Chapter 16
Gwendolynne
Everything is hazy when my eyes first blink open, and I’m staring at a row of fluorescent magelights. There are dozens of tiny insect corpses shadowed against the brightness—their pattern looking oddly familiar. And as my vision comes slowly back into focus, I figure out where I am: my dorm.
And even worse, sitting among the drab mass-produced furniture, leaning back in my tattered desk chair, is the last person I would want in my room…ever.
Yep. Harrisford-fucking-Briggs.
I struggle up to my elbows, disrupting Percy, who’s sitting on my chest. He gives an outraged howl and holds tight, digging his claws into my skin.
“Briggs,” I say, bordering on a shriek. “What are you doing here?”
He swivels the chair around to face me, an infuriating smirk on his face. “Why, hello, Chan.” There’s a sarcastic slant to his greeting. “It’s so lovely to see you, too.” Behind him, Pudding is sitting on my desk, basking in the light from my desk lamp.
My entire body hurts like I’ve been dragged through a meat grinder, but seeing his smarmy face makes me remember. Brings back all the fury I have over how he’d tricked me, how he’d trapped me in the Magecorp vault with his father, how I’d almost died because of him and his fucking lies.
I try to sit up, but my head spins and I fall back against my pillows. Percy lets out an indignant growl before settling himself back on my chest. Clutching my forehead, I let out a groan. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Harrisford shifts to sit forward in my chair, elbows on his knees. “Bloody hell, Chan.” He shoots me a scandalized look. “That’s no way to speak to someone who just saved your life.”
I drop my hand and glare at him. “What do you mean, saved my life?”
“You don’t remember?” He passes a hand over his chin and frowns at me.
“The last thing I remember was the explosion.”
“But you were talking to me…On the way here. You fought me. I had to sedate you to get you on the dragon—”
“The dragon!” It occurs to me that I’m more pissed off about the dragon than about the fact Harrisford forcibly sedated me.
“It was the only way to get you here quickly enough to save you!” he thunders.
I cross my arms, my eyes narrowing to slits. “It’s big of you to talk about saving me, Briggs…when you’re the one that almost got me murdered.”
And for the first time since I woke up, Harrisford’s self-satisfied mask slips. “Murdered? Did my father…Did he try to kill you?”
I shudder, suddenly cold. Placing a hand on Percy, I elaborate. “He had a gun. He threatened me. He”—I touch my forehead, where I can almost still feel the cold kiss of steel—“held a gun to my head.”
Harrisford is suddenly on his feet. He strides to the bedside, eyes wild, both hands buried in his hair. “Oh god. Oh god, Chan. I’m so sorry, I—”
“Lied to me?” I finish his sentence off for him, my voice acidic. “Told me he was out of town? Got me trapped in a locked room with your violent, gun-toting father?”
He stops and stares at me, his mouth open.
“I swear,” he says, and his tone is almost pleading.
“I swear I didn’t know he was in London.
He told me he’d be in Wales, for fuck’s sake, and I believed him.
” Harrisford shakes his head and curls his hands into fists.
“If I’d known he might be there, I would never have taken the risk…
” He turns away, bracing both hands on the desk.
I stare at his back, at his bowed head, trying to work out if I believe him.
I can’t believe him, I shouldn’t—I ought to not trust this man who has been my rival for so many years…
And yet. He brought me here, didn’t he? After the explosion, he somehow managed to get me back to Seamere, back to my bed… And not only that, he’s still here.
And anyway, wasn’t it my idea to break into Magecorp? It was me who insisted on it, who assured him it would be safe for me to impersonate Hani Nguyen.
It was my fault things went so badly.
I don’t want to ask, but I have to. “Your dad…Is he dead?” My voice is small; it catches in my throat. The stark reality is starting to hit: I blew up the top floor of Magecorp.
A pause. Harrisford won’t look at me. “He’s alive.”
I blow out a relieved breath. Yes, Darghan Briggs is a scumbag, and he threatened me with a gun…But the idea of actually killing someone—even if it was accidental—sickens me.
Harrisford drops back into the seat of my chair and scrubs at his face with both hands.
Neither of us speaks for several moments.
Percy starts purring, the vibrations reverberating through my body.
“Thanks, Percy,” I whisper, and scratch him under the chin.
There’s an unsubstantiated theory that cats purr to heal their bodies from within, and I wonder if by sitting on my chest he’s trying to help me heal, too.
Either way, having his warm fluffiness on top of me is making me feel better—even if it’s purely psychosomatic.
Eventually, Harrisford breaks the silence. “What happened in there, anyway?”
I quickly recount everything that happened up to and including the explosion. As I talk, Harrisford’s hands grip the armrests of my desk chair, holding on so tight I fear the brittle old plastic might crack.
“How did you know the door would cause an explosion,” he asks, “when you flung the wire at it?”
I draw the bedsheets around Percy and me both, enveloping us in the draping warmth. This is the first time Percy’s sat on me—ever—and I really don’t want him to leave.
“Well,” I say slowly, trying to order my thoughts.
“I knew the air would be ionized, because of the huge reservoir of magic they keep in the circular room. And I knew that the door was still live-wired from the initial shock. So I figured that if I managed to ground the current from the door to the floor, it’d create a magical explosion. ”
“Fucking brilliant,” Harrisford says, more to himself than anything. Then he glances at me sidelong. “I have to say, Chan, you secretly being an evil mastermind is…frankly rather frightening.”
I stare at him. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“Well,” he says, one corner of his mouth lifting. “Maybe it is.”
I rip my gaze away, my cheeks heating, and pick at a stray piece of lint on the sheets. “Yeah, well, that’s the last thing I remember. The explosion.” My brow creases as I try to untangle the sequence of events further. “If you brought me here on a dragon, how did your dad get out?”
Harrisford’s gaze drifts away from me and fixes on the opposite wall. “The ambulance helicopters were just arriving as we were flying off. They took him to the London General Magical Hospital. But…he’s apparently in a coma.”
My eyes linger on Harrisford’s profile, silhouetted against the light from my lamp.
I’m trying to work out why he’s frowning.
Is it because he loves Mr. Briggs and is mad at me for endangering his dad’s life?
Or is it because he actually hates his father and wishes that the blast had killed him proper?
“I—I’m sorry, Briggs.”
He waves a dismissive hand at me. “Don’t be. We both know that he would’ve killed you.”
A shudder tears through me, and I clutch at the sheets. Percy’s claws dig in again. The memory of Darghan Briggs’s attack is still all too fresh in my mind—and my body. It’s like any mention of it triggers a visceral reaction deep in my organs and flesh.
Which is why, when Harrisford tentatively broaches the subject, I don’t feel up to elaborating. “Exactly what did he say to you?” Harrisford says. He seems to be holding his breath.
I swallow, my tongue scraping the dry roof of my mouth. “It’s—it’s all in the listening book.”
Until now, he’d been slouching, tipping my desk chair back. But now he sits up straight, giving me a sharp look. “You had a listening book?”
I nod and point. “In my bag. I nicked it from the library.”
He stares at me for a second, as though trying to work out who I am and why I’m suddenly flouting school rules with impunity. But soon enough he breaks eye contact and rummages through my bag.
“There are a lot of packs of Knobbly’s nuts in here.” He raises an eyebrow and I scowl at him.
“Keep looking.”
After a while, he locates the book and pulls it out triumphantly. Flipping it open, he jams his glasses on and starts reading, his blue and brown eyes scanning back and forth.
I watch him as he reads. It’s always incredible—and disconcerting—how different Harrisford looks when wearing his spectacles.
They’re slightly rounded, with thick tortoiseshell rims, the kind you’d expect an Oxford graduate to wear.
Or those male models on posters in opticians’ shops, who you know never actually wear glasses but are used in advertisements anyway just because they’re pretty.
And as much as I hate to admit it, Harrisford is pretty, in that haughty, rich-boy way.
The way his golden hair sweeps back in gentle waves from his face.
The oceanic blue of his left eye and the deep mahogany of his right, framed by lashes so dark they really don’t belong on a blond.
The way his high cheekbones and straight nose and sharp jaw frame his perfect, pouty lips…
I sigh. Not only did Harrisford win the wealth and privilege lottery, it seems he won the genetic lottery, too.
On me, glasses would just look nerdy. On him? It’s patently unfair, but on him they lend him a certain aristocratic air. As an average person—a mere mortal in the looks department—it would be horrible dating someone like him. You’d always pale in comparison.
Not that I’m planning to date him, of course. The prick.
Something in the listening book has caught Harrisford’s attention, and his usual pale complexion is deepening to puce.
“What’s wrong?” I venture, but he snaps the book shut.
“It’s nothing,” he says curtly, tossing the book on my desk. Then he levels a look at me. “It sounds like Father was saying Magecorp isn’t behind the surges.”