This is true, Percy replies.I suppose you do have less hair overall anyway. You’re all…ugly, and hairless, and beige-colored.He yawns and shifts position, tucking his paws tighter beneath him. Then he squeezes his eye shut, as though he cannot stand to look at me for even one second longer.
I battle the urge to point out the state of his own coat and decide, on balance, it’s not worth it. So, ignoring his musings, I scoop a cup of cat food into his puzzle feeder and grab my bag before dashing out the door. I’ll be just in time.
But as I’m passing Conall Peters’s room, I hear a great, heaving sob from within.
I pause, chewing my lip, staring at the cracked-open door.
“Conall?” I say, peering into the darkness within. “Are you all right?”
There’s no answer; just the sound of more weeping.
I try again, this time gently knocking. “Conall?”
Finally, footsteps approach, and Conall’s tear-streaked face appears in the crack. His light brown hair is all mussed up and he has burn marks along both arms, and I realize in retrospect that he hadn’t shown up to Saint Gertrude’sorto today’s lecture.
I stare at him in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
He lets out a snivel, then chokes some words out. “It’s—it’s Gary.”
My heart sinks. “What happened?”
Conall doesn’t respond, just swings the door wide and goes inside. I follow, not quite sure if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t know Conall well; he’s only been at Seamere since fourth year, when he transferred from another degree.
This is the first time I’ve been inside Conall’s room, and the first thing I notice is that the walls are plastered with geometric ink drawings. Although I’m no artist, I recognize that they’re really good—the line work is intricate and precise. I’m guessing they were made by Conall.
By now, Conall himself is kneeling in the center of his room, cradling the tiny brown-and-white body of his familiar, Gary. And considering the guinea pig’s matte, glassy eyes and straight, stiff little legs, it’s quite clear that Gary is stone-cold dead.
“Oh no, Conall,” I say, sinking to my knees beside him. “I’m so sorry.”
Conall blinks, and several tears slide out from beneath his eyelids, dripping down his long pointy nose before pattering onto the floor. “It was”—he sniffs, then swipes at his eyes with his forearm—“the magic surge. The other night. I tried to save him, Gwen, I really did, but he never quite came good…”
Pity twists itself into my chest and I reach out, awkwardly placing an arm around Conall’s shoulders. I give him a squeeze as he dissolves into a cacophony of wails.
“He was such a help, you know?” Conall continues, his voice catching between sobs. “Before, I felt so alone, so dysphoric…but Gary always knew who I was. He always saw me as a boy.” Conall raises his red-rimmed, watery eyes to mine. “Heunderstood, you know? Like only a familiar can.”
I think about my own newly acquired familiar, who doesn’t seem in the least bit understanding. If I’m being honest, Percy’s actually a massive jerk. But from what I’d seen of Conall’s familiar, Gary the guinea pig had been a gentle, empathic soul—much like Conall himself.
Multiple emotions are warring inside me: grief and pity, because of what Conall’s lost. But also…rage. Rage because of what is happening, and how little the higher-ups are taking it seriously. My chest tightens at the memory of Professor Pickering so casually dismissing students’ questions.
It was bad enough when Heloise told me that people had actually died from the magical surges. But they were nothing but names written on a screen. Now it’s Conall—who, if not necessarily someone I’d consider afriend, has always been unflappably kind—and his poor guinea pig that have suffered. And it’s brought it that much closer to home.
Putting my arms around Conall, I let him cry and cry, his tears dampening my shoulder, until he is all cried out. Then I hand him some tissues and say, my voice gentle, “Come, Conall. I’ll help you fill out the paperwork for cremation.”
It’s six forty-five p.m. before I manage to make it down to the paddocks, a good half hour after I was supposed to meet Harrisford.
As I hurry toward our meeting point, I let out a relieved sigh. Harrisford hasn’t finished up yet. He’s still in the paddock, holding a dragon by a tether.
I edge closer, not without some trepidation. I haven’t been this close to a dragon since third year, before our year level split into our respective streams. Prior to this, we’d all had to take Dragon Studies, learning not only their lore and history and the extent of their magical abilities but also the particulars of their anatomy, physiology, and nutrition. At the end of third year we’d been assessed on our knowledge; I’d fumbled at the point where we were supposed to label the dragons’ markings and colorings. But the examiner, knowing that I was dead-set destined for the Magical Familiars stream, had taken pity on me and given me a passing grade. I think it had come with the unspoken caveat that I never touch a dragon in a veterinary capacity again.
The truth is, I’d found that exam kind of difficult because dragon colorings make no fucking sense. It’s like horses, where a white horse is gray and a brown horse is bay and still other brown horses are called chestnut. To a non-horsey person like me it seems completely illogical. For dragons, orange dragons are labeled red, black dragons are called sable, and—because they’re the most common—green dragons aren’t given a color at all. They’re just called dragons.
This one is a red, its burnished scales glowing in the mellow light of the early-evening sun. The flap of its gargantuan wings creates a gale that blows my hair back, and the ropes attached to its tethers snap and strain. The air becomes noticeably hotter the closer to the paddock I draw; the dragon stamps its foot and snorts, emitting small licks of flame from each nostril.
I have to admit—it’s actually kind of…majestic?
Harrisford hasn’t noticed me yet. He’s with Danny Wong and three others—one of the myth.creat vets, and two other strangers who I presume are vet nurses. All of them are wearing enormously thick leather gloves and steel-capped work boots.
The supervising vet watches from the sidelines, arms folded. Meanwhile, the others are stationed in the four corners of the paddock, each holding the end of one rope. The dragon continues to flap its wings, rising and sinking with the movement, but its restraints stop it from flying off. I lean my elbows on the fence, one foot propped on the stile, and take a moment to observe, with both personal and academic interest, the intricate knots the veterinary students have tied. There is no way that dragon is escaping tonight, and for that I am very thankful.
