The Budding Metalinguist

XVIII

Lillian had found a new place to practice. She was using a clearing surrounded by trees in a remote area of the park.

It was probably not the best place, but it was the closest she could get to seclusion. Besides, she was using the Idea of Disguise to cloak all of her illusions and telekinesis with false thaumaturgical signatures. She felt safer here than she had in the Reading Room.

Which made her again wonder: What had Daria been doing in the Reading Room anyway? Daria was a psychology major, and she wasn't taking any mathematics courses this semester. Why had she been in the Reading Room?

And so Lillian decided that she would ask. It would be easier to just say that she had seen Daria running out of the mathematics building. She practiced what she would say using the words of an illusion of herself. After copious practice, she was now able to make her illusions speak.

However, she did not have the time to talk to Daria right then.

She had a lesson with Kern.

☙❧

"Metalinguistic transfiguration."

Dakota could tell Lillian had been expecting something like this from her expression. She stood in the center of the arena, waiting for Dakota to demonstrate. He summoned up the Idea of Transformation and pushed it into the air between them. A leaf materialized and drifted silently to the ground. It looked foreign and out of place on the slipstone pathway of the Alin Gap. Such a blatant sign of life did not belong here. This was a place of stillness and silent beauty, not to be invaded by trees.

Somehow, Lillian and Dakota belonged.

She grasped onto the Idea instantly. The air between them rapidly solidified into an enormous block of ice. Dakota didn't even flinch; instead, he transfigured it back, and it dispersed.

"The air of the Alin Gap is full of water vapor," Dakota reminded her. "That was one of the simplest things you could have done. Try something different."

Dakota wasn't prepared for what Lillian did next. She stared at a point in the air above them both, and before Dakota could even react, something dropped and hit the floor of the arena with a questionable thunking sound. He lifted it and examined it in the half-light. An exquisite rendition of a bird, all the feathers intact and creating unique patterns across its back. And clearly dead.

Dakota's eyes rose to meet Lillian's gaze. She looked away.

With absolutely no warning, he rose to his feet and flung the bird in her direction. She gave a dramatic flinch. Dakota transfigured the bird before it hit her, and a wave of air blasted into her face, blowing her hair behind her ears.

"Good," Dakota said quietly. "That was exceptionally complex. Very good for your first time."

"I'd like to show you what I've been able to do with illusions," Lillian began. She stepped toward Dakota and paced around the arena. "I can create illusions of people now. And make them speak." She then disappeared and moments later reappeared in the same place she had originally been standing. She had never moved.

Dakota, though he didn't want to admit it, was greatly impressed. And maybe even a little jealous.

☙❧

Who was Rolf meeting today?

That was the question that had been lingering in Galena's mind all morning. Rolf had continued to be excited and animated all throughout the day. He was clearly looking forward to something that he was sure would pay off. Something big, Galena thought he might say. But who could possibly be giving him information?

Galena knew she would gain nothing by asking him. So she would just have to watch him, which is what she had been doing all day. Sitting in a chair close to the door of her office so that she could notice whether he left or anyone came in. Making sure that there was nothing she was noticing.

But even with all the time she was spending near the door, she saw nothing. No one coming in or out at all. And, to the best of her knowledge, no one using an illusion. It was rapidly approaching the end of the day, and Galena was growing tired and bored. Maybe she had been wrong about Rolf meeting someone, she wondered. Maybe it had all been just her imagination.

No. She had gone over the facts. Rolf's behavior made sense only if he was about to get information. Galena needed to stop discrediting herself. She knew she had to be right. The strange thing was that he wasn't meeting anyone. Instead, as Galena had been observing, he was sitting at the desk in his office with a blank look. Or at least he had been; since Galena had started, he had moved out of view.

Galena took a brief break to get a snack and then, munching on some dried apples, headed toward Diane's office near the front of the DIAO. "Have you seen Rolf lately?" she asked once she came within earshot.

Diane gestured toward the door. "You just missed him. He left around two minutes ago."

Galena cursed. One snack, and she had lost him. She wouldn't be likely to find him again, given that it was rapidly becoming harder to see outside as fog rolled in from the northwest.

She threw up her hands in exasperation and banged her way out the DIAO door.

☙❧

Rolf was feeling even more pleased with himself than usual. The illusion of him leaving had been so convincing, he decided, that no one would believe for a minute that he was still in the DIAO. No one would think of tracing the illusion to see if it was actually real.

And Evelyn Keame would be arriving within minutes. Rolf was fascinated by the prospect of someone who would be able to give him actual facts about Beanie. Facts he had been striving for since the beginning.

Maybe, he thought, she might be able to tell him why Beanie had put up that sign. What the sign meant. The words flashed through Rolf's mind in a familiar burst, and he took a minute to consider.

DO NOT:

READ the SIGN

-or-

SIT on the

LETTER J

Was it "do not read the sign" or "do not read this sign"? Rolf remembered the former, but the implication of the second was so clear. It was obvious that the sign referred to was the one Beanie had put up.

But was it?

Because Rolf had read more than one sign that day. He had read just about every sign in Jeremiah Raleigh Memorial Park. And the Now Hiring sign of the DIAO.

Was it possible that Beanie had been telling Rolf not to get hired?

What about "sit on the letter J"? What could that mean? Rolf had done a great number of things since joining the DIAO, but sitting on letters was not one of them. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

His seat.

The DIAO used JOLO brand office chairs. With the brand name- and most prominently the letter J- stitched into the seat of every chair. Rolf was sitting on the letter J right now. Rolf had read the sign.

He began to wonder if he had made a very unfortunate mistake. The letters felt more and more uncomfortable by the minute. Rolf looked at the clock again. It was 6:05. Evelyn should be here.

He felt a chill unfurl elaborately along the length of his spine, seeming to enjoy itself inch by inch.

"Blast it," he muttered in a sudden burst of annoyance, and pushed himself out of the increasingly uncomfortable chair. But before he could stand up, his foot slipped out underneath him and he collapsed directly into a large, gleaming mirror that had been placed expertly on the floor.

The mirror glinted, displaying the reflection of an empty office and an ominously revolving JOLO-brand office chair before vanishing.

Outside the window, with his eyes barely visible through a thick coat of purposely induced frost, prowled a young man who appeared to be in his thirties. He had a ruddy, shining complexion, untidy hair of an intensely recognizable red, and narrowed eyes of a shallow blue. He wore thick jeans, a shapeless long-sleeved shirt, and an open jacket, with the hood pulled tight over his head.