I suppose I can’t really judge my father. Who knows what he’d gone through in those early days, when the pain was still fresh and raw? I suspect he’d acted out of grief, or rage—or maybe both. I don’t know. We’ve never talked of it since. But no one visiting the Briggs mansion would know that anyone named Theodora Finlay-Briggs had ever lived there.
There’s so much knowledge buried deep in the dungeons of Father’s mind. His memories of my mother. What he remembers of our time together. What, if anything, he knows about the surges.
And if he dies…then I’ll never know any of it.
I sit there, beside my father’s bed, for a long time. Too long. Waypast the end of visiting hours. And no one bothers to tell me to leave. Even the nurses who shuffle in and out at regular intervals barely cast me a second glance.
When you’re the son of a man who’s donated a whole wing, you get afforded certain privileges.
It’s just a shame that being loved by your father isn’t necessarily one of them.
18
Gwendolynne
By Tuesday morning, I’m nearly climbing out of my skin, so I go to class despite being not quite one hundred percent.
Today, I’ve been rostered onto hospital duty, along with Pen Ferguson, Conall Peters, and Isla Ennis. Heloise is doing consultations, and Tuesdays are open clinics, which means no scheduled appointments—clients can walk in at any time.
There aren’t too many patients in hospital today. Which is lucky, because Professor Kaur’s recovered from her mystery illness and has stopped by to deliver our fortnightly tutorial. Even though she’s the dean, she still finds time to be in the clinics at least once every two weeks—“Just to keep an eye on things,” as she likes to joke. It’s worlds apart from the vice dean, Professor Pickering, who almost never descends from his temperature-controlled second-floor office.
Lenny, the dean’s German shepherd, who is both a familiar and a guide dog, stays close by Professor Kaur’s side. The only other dog in hospital is a Labrador who ate an entire pan of brownies laced with an invisibility tincture. We’d made him vomit, of course, and he was fortunately unaffected by the chocolate. But the magic absorbed too quickly into his bloodstream for us to save him from the effects of the spell. He’s spent the morning periodically popping inand out of visibility, which has made for some instances of high-key panic from the staff.
It’s lucky Professor Kaur is so perennially unflappable. Even when the invisible dog slips past us and escapes, she somehow manages to catch him and usher him back into his cage. I guess she doesn’t need to “see” him, relying instead on other senses to know where, exactly, he is.
She really is so incredibly competent.
In the cat ward, there’s just one patient, a Ragdoll who has been vomiting up tiny, real-life frogs for the past few days. The dean takes the opportunity to refresh us on how paradoxical aciduria develops in patients with gastric vomiting—a phenomenon that always makes perfect sense when she explains it, but precisely zero fucking sense later.
The cat is booked in for an abdominal ultrasound; until then, every now and then, we have to run around the ward with nets, catching dozens of hopping amphibians.
“Well, this is tiresome,” Isla whines the third time we have to catch the frogs. “Why can’t the cleaners do it? This really isnotcontributing to our education.”
Tell her I’m happy to eat some, Percy says, speaking through our bond. I’d left him back in my room, curled up inside the filthy cardboard box that the hideously expensive leopard-print cat bed I’d purchased came in.I mean, look at me: I am starving. I am the most starvingest cat of all the world’s starving cats—
You have an entire bowl of kibble, I point out, while Percy’s words taper off into a grumble.Plus, I fed youtwobreakfasts this morning.
“The cleaners are a little busy.” Conall deftly catches three frogs at once and tips them into a lidded bucket. “The invisible dog keeps escaping and pooping all over the wards. Anyway, isn’t it good we’re getting practice with our frog-handling skills?” Frogs are commonboth as familiars and for use in spells, so what Conall says is true. He’s always trying to see the bright side of things. Even though I can tell that he is still mourning Gary, he’s putting on a brave face.
“Mr.Peters is right.” Professor Kaur scoops up another of the frogs with her net. “Miss Ennis, do try to see this as a learning opportunity.”
Isla rolls her eyes, retreats into the corner, and starts scrolling on her strap. Conall and I raise our eyebrows at each other. There’s no way either of us would everdreamof disrespecting the dean in such a way.
But Isla doesn’t really have to worry, does she? Just like Harrisford, she grew up disgustingly wealthy—which explains why now, as an adult, she’s such an entitled little witch.
When we’ve finally finished catching the frogs, I start taping down the lid of Conall’s bucket. It’s as I’m poking more holes in the lid for ventilation that Pen opens their mouth, daring to utter the sacrilegious word that no veterinary student should ever say.
“How weird is this?” they muse, staring at the rows of empty cages. “The fact that it’s so qu—”
Conall and I both leap at them, exactly at the same time. Conall even scrambles over a table in an effort to stop Pen from saying the Q word:
Quiet.One should never, ever say that it’s quiet.
It’s just inviting trouble.
Conall, having better reflexes and just generally being more physically competent, reaches Pen first, clamping his hand over Pen’s still-half-open mouth and smearing their fuchsia lipstick.
But it’s too late. The rest of the word has already slipped out, and the three of us stare at each other in abject horror. This is it; we’ve done it. We’ve invoked the wrath of the gods.
