And gods, my dad was soproudof me, asking about my classes then, and we’d talk spell work incessantly until Mom had to ban any magic topics at dinner. I knew I probably wouldn’t go the military route, but for that small window before Camp Merethyl, I at least felt apartof this family, because that spark in my dad’s eyes when we talked about spells? It burned in me, too. We had that connection.
I’m so blindsided by this phone call, by the overlapping vignette of sitting across from his pleased smile at the dinner table more than a decade ago, that I can’t grab ahold of my senses.
“Classes?” I echo, scrambling. “I’m in the last semester of mygraduate program. I’m not taking classes anymore. It’s a research block.”
With Elethior Tourael.
My shoulders wilt.
Of course.
“Then tell me how your research block is going,” Dad says, like that isn’t the actual point of his call. “Your mother said you have a lab partner. That you’re working with a Tourael. It’s important you make a good impression, you hear? It’s important you apply yourself.”
I don’t interrupt him. Can’t. My throat is swollen shut and I kick the floor, over and over, shoe scuffing the cheap peeling laminate.
Orok steps closer to me. “Seb?”
“This could be the kind of connection that makes your career,” Dad tells me. “You—”
“Your career.”
“What?”
“This could makeyourcareer,” I hear myself say. “Not mine. Right? That’s why you’re calling.”
Dad sighs again. “That is not, actually, why I—”
“Are you still in the running for that job?”
A pause. “The position doesn’t officially open for several weeks.”
I have no extra bandwidth to think about my father running that place.
“But yeah,” I scoff, “you’re calling about me.”
“I called because I know how you are,” Dad says. “And I won’t see you wasting this opportunityfor yourself.”
My arms itch, my vision goes starry, and I’m pacing now, in the tight hallway, nearly bumping into Orok with every pass, getting dizzy with the sharp turns.
Distantly, I think how dumb a place this is for a freak-out. I mean, there’s a cartoon hot dog on the wall behind Orok, for fuck’s sake.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” Dad repeats, his voice harder. “I’ll help you figure out how to best navigate the situation so you don’t squander this connection. Not everyone gets a second chance. You had so much promise when you were younger.”
You had such promise.
This was wasted on you.
Get out, get out,get out—
Sweat breaks out down my spine and I get in a jagged, shaky breath.
“I gotta go.”
I hang up on him. I hang up on Colonel Mason Walsh so forcefully I nearly break the phone in half.
My ears ring. Ring and ring, a hollow clanging; and rage gathers, swelling up and out, and I want to call him back to scream at him.
“Seb?” Orok touches my shoulder. “Don’t answer his calls anymore.”
