Felim shrugged. He had wanted to be alone in his room to write his essay because, in spite of a night spent standing bolt upright in a hard shell smelling of book, he was determined to prove that he had no need to buy essays from the lofty student. His honor required it. But since there was obviously no use in arguing, he borrowed a wad of Elda’s fine handmade paper and set to work. The others set to work, too. Shortly they were all scribbling busily in various parts of the concert hall, Olga at the table with Felim, Claudia in a corner because her essay required scissors and a ruler, Ruskin kneeling in front of a chair, and Lukin sprawled out on Elda’s huge bed. The concert hall became more littered than ever, what with cups of coffee fetched by Olga, the mugs of beer Ruskin brought in after lunch, and the crossed-out pages that Lukin kept throwing away.
Lukin always had more trouble writing things than the others did. It seemed to take him six crossed-out tries before he could get into his stride. But by the middle of the afternoon he, too, was going nicely. He was getting quite eloquent when he discovered, slightly to his surprise, that the one thing he needed to support his argument was something Wermacht had dictated to them back in the first week. He got out the jeweled notebook to check the exact words. And he was so surprised by what he found that he let out a sharp yelp.
Everyone jumped, thinking Lukin had met the sixth assassin. Finding Lukin simply staring at his notebook, they all relaxed and went back to writing.
Lukin went on staring. Part of what Wermacht had said was there—“Magic without definite aim is dangerous”—but it was alone in a blank page. The pages in front of it and after it were empty. When Lukin came out of his surprise enough to leaf onward he found that quite a lot of herblore and dragonlore notes were still there, but with mysterious crisp white blanks in them. His astrology notes had vanished entirely, leaving pages that looked as if they had never been written on. Almost the only thing that was complete was the page where he had tried to describe exactly how wonderful it felt to raise magefire.
Olga noticed his frantic rifflings and rustlings. “What’s up?” she asked, flinging back her hair to look around at him.
“My notebook, the one you gave me,” Lukin said. “More than half the pages are crisp and clean again; most of Wermacht’s next big headings have gone. Is it some kind of trick book?”
Ruskin leaped up and trotted over. “Let’s see.” He took the little book between both large hands and leafed gently through it, grunting each time he came to a blank. “Hmm. Ah. Hmm. Dwarf ma
gic’s been at work on all the pages you wrote on, definitely. But that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know what the magic’s meant to do, but it looks as if you’d better get yourself another notebook.”
“You can borrow my notes. They’re in my bag. Over there,” Elda said, pointing with one wing, without for a moment stopping writing.
Lukin discovered he could remember quite well what Wermacht had said, anyway. “It’s all right. Wermacht says everything so often and so loudly that it’s hard to forget it. I’ll buy a new notebook tomorrow. I’ve just about got the money.”
“I didn’t mean to give you a trick notebook,” Olga said, distressed about it.
“You weren’t to know,” Claudia said. Then, realizing that Lukin had so little money that he would probably have to go without something in order to buy a new notebook, she added, “I’ve a spare notebook here with me. Please have that.” And before Lukin could get too proud to accept, she went on quickly. “Biscuits, anyone? Doughnuts? It’s my turn to go out and buy us something.”
They settled down again with doughnuts, and the day drew on almost peacefully toward evening. Felim was on his twenty-third page, Elda on her fourteenth, and even Lukin was on page six when all of a sudden there came a giant cry of “HELP! HELP!” It was carried on a general warn-spell very hastily and badly applied by someone who was evidently terribly frightened, and it jolted them all where they sat, knelt, or lay.
“Another assassin!” Ruskin boomed. “I’ll stay here with him. The rest of you go and see.”
They threw down their pens and raced for the courtyard, with Elda galloping ahead. There they found almost everyone else in the University dashing outside, too, even the librarian and Wizard Umberto, who were very seldom seen out of doors. Breaths rolled out of many panting mouths in the sharp air. Voices babbled, and fingers pointed into the strong blue evening sky.
“The Observatory tower,” people were saying. “Two of them. Just look at that!”
Elda reared herself above the babbling crowd and stared up at the tower above the Spellman Building. Those last two assassins must have been working as a pair, perhaps hiding in the tower until nightfall. She could see them clearly against the clear sky. One was clinging to the very tip of the dome, which was spinning like a whirligig under him. The other was hooked by the seat of his tight black trousers to some kind of spike sticking out from under the dome. He was hanging face downward over nothing and struggling a little. The one on the dome was just clinging. The windows of the spinning dome were crowded with blurred, desperate student faces. Faint cries of “Help!” came down from them.
“That one on the spike is my spell,” Felim said, rather proudly, from beside Elda’s right wing. He had disobeyed them and rushed outside, too, with Ruskin hanging on to the end of his sash. “They must have attacked someone, or they would not have set it off. Whose is the spinning dome?”
“No idea,” said Elda, but she had a swift, uneasy memory of herself flying across the room to let Ruskin in, and her wings stirring spells about. She forgot it almost at once. Corkoran was on the other side of her with Umberto, squashed up against her left wing.
“So who are those up there with them?” Corkoran was asking.
“My second-year astrology group,” Umberto answered. “I’m afraid they’re up there without supervision. I, er, shirked the stairs rather. Can you stop the dome’s spinning from here? I can’t.”
“No,” said Corkoran. “I tried. Someone’s got to get up there to deal with it, I suppose. How’s your levitation, Umberto?”
“Rotten,” confessed the chubby Umberto.
Corkoran sighed and looked around for Finn. “So’s mine.”
Elda realized that this was her chance to be of real service to Corkoran. Her heart thumped so with excitement that for a moment she felt almost as giddy as that assassin must be—not to speak of the students. She had to open her beak wide and gulp in frosty air before she said shyly, “Excuse me, Corkoran. I could fly up there holding you if you like.”
It came out rather louder than Elda intended. Faces turned to her approvingly, and someone in the background gave a small cheer. Corkoran was forced to turn and look at Elda. “So you could,” he said, with quite remarkable lack of enthusiasm. He looked at Umberto and then down at himself, comparing weights. There was no doubt who was the slenderer. Corkoran sighed again. “Very well, but please don’t dig your talons in. And don’t drop me, or you’ll have my dying curse on you before I hit the ground.”
This forced Elda to say, “Of course I won’t drop you. I’m terribly safe.” She had never actually carried a person through the air in her life. Derk would never allow it. But it was a bit late to explain that now. Everyone in the courtyard was making enthusiastic noises; Umberto loudest of all.
Corkoran reluctantly moved over in front of Elda, and she put her talons very carefully around his chest, under his armpits. Wizard Umberto did his bit by running round in a circle, pushing people back, and crying out, “Make a space there, make a space there! The griffin needs room to take off!” People moved quickly, in an awed and worried way, until a fairly wide area was empty around Corkoran and Elda. When Elda judged it was large enough for her to spread both wings in, she flexed her wings and tensed her legs and took off. Unghgh. The first wing stroke was all right. The second was leaden. Corkoran was heavy. As her feet and his left the ground, Elda all but dropped straight back down. She flapped furiously. I will do it! she told herself. I’m huge and I’m strong and I will! All around her people were shielding faces from the wind she was making and she was still barely off the ground. Stop panicking, she told herself.
All of a sudden she was back to being five years old, when she first started to fly. She could almost hear her mother’s voice. “Elda, for the gods’ sakes, go steady! You always rush at things so!”
Thank you, Mum, Elda thought. She reduced her desperate fanning and tried instead for the slowest, strongest wingbeat she could manage. Almost at once she was rising above all the staring faces, and rising again, with Corkoran clutched to her chest, just as if he were really the teddy bear she used to fly around with when she was five. It was the situation she had been daydreaming about ever since that first tutorial.