4. Luckily, We Vaccinate for Tetanus #2
Briar can’t believe he’s actually standing there, staring down at them, almost within touching distance.
They had wondered when they applied for the job if their paths might cross, but had decided that no, the school year would be long over, the students sent home.
Even once this assumption was proven wrong, the possibility of running into him had felt remote enough to push aside, but Briar sees now that this was foolish.
From the way the students have oriented themselves in this courtyard, it seems the entire school orbits Sebastian Wolfe.
The scholar with the brown curls is momentarily distracted from his victim by the fact that something seems to be happening outside his jurisdiction. ‘What, Bastian?’
Bastian?
Briar tries to stand, and is immediately humbled by their ankle, which gives way without putting up a fight. ‘Fuck.’
Seb - Bastian? - and Briar both look down at Briar’s leg, as if it should be snapped clean in half or spurting fountains of blood.
It just looks like a normal ankle. Socks packet-fresh, strip of farmer’s tanned skin, dark, fine hair.
Briar is flooded with inexplicable shame, and suddenly doesn’t want this new, cloaked Seb looking at any part of them too closely.
‘Wolfe,’ says brown curls, impatient, touching his fingers to the back of Seb’s arm, and Briar catches the moment Seb’s face changes, crystallising from shock and uncertainty into cool nothing. ‘Who’s this?’
‘I have no idea,’ he says.
Briar laughs, ugly and disbelieving, and he stiffens.
Westby has apparently gathered the courage to step forward, albeit cringingly. ‘New member of staff. Working for Genie. Temporary.’
‘Staff? Well, then. Hop along,’ says Seb’s friend, dismissing Briar with a dictatorial wave of his hand. The first year is still on the ground, apparently not daring to move. ‘You too.’ The little scholar scrambles to his feet and flees. Seb isn’t looking at Briar any more. Nobody is.
A fascinating transformation has taken place: now that Briar has been identified as staff, it’s as if they literally do not exist in the physical realm.
Briar was tensed for an argument, maybe even a bit of fisticuffs, but apparently they’re not even worth insulting beyond the indignity of dismissal.
One of the other scholars says ‘Buck, about that Friday business . . .’ and they re-form into a flock of caped wankers and sail off towards the other side of the courtyard.
Briar’s head is singing with more than just pain and shock.
It’s Seb, and magic. Real magic. That wasn’t a Masonic handshake, or a ritual, lighting a candle at an altar and hoping for a favourable outcome.
Seb altered physics. Yes, he did it to push Briar to the ground, but still.
Magic. Is that all it can do? Is it physical?
A matter of push and pull? Did Seb incant words in his head, or did he actually have a wand hidden somewhere up his wide sleeve?
Was it instinctual? How far would Briar have been thrown if they’d been a real threat?
‘That was very silly of you, Jones,’ says Westby. He sighs, then offers Briar a hand. Briar grasps it and is hauled up to stand, wincing as weight shifts to their ankle. ‘We aren’t in the market for heroes, and the people here could fuck your life thriceways before chapel.’
Briar’s head, still spinning, struggles to articulate a thought. ‘They . . . spat on the croissant.’
Westby sets off at pace without offering any further support, so Briar limps to catch up. ‘And that shocked you? Goodness. Wide-eyed ingénues are first on the fire. You’d better harden up, and fast.’
Briar has never been accused of softness.
They took a body already used to early mornings, mucking out, hefting thick brackets of metal machinery up above their head, and added a strict daily regimen of weightlifting that wiped their mind completely clean for half an hour a day.
Kay calls it ‘having the meats’, as in, ‘Briar’s got a bad case of the meats today’ whenever Briar dares to wear a tank top or eat a white chocolate protein bar in her field of vision.
Sean affectionately calls Briar’s biceps ‘show muscles’, and then gestures to his own belly, the proof of a real heavyweight champ.
Briar just likes to sweat, and think of nothing but the burning ache at the end of thirty reps, and be strong enough to square up to a fight or pick up a medium-sized goat without any trouble.
And - yes, maybe they like how it looks in the mirror.
Hard lines, coiled power. A real threat. It’s not a crime.
‘They’re bullies,’ Briar says now as they approach a comically large door, the moneyed grandfather of every door they’ve walked through at Temple so far. Westby laughs.
‘Christ, this isn’t Enid Blyton. Bullies!
Bullies, and they’ll steal your lunch money.
Alistair Buckingham is angling for history’s youngest Prime Minister, and if you’re not careful he’ll introduce statutory instrument 896, the “only cold gruel for Jones” law. Speaking of cold gruel - here we are.’
The refectory. The refectory at a real magic school.
It’s exactly how Briar has always imagined it; walls half-panelled in neat oak squares, steeply arched ceilings, crystal chandeliers.
The biblical stained-glass window at one end has a stone fireplace beneath it, adorned with carved quadruple-winged angels hefting the school crest, boasting so much square footage that it could be rented for good money if it had transport links to a major city.
The floor is tiled in creamy marble, the walls bordered with stern, perfectly equidistant oil paintings, and there are mostly empty trestle tables arranged in rows, scattered with handfuls of scholars eating pastries between the blue silk lamps.
Tucked off to one side is a buffet-style sideboard laden with baked goods, silver catering pots of coffee and tea, and stacks of papery cups.
The coffee . . . does not smell promising.
Briar watches a scholar in impeccable uniform crack open a pain au chocolat to lick the chocolate out of it, and then discard the rest of it and reach for another. ‘What about Sebastian Wolfe? What’s his deal?’
It’s not a particularly subtle line of questioning, but the patter of their mind is a pounding bassline of Seb, Seb, croissant, Seb.
‘Oh, Wolfe. He lets Buck do most of the talking, but don’t be fooled - he’s the worst of them all.
Most powerful scholar for years, and don’t we know it.
People see Alistair Buckingham and think he’s the ringleader because he’s Head Boy, but he’s just loud.
Perfect politician material. And Bastian Wolfe will be the one behind the scenes, double-fisting the flashing buttons on the peasant-killing machine. ’
Peasant-killing machine? Seb? The kid who always cried during the third act break-up of his mother’s romance novels, and once held a solemn funeral for a worm?
Seb, who used to stop any time he saw dropped food in the street, drop to a crouch, press his hand to the asphalt and intone ‘something terrible happened here’, and then laugh like a drain, as if the joke was always brand new?
Westby tilts his head and squints at Briar’s expression, and then realisation dawns. ‘Ahhh. You know him. From outside.’ He picks up the last cinnamon swirl and thumps it into Briar’s hand like a lieutenant handing a cadet a grenade.
‘Sort of. We . . . grew up together.’
They both have to step back to avoid a scholar of about fifteen, who registers the lack of cinnamon swirls and swears violently, pivoting to coffee and a fistful of slim packets of brown sugar.
Westby claps Briar on the back. ‘My advice to you, Jones, is to forget about all that until you leave these gates. You’re not in the real world any more. You’re at Temple. Now, eat your damned pastry, and if you’re good I’ll see if we can whip you up a gender-neutral toilet.’