Then they’re gone.
“My suite’s in Cornubia Hall,” Morgan says, threading her arm through mine and nodding down the path. “Right there.”
I nod, only half-listening, and look around at exactly where we are. It’s a part of campus I never really spent time in, a pocket of space between Grove Quad and the field house I only remember crossing the one time Callahan gave me a ride back in from Sarrasford.
Morgan takes a step onto the footpath, pulling me gently with her, then pauses.
“You okay?”
I nod again. “I’ll live,” I joke. Maybe the first joke I’ve made all night.
“There she is.” Morgan beams. “Welcome back.”
Lamps draped with scarves,curlicued antique furniture, random potted plants and candles and rocks and trinkety shit absolutely everywhere.
Morgan’s suite is unmistakably hers.
“You’re in the smaller bedroom,” she says, kicking off her fluffy white boots into a heap of shoes by the door. There’s a respectably sized living space slash kitchen, a far-off door ajar to what seems to be Morgan’s room, and two more doors besides. “By the bathroom.” She nods. “Hope that’s okay. But I did have dibs. And you know what they say about beggars being choosers, so…” She pauses in unwinding her scarf and winces. “Sorry. Too soon?”
“No,” I say softly. I don’t even care. Suddenly, the weight of everything that’s happened in just twenty-four hours is pressingon me, and I sink onto her plum-colored couch, bracing my head up with my hands.
Was it really just this morning that I woke up in the Renfrew dorms? Ate my tasteless breakfast, ate my tasteless lunch, did my EMDR session, read the next stupid chapter inThe Michelangelo Matrix, saw…
…saw Alexei Moroslav in the reception room?
My temples pulse under my fingertips.
What am I doing?
What is goingon?
“Here.”
I look up to see Morgan setting something on the coffee table in front of me: a steaming mug the size of a cereal bowl that smells like cardamom and maple sugar. She’s somehow already changed, into a loose set of dusky pink loungewear and thick white socks.
“Drink some,” she says, settling into a criss-cross applesauce position next to the coffee table. “You’ll feel better.”
I take a sip. It’s good.
“How did you…” The question feels almost too fragile to piece together. I set down the mug. “Why?”
Morgan takes a deep inhale. Then lets out a long sigh. Closes her eyes.
“Because you need to be safe, Gwenna.”
She opens them again. “The whole thing with them is…it’s complicated. Not for me to say. And I promise I’m not just saying that to cover for them. I amincandescentlyangry at them on your behalf. Still. It’s more that I just…don’t really know it all. From their perspective.” She drums her fingers on the coffee table, pensive. “You know?”
“Not really,” I say, and pick my tea back up. “That’s kind of the whole problem.”
“Right.” Morgan gives the coffee table a light tap with her palm. “Well, look. I really only know the broad strokes of whatever God-loving, swordfighting, do-gooding thing they’re up to, okay? Hand to goddess.” She holds up her hand for emphasis. “But when it comes to you, Gwenna…” She swallows. “You’re my friend. And youdoneed to be safe. For that reason, at the very least. So that’s why I…inserted myself into the process.”
“Okay.”
“Like, I’m noton their side, but I’m also notnot.” Morgan shakes a thin gold watch down to the end of her wrist and glances at it, frowning. Then resumes. “It’s just, I can’t give you too many details on their…motivations. At present.”
This either isn’t making much sense or I’m too tired to process language. Possibly both. “Okay,” I say again. I look around the living room again. “So, am I just…”
“Staying here,” Morgan says. “With me. For the foreseeable future. As long asyouwant, anyway. But I figure…”
