Page 96 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
“Well,” Oliver said finally, letting McKenna take the bouquet and arrange it on a nearby table. “Try as I might, I can’t seem to care much about what they do with her. I mean, I hate what she did to us, but I don’t know if any of this would’ve come to light without her involvement. Not to give her too much credit, though, since she wasn’t even the one who made the antidote.”
The sleep specialists the clinic had hired had been able to whip up a cure with remarkable speed once they’d been given the potion’s formula. They’d consulted Oliver extensively throughout the process, originally just to hear what the experience had been like, but upon discovering the amount of research Oliver had already done on the matter, they’d taken their input on ingredients into account, too. As it turned out, Oliver had been as close as they could have come to making an antidote on their own; but it could never have been truly complete without knowing the optimal phase of the moon for manufacturing and the spell a high-level mage had crafted to create the user dreamscape. It was this spell, as it turned out, that was largely to blame for the side effects.
The clinic had already issued a campus-wide bulletin urging any other participants in OneiroLabs’s trials to come in for treatment and was sharing the antidote with the local hospitals.
“She didn’t come up with our payment, either,” Dani said. “That would have been nice.”
Kass rested a hand on her shoulder, and she covered it with hers. With the aftermath of the gala still raging around her, she honestly didn’t know how to prepare for her scholarship review. Having Kass and her friends by her side, though, made facing an uncertain future feel like a more bearable prospect.
“Knock knock,” someone said from the doorway.
“Katya!” Oliver said. “Come in, come in.”
Katya entered tentatively, like she was afraid her presence alone would interfere with Oliver’s recovery. She lifted the box she was holding and shook it lightly. “Chocolate babka,” she said. “My grandma’s recipe. I thought you might like something that wasn’t hospital food.”
“Yes, please,” Oliver said, accepting the box greedily and diving in without delay. “Gods, this is delicious. Thanks, Katya.”
Half of Katya’s mouth smiled. “You’re welcome. I’m really glad you’re doing so well. But, um.” She cleared her throat. “The real reason I came by was to tell you I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“Sorry for what?” Oliver said. “Nothing that happened was your fault.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but I don’t know,” Katya said, looking at her feet. “I was the first one Silva recruited. I should have done more of a background search on her, questioned her motives more. I didn’t even flinch when she had me hack into the oneiromancy chair’s email to set up that tour. I was so focused on what I could get from her that I didn’t want to look at anything too closely.”
“We all were,” Dani said. “I mean, twenty-five thousand dollars? We should have realized it was too good to be true.”
Katya nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But of all of us, I’m supposed to be the expert in security, right? I didn’t keep us very secure. If you’d listened to me at the gala, Silva would be back in Europe by now with the formula, and who knows what would have happened then. I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said to Kass, who shrugged.
“I mean, I could have been wrong,” he said. “I know these corporate types pretty well, and it didn’t feel like a safe bet—but I can’t blame you for thinking I might have had some ulterior motive.”
“I thought if I could really impress Silva—I don’t know, thatshe’d give me even more than what she’d promised.” Katya snorted. “Pretty silly in hindsight. Hopefully I can still get a job after all this.”
“I’d be shocked if you didn’t,” Oliver said. “Sure, what we did was illegal, but it was still kind of impressive, too.”
“They’re right,” Dani said. “And it’s okay—we all did stuff we wouldn’t normally.”
“Speak for yourself,” said McKenna.
“Well, okay, everyone but McKenna,” Dani corrected.
“Impressive is the right word for what you did,” Katya said to McKenna. “How on earth did you marshal such an army?”
McKenna preened. “I can’t tell you all my fairy secrets,” she said. “Let’s just say there was less to the army than meets the eye—that, and you’ve never given Gingerbread the credit he deserves.”
Katya rolled her eyes, but there was fondness to the expression. “Well, if there’s anything any of you need, anything I can do to help, even next semester… I’m around, okay?”
“Thanks, Katya,” Oliver said. “And seriously—don’t beat yourself up too much. None of us should.”
After Katya left, they all devoured the babka, and Dani seized the opportunity to lean in closer to Oliver while the others were talking.
“Speaking of apologies,” she said, “I wanted to say I’m sorry, too. For not coming clean to you about Kass. It’s not an excuse, but I just didn’t know how to handle it.”
Oliver shook their head. “It’s okay, really. I’ve thought about it a lot while I’ve been in here, and I don’t know if I would have done anything differently. It was a weird situation, not to mention an emotional roller coaster. It’s like I said—none of us should beat ourselves up.”
Tears stung Dani’s eyes. She took Oliver’s hand and squeezed it, hoping the gesture could convey all the gratitude she felt. Oliver returned the pressure.
“I think we all learned something about ourselves from this,” they said. “Me, for one—I’ve learned I should turn to people I know and really trust for help, even if it means they might worry about me.”
“Does that mean you called Asa?” Dani asked. “I mean, told him what’s really been going on?”
