Palamedes had no doubt that Harrow would know what he meant, but still he beams like a proud teacher at a star pupil when she gives the correct answer. “Which brings us to the main event, and the primary reason for my unscheduled visit.” Where she is grim, he is cheerful—but is that not often the case? He goes to retrieve his messenger bag where he had abandoned it next to the door, crouching down to shuffle through it. Once he finds the yellow legal pad he’s looking for, he rises and returns to Harrow.

He doesn’t hold it out to her quite yet. Old habits die hard.

“Ianthe Tridentarius is a moron.” He pauses, frowns. “No, that seems unfair to the unintelligent, many of whom are perfectly nice people. Ianthe Tridentarius is brilliant, but her insights are spectacularly uncreative. Which is worse, really. Plus, her theorem work is sloppy, which there’s really no excuse for. The court of Ida is swimming with tutors, for Emperor’s sake, and while they may be second-rate flesh magicians, by and large, they must have taught her something. Anyone as clever as her with decent training and an eye for detail should have noticed.”

Pal begins to flip through the notepad. “Her version of the lyctorhood theorem isn’t only ghastly. It’s inefficient. I’ve never seen a necromantic equation on this level that lets so much thanergy go to waste.” He stops on his most recent page of notes, full of crossed-out theorems and wild question marks, and holds out the pad to her. “Of course there’s another way. We would have found it, too, if we had only had enough time.”