Chapter Twenty-Seven #3
is not for our good that I say what I do. It is for theirs. It is for his. It is for yours. Every place the authorities govern,
they make a mockery of the gifts Calabaraia offers. Of the welcome Calabaraia alone should be able to decide to confer or
not. They have made it a thin thing that only the rich and powerful may access, in lands such as ours.”
“So when it’s someone like me, like Anaya, like Frank.”
“You are mistakes. Statistical errors. Drawn here by others.”
Hargreaves let her eyes rest on Bram, on that last word.
And there was admiration in them. It made him rub the back of his neck and stop being able to look her in the face. Partly, Lili suspected, because he felt embarrassed about the accusations. But there was something else in there, too.
He just didn’t know how to handle someone else seeing him.
Then liking what they saw.
She had to be the one who kept trying to figure this out.
“But if it wasn’t you, then who?” she asked, sure that Hargreaves must have some idea. And judging by the do catch up look on her face, it seemed that was a safe bet. A safe but wholly terrifying bet.
“Why, whoever has the easiest and only access to the vampire they framed for all of this, of course. Because someone did frame
you for it, did they not? And then suddenly here was your savior, who seemed so helpful when you needed to cover this terrible accident up. So keen for conversation about things you could never have shared
with anyone else,” Hargreaves said, in an almost cheery sort of way.
While Bram’s face sank like a stone.
Everything sank like a stone.
It made her think of being on an elevator, then suddenly discovering the destination was hell. “No,” Bram said. “He’s my friend.”
“If he was your friend, he would not have used you like a resource.”
“But he didn’t. I wanted to tell him about Calabaraia. I was glad to.”
“And were you glad when he published those things in papers?” She raised one arched eyebrow. “Somehow, I suspect you were
not. But, well—he had saved you, had he not? It only seemed right. Then when he suggested you sleep, I’m sure that seemed right, too. A good rest,
away from all of this.”
“It was the best thing for me.”
“And the best thing for him, too. A perfectly oblivious vampire body for him to exploit and steal from. All that blood in
your veins, full of magic and power, ready for the taking. I cannot imagine a more tempting prize for a greedy little man,”
she said, face suddenly as sour as it usually was.
Lili couldn’t help thinking what hell it must have been for her, in this place.
Even as she swam in the horror that Bram was currently going through.
“But he seemed so kind,” he moaned. “So good.”
“Good is not in manner, Bram of Ember, but in deed. As I fear Professor Cobble is about to show both of you, quite at my expense,”
she said, the words barely out, before everything went very wrong. Lili saw Hargreaves move, her wand out whip quick. And
then there was a sound like a gong being struck, loud enough that it actually seemed to have a physical presence.
She felt herself pushed back into Bram.
He caught her, yet somehow, he was pushed back, too. They both hit the wall, too stunned at first to take stock. But she did
have some idea of what had happened anyway. When two powerful spells struck, they could make a kind of reverberation, in the
middle. Nothing to the spell casters, of course. But enough to do damage.
And not just to them.
There was a crack now, in the wall on the other side of the room.
She registered it, about a second before a second set of spells were cast. Lightning tried to emerge from the end of Hargreaves’s wand, blinding in the shadowy room and incredible enough that Lili was sure she had it. But then she saw him, illuminated by that light.
Professor Cobble, now in the room.
And she knew. She knew.
Hell, Bram knew, too. It had most likely sunk in just what kind of man his old mentor was, the moment Hargreaves had explained.
Impossibly powerful, she thought, and he thought the same. It was the reason he didn’t wait to see if that lightning landed. He just reached
out and tried to grab Hargreaves’s arm.
To pull her out of the way, quite clearly.
But it was too late. She looked at Lili one last time. All the regret and sorrow plain all over her face, for things she had
not been brave enough to do or say. Then suddenly she was jerked back, as if yanked by invisible strings. And the strings
didn’t stop there. They seemed to almost fold her in two, so brutally Lili thought she heard bones snap and crunch. It set
her teeth on edge, made her make a sound of horror.
Though the rest was worse.
Because the folding kept on.
In half again, her body buckling in ways no body every should. A third time, and now she was the size of a bird box. A whole
person somehow reduced down and down and down, faster and faster, until there was nothing left. She simply winked out of existence,
in the end.
And then they were left with the man who had done such a thing.
This tidy chap, looking as absent-minded and affable as ever.
“Now,” he said. “Who’s next?”