36. Let Them Eat Books #2
This is how Briar ends up sitting on the sofa wearing Westby’s too-long corduroys and too-tight knitted vest, watching him disappear out into the corridor with a swish of Bastian’s cloak.
It doesn’t seem like a good plan, but they’ve got nothing better.
He’s gone for a long time, and when he comes hurrying back through the door, he reveals a book with a flourish, accidentally flashing his old-fashioned boxer shorts in the process.
‘Here,’ he says, putting the text down in front of Briar. ‘Try.’
‘Did you bring back any food?’ Tate says.
‘No,’ says Westby, like this is a ridiculous suggestion. ‘Just books. Briar?’
‘Initially,’ Briar reads out loud, ‘we are to deal with the subject at hand as if it is . . .’ They trail off, then look at Westby. ‘I can read it.’
‘Well, fuck me,’ he says politely. ‘That’s a first-year text. Persuaded it off a boy running it over from the restricted annexe, he’s going to get in so much trouble when he arrives at his classroom. So it looks like it’s not just your newfangled and extremely overpowered healing Work.’
‘So I can do it all?’ Briar asks. They feel oddly numb. None of this seems the least bit real. ‘How?’
Tate shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. It shouldn’t be possible.’
‘Is it locational?’ Westby posits excitedly. ‘Maybe it’s been seeping into you, Jones, the longer you’re here. Like radiation.’
‘But what about Eugenia? Ben, the caretaker? Can they do it?’
‘Perhaps they haven’t tried. Welcome to the club, Jones.
It’s horrible, but there’s no denying it’s got its perks.
’ He’s got more books under his arm, and he places them down in front of Briar expectantly, like they’re an octopus about to predict football results, waiting to see which one they’ll pick.
Last night has thoroughly caught up with Briar; they pick up one of the books and stare down at it, blurry and almost tearful.
It’s everything they’ve ever wanted - so many years of longing, so much time wasted in the waiting room of their life, thinking of what could have been - but right now, all they can think about is the look on Bastian’s face as he’d fled the room.
The fact that when it comes down to it, he’d rather go back to the familiar safety of the cruel, callous world of Mons than take a risk on something new, with Briar.
‘I guess we’d better bunk down here for a bit,’ Tate says, looking at the broken window and sighing. ‘While we work out what to do.’
‘Fourth Trial tonight,’ Hadley says, from where she’s sitting in the armchair, having firmly eschewed the sofa. ‘So they’ll be too busy to care about us, soon. We can sneak out then.’
‘And go where?’ Tate asks, rubbing a hand across his mouth as he thinks. ‘They’ll just find us, once the Trial is over. Maybe we could offer them our phones, have them delete the videos.’
Hadley laughs unpleasantly. ‘Maybe we can just bend over in front of them and tell them it’s open season on fucking us in the arse.’
‘I’m just trying to get us to graduation with all our limbs still attached, Hadley.’
‘Right, because they’ve never heard of backing up to the cloud.’
‘Well, we’ll let them delete the backups, too. Maybe we can get in Briar’s truck, go lay low somewhere for a few days.’
‘What? No.’ Hadley is wearing a very oversized T-shirt, emblazoned with crossed oars and the words Oriel College Boat Club, and surprisingly floral pyjama shorts.
It should be hard to sound commanding with her hair in a sloppy bun and her legs tucked up underneath her, but she manages it anyway.
‘We’re not giving up. Fuck that. Fuck them.
I’m not leaving this place without doing something.
They’ll get away scot-free. No! We’re close.
We’re seeing this through all the way to the end. ’
‘How?’ says Tate, offering his empty palms up to her, like he’s hoping she’ll fill them with well-laid plans. But she doesn’t seem to have an answer yet.
They raid Robert Parker’s storage for the coats and jumpers they’d spotted during their recent hunt for locked drawers, and it feels like striking oil when Tate turns up a T-shirt and a pair of ancient, musty joggers that are too big on Briar but can be cinched in at the waist until they almost fit.
Everybody’s starving and irritable, but they lie in wait until twilight, Briar studying texts under Westby’s supervision until their head hurts, Hadley napping on the sofa, Tate reading fantasy paperbacks with his head resting on a cushion and his legs propped up against the wall.
When Tate deems it safe, he and Hadley foray out in search of dinner, and come back with arms full of vending machine snacks.
‘Couldn’t risk the refectory,’ Tate says. ‘Very weird energy out there, all the younger kids look scared half to death. Hope everybody likes Hula Hoops, because I got them in every flavour.’
‘That’ll do nicely, thank you,’ Westby says, frowning over chapter three of Briar’s text. ‘Cheese and onion for main, barbecue beef for pudding.’
They start falling asleep early, dropping like flies, the others exhausted from spending the previous night on the run, Briar so overwhelmed that they feel like their thoughts have turned to a loud drone of static.
When Tate is asleep under one of Robert Parker’s winter coats, and Westby is dropping off sitting upright against the wall, Briar eases the book from his hand, tucks it safely back into the inside pocket of their jacket, then closes their eyes for what feels like half a second.
When they open again, they find the room darkened, Hadley hanging over them, ghostly in the low light.
‘Hi,’ she says. ‘You saw the place? Where they’re holding the next Trial?’
‘Yeah,’ says Briar, sleepy and confused. ‘Um . . . I think so. There was this cave, and a big cup . . .’
‘Good,’ Hadley says. ‘That’s good.’ She presses something cold and smooth into Briar’s hand, then puts her other hand on their shoulder and leans in close.
‘I think you should put the cape back on, nice and quiet,’ she says, ‘keep your head down, and go find that cave. Don’t freak out, don’t talk to anyone until it’s over.
And when the moment is right . . . I need you to kill Alistair Buckingham. ’
Briar doesn’t need telling twice. In fact, it seems like a good idea; one they should have thought of themself.
They get up at once, find the cape and swing it over their shoulders, tying it tightly at their throat and pulling the hood up so that it obscures all but their mouth.
The others are still fast asleep, Hadley watching closely from the floor, as Briar tucks Hadley’s knife into their pocket and goes in search of Alistair Buckingham’s throat.