The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XLV

Lillian dug her phone out of her pocket. "Hello."

"Hi," Diane greeted. "I just wanted you to know some of the information we found about Beanie. Erica, Evan, Derek, and Rolf spent all day yesterday on campus searching for any signature of his efficacy, and unfortunately, they didn't find anything. Erica is back on campus today."

"Where on campus?"

"She said she was in the lobby of the thaumaturgy building, because that seemed like the most logical place."

"I'll probably see her then," Lillian replied, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder and stepping out the door. "What news did you get on the people in my dorm?"

"It took some convincing, but I eventually managed to get the names and student ID pictures of everyone in Parkview. It seems like Galena was right- he's not on the list. My next step is to pore over lists of more students. I'm going to go see if I can get a list of all students. Obviously it will take us some time to go over, but with five of us working on it I'm sure we can get it done in an hour or two. I'll be headed off to the registrar later to get that done."

"Cool," Lillian responded, shivering as she pushed open the door and walked out into the cold air. "So that will be done soon. In the meantime, do we have any valuable leads?"

"We're working on it," Diane said in a hurt tone. Lillian immediately felt guilty for snapping at her.

"Sorry, Diane, but I have to go. I'll talk to you soon." She hung up the phone before Diane had a chance to respond and stowed it back in her pocket. As she entered the thaumaturgy building, she spotted Erica seated at a table in the lobby and nodded in acknowledgement. Erica gave a small wave and watched Lillian as she climbed the stairs.

❦

Dakota swept the haphazardly scattered papers covering his desk and floor into one large pile, then began sorting them neatly into stacks based on subject matter. Suddenly, he heard loud footsteps emanating from the other side of the office and felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hi, Ashley," he said without looking up.

"I came to let you know that there's a woman from the DIAO on campus today. A thaumaturgy specialist. She's waiting for you to use thaumaturgy so she can trace it." Ashley grimaced.

Dakota gulped, lifting a pile of papers off the floor and depositing it into a sleeve in the third drawer of the filing cabinet. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Erica Heath. She graduated from here with a Barriers Emphasis three years ago."

"How long will she be here?"

"All day. You can't go into the lobby, that's where she is. When you get food, use the back stairs."

"Good to know," Dakota remarked. "They probably would have arrested me again if you hadn't told me."

"And my job is to stop that from happening."

There was silence for several seconds as Dakota cleared up another pile of papers and searched through the tabs in the file cabinet before sliding the papers into a folder. "Can you help me clean up?" he asked finally.

Ashley jerked her head, and all the remaining papers on the floor arranged themselves neatly into stacks. Books flew from all over the office into a pile near the couch, and a space cleared on the bookshelf. Dakota clapped a hand to his eye.

"I'm sure you can get it from there," she declared snarkily, and headed for the corner of the office.