Page 48

F able and I prepared ourselves as best we could to win Phyllis over. Raiding the pantry was first on the list, but better than that ...

“You can’t be serious?” Fable whispered as I stood with my back to Typhon’s door, my fingers working a thin piece of metal into the lock.

I was worried about using a rune. One, in case it failed, and two, in case it worked.

It would definitely be traceable, and he would definitely know who’d broken in.

I could sense him three levels below, so I knew I had time.

“We want to win her over, getting her drunk is going to help. Or at least getting her tipsy should loosen her lips.” I frowned, as the stubborn lock refused to give in to me easily.

Fable waved at a few students who walked by.

“House Phoenix,” one of them muttered. “They should’ve named it House Pigeon Shit.”

“Idiots,” Fable whispered. “They all hate us now, largely thanks to stupid Mortan, Julius and their cronies in Draconell.”

I shrugged. “Nothing new for me.”

The lock gave way, and I grinned. “Wait for me here.” I took a quick look up and down the hall and slid backward into Typhon’s rooms.

His smell enveloped me first and, for a split second, I just stood there and breathed it in.

No. Bad Harlow!

I made my way quickly to the cupboard where he stashed his whiskey and pulled an empty plastic container from under my shirt. It wasn’t huge, but only Phyllis would really be drinking.

I poured a bunch in, noticed the change in the fill line.

“Not water to wine. But how about we just water it down.” I tucked the bottle under his tap and filled it until it was close to the previous line. Perfect.

I tapped the door and Fable let me out, and I locked it behind me.

“He’ll notice,” Fable whispered as we hurried down the hall, headed to Phyllis’s room.

“Nah, I filled it back up with water. Swished it around.” I grinned.

“He’s going to kill you.” She chuckled but sounded nervous.

“Maybe.” I let myself feel him through the bond and slid to a stop. He was coming toward us, like just around the corner. “Fruck.”

I pressed my hands over the plastic container in my hand. The color was ... brownish. Golden.

I cleared my throat. “You know, Fable, I don’t know if this urine sample is going to be enough? You think that Phyllis will be able to tell if you’re low on – oh, Doyen Moreno.”

Fable was staring at me like I’d sprouted horns, and Typhon’s face was screwed into a grimace. He glanced at the ‘sample” and kept moving without a word, his face tight, almost as if he barely saw us.

The bond between us gave me nothing.

Preoccupied for sure.

Fable’s eyebrows shot up. I shook my head, and we picked up our pace.

“He’ll know if he goes for the whiskey,” she whispered.

“We’ll just have to hope he doesn’t have a drink tonight.”

Less than a minute later we were knocking on Phyllis’s door. She opened it and narrowed her eyes.

“What are you two doing out and about?”

I held up the container and sloshed it around. “Drinks on me.”

She stared at me long and hard and then shrugged.

“It’s been a shit few days. Come on in.”

The thing about whiskey is you don’t even really know you’re drunk until it’s too late, and that was as true for a Dwimmer as a plain old human. I poured Phyllis a heavy-handed drink, and she tossed it back.

“Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve had a decent whiskey. Where did you get it?”

“Doyen Moreno.”

“I’m sure he didn’t hand it over, but I’m not telling.” She held her cup tight. “Drink it fast, ladies. Hide the evidence of your theft.”

Laughing, I snapped my shot back, refilled Phyllis and let her have her second drink, and another half before I pretended to refill Fable’s and mine.

“Good, so good,” Phyllis sighed and sank into her chair.

“I need every drop. After that girl jumped to her death, and then the frucking fairy circle ... I could drink for a week straight.” I fake sipped at my drink and watched over the rim as Fable mimicked me.

“Poor girl, she didn’t have many friends when she was here. Not a very strong Dwimmer from what I remember. I think she was in House Unicorna.”

Fable shot me a stunned look and then set her cup on the side table. “You knew her?”

My heart beat faster.

“She never even graduated, I thought she’d gone back home, but I guess not, poor girl, poor, poor girl ...” Phyllis stared into the cup as if the answers would be found at the bottom, written in the tea leaves, as Doyenne Storm would say.

“There have been lots of mysteries in this place,” Fable said. “One in particular we’ve been trying to figure out since the other night.”

I took a breath. “What can you tell us about the Neverthorn Nine?”

I was watching Phyllis closely, so I saw her flinch.

Then she sighed and poured some whiskey into her teacup. “You two ... why didn’t any of you tell me you were going to the fairy ring? I would have told you it was a bad idea.”

Fable winced. “The others were determined to go. They didn’t even tell Harlow.”

Phyllis looked over her teacup at me. “You mean you didn’t go willingly?”

I didn’t fake the next sip, instead let it burn the anxiety a little as it went down my throat. “No. I went to bring them back, with Fable. But what we saw there ... it freaked me out, Phyllis. Tell me it wasn’t real.”

She gave a low harumph and ignored my question. “And then Zeed ... his Quirk was triggered?”

“Yes.” A hint of a smile tugged at Fable’s lips before it disappeared. “But he didn’t even get to enjoy it before he was sent home.”

Phyllis nodded slowly, seemingly digesting that nugget.

When it was clear she wasn’t going to speak without some more prodding, I leaned in.

“That place,” I shook my head, memories of that dark, terrible night tugging at me. “Phyllis. Please. We need to know about the Neverthorn Nine.”

“I ... it happened when I was enrolled,” she whispered, holding her spiked tea closer to her lips but not drinking.

“Terrible, so very terrible what happened. Nine lives, families torn apart. That place absorbed all that fear, all the terror ... it was magical before they died, but their blood did something to the ring. Made it more than just a fairy ring.”

“Phyllis, when we were there, in the ring, I thought I saw ...” I swallowed hard again. “I know you and Nicodemus were friends. He must’ve been a good person at one time. How did he change so quickly? Did something terrible happen to him?”

A tear slid down her cheek and plunked into her tea. Then another, and another.

Fable opened her mouth to speak but I held my hand up, stopping her.

Patience was not a strong suit of mine, but it came in handy here and there.

And this time, it paid off in spades.

“I don’t know what happened to him, and I don’t care, Harlow.

I refuse to make excuses for that monster.

I watched him do it. I got there at the edge of the ring as .

.. he sucked the life out of them all .

.. my friends. My housemates. I watched my first and only love die that night,” Phyllis was shaking, her drink sloshing but she seemed unaware.

“They were everything to me. It’s why I wear black, even now, in mourning.

The least I could do after ... everything .

..” A hiccupping sob rolled through her and her fingers slipped on the teacup.

I grabbed at it, flashing a rune that would clean up the mess.

I placed my hands over hers, holding her tight. “You aren’t alone now, Phyllis.”

She bowed her head forward, her tears dripping in hot splashes, onto my hands. “You ... you have no idea what that means, Harlow. I’ve been here all these years ...”

“Why?” Fable whispered.

“Because I am afraid.” Phyllis whispered back. “I’m the only survivor. The only remaining witness to the beginning of Nocta’s reign of terror.”

“I thought I saw someone else there. Behind Nicodemus. A shadowy figure.”

“No. Tarquinius came, but he was too late to save any of them. I know you don’t trust him, but he protects me. Just as he is trying to protect you all, too.”

Tarquinius may have muted our magic and done some pretty sheety things in the name of finding the new Heronius, but Phyllis had been here under his care for a long time, and she was still alive.

“He’ll help you find your Quirks.” Phyllis nodded to herself. “Tarquinius wants that for everyone.”

“How?” I blurted, not able to disguise my outrage. “How can he want that, but then put bracers on us,” I held up my right arm, ‘that block us from our magic? How is that helping us find our Quirks?”

Phyllis shook her head. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

I leaned forward. “Are you? Because the only person that actually seems to want that is Liam. Not even Typhon is trying to –”

Mother goddess Hecate. I hadn’t realized how angry I was about that until I’d said it out loud.

He’d kissed me, held my hair while I dry-heaved into the toilet, and of course, helped us with the bracers, but since then .

.. nothing. It was like he’d backed off completely since that night weeks ago.

No field trips. No extra rune-crafting classes. No answers.

No help at all.

Fable held perfectly still as Phyllis and I faced off. “You think the Irish doyen will help you, then?” Phyllis asked, one brow raised dubiously.

“I’m sure of it. But I’m hamstrung. Still pair bonded to Typhon. I can’t do anything without him knowing.” I slumped back in my plush chair and tipped the last of the whiskey into my mouth. I broke my own rule and poured myself some more, held it out to Phyllis and she nodded.

“They kept you bonded to him? Odd.” Phyllis frowned, staring into her tea. “I suppose if someone had a temporary blocking for a bonding like that ... you’d be interested?”

I blinked a few times. “Is that a real thing? Can you –”