Page 77 of Strange Familiars
“You two,” the doctor says, his voice commanding. “What are you doing just standing there? This bin is overflowing. Take it down to the garbage disposal, now.”
We’re sufficiently glamoured that neither of them recognizes Heloise—and I wouldn’t be recognizable to them either. Thankful for Heli’s spell skills, we hop to it, wheeling the bin through the hallway and into the open lift.
The three men continue to converse in low voices as the lift doors slide closed. As soon as we’re shut in, we sag against the wall.
“Did you hear that, Gwen?” Heli says, wrinkling her nose. “It’sMagecorpusing the people as tethers.”
“I know.” My mouth pulls down. “That must have been whatProfessor Kaur meant when she said we’d be shocked by what was happening.”
Heloise turns her big brown eyes toward me. They’re glinting with a sheen of tears. “How have they kept this covered up so long? All these people…dying?”
I shake my head, thinking of Hani Nguyen. Elouise Forrester. Benjamin Purcell. All the other Magecorp employees and MLO members who have died. Have Magecorp always killed people so that the rest of us can have a convenient source of magic? Was it just that they’d managed to cover it up—with their powerful connections and influence?
“Money buys silence, I guess,” I say, suddenly bone-weary, and Heli and I stay quiet for the rest of the ride down.
I’m so preoccupied with our revelation that I don’t even see him leaning against the hospital reception desk until it’s entirely too late.
We’ve taken off our glamours—it would be suspicious for Heloise to have been seen going in, but not seen coming back out again. So I’m looking like myself once more when I crash into Harrisford Briggs’s broad back.
At first, I’m irate—what is he doing here?—before I remember that his father is still in a coma following the Magecorp vault explosion. I suspect he had come for a visit, even though Darghan Briggs is a murderous maniac and doesn’t deserve any sympathy at all. But that’s Harrisford for you, I guess. He’d made it clear he’d prioritize his family over anything else when he’d stopped me from going to the police.
Harrisford half turns. At least he looks shocked at seeing me; his eyes widen, his mouth hangs open. I look between him and thenurse he’d been chatting to, who’s still staring up at him with cloyingly lovesick eyes.
It only takes me a second to register what is happening. The two of them are standing next to the reception desk. Harrisford is leaning against it, one elbow propped atop its surface. The nurse, a pretty young woman dressed in hot pink scrubs, is nestled close to him, her hand resting on his shoulder. The name tag displayed prominently on her chest readsLucy. As we’d approached, I’d noticed her—not realizing it was Harrisford she was speaking to—and she’d been chatting animatedly at him, before she’d reached up and adjusted his shirt collar.
It’s an intimate sort of gesture, and something inside me twists painfully. But then I grit my teeth. I don’t care who Harrisford speaks to, or how many cute nurses he flirts with. This is allexactlyin line with what I’ve heard about his personality—that he’s a player, a ladies’ man, someone who toys with people’s hearts as though they’re nothing more than battered Flaugballs.
I’m half expecting Percy to say something snarky, but he’s oddly silent. The emptiness resounding in my head is jarring. Perhaps he’s preoccupied somewhere and not bothering to read my thoughts.
Harrisford opens his mouth, as though he’s about to speak. But I grab Heli’s arm and push right past the two of them—before he has the chance to say anything at all.
When I arrive home, it’s to a darkened room and a conspicuously absent Percy. Normally, he’d be stalking back and forth in front of his empty bowl, meowing loudly, as if to announce to the world how cruel I am for only feeding him at regular, twelve-hour intervals.
But tonight he’s not here. He’s not in front of his bowl. He’s notcurled up on the bed. The desk chair is empty, as is the space on top of the bookshelf—one of his favorite surveillance spots.
My stomach clenches as it dawns on me: He’s been oddly quiet all evening. After he got snippy about my cucumber comment, he’d lapsed into an extended silence. I guess I’d thought that maybe he was stewing over my insinuation that he was a scaredy-cat, but since I’d unofficially adopted him, he’s never gonethislong without intruding on my thoughts.
Heli comes up behind me as I take a shaky breath, trying to stem the rising tide of anxiety beating in my chest. “G, what’s wrong?”
I don’t answer immediately. “It’s Percy. He’s…he’s not here.”
“That’s weird.” Heli’s lips pull down slightly. “Can you feel him down your bond?”
“What?” I stammer, flustered, staring unseeingly at my best friend. I’m so new to owning a familiar that psychically feeling for his presence never even occurred to me.
Heli’s voice is soft, sympathetic. “Just…close your eyes and see if you can feel him.”
Scrunching my eyes shut, I reach for him through the silence. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I realize, too late, why I’d been so panicked.
The emptiness inside my headisn’tjust Percy sulking. It’s a total absence of his life force. My mind feels like it did before I even adopted him.
How? How could our bond be severed? As I search my tiny room for a second—and then a third—time, my brain goes into overdrive, flipping through every possible scenario.
But when it fails to come up with another rational explanation, I turn to Heli slowly, my entire body beginning to tremble.
“He’s gone,” I say, unable to hide the wobble in my voice. “Percy is gone.”
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