Page 49 of Fatality on the Field

Iggy’s ears go red. “I didn’t⁠—”

“You did,” I say, not even bothering to soften it. “Now she’s the only local expert on this type of shit, so you’re going to have to suck it up and make nice with her, or she’ll tank this investigation just to spite you.”

He lapses into a tight silence, eyes boring holes in the windshield. Des cranes her head, tongue flicking at the air like she can taste the awkwardness. I don’t care if he’s mad; we may need Kimiko again in the future, which means we will have to be honest about what happened. I don’t think she’ll blame me for her students’ condition, but she will want to know why we’re working with a jackass she’s already tangled with. She’ll ask directly, I think, because every single description I’ve been given of the woman hints at something neither of the people in this car are even discussing.

Kimiko Nakamura is neurodivergent in some way, if not autistic, and no one is taking that into account.

“For someone who hates rich people bullshit so much, you sure surround yourself with it, Ignatius. Did you ever consider that your dad fucked up your head enough that you were running around imitating him unknowingly, so you could keep him from bitching at you? I mean, I see the real you, but most people at State U probably don’t. They just think you’re a carbon copy of your dad, probably.”

He doesn’t answer. I get the feeling that’s the closest anyone’s gotten to the heart of his problems in a long time—well, prior to those adorable hockey boys ganging up on him in Hell. The car stays silent for the next two minutes, tension bleeding off slowly with the turns of the road. I could push it further, but what’s the point? I still have to save three grad students from dying of magical plant poison and I have a week’s worth of Bowl planning and budget disasters waiting for me when I get back.

“Men are so fucking weird about sex and power,” Channing mutters, as she taps at her tablet. “The lies and hiding shit are what fuck things up everytime, but they just do it anyway.”

Des makes a little bobbing movement that I think means ‘amen, sister’, which gets another laugh out of me. I wink at Channing and then look at my erstwhile professor again. “Better yet, just ask women what they’re thinking and feeling rather than assuming. It’s so much faster.”

Iggy is stone quiet now. The color hasn’t come back to his ears, though, so maybe he’s getting it.

By the time we pull into the hospital’s parking garage, the sun’s dropping below the horizon and the whole place is lit with lights that make the concrete look like a level in a video game. Iggy whips the car into a spot with more force than necessary, the engine still purring with the threat of more horsepower than anyone on campus needs. He sits for a second, and then pops the locks.

We exit quickly. Channing tucks her tablet under her arm, Des wraps herself closer to my neck, and I crack my knuckles with a satisfying pop. The lobby is bright, with glass and tile everywhere, and reeks of cleaning chemicals. I sense the undertone of supernatural triage the second we step off—burnt hair, scorched cloth, and the tang of magical herbs used to heal a wound.

I see Zuszanna immediately. She’s standing near the reception desk in civilian clothes looking very concerned. Tilting my head at my companions, I indicate where to go and Channing moves ahead, flashing her badge at the desk. Iggy falls in with her, maybe to avoid walking next to me after my critique. He’ll be okay, but I think he’s upset that he couldn’t fix the kids on his own as well. I should probably talk with him about it once we’ve heard what our colleague has found out from the doctors.

The desk nurse glances up, then does a double take as Des peeks out from my braid and flicks her tongue at the air. “Morgana LeCiel, here to see the three students brought in for emergency care?”

That gets her attention and she checks a screen before she prints three passes and hands them to Channing. “They’re in Isolation on floor two. The healer is with them, but as Dean, you’re cleared to go up. Please use the side elevator.”

We hustle past the regular elevators to a grim metal door marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” Iggy lopes ahead and swipes the pass, so the elevator jerks open. As we ride it up, the three of us stand in a neat row, saying nothing until the doors open.

“Are we ready for this?” I ask, my voice just above a growl. I don’t know what to expect and my stomach is already roiling with concern for kids who had nothing to do with whatever bullshit villainy is going on at my school.

Channing grins, winking at me. “Try not to scare the staff. We’ll need them for backup.”

I fix my face in what I hope is a professional scowl, and we exit the elevator as a unit—Dean, her inner circle, and one deeply offended gorgon snake—into the next circle of crisis.

Time to scare the scrubs off a bunch of healers who will definitely think they’re smarter than us.

thirty

KASPAR

The elevator in the magic building is a reminder that most human architecture is designed for things smaller than a dragon. It rattles and shrieks as Li and I ride up, the cage barely wide enough for both of us shoulder to shoulder. When the doors open onto the top floor, the corridor is so cramped I nearly flatten a grad student as we step out. He apologizes to us, then his eyes widen as he takes in Liam and suddenly starts blabbering even more.

People on this side of the Veil are so weird about the Fae; it’s almost a fetish.

We make our way past two more students camped in the hallway, both of them in masks like you’d use for chemical fume protection, not disease. The magic department doesn’t fuck around, it seems. The smell here is part bleach and part the sharp green of broken tomato vines, a stink that only gets worse as we hit the double doors at the end of the road. Something here has been in nature—a lot—and the scent clings to them like it’s a perfume. I give Li a look and he shrugs; neither of us believe the professor has been gardening, and we know he’s banned from the greenhouse.

When I open the doors, Slade is waiting just inside, leaning back in a chair with his phone in one hand and the other tapping a rhythm on the arm. The siren looks up when we enter, his pretty eyes gleaming as he jerks his chin at the woman hunched over a crowded table across the room.

“Big to-do again,” he says in a low voice as he covers the phone speaker. “Try not to piss Kimmi off if you can help it. We need her for this.”

Liam immediately strides over to where the illustrious botany professor is working with head held high. I follow him with a sigh, but hang back as he stoops down to get her attention. I’m not exactly educated on this stuff, but I figure I can fetch things or back my old friend up if this woman really is as irascible as Iggy described.

The entire table is covered in papers, old tomes that must be the professor’s, and small specimen jars made of glass and stoppered with wax. Each has a tidy little tag in the woman’s tight print, and in the center of the array is a legal pad filled with hand-drawn diagrams, Latin names, arrows, and a few small sketches of what looks like it might be a spore of some kind. I definitely know where the plant smell is coming from—she’s practically filling the air with chlorophyll just sitting here.

“Professor Nakamura, my name is Liam Spéirgheal, and I’d like to offer my assistance.”

Kimiko lifts her head, blinking at my prince as if she’s trying to place him. Her hair is in a tight bun, her lab coat is buttoned to her throat, and its sleeves are rolled precisely to her elbows. She has a clipboard in one hand, and she’s so intent on staring at Li that it’s almost eerie. When she finally decides that she’s not supposed to know him, her reaction is to squint and tilt her head. “Are you from the Daybreak Court?”