Free The Time Roads by Beth Bernobich

when she argued a theory. It was hard to accept that she was dead.
    A breeze ruffled the Blackwater’s surface, drawing silvery lines over the dark waters—waters that had cradled the murderer’s first victim. The season had been early spring, the soft twilight air filled with newly blooming flowers.
    “Did you like her?” Ó Deághaidh asked.
    Síomón thrust his hands into his pockets to still their trembling. “I—I respected her greatly, Commander Ó Deághaidh.”
    “What about the others?”
    “Are you asking if I liked them, or respected them?”
    “Both. I’m sorry to disturb you with these questions, when you’ve surely answered them before.”
    You know I have not, Síomón thought. When they interviewed him five months ago, the gardaí had merely requested an accounting of his activities for every night the murderer struck. No one had asked Síomón about personal matters, nor had they requested his opinion of his fellow students’ abilities. He suspected the provost had used his political influence to shield the students, and thus protected the university against further scandal.
    But Ó Deághaidh was evidently waiting for some kind of response. “I knew them all,” Síomón said. “In some cases, I knew more than I liked. It’s a large university, but a small department—the graduate department, that is.”
    Ó Deághaidh nodded. “The Queen’s Constabulary is much like that.”
    Síomón’s pulse gave a sudden painful leap. The Queen’s Constabulary of Éire normally concerned itself with only royal affairs. But then he remembered Maeve’s family. Lord Ó Cadhla was a high-ranking minister in Éire’s government and adviser to the queen. It was his influence, no doubt, that had brought Commander Ó Deághaidh to Awveline City.
    “You look unsettled, Mr. Madóc.”
    Síomón ran his hand over his face. “I am more than unsettled. I am distressed. It’s a hard thing, to hear that a friend has died.”
    And you gave me that news without warning. Then watched to see how I acted.
    But he knew better than to say so to a stranger, much less a member of the Queen’s Constabulary.
    Ó Deághaidh himself appeared unmoved by Síomón’s outburst. He motioned toward the path. “I understand your distress,” he said. “But come, let us keep walking.”
    After a moment’s hesitation, Síomón continued down the path. Ó Deághaidh kept pace with him with long, easy strides. They had come to a section where young ash trees bent over the path, making a leafy tunnel of green and gold. Close by, the Blackwater murmured and a dank, muddy scent filled the air. Most of the pedestrians had turned aside to the upper walkways, and they were truly alone.
    Síomón waited for the questions to continue, but once more Ó Deághaidh surprised him. “I’ve read the latest mathematical papers,” he said. “Some of the theories from Mexica are intriguing, if somewhat whimsical. Those from the West African scholars, from the Nri Republic in particular, appear more practical.”
    This time it was obvious the abrupt shifts in subject were deliberate. “You mean the theory of numbers in relationship to the production of energy?” Síomón asked.
    “Yes, those. But also the ones concerning electrical properties of certain equations.”
    He went on to explain which properties he meant, and in far greater detail than Síomón would have expected from any garda or even an officer of the Queen’s Constabulary. Indeed, Ó Deághaidh seemed unusually well informed about recent controversies and debates in the field, even about the exotic corner of number theory Síomón had chosen for his doctoral thesis.
    “How numbers affect dreams,” Ó Deághaidh said. “Is that a fair description?”
    His musing tone lulled Síomón into speaking as he would with a fellow student. “Not quite,” he said. “My theory depends upon the concept that numbers have both abstract and tangible qualities. That is, we use numbers