if to minimise it. “I would have done anything to bring them down. I thought they had murdered you. You. And your whole family. You. With all your brilliance and promise. Gone. So Colette hates me. There, it’s out; now you know.” She shrugged again, and glanced away, her expression quite nearly defiant. The same way she’d looked when she’d told him that Reynard Saint-Germain had asked her to sleep with him, when she was fourteen, and he’d told her he thought it wasn’t a very good idea, and he certainly hoped she’d be careful.
Michel was shocked. Not because of the sex—it was an easy way for female spies to get the information they needed, and Liane had always turned heads, most often the wrong ones—but because she had been so young. She’d only been fifteen when he’d left Armorica. She couldn’t be more than seventeen now. Boys had always been interested in her, and he had hated that, because they had never appreciated her mind or her interests, only her physical beauty. But…a grown man had taken Liane as a mistress, over a year ago? “I don’t blame you for that,” he said hurriedly, realising how ashamed of it she was, despite the front she maintained. “Any of it. It’s…actually a fairly common approach for female spies to take. And it’s partly my fault that you thought I had died. Or Vincent’s fault, anyway. He insisted that we had to leave immediately without telling anyone.”
“It wasn’t my choice to become his mistress,” Liane said, looking up at him with a wary expression. “That was Domitian’s idea, but there was really no way that I could have said no and survived. If I hadn’t I would have been sent to Transylvania, and they’d have made me work for them. I would rather have died, than to let them have what I’d figured out. They would have ripped it out of my mind and killed me, or put me under some curse to make me work for them. Even Callebaut and Céline thought that would be worse, so they played along with me…” She swallowed. “Albrecht is…not very bright about the occult sciences; it was easy to fool him. He’s one of those pretentiously artistic sorts. It was harder to fool his examiners, but he was in charge; if Domitian hadn’t handed me over to him, I might have tried to seduce him anyway.” She winced. “I don’t blame you or Vincent for anything you did. No more than I would Séverine. We all thought we had more time…and I did help keep them out of Britannia.”
All Michel could think was that she was incredibly brave. He had always known she was a daredevil on a broom, but he would not have credited her with the fortitude to face something so horrible, at so young an age, with such determination. If von Thorwald had managed to make her work for him, the enemy would already have been using those equations. And he did not want to think about the wreck they would have made of her beautiful mind.
But she seemed to think that he should be ashamed of her. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would be, but she seemed to think it was possible. He slid one arm around her shoulders, and was relieved when all the stiffness went out of her. She might not blame him, but he felt guilty nonetheless, and he was sure that his brother would, too. “I’m sorry this had to happen to you, but you’re safe now, and I will never think less of you for anything you had to do to survive.”
Liane closed her eyes and hugged him with all her strength, letting herself lean on him for a moment; when she opened her eyes, she kissed each of his cheeks. It was a normal Armorican greeting, albeit a very familiar one, and he wasn’t sure why it was making him blush, but he could feel the heat in his face. “I’m safe now,” she told him. “Now that I have a place in the world. Now that I know you’re safe, too.”
Michel smiled and pulled her closer, holding her tightly. He was still worried about her—he’d seen what the work that Vincent and Séverine and Céline did had done to them—but she was here now, and she seemed to have come out of it relatively unscathed. And her concern for him was touching. Troubling, but touching. “I’m safe, don’t worry, and you do have a place. Lavinia is looking forward to working with you, although you may end up being the one teaching her.”
Liane laughed. “I’m sure there is a lot she can teach me too,” she said, and looked up at him, smiling the way she had when she was a child.
Michel didn’t want to let her go. Not now and maybe not ever. But that smile made him feel so strange. It was almost exactly the same as it had been when she was eleven, but it was affecting him in a different way; he was uncomfortably aware that she was grown up now, and that it was inappropriate. If Scalara could see them now, she’d certainly send for Mathers and Goyle. He let her go, with a light little push, and sat down at the desk. She perched on the edge of the desk like she’d done in Scalara’s classroom.
Michel winced. When had she started wearing such short skirts? If he didn’t stop looking at her like this he was going to end up having some sort of involuntary physical reaction that had more to do with the fact that he hadn’t been this close to a woman since leaving Armorica than with arithmancy or with her, and that would be really inappropriate, not to mention potentially very upsetting for her, after everything she had been through. She was his friend and his colleague and someone who had survived some terrible things, and she was seventeen years old.
Why was she looking at him like that? They’d completely lost track of what they were supposed to be talking about. If he didn’t get this under control, Lavinia wouldn’t let them work together. “So, the seminar. I think we should have one for the prefects and Inquisitorial Squad after the main one. Some of them may be working for the War Bureau soon, and they need to know something about what we do.”
Liane smiled, although she was blushing now, and had pulled her skirt down over her knees. “You want to do two seminars?”
Michel noticed her reaction and hoped it wasn’t because he was making a fool of himself, though she did seem to be terribly forgiving of him at the moment. “Yes. One to cover the basics and get people interested, because I do miss teaching, and another one for, well, recruiting.” He grinned. “Not that I’m going to come out and say that. Scalara is suspicious enough as it is.”
Liane laughed. “She’s not in here, you know!” she said, with obvious relief. “You can say whatever you like to me…when have we ever not spoken our minds to each other directly? When, since I was a child? It used to upset people so.”
“I know,” Michel said, nodding. “I just don’t want her to think I’m going to be stealing any more of her students.”
“I don’t see how she could think otherwise,” said Liane. “Although she’s good at what she does, there’s not much call for it these days.” She reached out in his direction, and then stopped herself. “Addie is awfully brilliant, and she has absolutely no idea. I was like that a long time ago, but I hardly remember it now. She should really have figured this out a long time ago. Scalara, I mean. Not Addie. How would she know? We all think everyone else can see what we see.”
“I just don’t understand Professor Scalara,” Michel said mournfully. “How could she overlook someone with such obvious talent?”
“I’d say that it’s because she’s got her head stuck so far up Da’ath she can almost see Atziluth,” Liane said crossly. “Of course, you know, that makes you insane.” She smiled at him. “I think Moruith likes her though. That’ll be great. We can all be friends in Londinium. Lady Dracaena is trying to shut this place down, and Addie will have to work with us then. It’ll be good for them to be friends. Don’t you think?”
“Of course,” Michel said, though he was beginning to feel a little irritable; they needed to concentrate. “Why wouldn’t they be friends? Addie is brilliant. But…back to work?”
Liane nodded. “You’re the boss,” she conceded.
“I think you should pull over a chair and sit down here with me,” said Michel. “It’s better if I don’t have to…look up at you.”
“All right,” said Liane in a soft voice, blushing again as she went and fetched the chair. “So. Which group do you want to start planning for first? I promise I’ll be good now. Really.”
“You’re always good,” Michel said, rolling his eyes at her. He’d forgotten how annoyingly distractible she was, sometimes; she hadn’t been like that when she was twelve. “And now that we have that settled?”
Liane nodded. “To work,” she said, shaking her head. “What else?”
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