Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
T horne
There’s a firm knock on my door.
I roll over, pick up my gloves from my night stand and tug them onto my hands.
“Come in,” I say.
Beaufort opens the door and leans against the doorframe. His brow is drawn over his eyes in thunder.
“You wanna come have some fun?” he asks.
“If you’re talking about the girl–”
“No, I’m talking about teaching someone who deserves it a lesson.”
I sit up straight on my bed. “Who?”
“The scum who gave her the black eye.”
I swing my feet to the ground and curl up, flexing my fingers inside my gloves, and pulling a shirt over my head.
“Lead the way.”
He nods and I follow him down the staircase. “Where’s Dray?” I ask. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to miss this.
“Out with his little buddies somewhere,” Beaufort says.
“Shouldn’t we wait–”
“Can’t,” Beaufort says, grinding his teeth. “It has to be now.”
I sense his magic in the air – fierce and angry and close to boiling over – and I understand.
“Who is he?” I ask, as we step out of our tower and into the night.
“Some piece of scum from Slate Quarter.”
We make our way along the weaving pathways, the clouded night sky blocked from our view by the towers above, the wind whipping after us. It’s late and there’s no one else out, most of the windows we pass, dark. We walk to the east of the academy, to the tower blocks where most of the commoners have their rooms.
It’s noisier here. Someone playing music. A few people shouting. A couple of peals of laughter.
“It’s this one,” Beaufort says, pointing to a plain-looking tower. We push back the heavy wooden door and find a group of boys, lounging about in the entranceway, passing around a joint.
Their conversation cuts short and they turn to stare at us, the spliff hanging limply from a short boy’s mouth.
“Any of you Stanley from Slate?” Beaufort booms.
They all glance at each other and shake their heads.
Beaufort takes a menacing step forward. “Are you sure about that?”
“He’s up in his room with some girl,” the boy with the joint says.
“Number?” Beaufort asks, although I’m sure he already knows it.
“Seven.”
Beaufort nods, then holds out his hand.
The boy hesitates, then passes him the joint hurriedly.
Beaufort twists it in his fingers, examining it and sniffing the smoke. Then he brings it to his lips, clamps it in his mouth, and inhales deeply, eyes open and not leaving the group of boys in front of us. The spliff crackles, the end glowing.
Holding the smoke in his lungs, he removes the spliff, then lets the smoke curl like a snake from his lips as he passes me the joint.
I look at it. It’s barely a butt. I take a couple of puffs on it, the weed making my head buzz – a buzz that matches the anticipation in my veins.
When I’m done, I drop it to the floor and crush it into the stone floor with the heel of my boot.
Then I’m following Beaufort up the stairs, the boys still silent below us as if they daren’t speak.
Room seven is the first on the left.
Beaufort rests his ear against the door. “He’s in there,” he whispers, disapproval written all over his face. “You ready?”
I nod.
Beaufort takes a step backwards, lifts his arms and blasts the door clean away, the piece of wood flying from the doorway, through the room beyond and crashing against a window, glass and wood splintering everywhere.
My friend always likes to make an entrance.
A high-pitched scream issues from inside the room and when we step inside we find a couple in bed together, both scrambling around for clothes.
We don’t give them the chance to find any. I march straight over to the girl, some curvy thing with big blue eyes, grab ahold of her upper arm and drag her from the bed. She’s wearing panties and nothing else.
“Out!” I order her, flinging her in the direction of the door. Covering her tits with her arms, she scurries away, leaving the boy I assume is Stanley scrabbling to pull on a pair of boxers.
“What the hell,” he mutters.
He’s tall and built with a little muscle. Not as lean as most of the kids from Slate Quarter. Probably stronger than them which is why he’s been throwing his weight around. Although why the fuck he’d hurt our girl, I can’t understand.
“Stanley?” Beaufort asks him.
“Yeah,” he says, pulling a shirt over his head and trying to stand up tall as if he isn’t intimidated by us, when it’s clear he is.
My bond brother lifts his hands again and this time sends the asshole flying across the room and smashing into the broken wood and glass.
He hits the debris with an oof .
“Hey man, what I–”
Beaufort sends another blast of magic hurtling towards him, hitting him right in the belly. He groans, folding over in half.
“I don’t know what this is about but I–” he mutters.
Beaufort isn’t in the mood for talking. He targets him with a volley of vicious magic. It’s not enough to kill or maim. It is enough to hurt – possibly scar. The boy jolts around on the floor, moaning and groaning with every impact, curling up into a tight ball.
Beaufort stops, his shoulders heaving. He turns and looks at me.
“Want a go?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
I walk over to the far side of the room, splinters of glass crunching under my boots, and grab hold of the boy by his neck. His eyes are swimming around in their sockets as he struggles to focus on our faces.
“Know who we are?” Beaufort asks him.
“Yeah, but I don’t know what–”
“The girl,” he says, as I squeeze his throat, “you don’t touch her ever again.”
“The girl?” his brow crinkles in genuine confusion. “That girl just now?”
“Briony Storm,” I tell him, liking the sound of her name in my mouth.
“Briony!” he says, eyebrows leaping up his forehead and a smirk forming on his lips. “This is about Briony? Man, she’s not worth–”
I swing back my fist and slam it right into his mouth. Despite my gloves, I feel a tooth crack against my knuckles and when I withdraw my hand, his mouth is full of blood.
“The black eye,” Beaufort growls from behind me. “You gave it to her. Only seems right that we repay the favor.”
I hit the boy again, this time right against his cheekbone. Tomorrow he’ll have a shiner blacker than the depths of night and everyone will know who gave it to him.