36. Let Them Eat Books
There’s barely a second of warning before a key scrapes into the lock, and the office door bursts open.
Hadley freezes on the threshold, wearing what looks like pyjamas, and says, ‘Oh, shit.’
The scene is pretty damning. Faint morning light casting intricate diamonds across the clothes abandoned on the floor, and Briar and Bastian on the sofa, still in each other’s arms where they’ve been since last night. Briar pulls the blanket up over both of them and says, ‘Hadley, get out.’
‘Can’t,’ says Tate, who it turns out is right behind her. ‘Running for our lives. Sorry.’ He barrels into the room with Westby in tow, then shuts and locks the door behind them. He notices Bastian, and visibly starts. ‘Fuck.’
‘Well!’ exclaims Westby, noticing what’s happening a long beat too late. ‘What’s all this, then?’
‘Briar,’ Tate says, watching Bastian very closely. ‘Are you - did you want to—?’
‘Yes,’ Briar replies. ‘Jesus.’ Although it’s a fair question, in a place like this. Briar can tell that Bastian’s annoyed, though, from the way he stiffens next to Briar on the sofa, knees drawn up into himself like he’s trying to disappear. Tate doesn’t look entirely convinced.
He at least has the good grace to avert his eyes as Bastian hurriedly dresses, Briar handing him his trousers; Briar’s own clothes are so ruined by blood that Bastian silently gives them his cloak, instead, which is surprisingly cool and soft as it drapes over their shoulders.
Hadley, the only one who seems reluctant to give them their privacy, has been watching this unfold with a funny expression that Briar can’t parse. ‘Crazy,’ she says, looking between the two of them. ‘I thought you’d decided to stop.’
‘We can talk about this later,’ Briar says, with a flash of panic - but it’s too late. Bastian, far too attuned to every word that comes out of Briar’s mouth, is already frowning at them slightly, the question hanging in the air unspoken.
‘I don’t know what the hell is going on right now,’ Westby says. ‘But I’d feel a lot more comfortable if Wolfe weren’t in here with his shirt off. I actually thought he was the one we were supposed to be hiding from.’
‘Briar?’ Bastian says, ignoring this completely.
Briar owes him the truth, but it feels too inflammatory right now, knowing just how badly he’s likely to take it. They’ll just have to explain. After all they’ve shared, all they’ve done - Briar trusts Bastian. Perhaps it’s Bastian’s turn to have a little faith.
‘Hadley asked me to get close to you,’ they say, all in one breath, ‘to find out more about the Trials. But—’ Bastian stands up very abruptly, and Briar goes to grab his arm, then thinks better of it.
‘It was never just that, Bastian, I swear. And I told her yesterday that I couldn’t do it any more. ’
‘Yesterday,’ Bastian repeats, the word like a death sentence.
Fuck.
‘Look,’ Briar says, hurrying over their words now, too careless, ‘it doesn’t matter, because the whole point was to fuck with Mons, and - and you don’t have to be with Mons any more. You don’t need them, Bastian, you’re not like them. We can work out a way to do this . . . differently.’
Bastian stares at Briar, and then Hadley, who seems determined to ruin Briar’s life, says, ‘Except when you’re torturing kids in a cape, obviously. Then you look quite a lot like them.’
Bastian takes one, convulsive breath, then pulls his shirt on, bloody cuffs and all.
‘This was a mistake,’ he says, his voice a dull blade.
He won’t meet Briar’s eye. It’s like he’s just been waiting for evidence to prove this isn’t real, that he’s as unloveable as he always suspected - and Briar’s handed it to him on a plate. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Wait,’ Briar says, trying to put their body between Bastian and the door.
‘Get out of my way,’ Bastian says; Briar swears they feel the hairs on their arms rising, a warning buzz of static, like the pressure in the room is mounting.
‘I mean it. This is . . . This was fucked up, Briar. And I’m done protecting you, so you’d better stay out of Mons business.
If you want to get killed, be my guest.’
‘Bastian,’ Briar says, shaky with disbelief. ‘Come on. You can’t go. They’re . . . they’re sadists. They’re monsters.’
Bastian looks at Briar like they’re the most stupid person in the entire world.
‘And you’re a violent brute,’ he says slowly. ‘And a liar. At least I’m honest with myself. I know exactly who I am.’
Briar knows it’s a mistake to try to touch him, even as their hand is reaching out - and it feels inevitable when they’re hit with a wall of thaumaturgy, that same force that had tripped them on their very first day, once again sending them stumbling.
Glass shatters behind them, the second before Briar’s back hits the bare stone floor - Tate and the others are shouting something, and Briar realises, from where they’re lying crumpled and dazed on the floor, that their friends are trying to protect them.
They catch a last glimpse of Bastian’s face, frighteningly devoid of warmth, before he slips from the room, leaving Briar behind in the wreckage.
Tate and Hadley are having a blinder of an argument.
Briar says nothing; just sits on the floor and lets Westby pick tiny bits of glass lamp out of their back without much technique.
‘You kept encouraging them to fuck him for information? Knowing how dangerous he is?’
‘Briar’s an adult! They decided that all on their own!’
‘We said we’d stop, Hadley, before things went too far.’
‘Well, I didn’t want to stop, because they deserve all this and so much worse, and I’m not a fucking . . . a fucking coward. I notice that you’re angry with me, not with Briar, for happily getting into bed with that sadistic fucking—’
‘Guys,’ Briar says. When it doesn’t help, they say it louder.
‘What?’ says Hadley, like she’s irritated to discover that Briar is still here. Maybe Briar should hate her, but they can’t dredge up more than bitter animosity; it’s their fault they’re in this mess.
‘Look,’ Briar says. They raise their arm, where a rogue sliver of glass has left a thin line like a papercut a few inches long, and then they concentrate hard on the Working, holding it in their mind like they’re cupping it in their hands, and speak it into existence.
They watch with the others as the wound seals over.
‘Jesus fucking fuck,’ says Westby. ‘Wait. Do that again.’
So Briar does, and quickly meets the limits of their new power: the next cut, which is somewhat longer and deeper, only heals halfway before Briar’s focus peters out.
‘What Working is this?’ Westby says, with hushed reverence, like he’s gazing into the face of God; Briar hands him the book, and he sits down with it right there on the floor and begins to read.
‘But . . .’ Tate is still looking at the red mark on Briar’s arm, where blood had shown through just seconds before. ‘You couldn’t do that before. Right? You couldn’t read that text in the attic, you . . .’
‘No,’ says Briar. ‘This is . . . new.’
‘Well it can’t be,’ says Hadley, snappish. ‘Because that’s not how it works. You can do it or you can’t. This doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Not to mention . . . I mean, the healing,’ Tate adds. ‘The physical stuff. That’s just not what thaumaturgy does.’
Westby is still having some sort of divine religious experience. ‘But . . . but it’s like I’ve been saying all along. Why not. Why not? How many more texts have you found up in that attic?’
‘I don’t know. A handful.’
‘The lost texts,’ Westby breathes. ‘I’d bet my estate on it. Right here under our noses, the entire time.’
‘But why would someone ever hide something like this?’ Briar says. ‘When it’s so powerful? It could . . . change everything.’
‘Maybe that’s exactly why,’ says Tate. ‘Especially - especially because this is physical, there’s evidence, you can actually see thaumaturgy happening in front of your eyes. Can you imagine what would happen, if that got out, and people knew what we had here?’
Briar shakes their head. ‘But that’s—’
There’s distant, muffled laughter outside, and Tate looks sharply up at the door.
‘Why are you hiding?’ Briar says, suddenly remembering the haste of their entry.
‘Same reason as you, I reckon.’ Tate is still watching, even though the door is locked, and the four of them are the only ones with keys.
‘Derbyshire told us what happened, tipped Hadley off that Mons were on their way to us, and we’ve been sneaking around the school all night to get over here like we’re playing the world’s most fucked-up game of sardines. Thank fuck for Sophie Derbyshire.’
‘Ha,’ Hadley huffs. ‘She told me very reluctantly.’
‘Well, reluctant or not, she’s the only reason we got out in time.’
‘Alistair used Inquiry on me,’ Briar says, realising the urgency of this information now, and feeling bad for spending the night so completely distracted.
‘Sorry. They took me to some . . . place, underground, there was this cave . . . a chalice. I think where they’re going to hold the next Trial.
He knows you’ve been gathering evidence to embarrass him in front of the board. ’
‘Not your fault,’ says Tate. ‘This whole thing is a mess. I don’t think Mons will actually kill us, because, you know, graduation looming, their fathers know our fathers, and the governors would be mad, there’d be so much paperwork. But . . .’
‘Stranger things have happened,’ Hadley finishes. ‘And it’ll be a long fortnight until graduation.’
‘Right,’ Westby says suddenly, snapping Briar’s text closed. ‘I’m going to fetch a book.’
Tate sighs. ‘West, you can’t go to the library, Alistair Buckingham is hunting you for sport.’
‘Well, we need to test the theory.’ Westby snaps his fingers and points at Briar. ‘You’ve got a cape. Can I borrow it?’
‘Um,’ Briar says, looking down at themself. ‘I don’t really have any other . . . clothes.’
‘We’ll swap,’ Westby says brightly.