And then…she’s gone. Just, disappeared.
My head swivels, my mind rebelling against what I’ve seen. Then, her voice floats up from somewhere below the manhole. “Come on, Gwen!”
I step forward myself, expecting to be sucked down into somesort of magical chute. But nothing happens. The sole of my shoe meets solid metal, and I stamp on it in frustration.
“I can’t,” I call down. “It…it won’t let me through.”
A disembodied laugh echoes right up through the grate. “Yes, you can, Gwen,” Heli says. “You just have to believe.”
Believe?Oh no. Not that mumbo-jumbo esoteric stuff. Yes, I’m studying magical veterinary sciences—sciencesbeing the operative word in that sentence. I believe in magic, of course I do, but only when it’s contextual and framed in a logical way.
But this?Believingin oneself? That sounds more like something you’d see being flogged by some fundamentalist church guy in a cheap polyester suit on early-morning Sunday television.
I suppose, though, if I’m going to make it to the MLO meeting, I’m going to have to put aside my judgment.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter to myself, crossing my arms over my chest. Then, letting my eyelids flutter closed, I take a deep, steadying breath—and jump.
Surprisingly, I go right through the solid metal, landing in a lumpy, wing-back armchair. The bar itself is cozier and less shabby than the streetscape above suggested. There are overstuffed couches upholstered in dated floral tapestry lined up against the walls. Before them, low tables are set with tiny magelights flickering in terra-cotta holders, and there are bare bulbs swinging from a slightly cracked ceiling. The wall is emblazoned with tastefully done graffiti art that displays the name of the venue. At one end of the room, an overstuffed set of bookshelves contains haphazardly stacked books, and at the other end a dimly lit bar is manned by a bartender who might actually be an orc.
After giving Pen’s password to a security guard who’s wearing a baseball cap pulled down low, Heli and I sidle into the crowded backroom. There’s someone sitting in the middle, murmuring in a low voice. I can’t see their face, but they look like the leader—the rest of the MLO members are listening in rapt attention.
And then, finally, in the dim light of this divey bar, the speaker raises their head. They have thick black hair that cascades down to their waist, brown skin, and a golden nose stud. And I gasp, and grab Heloise’s arm, because, because…
Because the MLO woman who’s leading the meeting is none other than the Dean of Seamere: the esteemed, the venerated Professor Anika Kaur.
29
Harrisford
Danny has noticed that I’ve been in a foul mood since the gala and has basically forced me into coming out. So Friday evening after class, I go to meet him. My head is still spinning from the disastrous interaction I’d had with Gwendolynne when we’d run into each other at the qílín’s paddock.
The conversation had been going—if not well, at least tolerably—until I’d mentioned Nathaniel, and remembered the Magecorp CEO’s barely veiled threat. The memory had brought home the fact that I need to keep my distance from Gwendolynne Chan if I want to have any hope of staying motivated enough to get through final exams. I’d got too fucking close to her, close enough to want to throw myself at her feet and let her step all over me. I’d already willingly given her the qílín delivery. She’d earned far more marks than I had, once I’d sent in the report.
The truth is, if I spend any more time with this woman, I’ll probably end up purposely failing the exams just to avoid seeing her disappointed.
My mood is enveloped in a cloud of gloom as I push my way into the crowded pub. Right away, I spot Danny sitting at the bar. He waves at me, his arm still bandaged—the bite he’d sustained fromhis snake, Artemis, is taking longer than usual to heal—and I weave between the clusters of tables until I drop down into the seat beside him.
“Drink up,” he says, pushing a pint of beer toward me. It’s a pale ale, the exact type I like, but tonight it tastes like cardboard in my mouth.
“So, mate,” Danny says after we’ve both drunk silently for a while. I swipe beer froth off my lip with a napkin. “What’s the deal between you and Gwen?”
I splutter, coughing up flecks of beer, and Danny has to thump me between the shoulder blades until I stop. “Nothing,” I say, when I’ve finally ceased expectorating the entire contents of my lungs. “No deal. Absolutely nothing.”
“You two’ve been spending a lot of time together, though.” Danny half turns to face me, leaning one of his elbows on the counter, and calmly takes a swig of beer. “Bridie tells me you’ve been seen going in and out of her room.”
“Tell Bridie to mind her own damn business.” I glower at my drink, my shoulders hunched, fingers flexing around the glass. The condensation is cool and damp beneath my palm. “If you must know, Danny, she…Gwendolynne helped me patch up Pudding. On the night of the first gala. That’s all.”
His eyes spark with amusement. “You broughtPudding? To a gala? Man, oh man, you just can’t help yourself—”
Cutting him off, I snap, “Yeah, well, Pudding’s kind of hard to say no to.”
Danny chuckles. “Don’t I know it.”
I heard that, Pudding says, from where she is curled up inside my pocket. Her voice is unamused.
“Go back to sleep,” I grouse at her, only half jesting.
Danny polishes off his beer and signals to the bartender foranother. “So Gwendolynne really isn’t…up to anything? Even though there’ve been abnormal magic fluctuations coming from her dorm room for the past one and a half weeks?”
