12. O for a Thousand Tongues #2
That feeling takes hold in Briar again, the panic of standing at the edge of an enormous precipice, the cavern below so much darker than they’d ever previously imagined. The order of the world has shifted. ‘Is Temple the only school like this?’ they ask, mind grasping for limits.
‘Teaching the Work?’ says Westby. ‘Yes. We’ve had the occasional student from abroad, but it’s very limited. It’s the sort of thing you keep in the family.’
‘But surely you should have people . . . banging the door down. Demanding the school hands it all over.’
Westby puts his cigarette out on the pinkish roof tile and lights another. ‘Plausible deniability is a hell of a thing. Did you believe we were really doing magic here?’
‘No,’ Briar says. ‘Well. Okay, yes.’
‘Does your mother?’
‘No,’ Briar admits. ‘She thinks it’s like . . . a cult, maybe?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But what about . . . ?’ Briar can’t understand any of this, standing on the wrong side of the divide. ‘What about . . . coercion? Consent? How can anything ever be . . . fair?’
‘Fair?’ Westby snorts. ‘What world are you living in? Since when is anything fair? People are perfectly capable of doing terrible things to each other without Working. Money, power, influence. This has always been the currency. Workings are just more of the same.’
‘It’s not the same,’ Briar shoots back, rising easily to anger. They can’t stand Westby’s nonchalance. Not right now. ‘You know it’s not.’
‘No,’ says Tate thoughtfully, ‘I do agree with you. It’s messed up. But it’s not like you take away the Work and we’re living in a utopian society of equals, is it?’
‘Exactly.’ Westby snaps the fingers of his free hand. ‘What did you think of politics in this country before you came here?’
‘I thought . . .’
‘I mean, I think I can take a guess. I don’t want them to take my inheritance, but I’m not one of those corporate queers who thinks their bank loves them.
Bunch of generationally wealthy monsters raised by boarding schools and secret gentlemen’s societies, running the country through backdoor handshakes.
And the Work is just an extension of that.
Money, power, influence, Jones. The steamroller trundles on. ’
Briar shakes their head. ‘People would be angry, if they knew. It’d be a huge scandal.
Plus, if Temple is the only school with magic, if all our politicians can do it and nobody else can, what about international relations?
Other countries? If our government is using thaumaturgy to manipulate them, surely that’s basically a war crime. ’
‘Hence all the confidentiality, and why it’s taken so seriously.
The board of governors has two jobs: keep the money rolling in, keep the secret.
Oh, they try to pretend it’s for our safety, but we all know the truth.
We’re not the ones in danger. I mean, really, Jones, what did you think?
That there could possibly be a school of magic, an institution only the lucky few attend, and it’d make the world a . . . better place?’
Briar had thought that, although perhaps better isn’t the right word. More exceptional, more wonderful. Just more. They feel stupid now. Childish.
Still, the thought persists: how would Briar’s moral objections have held up if they’d received their acceptance letter? Would it feel quite so outrageous, if they were on the inside?
‘I wish you’d stop thinking the best of people,’ Westby gripes.
‘I always feel like I’m bludgeoning a puppy.
’ He sighs, lapsing into heavy silence. The hand holding his cigarette is shaking.
His eyes have lost focus as he gazes out over the grounds.
There are dark circles under them, and he’s got wax-chapped lips, a greasy film on his hair.
There’s a stain of something that might be red wine on his dressing gown.
‘Are you all right?’ Briar asks him, even though it feels like losing an argument, and he wrinkles his nose and turns back to look at them.
‘Me? Passable,’ he says. ‘My bloody leg hurts.’
‘Well, you trekked all the way up here and you don’t even have your stick,’ says Tate. ‘Genius.’
Westby ignores this. ‘How did Watson’s mission pan out, in the end?’
‘She was flying too high to do much of anything. She asked Derbyshire, but apparently everybody’s being very tight-lipped, and Sophie’s getting sick of her probing.
They can’t delay for too long, or they’ll throw the whole schedule off and they won’t get it done in time for graduation.
Oh, and my relocation theory – I saw Sokolov and one of the sixth-year capes poking around near no man’s land this afternoon.
They were pretending they were trying to get signal, but they’re terrible actors. ’
‘Hmmm. Interesting.’
Before, Briar had assumed that being privy to these conversations meant that they were part of this little gang, one of the fold; now, they pretend not to be listening, picking at the corner of the label on the bottle of Scotch.
‘I think she’s serious this time, West.’
Westby sighs. ‘I know she’s serious, in theory. But I won’t put my lawyer on standby until she’s managed five days sober. She’s too easily distracted.’
Briar drinks more Scotch. It has the potency of a sedative, soothing to their rattled nerves.
They feel themself drifting as Tate relays more snippets from the party that mean nothing to them - those who were and weren’t in attendance, small things they said and did - until the conversation trails off, and Westby puts out his latest cigarette and sighs.
Tate is watching him appraisingly. ‘Do you need an assist, West? Could ask Hadley.’
Westby rubs his chin with the faraway look of a man who’s seen the horrors of war.
‘Silly thing, actually, but I forgot to sort out my particulars with the infirmary, and now they say they can’t get my prescription in for another two weeks.
Bothered them about it, but then I sort of . . . lost the will.’
‘Ah,’ says Tate. ‘I see. Well. Have them send it to the chemist in the village, and see if the Dame will run out and grab it for you?’
‘She says she’s not allowed to run personal errands. Procedural guff.’
Westby knows that Briar has access to a car, and Briar knows that he won’t ask. Perhaps Briar shouldn’t offer after the unpleasantness between them, the forceful distance. But Briar’s done more for people they like a lot less.
‘I’ll collect it on Monday,’ they say.
‘Oh, no, you don’t have to,’ Westby replies gruffly. There’s something apologetic in his expression. This refusal, Briar understands, is somehow part of an apology. A shit apology, but there’s remorse, nonetheless.
‘Really, it’s fine,’ says Briar. ‘I have to go to the tip anyway.’
‘Oh, do you? I’ve always wanted to go to a tip,’ says Tate.
Briar does not justify this with a response, and Tate has the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.
‘Bed, I think,’ Westby says, and they all get up. Briar is the one who yanks the door open again, pain lancing through their shoulder as they do. They’re about to say goodnight and disappear gratefully into their room when Westby pauses, clears his throat awkwardly.
‘Good of you, Jones. Really. I’ll scribble my particulars on a Post-it and leave it for you tomorrow.’
Briar nods. They’re no stranger to friendships with imperfect people. It’s all a matter of boundaries - figuring out exactly how much bad you’re willing to endure, in exchange for the good.
Back in their room, they catch their reflection in the small shaving mirror they excavated from one of the drawers and wonder how anybody’s been able to have a normal conversation with them at all; white as a sheet with three ugly black stitches in their face, lurid blood dried like dripped candle wax all the way from their forehead to their elbow.