Chapter 7
Gwendolynne
“You want me to treat your lizard,” I repeat, my voice flat. The familiar in question rests on Harrisford’s forearm, perfectly still and unblinking.
“My dragon,” Harrisford says, scoffing. “Good lord, Chan, you could at least try to be more specific. Exactly what sort of vet student are you?”
My face heats again, and irritation expands in my chest like a bubble.
“The type that says lizard to differentiate it from the actual dragons that are stabled outside. You know, the enormous, classic, fire-breathing ones?” When a dragon is brought in ill or injured, they keep them confined in a series of fireproof concrete pens, tethered to prevent them from flying away.
Occasionally the Mythological Creatures Hospital has to treat a wingless Chinese dragon too—those ones don’t breathe fire—but since they’re non-native we only ever get captive ones from the zoo.
As usual, Harrisford is acting like a typical myth.creat student:completely lacking nuance.
“I should think you’d be able to differentiate them given the considerable size difference,” he drawls.
I roll my eyes and then turn my attention to the lizard. “Well, what’s wrong with it, then?”
“She, not it,” Harrisford shoots back, echoing my words from before. “And she—I’m worried she got injured—”
“In the explosion?” It all suddenly makes sense. Harrisford’s familiar had been sat on his shoulder before the gala. She would have been there when the explosions hit.
I knit my brows, confused. “Can’t you do it?”
“No, Chan.” His lips twitch with something like amusement. “I’m not accustomed to handling things so…small.”
I narrow my eyes at him suspiciously. “Why don’t you take her to the emergency hospital?” Being open 24/7, it costs a lot more than the regular hospital, even with our student discount—but that wouldn’t really deter Harrisford, would it?
His gaze slides away from mine and he shifts the lizard up to his shoulder.
“Well, I…” Seemingly automatically, he begins to stroke his familiar’s chin.
She raises it slightly, arching into his touch.
“If you must know, I wasn’t supposed to bring her.
Familiars are banned from events such as these. You know, for security reasons.”
Inside my head, Percy utters, Bah!
“Oh,” I say, ignoring my cat. “I didn’t realize. I’ve not been to one before.” I guess it makes sense. Familiars allow their bonded humans to drain magic from the atmosphere, and in a crowded event like a gala, it could quickly deplete levels to zero.
His eyes lock on mine, cold and calculating. “Of course you haven’t.”
Chewing on my lip, I cast a glance at the lizard, who by now has turned her head and is regarding me with one black beady eye.
“So you want me to check her over and patch her up without telling anyone why she was hurt? And in exchange you’ll, what?
Keep quiet about my cat?” I let out a short, sharp laugh.
“Harrisford Briggs, are you blackmailing me?”
He cocks his head. “What’s a little blackmail between friends, eh?”
Friends? Is that what we are? I weigh the word in my mind, frowning, finding it woefully inaccurate. We’re more like enemies. Rivals. Competitors. Nemeses.
Still, this is my one chance of escaping the wrath of Professor Kaur. My one chance to get away with all the rules that I’ve broken within the last six hours. So I square my shoulders, heft Percy’s weight into my other arm, and nod.
“Okay, then,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
Harrisford follows me to Saint Gertrude’s, which takes a while since we’re both on foot. We march along, carrying our familiars, neither of us saying a word. I’m still stewing over the look Harrisford gave me when I asked if he owned a campus bicycle.
Night has fully fallen, and the sound of chirruping crickets laces the balmy air.
We’re walking through one of Seamere’s ancient, ornate outdoor corridors, and residual heat from the day is radiating from the stone.
It’s abnormally hot for nighttime, even for a London summer, and I wonder whether this funny weather we’ve been having is somehow connected to the magic surge.
I drag a hand across my sticky forehead, sweeping hair out of my eyes.
Is it much farther? Percy’s voice whines in my head. His tail jerks back and forth like a metronome that can’t keep time.
Unbelievable, I think. You’re not even walking! But he just lets out an impatient sigh.
Thankfully, the elaborate turrets of the hospital building eventually come into view, the stone grotesques leering at us from high up on their perches.
Saint Gertrude’s isn’t a regular, modern vet hospital.
It’s an imposing, ivy-clad gothic structure, cracked and crumbling and held together by magic—much like the rest of Seamere.
When we reach the staff entrance, I set Percy down and pull out the big brass key that Jenna had once slipped into my pocket. She’d patted it, given me a knowing look, then sauntered off. The key slides into the lock without making any noise.
“You have a key to the hospital?” Harrisford’s tone is incredulous. It sparks with wicked amusement. “Two rules in one night, Chan. It must be your personal record.”
I turn to face him. Moonlight spills across the pavement, but his face is shadowed by the eaves. There’s really nothing I can do to explain this, to hide Jenna Rutherford’s crime. I only hope I don’t get her in trouble, too.
“Yes, I have a key. But”—I swallow, the movement painful—“you can’t tell anyone, all right?
My supervisor gave it to me so I could lock up of an evening.
And if you tell, it won’t just be me who gets in trouble…
She will, too. It doesn’t seem fair, that.
” I stare up at him, into his darkened eyes, challenging him.
“It’s perfectly fair,” he retorts, his whisper getting louder. “Since she has, in fact, broken the rules.” I bristle, but he quickly adds, “Don’t worry, though. I won’t tell. I’m quite certain that Jenna Rutherford scares me more than she does you.”
I almost laugh, but manage to stop myself just in time. Instead, I narrow my eyes, scrutinizing, trying to determine if he’s being genuine. In the end, I decide that he is. I mean, he’s right, really; Jenna is a little scary.
“Thank you,” I say, my shoulders relaxing. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Though I must point out, Chan, the list of your demands seems to be getting inequitably longer.”
“What’s a little blackmail between friends?” I flash him a small, sarcastic smile and turn to push open the door.
The interior of the building is dark and cool, the mage-powered air-conditioning running on high to keep patients comfortable. Machines and monitors beep and blip, and one of the canine patients huffs out a soft bark.
We slip inside; I stealthily deactivate the alarms just like Jenna showed me.
Percy strolls in as though he owns the place, his crooked tail up and curled around like a question mark. He sniffs at the leg of a table and hisses, puffing up all over like a bottle brush.
Someone’s been here, he spits out. A cat.
I manage—just—to suppress my eye roll. “Percy, we’re in a veterinary hospital. Of course you can smell other cats.” I pause, then add, “Are you sure it’s not your smell, from a few hours ago?”
If you could smell this too, Hairless One, he says, clearly offended, then you would understand how insulting that is.
I shake my head and power on the fluorescent magelights. The hospital flickers into visibility, the patients blinking in the sudden brightness.
“Put her on the treatment table,” I instruct Harrisford, grabbing my white robe from its hook and throwing it on over my street clothes.
Carefully, Harrisford places his familiar on the stainless steel surface, then backs away a few steps.
I approach cautiously. Although we treat all types of companion animals at Saint Gertrude’s, reptiles are a less common type of familiar. Therefore I’m not quite as used to handling them. And I don’t want Harrisford to think that I’m, well…incompetent. He’d never let me hear the end of it.
Pushing up the sleeves of my robes, I hover my hands mere millimeters away from the bearded dragon’s skin. She stays stock-still, her black eyes fixed on me, as I lean into my magical senses and start palpating the lizard’s qì.
Like all the other familiars that went a bit feral tonight, I’m immediately hit with the sensation of way too much magic.
The magiphilia pulses through the familiar’s life force like an oncoming tide; her skin is scorching, when she should be relatively cool since it’s nighttime and she’s ectothermic.
I run my hands along the palpable aura, muttering when my hand catches on something—an injury.
It’s on her underside. There’s a burn there, deep enough to warrant dressing.
“She has a burn,” I say softly, checking the rest of her over. “I can easily heal it. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable, though. I’ll need to lightly anesthetize her. Are you okay with that?”
When I look up, Harrisford’s face is pale, his jaw clenched. “Go ahead. Please.”
Automatically, I reach for the drug safe key, but then hesitate.
“What’s wrong?” It seems impossible, but Harrisford’s grown even paler.
“We might have an issue,” I say. “Someone’s going to realize if there are drugs missing. I could use gas, but—”
“But what?” Harrisford’s shoulders are tensed, his fists clenched.
I grimace. “It won’t work if she holds her breath.”
He looks squarely at his familiar, a stern slant to his eyebrows. “Don’t hold your breath, Pudding.”
A laugh escapes my lips, involuntarily, and Harrisford scowls at me, his expression dark. “What’s so funny?”
I’m still trying to stifle my giggles, but I manage to choke a response out. “Your familiar’s name is Pudding? You—Harrisford Briggs, the most intimidating final-year at Seamere—named your lizard Pudding?”