Free A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer Page B

of the coffered ceiling, the depth and detail of the linen-fold paneling on the walls, and the angle and sweep of the staircase. Her expression was far more reverent than it had ever been in St. Mary’s. Jane seemed to have forgotten all about the man in the bowler hat in her worshipful admiration of the surroundings.

    â€œAre you coming?” Lambert asked.
    Jane shook herself out of her reverie, adjusted her hatpins, and followed Lambert upstairs. “Just thinking. Sorry.”
    The splendor of the place only increased as they rose from the ground level to the first-floor reading room. From floor to ceiling the room was lined with shelves, each rank served by a spiral staircase of intricate ironwork. More shelves were arranged throughout the room, yielding at intervals to great long tables of polished wood, each like a clearing in a forest. There were brass study lamps in plenty, each with its green glass shade, but they were unlit, for the room was flooded with light from the skylights overhead.
    There were only two men at work in the place, one in the robes of an archivist and the other in the short poplin gown of an undergraduate. Neither looked up as Lambert and Jane hesitated on the threshold.
    The archivist was speaking to the undergraduate. “All our senses rely on the spirit. Ficino says so quite clearly. Each sense employs its own form of spirit to convey its message. Music is transmitted through air, and air is the medium closest to the spirit itself, therefore hearing is the highest of our senses.”
    â€œWhat sort of message does smell convey?” asked the undergraduate.
    Lambert could tell from the undergraduate’s manner that they had stumbled across yet another of Glasscastle’s civil disagreements.
    â€œSmell is one of the lower senses,” the archivist replied patiently. “Taste, smell, and touch are inferior to sight and hearing.”

    â€œIs not smell transmitted through the air?” the undergraduate asked.
    Lambert debated the merits of asking the archivist if he’d noticed an intruder but decided to do so later, if at all. It took a lot of intruding to get someone to notice an outsider here. Better to run a quick check of the scholars’ studies that filled out the remainder of the building.
    This time Lambert had to take Jane’s elbow to get her to follow him away from the reading room. Even so, she looked back wistfully over her shoulder as they went on.
    â€œNone of that,” said Lambert as he started up the more modest stairs to the studies on the topmost floor. “Remember what happened to Orpheus and Eurydice.”
    â€œThat was hell. This is heaven.” Jane followed Lambert. “You’ve studied Greek, then? Or at least the Greek myths?”
    â€œI told you where I went to school. Must you make me come right out and admit I never studied much of anything?” Lambert urged her on. “When I was in London, I went to Covent Garden a few times, that’s all. I saw the opera there.”
    â€œDid you like it?”
    â€œIt was pretty good.” Lambert couldn’t help smiling. It had been wonderful.
    â€œWhat on earth led you to the Royal Opera?” Jane asked.
    â€œWell, I went to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City quite a few times. That’s how I found out I liked opera.”
    â€œBut what made you decide to go in the first place?”
    â€œIt was a stunt to plug the show back when we were playing New York. Some of us went along in full costume to see that new one by Puccini. The Girl of the Golden West .”

    â€œYou liked that one?”
    â€œNever laughed so hard in my whole life. But the music was kind of pretty.” After a moment, Lambert added, “Yes. I liked it.”
    On the next floor, a corridor ran in a rectangle around the perimeter of the structure, with small rooms opening off either side. Each Fellow of Glasscastle had a right to a room devoted to