That Professor Is A Fraud
That Professor Is a Fraud
From the diary of Miss Penelope Holloway, student, Royal College of Westmere.
18th April. Clara etched her fourth spell today. It took cleanly, no pain, first attempt. Three years of the finest tutors in Westmere swore she would never manage a fourth. Three weeks of Professor Caelmont.
Her mother fainted when she heard. Not the elegant kind of fainting. The thumping kind.
9th May. The Watch sent for the Professor again this morning. A dead man in a locked room in the Mercantile District, and eleven inspectors who couldn’t say how. The Professor looked at the floor, the window, and the dead man’s boots, in that order, and said four words to Inspector Hollis, and the Watch arrested a chimney sweep by supper.
I brought the biscuits. Sergeant Bell says the desk considers me essential personnel.
22nd May. Professor Theodore tried to bait Professor Caelmont in a corridor today. Professor Theodore is a Circle 5 combat mage and the best-looking man at the College and engaged to Lady Sera. Honestly, it’s not even fair.
Professor Caelmont listened for about a minute. Then he said something quiet I could not hear. Professor Theodore’s face went the colour of his cravat. Which is cream.
Lady Sera was watching. She did not look at Professor Theodore the same way for the rest of the day.
30th June. Three men attacked Professor Caelmont outside the College gates tonight. Three. All Circle 4. One of them was reaching for a knife. I saw it.
Professor Caelmont did not move. The three men did move. Backwards, very fast. And then they were on the ground and they were not getting up.
I asked him afterwards if he was all right. He said he had not spilled his tea, which was the chief concern.
I went home and laughed for an hour. Then I cried for half of one. I do not know why.
Sigh.
There is nothing that can faze Professor Lucian Caelmont.
But people still call him a fraud.