Page 59 of Strange Familiars
And I’ll be done with Harrisford Briggs, forever.
Thinking about the exams, and Harrisford, causes my head to throb. I’m reminded, with painful clarity, why I came here in the first place: to look for tethers, and to search for information about the surges. I still haven’t found any objects that seem to be pulsing with magic—the only traces of magic around were the ones streaming off the people. But, then again, Harrisford and I never made it to the opposite side of Hintze Hall. Plus, it might not evenbein the hall. This museum is so vast. Where would I even start?
I turn to Heloise, who’s watching me, her brown eyes sympathetic.
“Heli,” I say, “I think I might need to speak to your mother. I need to ask her about the surges.”
“Ah,” she says, nodding. “It’s because one happened here recently, didn’t it?”
I give her a weak, watery smile in return.
She climbs to her feet elegantly, like a gazelle, and then holds out her hand.
“Come on, G. Get up. Let’s go and find my mother.”
Dr.Nora Chapman is laughing with a group of glamorous women when Heloise pulls her away.
“Mum,” she says. “Gwendolynne wants to talk to you.”
Dr.Chapman’s expression brightens. “Ah, Gwen! It’s so lovely to see you. It’s been far too long since you last visited.”
“Can we…go somewhere a little more private, Dr.Chapman?”
Heli’s mum excuses herself, murmuring her apologies to the other women, and follows us into a side corridor.
“What do you want to discuss, sweetheart?” Like Heloise, Dr.Chapman has a smooth, comforting voice, and I immediately want to confess everything.
“I’m looking into the surges. Thank you, by the way, for giving Heloise all that info—”
Heloise’s mother’s eyes narrow, and she slides her gaze to her daughter. “Oh? All that was for Gwendolynne? I had thought thatyouwere interested in the topic, Heloise.”
My friend rolls her eyes. “No, Mum. I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not interested in humans.”
Dr.Chapman gives her a tight-lipped smile, then returns her attention to me. “Well, Gwen? Have you figured anything out about what’s causing them?”
I press the toe of my stiletto against the tiled floor. I’m grappling with whether to tell Heli’s mother about the tethers. In the end, I decide not to say anything. It’s hard to know who to trust when anyone could be the culprit. “No, not yet. We’re still just looking at the location and severity of the flares. I was wondering: Have you noticed any patterns, perhaps? Like, is it possible that there are a few bigger explosions, and then a series of smaller surges, like aftershocks?”
Dr.Chapman purses her lips, thinking. “No,” she says slowly, drawing out the vowel in the word. “I don’t think so. From what we can gather, based on the locations and magnitude, the surges are all roughly the same.”
I frown. “So there’s nothing that affects how strong they are?”
Dr.Chapman shakes her head. “When we’ve performed magical assays on people who are affected, they’re all elevated, of course, but to roughly the same order: three or four times the upper limit of thenormal reference range. And there doesn’t seem to be a pattern in location, either. Other than the fact that most of them have been clustered in London, the rest have been scattered randomly across the country.”
“Are they happening overseas?”
“Not that we know of,” Dr.Chapman responds. “Or at least, there are no reports so far.”
“Oh.” My hope drains away, as though I’ve pulled the plug in a once-full bathtub. I’d been optimistic that Heli’s mum would be able to help narrow down the possible locations of the tethers. “I guess we’re back at square one, then.”
“Wait.” Dr.Chapman’s gaze is piercing, even though her expression is warm. “There is something…”
My head jerks up. “What?”
Her brow furrows. “The Bristol group who’ve been monitoring the phenomenon have identified strange spikes in atmospheric magic, always close to what they think are the origins of the surges. They’re a bit mobile, moving around within the area, but the explosions always happen close to where they’re located.”
I scrunch my face up, thinking. “So, like a magical storm?”
“No.” Dr.Chapman’s tone is cautious, as though she too doesn’t quite know what to make of these revelations. “When they measure the readings, they don’t follow the patterns typical of atmospheric storms. Nor are they fixed levels, like something you’d expect from an object. The magical traces are closer to what you’d expect from a mammal.”
