Clump. Clump. Clump. Clump. Clump.

After an hour, Professor Baxter tapped loudly on the wall of his study with his cane. "WILL YOU PIPE DOWN IN THERE?!" he bellowed through the wall, his grey mustache bristling with pent-up rage.

The sound reached Professor Moore's ears through the thick wooden walls, but he barely registered it. He was pacing back and forth; in his small office, there was so little space in which to do so.

What to do, what to do? His mind whirred as the possibilities, both horrible and awesome, raced through his mind. If the nexus field was directly proportional to the strength of the diablerie, it could mean anything about the future of his research. He had pored over his older results that day, reading every line three or four times, comparing his equations and confirming something he had never suspected; there was a direct correlation, and he wasn't insane to have sensed the nexus in the first place.

He didn't know why, exactly, but he assumed that he had simply spent more time with passives than most galdori. Even the head Matron avoided them more often than not, and she only took the job after being fired from a position as a lowly clerk in the Tax offices. Like a musician learns to identify notes by sound alone, he supposed that he had simply begun to sense the almost imperceptible aura by sheer overexposure.

It was a gift and a curse. He felt nervous about even telling anyone. Devlin knew of the nexus, but he was in Vienda at the moment. Everyone else, even Headmistress Servalis, would surely think he was insane if he projected his theory onto his work.

Wendy...

The name popped unbidden into his head. She had had such a strong nexus; he had felt it immediately. It had been stronger than any he had ever felt. Her diablerie, whatever it was, must be outrageously powerful. And she was wandering the world now, goddess knew where. Any day, he expected to hear a report of another Dorhaven massacre, with Wendy as the victim.

His eyes lit up, and he glanced at the equations he had written an hour earlier, before he had begun to pace. Somehow, possibly through sheer determination, he had found a way to take advantage of the clear monic readings to get a better picture; if he could only have gotten Wendy into the MAT machine, he might have an answer. The specific ley sequence that blocked passive control of their immense power was within his grasp, he could feel it!

Sinking down into his armchair, he let out a tired sigh.

Somehow, he must find her. He realized it with a sense of dread. How would he even go about doing that? She would be under a pseudonym, and certainly no longer in Brunnhold. And it wasn't as if he could put up posters. The school would probably wonder why he was looking for a single passive like a needle in a haystack, and if he told them how potentially dangerous she was, they would never let him near her.

He needed to find someone that Wendy knew, someone she might trust with her whereabouts. If she had had any friends besides that singularly unhelpful Vala girl and the unfortunately deceased Pascual, Harper would have to find them. He was not going to give up. A nexus like that - a person like that - did not just come along every day. This could be his last chance to solve the mystery.

A large part of him felt odd thinking that. He wasn't really sure why he felt as though he had to find Wendy, why it was so urgent. Even before he had learned about the nexus, he had had that feeling. It confused him. Was he being protective? Probably. He felt bad for the girl; he sympathized with her. But he had barely gotten to know her.

Clapping a hand to his forehead and pushing up his hair, he resolved to get some sleep before he embarked on his search. Going without made him think very odd things indeed.