Page 39 of Strange Familiars
I swallow, my tongue scraping the dry roof of my mouth. “It’s—it’s all in the listening book.”
Until now, he’d been slouching, tipping my desk chair back. But now he sits up straight, giving me a sharp look. “You had a listening book?”
I nod and point. “In my bag. I nicked it from the library.”
He stares at me for a second, as though trying to work out who I am and why I’m suddenly flouting school rules with impunity. But soon enough he breaks eye contact and rummages through my bag.
“There are a lot of packs of Knobbly’s nuts in here.” He raises an eyebrow and I scowl at him.
“Keep looking.”
After a while, he locates the book and pulls it out triumphantly.Flipping it open, he jams his glasses on and starts reading, his blue and brown eyes scanning back and forth.
I watch him as he reads. It’s always incredible—and disconcerting—how different Harrisford looks when wearing his spectacles. They’re slightly rounded, with thick tortoiseshell rims, the kind you’d expect an Oxford graduate to wear. Or those male models on posters in opticians’ shops, who you know never actually wear glasses but are used in advertisements anyway just because they’re pretty.
And as much as I hate to admit it, Harrisfordispretty, in that haughty, rich-boy way. The way his golden hair sweeps back in gentle waves from his face. The oceanic blue of his left eye and the deep mahogany of his right, framed by lashes so dark they really don’t belong on a blond. The way his high cheekbones and straight nose and sharp jaw frame his perfect, pouty lips…
I sigh. Not only did Harrisford win the wealth and privilege lottery, it seems he won the genetic lottery, too.
On me, glasses would just look nerdy. On him? It’s patently unfair, but on him they lend him a certain aristocratic air. As an average person—a mere mortal in the looks department—it would be horrible dating someone like him. You’d always pale in comparison.
Not that I’m planning to date him, of course. The prick.
Something in the listening book has caught Harrisford’s attention, and his usual pale complexion is deepening to puce.
“What’s wrong?” I venture, but he snaps the book shut.
“It’s nothing,” he says curtly, tossing the book on my desk. Then he levels a look at me. “It sounds like Father was saying Magecorp isn’t behind the surges.”
I can tell from the escalating pitch of his purring that Percy’s had enough of chin scratches, so I move on to his ears. “Right.” Thememory of Mr.Briggs’s words ricochets around my head.You’ve got it all wrong. We don’t know why the extra holes are forming.And his chuckle—the chuckle I can still hear in my marrow every time I close my eyes—is a sound that still reverberates painfully around the caverns of my mind.
I wipe my clammy palms on the bedsheets. “Can we really trust anything your dad says, though? I mean, he lied to us about being in Wales. He…attackedme.”
“But wait.” Harrisford spins in my chair to grab a book from the desk. I recognize it as the one we’d stolen from his father’s study. He starts riffling through the pages until he reaches a section of interest, then peers at it. “I think that in this case, my father might be telling the truth. Because, listen—
“Although the Great Fire of London in 1666 is commonly attributed to a blaze that started in a bakery,” Harrisford reads aloud, “magical experts now believe that the conflagration was triggered by rogue magic. Records of the time indicate that there had been at least a year of magical destabilization, as well as several incidences of surges recorded throughout the city. Many of the earlier deaths were erroneously declared as being due to bubonic plague. However, reports of fatalities due to injuries inflicted by familiars, as well as recorded fluctuations in the levels of atmospheric magic, have led many historians to believe that the fire was a result of a massive power surge.”
“Okay,” I say. “Assuming the London firewasdue to a magical surge. What does that have to do with us, now?”
“Hold your unicorns, woman,” Harrisford chides, though his tone is not harsh. “I’m just getting to that.”
He continues reading. “Indeed, analysis of the records from King’s Court Prison documents the incarceration of one Reginald Pius Navum, a well-known heretic of the time. Navum was imprisoned for opening illegal portals to the Void in an effort to create discord—an act ofsabotage that amplified the flow of magic and now is thought to be the cause of the surge.”
“So are we thinking that maybe someone is…sabotaging Magecorp?” I rub my forehead. “But who?”
Harrisford gazes at me, his expression thoughtful. “I don’t know. But I do think that my father could be right. It could be someone on the outside, trying to interfere with Magecorp. I’ve been reading up on all the previous surges listed in this book”—he holds up the tattered tome—“and virtually all of them have been due to sabotage. The Great Library of Alexandria fire. The fire in Rome back in 64AD. Even the Black Friday bushfires in Australia last century…They all have evidence that points to magical surges, even though the governments at the time worked hard to cover it up. The authorities have kept a tight control on magic ever since the Dark Ages, Chan, buteverytime they’ve lost control, it’s because someone has managed to breach their defenses.”
“So it’s likely someone who wants to bring down Magecorp.” But that doesn’t really narrow it down. There are so many people, and groups, who have reason to hate them. Linksphere, for one, being their single major competitor. The Magical Liberation Organization too who are anti-capitalist at the best of times. Or even just disgruntled ex-employees of the corporation. Any one of them could be the culprit, and we’re no closer to figuring it out.
Lifting Percy off my chest, I swing my legs out of bed. He gives a plaintive yowl, shoots me a loathsome look, and leaps right into Harrisford’s lap.Traitor.
“Chan,” Harrisford says. “What are you doing?” In the ultimate act of betrayal, Harrisford is scratching the spot above Percy’s tail, and he has his bum stuck in the air, his crooked tail vibrating with pleasure.
I reach for my wardrobe and yank the doors open, intending topull out some jeans. “I’m getting up. We need to report this, Briggs.” But just as I close my fingers around a hanger, a bout of dizziness grips me and I sway, clinging on to the wardrobe for support.
“You’re too unwell,” Harrisford says disapprovingly. After tucking Percy beneath one arm, he stands and guides me back to the bed. “You almost died, remember? You really need to rest.”
I don’t want to rest, but I can’t deny that my body is staging a protest at being upright. So I sink onto the bed with a sigh. It’s then that I notice: I’m no longer wearing the tweed suit.
