Chapter 38 #2
It takes a moment for Percy’s explanation to sink in fully, but then I’m rummaging through my wardrobe. Source. Source. I need a Source. My mind chants the phrase over and over as I search, like it’s an affirmation.
After Harrisford had rescued me from the Magecorp tower, healed me, and put me in my Twilight shirt, he’d presumably stuffed his mother’s suit somewhere.
When I finally come across it, I realize that stuffed isn’t exactly the right word. He had, in fact, folded it up neatly and placed it inside a drawer. I shake out the tweed fabric. It’s still covered with dust and debris from the explosion.
“What are you doing?” Heli asks, unfolding herself from the bed and coming to stand by me.
I don’t answer her. I just continue my careful search of all the crevices in the tweed, running my fingers along all the neatly sewn seams. And then—
“Got it,” I say, my heart giving a triumphant flip. Resting in my palm is a piece of Source: shrapnel from the explosion.
Percy tells us that Nathaniel Price has plenty of black boxes. He’s not quite sure what they’re called, how to work them, or even what they do, but he assures us that every time he witnessed Nathaniel tearing open a portal, he’d done so holding one of the boxes.
It takes the rest of the afternoon for Heli and me to sketch out a plan.
Percy, having never had his bond formally rescinded from Nathaniel’s control, still has the ability to enter the Price family mansion.
Unfortunately, the protection charms and security wards won’t allow either of us to accompany him, but he agrees to go in on his own.
That night, under cover of darkness, Heloise, Percy, and I sneak up to the tall steel fence of Mr. Price and Mrs. Mason-Price’s enormous estate property.
In the distance, the peaked roofs of the Price mansion are shadowed against the inky sky.
Fortunately, it’s cloudy and dark, so Percy blends seamlessly into the surrounding shadows.
I crouch beside him, nerves tying my stomach in knots. This is dangerous—so dangerous. “Be careful,” I say, my mouth running dry. I only just got Percy back and I don’t want to lose him again. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t be seen.”
He narrows his eye to a slit. You are severely underestimating a cat’s ability to be stealthy. His tail twitches, irritated. It seems a conspicuous gap in your veterinary knowledge.
I don’t even have it in me to be annoyed by the snootiness of his tone. “Just…hurry back, okay?”
He spends some moments regarding me with a haughty look. Do not fear. I shall hurry. And as he turns away, he adds, I do not want to lose you, either.
I stare at him, open-mouthed. Did Percy just admit that he actually…
cares about me? I don’t have time to ask, because already he’s squeezing into the minuscule space beneath the fence.
Having demonstrated that cats actually are made of liquid, he trots off into the darkness.
When he is a few meters away he all but disappears, swallowed whole by the night.
“And now we wait,” I murmur. My chest feels constricted, as though I’ve zipped myself into a too-tight dress.
Heloise sits down, her back against the fence, and before long I sink down beside her.
“Do you think it’s actually Magecorp behind the surges?” I ask, after we’ve sat silently for a few minutes. “And the explosions?”
“I dunno, Gwen.” Heli’s eyes are wide and dark, liquid pools in the moonless night. “It doesn’t sound like using people as tethers is a new thing. I think”—she gives a small frown—“that maybe the surges and explosions are from something else, like Mr. Briggs claimed.”
“Maybe whoever’s sabotaging Magecorp is kidnapping the implanted people and using them up too fast.” I scrunch my nose up in disgust. “I would say it sounds like something the MLO would do, but then Professor Kaur…” I trail off.
It’s beyond imagining to believe that the dean, my hero, would be involved in anything that shady.
Not to mention someone as gentle, and as noble, as Pen.
“I know, right?” Heli says, tipping her head back against the fence.
I almost lean back too, but instead I leap to my feet, because Percy is back. “Percy!” I whisper as he slips back underneath the fence. “You brilliant, brilliant animal.”
He trots toward us, a sleek black box around the size of a cigarette packet clamped between his jaws.
I stare at him, puzzled. “I thought you said it was a big box?”
It is big to me, Percy retorts, dropping the box at my feet. And it’s true. The strange black object might be small to me, but Percy had to almost unhinge his jaw to fit it inside his mouth.
I pick up the black box off the ground and shove it in my pocket. It’s heavier than I expected, and oddly cold. “You’re right. And thanks. You can definitely have some baked beans for that.”
Heli raises one eyebrow at me, and I chuckle. Then, after I signal to them both to start moving away, we begin picking a path through the overgrown grass, heading back to Heli’s car.
We haven’t made it far, though, before it happens: A gunshot rings through the air, cleaving the stillness in two.
Heli and I scream, and even Percy jumps. Mrs. Mason-Price, the same woman who’d ordered me to euthanize Percy on the first day I met him, is running across the vast expanse of her lawn, brandishing a magical gun exactly like the one Darghan Briggs had pointed at me.
“Run!” I scream. Dropping all attempts to remain quiet, we start crashing through the tangled undergrowth. My heart is pounding in my throat, my breaths coming in ragged rasps. We’re so close, we’re so close, it’s only a few paces away—
Another shot rings out, and behind me, Heloise screams. I whirl around, yelling her name, and she stares at me, wide-eyed as she crumples.
Her hand is clamped on her upper arm, and even in the darkness I can see that around it, there’s a dark stain creeping slowly outward, seeping into the sleeves of her cream-colored shirt.
“Heli,” I pant, sprinting back to her. “Oh my god, Heli.” I fall to my knees, pressing my hands over the wound. Then, not even thinking about the fact I’m not technically allowed to do it, I perform a quick healing spell to cauterize the blood vessels, then seal the wound shut.
Percy lets out a plaintive meow, and I drag Heloise’s arm around my shoulder.
Together, the three of us stumble toward Heli’s car, while behind us Mrs. Mason-Price screams obscenities at us.
She must have thought we were trying to trespass—perhaps she’s more paranoid after the last break-in—but at least she seems to have given up hunting us, now that we are at a distance.
Somehow, I manage to yank open Heli’s car door. Percy leaps in and onto the back seat. He sits bolt upright with his tail curled around his body, shivering following the close encounter with his ex-owner.
I start to bundle Heli into the back seat, but she waves me away. “Gwen, I’m all right. You healed me already, remember?”
“But—but you were shot!”
“The bullet must’ve just grazed me. Get out of the way, G, I’m driving.”
“Heli—”
Heli gives me a stern look, hands on hips, her eyebrows at a severe slant. “Be serious, Gwendolynne. You. Are not driving my car.”
Percy pipes up from the back seat. You should listen to the Beautiful One.
“The who?” My mind is sluggish, not quite keeping up, but the next second, it clicks. “Oh. You mean Heloise.” Of course Heloise is the Beautiful One, while I am deemed alopecic.
Yes, her. Percy’s intonation is a mixture of conceited and concerned. We have both witnessed your fast-twitch reflexes, and…well.
Rolling my eyes, I concede defeat. Heli’s right. My nerves are shot. I probably wouldn’t even be able to work out how to start such a fancy vehicle anyway.
Heli and I tumble in, and I’ve barely managed to tug the passenger-side door shut when the mage-powered engine kicks in and Heli floors it.
Halfway down the motorway toward Seamere, as she’s hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands, Heli lets out a giggle. She presses her lips together, giving me a sidelong look, trying to stifle her mirth.
She fails.
Catching my eye, she lets out a snort, then another giggle. A bubble of elation expands in my chest, and I start snickering too, then outright laughing. And then we’re both laughing, tears leaking out of the corners of our eyes, me clutching the stolen black box in both of my hot little hands.
Maybe it’s ridiculous to be proud of it, but I must say: I’ve got pretty good at rule breaking recently. The adrenaline and endorphins are pumping through my blood vessels like the headiest of designer drugs.
The electric windows slide down, Heli pumps up the stereo, and then we’re zooming along, singing at the top of our lungs, completely off tune. Percy sniffs disdainfully, but even he can’t hide the fact his tail is twitching in time to the music.
I’ve been reinstated at Seamere. Heli and I are almost graduated. We have a Source, and we’ve managed to steal one of Magecorp’s black boxes. All we need to do now is get Conall to help us figure out how the fuck to use it.
And as the shadowed scenery zips past us, the glowing orange streetlights blurring in our vision, we belt out bad ’90s pop into the night air, exhilarated.
I, Gwendolynne Chan, am going to ace my exams. I’m going to beat Harrisford. I’m going to win…
And I’m going to fucking figure out what’s causing all these surges.
I, Gwendolynne Chan, am back in the game.