Page 40 of Darkest Magic

He heard it after he’d said it. I watched him hear it, the smallest tightening at the corners of his eyes, a man watching his own sentence walk out of his control and stand there ugly between us where he couldn’t reach it.

“Professional term,” he said.

“Obviously.”

“It was not meant⁠—”

“Sure.”

“Miss Lane.”

“Can we finish? I have other places to fail today.”

For once he looked at a loss. It wasn’t enough that anyone who hadn’t spent time with him would have caught it, but it was enough that I did. He ended the session seven minutes early. I counted.

That night I wrote it all down.

Cormac Vere - moved his chair back. Won’t touch me twice. Calls me contamination when he’s cornered. Answers real questions by making me stand up. Memory equals management, or removal, or mercy, depending entirely on who gets to name it. Ends the session early when something happens he can’t file.

Then, under that, because I hated how accurate it was, Something in that room scares him, and it isn’t only me.

I stared at the line until the ink dried. Then I shut the notebook before I could add the worse truth, that something in that room, something in me, scared me too.

TWELVE

Billie

We were at breakfast when Kit made his big announcement. He decided that he was going to find my Order, which was objectively stupid and, worse, kind. He even put a roll that he had procured from somewhere on my plate as though he could bribe me with baked goods. I had no clue where he’d come up with that idea, but he wasn’t wrong either.

“Fourth bell,” he said. “Little yard behind the washhouses.”

“No.” I didn’t even look up from my food.

“You haven’t heard the plan.”

“I heard your voice. That’s enough.”

Pippa looked up from her porridge. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe bun that morning. “What plan?”