“A perfect score,” she announced cheerfully as he finished describing Cantor’s Proof. “Which doesn’t surprise me considering your two degrees in mathematics. Let’s proceed to the hard part.”

Jack blinked. He never mentioned anything about his college studies to Megan. Yet, she seemed to know about them. He again wondered why the girl seemed so familiar.

“Who are the Nazgul?”

“The Black Riders with crowns but no faces,” answered Jack automatically, “from The Lord of the Rings.”

Nodding in agreement, Megan flashed Jack a quick smile. She appeared genuinely pleased that he knew the correct answer.

“In the novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, why did the chicken cross the road?”

Frowning, Jack tried to remember the Poul Anderson novel. It had been years since he read it. It took him a minute to recall the correct answer. The next query concerned the use of magic in The Incomplete Enchanter. And so it went, with the second half of the quiz proving to be much more challenging than the first.

They buzzed through two dozen questions in little more than an hour. Jack prided himself on his exceptional memory, but several times he was forced to admit that the details of a particular story had escaped him. Megan shook her head with each missed answer, but otherwise made no comment.

In the end, Jack calculated he had answered twenty of the twenty-four questions correctly. Running down the list, Megan confirmed the count.

“An excellent score,” she said, grinning. “Though we expected no less from anyone snared by the advertisement.”

Pushing her chair away from the desk, she rose to her feet and turned to the inner office door. “Let me pass these results on to Father. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you right away.”