Silent Circuit by Celia Lake

Author:Celia Lake [Lake, Celia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Celia Lake

Chapter 20

AUGUST 23RD IN TRELLECH

Vitus had not originally planned on attending the lecture on Friday night. He often didn’t. They tended to be more full of people who were making a night out of it, and less about serious discussion. But it was going to the lecture or going home to worry about Thessaly. The lecture seemed the better option. In the end, he was glad he went, though most of it wasn’t terribly relevant to his interests.

One presenter was a Healer, talking about how most of the devices designed to apply electrical current for health reasons did little good. Vitus knew Mama wasn’t considering any of that, though she might well have been a target for that kind of quackery if they’d been living among the non-magical.

The other presenter, however, had spent about half her time talking about the different and competing sorts of electricity, and what that might mean for magical applications. It wasn’t anything terribly new to Vitus at this point, but the way she explained the advantages and disadvantages of both direct and alternating current was more evocative than others he’d heard. She’d tied it into some of the classic magical theory.

Her approaches to the topic were all things anyone who’d made it through Schola likely knew, and a fair number of others with any exposure to sympathetic or ritual magic. But she’d also put it well, a summary that made it possible to follow the rest of her discussion more readily. It gave him something to think about, in how to talk about it, anyway.

On the other hand, leaving the lecture was rather more interesting, if also complex. Vitus had a word with a few people sitting near him, but he’d declined their offer to go on to a party somewhere off in Yorkshire. Instead, he waited for the crowd to filter out. Vitus wasn’t in a rush. While he was waiting halfway up the aisle, he realised Dagobert Fortier was in attendance.

The man really did not look well. Vitus hadn’t seen him in ages. Thinking back, not since solstice night. He hadn’t been at Philip Landry’s funeral, and he hadn’t been at Metaia Powell’s funeral, either. But then there were those books, checked out in his name. That implied he’d at least been at the library a fortnight ago. At any rate, he looked faded and exhausted, and as if he’d lost enough weight that his tailor couldn’t keep up with the adjustments. But he also had the sort of stubborn look Mama got when the body wasn’t obliging but the mind refused to give up. Now he was moving slowly down between the seats, one hand on the back of the row nearer the stage, the other on a cane, navigating cautiously.

Vitus stepped back to give him a little room. “Master Fortier.”

The comment apparently made him stop, as if he couldn’t both speak and move. Then he nodded back. “Master Deschamps.” He was silent as he got to the end of the row, then out into the aisle.

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