Scholar's Plot (34 page)

It occurred to me that I’d stopped making ‘final calls’ some years ago … until I’d decided to go after Jack Banister, against Fisk’s wishes. And nearly gotten both of us killed, though I hadn’t been wrong. But I had been wrong to expect Fisk to fall in with a decision he didn’t believe in. ’Twas time to admit it.

“We could discuss such matters,” I said. “We could argue for our opinions, and work out where to go and what to do. That’s how partners would handle decisions. Even serious disagreements.”

Finally, I had caught him off guard. Fisk stared at me so skeptically I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m not saying ’twould be easy. But being a knight errant shouldn’t be easy. I accept your challenge, Kathy.”

I held out my hand to my new partner — knowing that in doing so, I was also accepting the challenge
of
Kathy, and how to get the two of them wed. Fisk knew it too, and he needed my help.

Just as I needed his.

“Well,” he said. “I can’t let your sister think
I’m
not up to a challenge.”

His hand gripped mine, strong and sincere, sealing the bargain.

“Done!” Kathy’s slim fingers fell atop our grip. “We’ll all face that challenge … together.”

Hilari Bell
writes SF and fantasy for kids and teens. She’s an ex-librarian, a job she took to feed her life-long addiction to books, and she lives in Denver with a family that changes shape periodically — currently it’s her mother, her adult niece and their dog, Ginger. Her hobbies are board games and camping — particularly camping, because that’s the only time she can get in enough reading. Though when it comes to reading, she says, there’s no such thing as “enough.”

Learn more about Hilari’s books and her writing at HilariBell.com and the WildWriters.com.

A
damsel in distress—or at least, a damsel mysteriously vanished and quite possibly in distress—is a most fitting a task for a knight errant. But this damsel had gone missing from the High Liege’s court, and peril lurked there. Not for me, which I would have shrugged off, but for those I held most dear. Which is probably why I made the mistake of saying, “She’s only been gone for about twelve hours—that could be accounted for by a lame horse or a broken wheel. Surely she’s returned by now. I say we send this fellow back, and wait for word that all’s well.”

The messenger, who’d ridden all night to deliver the letter Kathy held, looked indignantly at me, but he spoke to my sister. “The Heir’s fair worried, Mistress. He bid me get this letter to you as fast as I could ride.”

Fisk, Kathy and I stood on the landing of my brother’s lodging, which he’d begun to hint he’d like us to vacate eventually—a request that seemed reasonable given that the knocking of the messenger had roused us shortly after dawn. Kathy was clad in a well-worn dressing gown, her mouse-brown hair in a tousled braid down her back and rosy light reflecting in her spectacles as she read. There was no reason for Fisk to look at her as if she was the source of the sunrise…which increased my apprehension about going to court.

“Meg didn’t take a coach,” Kathy told me, still reading. “’Tis a bit incoherent—he must be really worried—but Rupert says she left on foot. She might have rented… Why does he think she’d rent a carriage to come to me? Or come to me at all, for that matter.”

This was addressed to the messenger, who shrugged. “I’m to bring back your reply, if you don’t return yourself, Mistress Katherine. And escort you if you need it.”

“She doesn’t need an escort,” said Fisk. “We’ll take her.”

“I don’t think…” I didn’t think that was a good idea, but I couldn’t reveal my reasons in front of the messenger.

“I do think,” said Fisk. “And so does Kathy. You’re out-voted… Partner.”