I bristle, fighting the urge to slap his face. When I speak, my words are a snarl. “This isn’t about being agoody two-shoes, Briggs.These surges have the potential to destroy all of us, and you just want to sit back and let that happen?”
He raises his hands and actually clutches at his face. “I don’t mean to sit back, for fuck’s sake, we can figure it out together—”
My anger brims over. Reaching up, I put my hands on his chest and shove him away from me. He crashes into a shelf full of drugs, rattling all the bottles. “I’m done, Briggs,” I say, trying to fight my tears. “I’mdonedoing anything together.” And with that, I turn and smack open the door, ready to stalk out.
Harrisford’s hand on my shoulder stays me for a second, and I go to shrug him off. But he’s leaning over me, his chin at my shoulder and his lips right by my ear. “Fine,” he says, his breath caressing the back of my neck. “You do things your way, and I’ll do things mine. But Chan?”
And despite being so angry, I don’t move. Like the world’s biggest idiot, I stay to hear what he has to say.
“If you go to the police,” he says, his voice low and deadly, “then Iwilltell Professor Kaur about your stolen cat.”
19
Gwendolynne
I hate him, I hate him, I really fucking hate him.
It’s been a few foolish days of a strange and tentative truce—but clearly Harrisford and I are back to blackmail. I’m almost tempted by Percy’s offer to pee on Harrisford’s pillow, but it’s too much of a risk. With Harrisford’s threat hanging over our heads, I simply cannot risk Percy getting caught.
Still, I appreciate the solidarity.
I barely notice anything as I storm back to the hospital ward. When I burst in, a trail of rage like a cloud behind me, Conall and Pen glance at each other, concern etched on both their faces.
Isla finally lowers her strap. “Snogging Briggs in the drug cupboard now, are we, Chan?” Her upper lip curls.
“I wasn’t snogging anyone,” I snap, reaching into a cupboard and yanking out a syringe pump. While magic can heal traumatic injuries like cuts and bruises and even broken bones, internal diseases are a different story. Magic is powerful, obviously, but this cat is diabetic and in desperate need of insulin. And even the most skilled magical veterinarians cannot conjure hormones from thin air.
First, though, I have to rehydrate her and balance her electrolytes. As I unwind the cord wrapped around the pump machine, Ispy the small lettering on its underside:Powered by Magecorp.I sigh. Of course it is.
Isla moves closer, the overhead magelights casting a halo on her head. “Just be careful he doesn’t break your heart right before exams.” She gives a contemptuous toss of her blond hair and flashes me a simpering smile. “I’m sure you’re well aware of his reputation. I’dhateto see your grades slip because you’re fawning over some man.”
She’s mocking me, but I know what she’s really doing. Isla and Harrisford were a thing back in fifth year. They’d dated for ten months before Harrisford had illustriously broken things off with her. Rumor has it that she never quite got over him, and she likes to stake her territory whenever she sees him getting close to, well, literally anyone else.
What she doesn’t realize, though, is that zero territory staking is necessary. Harrisford’s and my circles had briefly overlapped, like a particularly distasteful Venn diagram. But now our circles have separated and are so far apart from one another they’re not even touching. They’re not overlapping…they’re underlapping.
I don’t look at her as I begin setting up the pump, plugging in the magical charging cord and powering it up. “I’m not foolish enough to make the same mistakes you did, Isla.”
She scoffs and moves away again, talking to her parrot familiar through their bond. Her comments sound rather snippy, and I’m pretty sure I hear the words “snot-nosed swot” and “ugly cow” muttered beneath her breath.
Conall moves closer to help me calculate the electrolyte concentrations and infusion rates. “Are you all right, Gwen?” he whispers. “You seem kind of…off.”
I stab at the buttons with my finger, taking my ire out on the machine. “I’m fine, Conall,” I say. “But meet me after class, yeah? I think I need your help.”
It’s the second time I’ve been inside Conall’s room, and this time I have more opportunity to examine the displayed drawings. They’re beautiful—all intricate lines and tightly drawn circles and scribbles that should look messy, but in this context, they are not.
“Are all of these yours?” I touch one of them with the tip of my finger.
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “It’s what I do to decompress.”
He comes to stand behind me, silent for a moment. I’m not exactly sure, but I feel like there’s a new drawing, one that wasn’t there the night Gary died. It’s the most beautiful and ambitious one yet, and I can almost feel the grief and rage and agony pouring out from the page.
“So what do you need help with?” Conall says, fixing his big brown eyes on me.
“I wanted to know if you can help interpret some blueprints.” Conall started out doing an engineering degree. But from the little he’s said, I gather he found the toxic masculinity too triggering to his dysphoria, so he transferred to veterinary science after completing third year. He got some credits for the pure sciences and then worked hard to catch up to the rest, joining us in fourth year, a few weeks into term one. If anyone here can figure these blueprints out, it’d be him.
Unlocking my strap, I show him some of the photos I snapped of the scrolls stored at Magecorp HQ. The lines are faint and scratchy on the parchment, and I’m reminded of how old they were. Guilt swoops through my belly. They would have all been blown to bits.
Conall squints at my small, cracked screen, then extends his fingers toward me. “May I?” he says, and I nod, slipping the strap off my wrist.
