The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XXII

At around one fifteen, Lillian finally arrived at the hospital to talk to Galena. Diane met her at the entrance, walking into the front desk. "Let's hope they let us in," she muttered, then turned her head to face the man at the front desk. "We're here to see a Galena Tarmont," she briskly informed him. He took a minute to shuffle through the papers on his desk and then slowly looked up at her. "Two at a time."

"We have two," she replied, annoyed.

He looked back down and moved more papers around on his desk. "Name and relation?" This time he didn't even bother to look up.

"Diane Brill, coworker," she began, then looked at Lillian, who noted the displeased expression on the man's face and improvised. "Lillian Bankhurst, test subject." Immediately, he glanced back up at the pair, but by this time Diane had already removed her ID from her wallet and was sticking it into the receptionist's face. "D-I-A-O," she pronounced slowly.

"Room 307," he replied, sounding somewhat intimidated. Lillian tilted her chin and began walking down the hall after Diane, feeling the beginnings of a smile.

"What time did you say Galena woke up?"

"Apparently it was really close to nine. She says it was 9:01 when she actually woke up and 9:05 when she called for assistance."

"My eye was twitching both at what I documented to be 8:57 and 9:01. So what if the second one and Galena waking up were related?"

Diane sighed. "You know, Lillian, maybe it's time to drop the entire twitchy eye thing. It's pretty subjective and seems kind of illogical."

"It's not subjective. Yesterday, right when the prisoner started escaping, Galena's and my eye were twitching at the same frequency. And then my eye twitched when Galena woke up. It has definitely done so in the past. And I know it seems sketchy, but do you remember what happened the last time I gave you guys a tip?"

"What?"

"That tip turned out to be extremely important and, if I'm right, is now your main lead. And that was pretty sketchy too."

"Are you talking about the prisoner?"

"Of course I'm talking about the prisoner. It was a useful lead. And now when I give you something else that might be important, you dismiss it. Not just you- everyone else as well. And I feel like now I'm only necessary so that you can follow up on your end of the deal and keep me updated." Lillian walked in front of Diane and stared her in the face. "I may not have a thaumaturgy degree, but I can help you here, okay? Will you just wait and listen to what Galena says about this?"

"Okay, fine. My question is, why just you and Galena? Why not all the rest of us? I mean, there's an obvious reason why you would be involved, but Galena?"

"Look, I don't know why, I'm just saying, it's probably pretty significant. You can't just ignore it because it seems illogical. So much about this case is already illogical that one more strange thing shouldn't be surprising. You are supposed to be investigating anomalous occurrences, right?"

❧☙

As quickly and discreetly as possible, Dakota stood up and dropped his salad and boxed juice into the top drawer of his file cabinet, closed it and pulled them out of the drawer beneath. Hurriedly he stowed them in a lunch bag and slipped into a dark jacket before rushing out of his office and down the hall. Soon, he finally made it out the doors of the thaumaturgy building, pulling the jacket close around his neck to combat the sudden wave of cold air.

You had better not get arrested this time, the voice complained.

"Look, I wasn't trying to get arrested, and it wasn't such a big deal, so please just stop bothering me about it," Dakota muttered, walking briskly towards the park. When he passed the low stone wall that separated the park from the university, he began wondering whether venturing into the park was actually safe in the first place. What if he got caught again? After all, he was practically in the DIAO's backyard. They had arrested him at the bus stop, although it had been pretty much by chance.

But the woman in the car had to have been there for a reason, right?

Dakota realized almost immediately what Ashley had been going to say earlier that week, and the truth of what he had already said.

After I take my daughter to work.

Her daughter. The woman in the car, the woman working to investigate him, was Ashley's daughter. He had already known about her eye twitching when he had broken out. She must have been dropping her mother off at the bus stop, had seen him talking to her and had called in reinforcements to arrest him.

Despite the realization of all this, it took several seconds for Dakota to register that he probably looked much more suspicious standing in the park and staring blankly into the distance than casually walking toward the café. He looked to his left and right to confirm that no one was watching him and then continued on his route.

❧☙

Galena raised her head and gazed foggily at her two visitors, watching as their faces slowly came into focus. She immediately recognized Lillian and Diane.

"Are you okay, Galena?" someone said.

"I guess so..." she muttered through a scratchy throat.

"What did he do to you?" Lillian asked hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"I'm not sure it's related to what he did. I was just unconscious for a while and now I'm sore and thirsty." She indicated a glass of water next to the bed. "Thankfully they've been working on that. At least the thirsty part." She shot a glare in Diane's direction.

"You were blacked out, all right. Do you know what... what happened?"

"I can just tell you the whole thing- it's easier. My eye was twitching and I went down to check on what he was doing and the space around him was kind of warped."

"Warped?" Diane cut in.

"You know when you see artists' conceptions of black holes and the area around them looks kind of weird?" Diane took a minute to think, while Lillian nodded immediately. "Gravitational lensing."

"What?"

"Gravitational lensing is what it's called, at least for black holes. But there's no way that's what it was. If he had that much mass, it would seriously disrupt pretty much everything."

"So that's not what it is?"

Lillian scoffed. "It's impossible. High efficacy or not, that would require an unfathomably large amount of energy. Trust me, you would know. And I'm not saying that it's impossible in the way that everything else this man has done is impossible. It's completely out of the question."

"Okay, sure. So if it wasn't gravitational lensing, what was it?" Diane wondered, looking pointedly at Lillian, who waved her hands in the air. "I have no idea! I'm not a thaumaturgist! I think you're overthinking it, though- it's probably just an illusion."

"Anyway..." Galena continued, waiting until both Lillian and Diane were looking at her. "Yes, it was warped. The lights started flickering and then the door opened. And what was weird was that even though the door slammed into the wall, I couldn't hear anything, just my own breathing. And he walked out and came up to me and said a few words, and then I blacked out."

"Do you remember what they were?"

"I wrote them down as soon as I woke up." She passed Lillian and Diane a slip of paper, and they looked over it for a moment. Then Lillian looked back up at Galena, clearly confused. "Are you sure this is what he said?"

"I'm sure."

"He apologized?"