Chapter 33
Gwendolynne
Three days later, I’m slumped on my parents’ couch in our poky Manchester flat.
Professor Pickering had allowed me to stay one more night in my dorm room. But at first light on Saturday morning, I was forced to pack all my things and catch the train up north. According to Heloise, by Monday, everyone was talking about why the Gwendolynne Chan was no longer attending classes.
It’s almost bedtime. My tea is cold—curry and chips from one of the takeaway joints a few doors down from my parent’s restaurant.
I have no idea where Percy is. My only solace is the fact that no one seems to have discovered that he once belonged to Nathaniel Price. But I don’t know how much longer it’ll remain a secret.
Heli has been trawling through animal rescue sites, sending me pictures of all the black cats. None of them are flea-bitten, one-eyed, or scruffy enough to be him, and all it does is compound my grief. At night, I cry myself to sleep hugging a pillow, alternately imagining it’s Percy…or Harrisford.
It’s shameful, but now that I’m more than three hundred kilometers away from London—and Seamere—I’ve recklessly allowed my Harrisford-related fantasies to run rampant.
On more than one occasion I’ve fallen asleep, still shuddering from my self-induced orgasms, with images of Harrisford’s perfectly proportioned face crowding my muddled mind.
It feels okay to be imagining him, since I’ll probably never see him again. We’ll be enemies forever, after he betrayed me so badly, but soon enough the memories of him will fade to pale and shadowy echoes. And, surely, my hatred will eventually simmer down to a brooding sort of contempt.
In fact, I don’t have to feel at all guilty about objectifying him, because he means nothing to me.
Nothing. He’s ceased to be an actual person.
He’s just a face, a body, a collection of physical attributes that trigger a purely physiological reaction.
Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin: chemicals that activate the pleasure centers in my brain.
Or perhaps I’m self-sabotaging, fancying the one person who I hate the most, the one individual who has so thoroughly ruined me. Like a stress fracture that won’t heal because I stubbornly continue to run on it.
Stop thinking about him, Gwendolynne. Sighing, I sit up, pushing aside the plate of soggy chips.
Tonight is the night I usually video call my parents, a weekly ritual we started because their restaurant closes every Monday.
It’s fortunate that this week they’re away, visiting family in Kent, unaware I’m back in Manchester.
Ignorant of the shame I’ve brought to the family by being unceremoniously suspended a literal week before graduation.
When my parents answer, my mum is on the screen, though it only shows the upper half of her forehead, the majority of it being bare wall.
My dad is somewhere offscreen, his voice coming through just fine.
No matter how many times I’ve tried to teach my parents how to video call, somehow they manage to routinely mess it up.
Still, my heart fractures at the sound of their voices, talking excitedly at me.
“Guiying.” Having obviously saved up all their news to tell me on our weekly call, my mum launches straight into it. “Your father saw nice man speaking on the TV today—Minister for Magical Agriculture. You should write letter to this man, he could get you good job.”
The screen shifts, and my father comes into view. He’s sat beside my mum, nodding solemnly, dark circles carved into the spaces beneath his eyes.
“Mā,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. My parents tell me about completely unattainable job and networking opportunities on a semiregular basis. “I can’t just write a letter to a minister and get a job, it doesn’t work like that—”
“You get Ministry job anyway, Guiying,” my father says, cutting me off. “Because you come first, yes?”
“Bà ba, I…” I stop short, my hands curling into fists. What am I supposed to say to that?
I’ve been kicked out of university.
I’m going to fail my degree.
I can’t help you save the restaurant.
I am a…disappointment.
My insides shrivel at the thought of admitting the truth, so instead I just say, “I’ll…try my best.” There’s still time to turn things around. Isn’t there?
My dad’s eyes soften. He raises a triumphant fist. “We are so proud of you. Our daughter, best at Seamere College!”
Surreptitiously, I sniff, swiping at my eyes with my sleeve. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Have you eaten?” It’s my mum now, once again making sure I’m not wasting away from severe and sudden malnutrition.
“Yes”—I glance at the half-eaten box of chips—“I’ve eaten.”
After my mother has filled me in on all the family gossip, including how appalled she is that my younger brother is threatening to pursue a theater degree, the call finally clicks off.
I bury my head in my hands. Tonight, my mother’s incessant chattering was kind of a good thing—it meant I didn’t have to say much, which kept me from bursting into tears.
Plus, it’s killed some time, helping me to delay the thing I’ve been dreading.
But it’s time now; I can put it off no longer.
Without Percy to channel magic for me, I’ve had to restart my nightly rationing spells, though with each passing day it’s becoming harder and harder to care.
There’s no chance I can afford to get a familiar permit: The cost for one permit is more than half of what my parents make over an entire year.
And it’s only six days until exams start.
I’ll almost certainly miss sitting them and fail the entire course.
But still, like a fool, I’m unable to completely let go, so I go through the routine every night on the off chance that a faerie godmother will appear in my living room and tell me that it was all a dream. That I can go back to Seamere and finish my degree…without my family finding out.
Plus, I’d be lying if I said the pain didn’t provide some semblance of distraction from the absolute shit show that is my life.
I’ve just dragged the blade across my skin for the first time, reciting the rationing spell as I go, when my doorbell rings.
I freeze. No one should be here. It’s almost eleven p.m. I haven’t ordered any takeaway deliveries, nor am I expecting visitors. The neighbors usually keep to themselves, and my parents are at the other end of the country and wouldn’t use the doorbell anyway.
Tightening my hold around the scalpel handle, I creep to the door and look out the peephole. Fuck. I pull away, spinning to the side and flattening myself against the wall.
What the hell is Harrisford Briggs doing at my flat?
At least, I think it’s Harrisford—it’s hard to tell through the fish-eye lens of the peephole.
The doorbell rings again, and I try to quell my panting breaths.
If I stay quiet for long enough, maybe he’ll think no one’s home.
Maybe he’ll give up and go back to wherever the hell he came from.
What is he doing in Manchester, anyway? Is he here visiting someone?
Perhaps he’s like one of those sleazy celebrities, with a side piece in every city.
There’s a prolonged silence. I let out a slow breath, still trying to stay quiet. Has he…gone?
But no. A moment later, Harrisford’s voice rings out, loud and clear, from the other side of the door.
“Chan,” he says sternly. “I know you’re in there. I saw you look through the peephole.”
Shit. It is him.
I freeze, hesitating, wondering what I should do. Then I remember I’m holding a scalpel, which gives me some advantage, at least.
Before he’s had a chance to react, I’ve already flung open the door, shoved him up against the opposite wall, and pointed the scalpel blade at his neck.
“What the hell are you doing here, Briggs?” I hiss. My forearm is pinned horizontally against his chest. Trying not to notice the hard lines of muscle beneath it, I lean into him harder, pressing him further against the wall.
He actually has the gall to grin at me. “I’m paying you a visit, Chan. What does it look like?”
Some of my hair has fallen over my face, so I blow it out of my eyes, frustrated.
“Visiting me?” My eyes rove over his attire—he’s wearing an actual suit, with a tie and an overcoat.
Yes, we’re up north, but it’s summer—it’s not that fucking cold.
“Dressed like this? In Manchester? Are you trying to get beaten up?”
“If you have a problem with my clothing,” he says, infuriatingly calm as his smile grows wider and even more cocky, “you’re more than welcome to take it off.”
I bare my teeth and growl at him, pressing the blade of the scalpel against his skin. “You’re awfully flippant for someone whose life is in danger.”
The smile falls away, and he gazes at me intently, the deep blue of his left eye glinting in the dim magelights of the hallway. “Then it’s lucky, isn’t it? That I don’t much value my life.”
My hand shakes, and I jerk the blade away from his throat. He must have been a little tense, even though he hid it well, because he actually loosens a breath in relief.
But his relief is short-lived when he sees what I’m doing instead.
“Would you prefer an open or closed castration?” I say evenly, my eyes narrowed, now pointing the scalpel squarely at his crotch. “A scrotal or pre-scrotal incision? Take your pick, Briggs—I’m well trained in all the methods.”
He swallows hard, and I give him a smile as falsely sweet as sugar-free syrup. “I guess I’ve discovered what you truly value, huh?” I say. Typical.
“What do you want me to say?” he rasps out. Under my arm, I can feel the pulse of his throat, beating hot and steady beneath his skin.
My voice drops an octave, deceptively soft.
But inside, I am seething. “I want to know why you betrayed me.” I spit.
“Or more to the point, why you betrayed Percy. You can hate me all you want—I don’t even care.
But Percy? He’s innocent. He has nothing to do with the fact that you and I hate each other.
He didn’t deserve to be seized. He didn’t deserve to go to the pound.
” My voice has started to vacillate, and I’m livid to discover that I’m crying.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to curb my tears.
Harrisford is quiet for so long that I wonder if he’s passed out from hypoxia or something. So I crack open an eyelid. Unfortunately, he’s still conscious, and worse—he’s staring at me in that disarming way he has.
“I don’t hate you,” he says softly, after a pause. “And I swear on my life, Chan—I didn’t betray Percy.”
I’ve seen many faces of Harrisford over the past seven years.
The arrogant side, obviously, his usual default state.
I’ve seen him angry. I’ve seen him joyful.
I’ve even seen him nervous, when I was about to anesthetize Pudding after the museum explosion.
But I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him quite like this.
He’s…vulnerable. His expression so raw, so open, that I immediately know, deep in my bones, that he really is telling the truth.
The fight immediately drains out of me, and I push away from him, stepping back, the scalpel dangling loose in my fingers. I’m suddenly aware of how ratty I look: My hair’s a mess, my feet are bare, and—goddammit—I’m once again wearing that stupid Twilight T-shirt.
I should order him to go. Slam the door in his face. Stop him from entering the cluttered chaos of the flat. But tonight, Harrisford has shown me a new side to his persona. And not only that…He didn’t betray me like I’d previously assumed.
So I whirl around in a huff and stalk back into my parents’ flat—leaving the door wide open.
A moment later, I haven’t heard him follow, so I turn to look at him over my shoulder. “Well?” I say, raising an eyebrow, tetchy that I have to spell it out. “Are you coming in or not?”