Page 62 of Redhaven
‘What he did to me?’
Is she talking about Bittershore – how Lachlan’s alleged influence on Luka Ortiz got me suspected of the murders? But a second council member looks pointedly at Naomi, and when she turns to me there’s apology on her face.
‘Let’s all take a comfort break,’ Naomi says, ‘then vote on resolutions and wording. Sarah, I’ll show you where the coffee machines are.’
‘What Lachlan did to me?’ I demand, as soon as we’re in small room by ourselves. ‘What does that mean? What do your colleagues in there know that I don’t?’
‘Yeah, there’s not been a great time to tell you. You know the Council has been checking up on Redhaven-related searches in the archive. Well, Ashley was looking at Lachlan’s access history more generally. It felt like a legitimate security enquiry once the attacks on the Registration centers began. Most of it was restricted but rarified magical theory – on palimpsests, for example, the art of concealment within magical texts. And obviously a lot of history, anything Redhaven-related. He called up every copy of Starcross the Moot owns. And …’
‘Spit it out.’
‘And the Fenns, Sarah. He studied your family in detail.’
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. I rest a hand against the wall. Lift my coffee to conceal my shock. Then ashudder of relief goes through me as I figure out the timeline.
‘But he wasn’t bound when we met and when Harper was conceived, and you’re talking about research he did after his binding. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for him to be interested in my family after meeting me, even if he never knew I’d gotten pregnant.’
‘We went through hisentirereading history,’ Naomi says, and I hope I’m imagining the tinge of pity in her voice. ‘Some of the material on your family is open access and was therefore available to him before his binding.’
‘And he was reading it then?’
‘Since he was a university freshman, Sarah.’
It’s a gut-punch. Lachlan, who I thought was just a roaming young witch doing his Wandering, like me, coincidentally breezing through the same small town where I was nurturing my plant skills, had studied my family before he ever met me.
If I’d known that, would I have listened to his charming flirtations? Have been so won over by his clever talk? Would I have permitted what occurred between us that summer? I can’t regret it, because it gave me Harper. And it was a long time ago. But did heeverwant me? Or did he only want Sarah Fenn?
And if I didn’t know what his motivation was when he approached me back then, can I trust his reappearance in my life now?
Have I made a terrible mistake allowing Harper to get close to him?
There’s only one way to find out.
60
BEA
‘She needs to lead with the violence,’ says Sandra’s Head of Comms, as my hands fly over my computer keyboard summarizing the discussion for Sandra to read. I’ve gotten good at this lately, knowing exactly what to note down and what to leave off the record altogether. ‘Let’s clip a reel of all the craziest moments from the livestream. The fact that psycho Frey is packing explosives. The terror of the staff. Those poor patients in their hospital gowns’
‘Trial participants,’ corrects a junior staffer, earning a withering look.
‘Patients. The building in flames. The rubble. She needs to lean into the fact there are noconfirmedfatalities, with the emphasis on confirmed like there might be a few in hospital waiting to die. And talk about how only Delacourt’s swift action limited extensive casualties. The target outcome is for Redhaven to be declared a terror outfit.’
‘I disagree. There’ll be plenty of others saying all of that,’ counters Michael Whitman. ‘Sandra’s brand is witchcraft – curbing its abuses, holding witches accountable, highlighting its inherent lawlessness. We need to lean into the magical angle specifically.’
‘We’ll get Okoye to say the Moot has been taken over by extremists,’ chimes in a third voice.
‘He’s not been answering my calls,’ grumbles the Head of Comms. ‘And now Barr is compromised. Besides, this is about Redhaven. The Moot has been an ally up till now, or at least not a vigorous opponent. Dragging it into this muddles our message.’
‘No it doesn’t,’ says Whitman. ‘Our message is aboutwitches.If Okoye’s lost the Moot, then there’s no need to go easy on it anymore. After all, it was supposed to have bound Frey’s magic beyond his recovery, so they’ve either lied or been proven horrifically incompetent. Our point is that whether they’re playing nice, like the Moot, or nasty, like Frey, all witches are inherently unstable, anti-science, anti-progress and dangerously out of control.’
‘Sandra’s on the line,’ someone says, connecting the call to a speaker in the centre of the table, and we all lean in.
Sandra thinks both angles will play well. She says to include them both in a statement, but separate them up for social media and monitor which performs better. She’s worried about how Frey’s hysterics over Harper are playing online, and sounds relieved when the media analyst explains that while there’s sympathy, the principal reaction is shock and fear at his aggression. Delacourt has asked her to make a public statement in support of her research, but Sandra thinks this needs to be handled with care. Nothing too gushing. Something along the lines of having every confidence in Dr Delacourt’s integrity as a clinician and her abilities as a researcher.If the Fenn girl starts claiming she never gave consent, we push it all onto Barr in the first instance, she says.Delacourt only takes the rap if blaming Barr isn’t enough to make it stick. We protect Delacourt, until it gets to a point when we can’t, and then we cut her loose.
Honestly, the woman is a Politics masterclass. The entire room is nodding along. Frey jumped on his motorbike rightafter his little performance, she tells us, and her contacts in law enforcement have confirmed he’s not been located yet. The cop, Knight, followed the witches back to Moot HQ in Salem.So that’s her last shred of credibility gone.
‘Maybe that’ll be enough to get Harper Fenn’s killing of my son reopened,’ Michael Whitman says. ‘Given that Knight, now a proven sympathiser, was the one who said there was nothing magical about Dan’s death.’
