Audrey raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d better explain what that means. It sounds like an insult.”
“It’s—” I looked at Audrey, a little nervous myself. I’d made her read the Litany—perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t. “It means you’re related to the people of the rock.”
“The Mad Ones Under the Earth.” Apparently the phrase had stuck in Audrey’s mind. I looked at Trumbull, still on her guard against some expected attack, and it occurred to me that for the Yith to lay such a dramatic label on one race out of all those that walked the planet, that race must have made a notable impression.
Audrey’s bloodstream didn’t look entirely like Charlie’s—or Leroy’s, now that I thought on it. I had assumed the differences were due to youth and health. “How is that possible?” I asked. “I thought they didn’t have children any more, or come to the surface save to guard their gates. It must have been a long time ago.”
Trumbull lowered her hand as Audrey continued to appear annoyed but nonviolent. “They do both, very occasionally. For experimental purposes. A female might take a lover of the air to test out some obscure magical theory, or a male choose to sire a half-blood child out of boredom and abandon it later. Either way, the other parent’s survival would be remarkable. From the state of your student’s blood, I would guess no more than five generations past—though I wouldn’t be shocked if it were only a single generation.”
“Impossible,” said Audrey. “I’d have heard something.”
“Not necessarily,” said Charlie. “It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing people would talk about.”
“Or do,” said Audrey.
“Your air-born ancestors wouldn’t necessarily have had much agency in the matter,” said Trumbull. “But clearly the Mad Ones didn’t have your raising.”
Audrey sat back and flexed her nails against the slate. She traced the nearest sigil thoughtfully with her finger. “Say this is true. I’ve learned a lot this week. It’s kind of wild how much. Enough to know that the different kinds of people spread all sorts of rumors about each other, and not all of them true. So what makes you call the people of the rock mad? Am I going to wake up one day gibbering? Will I end up in an asylum?” She took a deep breath. “Is it a bad idea for me to study magic? Everyone who believes in it at all, and some who don’t, says magicians risk their sanity, but I always assumed they were blowing smoke.”
“It depends what you study,” said Trumbull. “The people of the rock started out much like the other branches of humanity. So far as we can tell, their madness isn’t carried in their DNA.”
“In their … what?” I asked, since I suspected no one else would.
“In their…” Trumbull counted on the fingers of one hand. “It isn’t passed down in their blood. But they studied domains of magic inimical to rational thought, and shared that knowledge with their children. They value the power they get from it more than what they’ve lost. Or so we infer—the dangers of exposure, and the cruelty with which they destroy suspected outsiders, make it impossible for us to sojourn among them for most of their history.”
“Huh. So I shouldn’t study…?”
“Transmutation of material forms into energy. Nor should anyone else. Fortunately I doubt those secrets can be found in Miskatonic’s stacks.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Audrey shook her head, smoothed her hair, and frowned. “You sound awfully reassuring. Why did you—” She mimed shrinking away, and made a passable imitation of the way Trumbull had moved her hand.
“As I said, the Mad Ones have children for … experimental purposes. Very scientific people, that way. They might easily have attempted to make heritable those things they valued or found intriguing. I must say, you show remarkable skill at magic for someone who has been studying, as I calculate it, for three days and a handful of hours.”
“I’ve only been working on basic stuff. And I think Miss Marsh has been hurrying me a bit.” She glanced at me and lowered her eyes. “I haven’t taken offense—I know you want to keep going on the more advanced material with Mr. Day. I’ve been doing my best to keep up.”
“Your best has been remarkable,” I admitted. “It took us weeks of study to successfully perform the Inner Sea, the first time. And I had already tried it as a child. You didn’t have to do it by yourself, but you picked up the principles very quickly.”
“Huh.” Audrey hugged her knees.
“I don’t think this changes anything,” I said, as much to reassure her as because I was confident in the decision. “We keep studying, but you let us know if any of it strikes you oddly. We don’t try anything that’s known to drive whole races to mindless sadism. And we keep an eye out both for signs of trouble in ourselves and for, um, troublesome relatives.”
Caleb put a hand on Audrey’s arm and looked at her solemnly. “You could follow Grandfather’s suggestion and bear my offspring. Children of water and air and rock: they would terrify everyone.”
I was about ready to slap him, but Audrey laughed and swatted his hand away. “You are the most improper man I’ve ever met, and I’ve met Jesse. Do men of the water always go around making indecent proposals, or is that just one of my special powers?”
“They do not,” I said to Caleb. “And Mother would have something to say to you and to Grandfather.”
“That’s a relief,” said Audrey. She turned to Trumbull. “Okay, enough of that. I know how the story you told earlier ends, and I’m kind of sick of it. What do Yith tell their babies, when they tuck them in at night?” She lifted her chin in challenge.
If I were not careful, I realized, I would start to interpret everything I found admirable and exasperating about her—her skill, her persistence, her refusal to give in to anything stronger and older than herself whether Yith or university—as a sign of her perilous heritage.
“You may be overgeneralizing from your own experience,” suggested Trumbull.
“I admit I don’t know if you tuck your babies in, or sleep at night. But I’m pretty sure you have kids, and I know you tell stories.”
Charlie tapped his cane. “I don’t know if any of us will sleep tonight if we hear what the Yith do with their children.”
“You disapprove?” Trumbull asked mildly.
“I wasn’t under the impression your bodies were immortal. Your kids all go the way of Asenath Waite—you steal their lives so that you can keep going.”