The professor seemed to agree. “Nothing like tea,” he said, “when in unfamiliar or confusing circumstances, eh?”
He did not sit behind the big desk, which, Karigan noted, was immaculate. There were no piles or stacks or mess here. Everything was neatly arranged. Instead, he sat with them around the small table and its tea service.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “tea warms the spirit, does it not?”
She and Cade nodded.
“I would guess, my dear, you have many questions. But first, I need you to tell Cade your name—the name you gave me. Not the one I gave you.”
Karigan narrowed her eyebrows. “Why? You believe I’m mad.”
“It was the only rational explanation I could accept at the time.”
“But now you believe that I am who I said I am?”
“I believe that I do believe so,” the professor replied. “I do not know how it is possible, or why you’ve come to be here, but the evidence supports your . . . assertion. I told Cade who I believe you to be, but I’d like him to hear it from you.”
Karigan glanced at the glowering Cade, now unsure if she wanted them to believe her, to know her true identity. Still the professor had gone to some lengths to protect her.
“I am Karigan G’ladheon,” she said, challenging Cade with her gaze.
“Rider Sir Karigan G’ladheon,” the professor added.
Cade lowered his cup, slowly and with control, until it settled gently onto its saucer with a soft clink, as though he was suppressing an outburst of denial.
“It cannot be true.” He swept his hand through his hair. “It is not possible. You can’t make me believe that a historical person is sitting in this room now.” It did not sound like the first time they’d had this particular discussion.
“Like I said,” the professor replied, “I don’t know how it’s possible that someone from so long ago could be here now, living and breathing among us, but the evidence . . . from her clothing to the brooch she wore. The textiles were of a time when cloth was hand-woven.”
Early on in this world, Karigan had noticed the extremely fine, almost perfect weave of her nightgown and bed clothes. Not even the best textiles her father traded in were so intricately woven. She had wondered how it was accomplished, and now the professor implied it was not by hand.
“The details were right,” the professor said, his gaze settling on Karigan. “The dye of the green, the embroidered gold winged horse on coat and shirtsleeve. But Cade asks a legitimate question. How did you get here to this time? In our first conversation, you mentioned something about a mask bringing you forward. Can you explain this?” Both men sat there staring hard at her, waiting.
“I—I don’t know exactly how or why it happened,” she replied. “We were in Blackveil and—”
The professor blanched. Cade raised an eyebrow, his large hands gripping the armrests of his chair until Karigan thought he’d puncture the leather.
“What did I say?” Karigan asked.
“Blackveil,” the professor murmured. “It is not spoken of. We are unaccustomed to hearing it named.”
Karigan sighed. Here they go again, she thought, with the secret histories versus “true history.”
“We did not mean to interrupt, my dear,” the professor said. “Please continue.”
She did and found herself explaining how she and a party of Sacoridians and Eletians crossed the D’Yer Wall into Blackveil to observe the status of the forest after a thousand years of being closed off from the rest of the world and subject to the influence of Mornhavon the Black. Eventually they found themselves at the forest’s heart, in the deserted Castle Argenthyne, legendary bastion of the Eletians who were conquered by Mornhavon long ago. She did not speak in great detail of the trials she and her companions endured, for it would require more than one night in the telling, but she told enough that Cade’s and the professor’s expressions were rapt and suffused with amazement.
When she reached the part about finding the looking mask in the nexus of Castle Argenthyne, she said, “It was a true object of magic. Beyond magic even.” A thing of the gods, she thought with a shudder, remembering how she’d raised the mask to her face and looked through it and saw the strands of time and the heavens intersecting, diverging; weaving and unraveling. She’d held a million, million possibilities in her hands, the power to manipulate the fabric of the universe. She’d rejected that power and smashed the mask on the floor to prevent Mornhavon the Black from seizing it, and the next thing she knew, she found herself trapped in a sarcophagus at a circus, from which she escaped into Mill City and Cade Harlowe’s hands.
“So that’s why you asked me if I was one of those clowns,” Cade said.
“And it enlightens me as to how Rudman Hadley ended up with a live body in his sarcophagus,” the professor mused, “which he accused me of planting to discredit him, by the way.”
The two men quieted, seemed lost in their own reveries, perhaps trying to digest Karigan’s story. She plucked nervously at the hem of her nightgown awaiting a more definitive response.
Cade was the first to react. He turned to the professor and said, “You can’t possibly believe all this.”
“Part of me finds it extremely difficult,” the professor admitted. “But the past was filled with wonders that defy rational explanation.”
Cade snorted. “And you believe this thing about the mask?”