Free A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer Page A

would you rather see the stained glass in St. Joseph’s or stop to take a look at some of the buildings on the way?”
    â€œOh, by all means, we must stop on the way. Any chance of having a little snoop behind the scenes? Watching the scholars of magic as they conduct their research?”
    Lambert considered showing Jane around Fell’s study. She’d enjoy it if Fell weren’t there. Maybe even if he was. If Fell were there, he’d hate to have his work interrupted by sociability. Being polite to Jane might be fit punishment for making Lambert worry. Savoring the mental image of Fell’s pained reaction to Jane’s hat, let alone a whole visit from such a fashionable young lady, Lambert steered Jane out of St. Mary’s and along the path toward the Winterset Archive.
    â€œIsn’t it a lovely morning?” Despite her stylishly narrow skirt, Jane matched Lambert stride for stride with no apparent effort. “Amy tells me this has been the rainiest summer she can remember. She said the university boat race had to be canceled and rowed over. I can’t imagine it. She says Cambridge sank at Harrod’s wharf and Oxford only made it as far as Chiswick Eyot before they sank too.”
    Lambert stopped in his tracks, and said, “That’s odd.”
    There was a main door to the archive building but the side door, facing out on Midsummer Green, was visible from their vantage point on the neatly swept path. To his surprise, Lambert recognized the man leaving the archive building by cutting across the green to the quadrangle path as the stocky man in the bowler hat he’d seen at the gate.
    â€œThat’s very odd. That man must be a Fellow. No one else is qualified to walk on the grass all by himself. But he was just ahead of us to sign in at the gate.”
    â€œHe does seem in a bit of a hurry, doesn’t he?” Jane watched the man’s rapid departure with interest. “One doesn’t often see a man in a bowler hat actually bustling. They always look as if they’re just about to, but they seldom really do.”
    â€œExcuse me.” Lambert approached the corner where the man’s route would intersect their graveled path. “May I help you? Sir? Hey !”
    Without a second glance at them, the bowler-hatted man broke into a run. In moments he was through the stone arch of the great gate, lost from sight.
    â€œHow extraordinary!” Jane started back toward the gate, then hesitated as she noticed Lambert wasn’t coming with her. “Who was that? Do you know him?”

    Lambert stood staring after the man. Downright peculiar, that had been.
    â€œI wonder what he was doing in there,” said Jane. “Shall we follow him or shall we go investigate?”
    The rate the man had been running, Lambert calculated he’d be long gone by the time they cleared the gate. “It’s probably nothing. But I think we should at least take a quick look in the archive, just to make sure everything’s in order. Whoever he was, I don’t think he belongs here.”
    Lambert and Jane entered the Winterset Archive by the side door, since the man in the bowler hat had left that way. They paused in the doorway to listen. The customary silence of the archive held sway. There was a distinctive quality to the quiet there. Lambert had noticed it on previous visits. It was a very busy silence, a silence composed of human concentration, not only of the activity of the moment but somehow of the long years of concentration that had gone on there since the construction of the building. The place smelled of books and book bindings, wood and wax. To Lambert, it smelled like wisdom.
    Lambert led the way through side passages to the foot of the main staircase and started to climb. Three steps up the creaking wooden stair, Lambert noticed Jane wasn’t following him. He turned back. Jane was still at the foot of the stair, gazing up at the height