“Yes. I got him talking about the sabotage, and he told me…” Harrisford trails off. His eyes are locked on me, staring. And even as I hold his gaze, the fleeting tenderness in his face just…dissipates. His expression turns cold. Stern. He clamps his lips shut, setting them in grim determination.
What the hell just happened?
“Whatdid he tell you?” I’m kind of reeling at how mercurial he’s being, at how much his demeanor altered in less than half a second.
The muscle in Harrisford’s jaw jumps and he looks away. “Nothing,” he mutters. “It isn’t important.”
My own lips thin in annoyance, and I turn back to face front. “Are you sure? I hope you’re not holding anything back that could help us figure out who’s behind the surges.”
Harrisford’s shoulders tense further, frustration coming off him in waves. “Oh, give it up already,” he mutters. “You’re still banging on about those surges? Why are you so bloody bothered?”
“Bothered?” My voice is rising. Has Harrisford seriously just got sick of the investigation and moved on to the next shiny new thing? Does he really treat life-threatening, world-ending dangers the same way he treats his women?
I take a deep breath, my fingers tightening around the edges of my plate, willing myself not to fling its entire contents at him. “I’mbotheredbecause the surges are hurting people. I’mbotheredbecause someone is interfering with thesystem, and that’s—”
“Well, maybe they’re right to,” he snaps, cutting off my tirade. There’s a stubborn set to his mouth that wasn’t there mere minutes ago. “Maybe the system is broken.”
“The system isMagecorp, Briggs,” I hiss. “It’s your legacy.”
He flicks at a stray blade of grass that is peeking around the edge of the tarpaulin. He’s suddenly turned all sullen. “Fuck my legacy.”
I stare at him for a moment, open-mouthed. “But…But…WeneedMagecorp. We need it for magic, we need it to do our jobs. We need it tocreatejobs, to stimulate the economy, to keep the price of magic down. Yes, your dad is an absolute arsehole, but that doesn’t mean we should lie down and just…accept defeat! We’re facing surges that could destroy our way of life, Briggs, and you’re just going to…give up?”
Harrisford snorts. “Seriously? You actually believe that? That Magecorp helps the economy?” He lets out a bitter laugh and shakes his head. “And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
I glower at him. For a brief, infinitesimal moment, it had felt likeHarrisford and I might come to some understanding. That we’d be able to get past whatever the hell had happened—or not happened—between us, and start working together again. I’d been so close to divulging what Heloise, Conall, and I had discovered, in the vague hope that we could maybe help each other figure out the mystery of the surges.
But I realize now that I’d been completely deluded; we will never get past the awkwardness, we will never be able to work together, and we will never not be archenemies who want to throttle one another. I want to throttle him now, to shove his head right into his plate so that his smarmy face gets caked in custard.
But I’m not an animal, so I don’t. Instead, with as much dignity as I can muster, I climb to my feet, gripping my plate with both hands.
“I must say, Briggs.” I don’t even bother to hide my contempt. “Your excuse of needing to use the loo? It’s particularly piss-poor.” He stares up at me, open-mouthed, while I continue. “Perhaps, if you ate someactualfood, you’d find it easier to control your bowels.”
I spin on my heel and—plate and all—scramble over the fence, and leave.
I’m still so keyed up after my run-in with Harrisford that Heloise almost cancels our trip to the city to meet with the MLO. I wave away her concern, desperate to get away from Seamere and put Harrisford Briggs as far as possible from my mind.
We arrive on the street where the Galloping Gytrash is, apparently, though I see no evidence of its entrance. We’re in a divey sort of neighborhood, where the buildings are crammed close together and the walls are covered in graffiti.
Heli stops in front of a manhole in the ground, then turns to me.
“Ready?” She fusses with my collar and pats down my hair.
Tonight, Heloise has put a glamour on me. Unlike Harrisford’s glamour, which made me look a million times better than my usual self, Heli’s glamour has effectively turned me into a completely different person. I don’t know why, but she’s made me look a little bit like the actor who plays Loki—and I’m not a hundred percent sure I’m comfortable with it.
Still, I’m not planning on being here long. I just want enough time to gather some intelligence. Then we’ll get out as soon as possible.
“I’m ready,” I say, bracing myself. I’m not really being honest—my heart is thumping so hard that it could almost escape my chest. Going undercover and infiltrating a secret meeting of what is apparently a terrorist organization was never on my final-year bingo card. Yet here we are.
“All right, then,” says Heli. She’s glamoured to look like one of the sixth-year students—a big, burly Black man whose name escapes me but who is really, really good at Flaugball. “Let’s go in.”
I cast a look around, frowning. There don’t seem to be any open shop fronts, and no secret entrances to speak of. “How?”
She gives me an enigmatic smile, then points at the ground—at the manhole.
I knit my eyebrows. “There?” I say skeptically.
Heloise clamps her arms straight down against her body and takes a brisk step forward as though she’s walking off the end of a diving board.
