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DESPITE HOW MUCH TIME Simon had been training at Guilder with Jason Archer, he found that he had never really wondered where the man lived on campus. He remembered being in his apartment off-campus, but Jason had said he had a room at Guilder, something about it being the least the Privy Council could do. It had taken half a dozen mini-interrogations with upperclassmen just to get pointed in the right direction, and now that Simon was standing at the door he found himself abruptly terrified as to what he would find on the other side.
This was crossing a line—what he was doing.
And in more ways than one.
To start, the relationship between Botcher and Dagonet was meant to be as serious and professional as they come. Meaning, it stopped at the end of business hours. You didn’t take your work home with you and it certainly wasn’t supposed to follow you home, as Simon had done. It was an invasion of privacy so obvious it had never even been expressly forbidden. It was just assumed. Like hopping the fence into a lion enclosure, covered in jam. It wasn’t a question of whether bad things would happen to you. You could count on it.
But even more damning than the personal house call was the reason Simon had come. It was not unheard of for there to be women gifted with ink. Rumor had it there were even a few female agents working within the Council itself—although it was a relatively new development. The thing was, most of them came to the PC via their families. Not via a secret, recently-burned-down apartment in London by their illegal boyfriend who also happened to be inked.
Yup, Simon was breaking several rules tonight. Pushing the limits in a way that could get him expelled, or worse. He realized, with a dull stab of worry, that it had become an accelerating trend.
“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered, standing on his other side.
She was wearing an oversized shirt of Simon’s. A necessity, as her clothes had been badly burned in the fire and her long hair hung limply down her sides as she bowed her head to the ground. The smudges of ash and soot clouding her face were smeared with a thousand hastily-wiped away tears, and Simon’s heart broke for her as he silently wrapped her inside his arm.
“It’s not your fault,” he said quietly. “None of this is your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t—”
“Beth,” he interrupted, “you did nothing wrong.”
They weren’t just soothing words: it happened to be the truth. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t control her tatù. Aside from Royce Masters’ and his own, it was one of the most powerful Simon had ever seen. Power like that needed room to expand, to grow. It couldn’t be kept hidden away in an apartment—a secret from the outside world. Like it was something to be ashamed of.
He cast a sudden look around the darkened night.
“Guilder should be your school anyway. You’ve got the ink. No reason in the world that Guilder shouldn’t be open to women.”
Just like there’s no reason it shouldn’t be open to hybrids. Leave powerful people alone in the world, and bad things tended to happen. Like the fire at the apartment. Like Davey.
If the fault lay with anyone, it wasn’t with Beth. It was with the Privy Council.
Beth stared at him with wide eyes, and he lifted his shoulder with a bitter shrug.
“Typical Guilder rule, really. That only men should be allowed to pass through its hallowed halls. Just another useless Tudor trope, as outdated as it is stupid.”
Tristan chuckled humorlessly at his other side. “So not the time, man.”
Simon had forced Tristan to come along as wingman for two reasons. The first being that he could provide a buffer—both physical and emotional—against Jason’s rage. The second being that he could act as a witness against the same such rampage. Surely Jason wouldn’t annihilate Simon right there on the spot if someone was there to tell the story, right?
After racing up the stairs of Joist Hall to see that Beth was indeed alright with his own eyes, Simon had spent much of his remaining time coming up with similar such strategies. Refusing to allow Beth to take a shower so that she looked more helpless and prone to help. Waiting until well after lights out so that the rest of the campus would be safely tucked away in case Jason decided to go mental and drag both Simon and Beth off to the brig.
Of course, in all his illustrious planning, he had glossed over a rather obvious detail. It was now three o’clock in the morning, and his mentor was most assuredly asleep.
“Are you going to knock on the door, or are we going to stand here all night?” Tristan pawed restlessly at the ground with his shoe, as nervous to be there as Simon was.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in by myself?” Beth asked for the millionth time. “I can just explain what happened, say that I ran away from home. There’s no reason for you to get involved, Simon, let alone Tristan.”
“No,” both boys said at the same time. They shared a quick glance, then Simon took over.
“We’re in this together, you and me.” He silently slipped his hand into hers. “I’m going to be right by your side the whole time. I promise.” But then, as quickly as he’d taken her hand, he let it go. “Just remember—”
“You and I are not together,” she said with a rueful smirk. “I know.”
Simon stared at her for a moment in the dark, measuring her response. “I really can’t over-stress how important that is.”
She rolled her eyes. “You have, trust me. About four billion times.” A frustrated sigh escaped her lips, and she flipped back her hair with a burst of impatience. “I don’t know why the two of you are so worried. You spent all afternoon telling me how this guy’s different from the rest of them. How he’s going to understand—”
“Not that.”
Simon and Tristan spoke at the same time again, and bowed their heads with an identical sigh. As if his subconscious was trying to warn him, a sudden echo of Jason’s words from that first day at the diner echoed through Simon’s head.
‘No apologies; we have to get our thrills where we can. No ink on ink, right?’
It had been right after Simon had pried him away from a lusty waitress, one who was quite willing to jump in the back of Jason’s car despite the fact that she had no idea who or what he was.
No ink on ink.
This from a man who was perfectly willing to bend just about any rule until it broke. The same man who had stood toe to toe with the Dean of Guilder and shouted in his face. Who even had the brazen tenacity to stand his ground against Royce Masters.
This was a line even he was not willing to cross.
But that doesn’t matter, Simon tried to reassure himself as he stared up at the ominously silent door. He’s never going to know about our relationship. No one is. We’ll keep it a secret until the grave. Maybe even after that if I can find some way to—
“Simon,” Tristan prompted again. Simon snapped out of his fearful reverie, and followed his friend’s gesture to the apartment. “Let’s go.”
After taking a deep breath, Simon lifted his hand and knocked twice on the door. Nothing happened. Like a frightened child pranking a neighbor on Halloween, he was tempted to just back away with a muttered, ‘Looks like no one’s home. Better head back.’ But Tristan lifted his hand and knocked louder, and this time there was movement.
The three teenagers shrank automatically closer together as the sound of footsteps padded towards them down the hall. A second later the door creaked open, and the little porch they were standing on was flooded with light.
It was even worse than Simon could have imagined.
Not only had he most assuredly awoken his teacher. Not only did he have to begrudgingly admit that his teacher was one of those people that women found irresistible. But the first time that Simon introduced his secret girlfriend to said teacher...Jason was hardly wearing any clothes.
That’s just perfect.
It could have been his imagination, but Simon could have sworn he heard the softest intake of breath from the girl standing beside him. A part of him couldn’t blame her. Jason looked like one of those picture-perfect guys that every other guy—even ones as good-looking and fit as he and Tristan—secretly despised for their effect on the opposite sex. The scattered clouds painted jagged shadows down his bare chest, but it was still easy to see the sculpted musculature below. His handsome face and bright, piercing eyes didn’t help anything either.
Simon was hyper-aware of it. He could only hope that Beth was somehow oblivious. Or maybe that she wasn’t attracted to attractive men. Although, if that were the case, he wasn’t sure what it would have been saying about him...
For a second, all was quiet.
None of the teenagers knew what to say, and Jason was obviously still coming out of what looked to be a whisky-induced sleep. Then, as usual, his mentor stepped forward and took control.
“Simon?”
It came out a lot sharper than Simon had expected, and all three of them flinched in unison.
How was it that even when there were multiple people standing on the porch, Jason only needed a split- second evaluation to single out Simon specifically? More importantly, how was it possible that the guy still commanded such authority standing there in his boxers?
Tristan elbowed him sharply in the back, and he came to his senses.
“Uh...hey. I’m sorry to wake you, or even to come over here at all. I know it’s kind of against the rules. I just—”
“It’s after three in the morning,” Jason snapped. “Do you know that?”
“Yeah, I do. I just...”
Simon had never seen his hair down before. It was throwing him. Instead of looking like a pirate-warrior like usual, ready to rip the world apart with his bare hands, Jason looked like some kind of poet. Unguarded with sleep-tousled hair. Simon didn’t know how to talk to him that way.
But Jason was in no mood to play games. And he wasn’t nearly as unguarded as he seemed. His hand tightened with irritation on the door frame as his eyes swept over the wayward students.
“What are you doing at my house?”
Get it together, Simon!
Simon cleared his throat and tried desperately to act a hell of a lot braver than he felt. “The thing is, and I’m sorry to come to you with this, but the thing is—”
But it was then that Jason seemed to notice Beth for the first time. His eyes widened ever so slightly as they swept her up and down before they closed in a sudden, painful grimace.
“...You got her pregnant.”
Simon blinked. Beth blinked. Tristan bit through his lip to keep from grinning.
“Wait,” Simon began, “what?! No, she’s not—”
“Fantastic, just fantastic.” Jason rubbed his fingers wearily over his eyes. “I should have seen this coming...”
“Jason, it’s not—”
“And let me guess: her parents don’t know. And could I please just figure out a way to—”
“Hey!” Beth broke the disjointed back-and-forth, stepping forward into the space between them. “I’m not pregnant.” Her eyes flashed momentarily at the accusation, before cooling as she turned slowly around and began rolling up her shirt. “I’m inked. I’ve got what Simon keeps calling a tatù.”
* * *
EVEN IF SIMON HAD SOMEHOW mastered Jacob Decker’s tatù, he still would never have seen this coming: Tristan, Beth, and himself...sitting on Jason Archer’s couch.
The house looked exactly as Simon might have guessed it would. It was nestled away in the quiet part of campus, not far from Masters’ office in fact. And it was small, so there wasn’t much room. But Jason had made the most of the space that was given.
One full wall was nothing but floor-to-ceiling books. Books on anything and everything you could imagine. From variations in plant venom, to old sea-faring legends, to topographical encyclopedias of Brazil. In the far corner was a work-out corner. As if the guy didn’t do enough of that in the Oratory every day. A pull-up bar had been fitted across the doorway to the bedroom, and judging by the state of the kitchen Jason somehow existed on nothing but liquor and saltines.
The only thing that didn’t quite fit in was the small desk in the corner covered in piles upon piles of both used and unused stationery. Half-empty boxes of envelopes littered the floor beneath the chair, and a roll of odd imagistic stamps cascaded messily to the ground. Each one was crisscrossed with tiny black and white depictions of quilled feathers.
Simon frowned to himself as he took it all in. Jason didn’t strike him as the type who would send letters, but apparently he did. And hundreds of them, at that. By the looks of things he had just started on another. It was sitting half-finished beneath a pen.
The silhouette of an angry man flitted purposely into his line of vision, and he hurried to return his focus to the present. Not a word had been spoken since the outburst out on the porch, but when Jason finally did open his mouth to speak Simon should have predicted what he’d say.
“It would have been easier if she was pregnant.”
Simon sat forward on the cushion, that damn temper flashing in his eyes. “Alright, that’s so far beyond inappropriate, I can’t even—”
“I’m inappropriate?!” Jason fired back, looking even more dangerous than Simon. “You show up at my house in the middle of the night, Kerrigan, and presume to lecture me on—”
Beth leaned over discreetly to Tristan.
“Okay...do I look pregnant or something? Tell me the truth.”
Tristan snickered, unintentionally capturing Jason’s lethal attention.
“What the hell are you even doing here, Wardell?”
Tristan’s eyes snapped up and he half rose to his feet. “Human shield, I think. I’d love to leave—”
“Stay right where you are.” Jason pointed a stern finger at the couch, and Tristan reluctantly sank back down. “The three of you are going to tell me exactly what’s going on, and you’re going to do it right now.”
There was a tone in his voice that demanded obedience. Even Beth was not immune.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized softly, “I know this has to come as a shock. The thing is, my brother, Argyle, attended Guilder until very recently. I didn’t know why or what it was—I’d been told it was a school for wayward boys.”
“You aren’t far off the mark.” Jason’s eyes flickered dangerously to Tristan and Simon, who both sank lower in their seats. “Go on.”
“Anyway, the day I turned sixteen I panicked and ran away. I went to Simon for help because...” her voice trailed off momentarily; this was the shaky part of their plan, “...because he was Argyle’s best friend at school. I’d met him over the holidays, and I’d hoped he could help me figure out what was going on. He told me about tatùs, and was trying to help me work mine out back in London, when...”
Her eyes flashed in panic to Simon, who took over seamlessly. He always found it was easier to be brave when Beth was involved. “When we realized that it wasn’t something we could on our own,” he finished smoothly. “I brought her here for your guidance, you accused her of being pregnant, and the rest you know.”
Jason didn’t blink. Instead, he looked between the three of them very shrewdly.
“And this sudden exodus from London...it wouldn’t have anything to do with the massive apartment fire that happened there this afternoon?”
The three teenagers shared another look before dropping their eyes to the couch. Their story sounded a whole lot worse when it was reported on the six o’clock news. Eventually only Simon looked up, hesitantly meeting his mentor’s gaze.
“At least she didn’t turn into a dog.”
* * *
AS UNLIKELY AS IT MIGHT have seemed, brutal honesty turned out to be the best approach. The second that Simon owned up to his story, Jason accepted it and automatically began working to navigate them all through it. The first point, unfortunately, was a deal-breaker.
“I have to report this,” he said firmly. “She has to be officially trained—sanctioned and recognized by the Privy Council.”
Simon was enraged. Tristan’s look of I told you so didn’t help.
“You can’t be serious,” he cried. “Who knows what the hell they’ll even do with her? It’s not like having a girl with powers is exactly a common thing—”
He fell silent under Jason’s gaze, but continued to stubbornly fume. It was becoming harder and harder not to act like he had any special interest in Beth. Any reason beyond the usual to care.
This was supposed to be their plan for life? To pretend they weren’t in love? It was already damn near impossible!
And they were only an hour in...
“What they’ll even do with her?” Jason repeated slowly, fixing Simon intently in his gaze. “I don’t know what you mean exactly, Kerrigan, but I assure you she’ll be well taken care of.” He released Simon from his probing stare, and turned to Beth. “And he’s wrong. There are more and more women in the Privy Council every day. You would not be alone in the ranks. That is...” he cocked his head curiously, “if they decide your tatù merits the attention.”
It was a clear invitation. As plain as if he’d spoken it aloud. But as direct as it was, none of the three of them knew what to do. Apparently, a little prompting was in order.
“That was a hell of a fire I saw on the news,” he continued softly, reassuring and challenging her all at the same time. “Must be a hell of a tatù.”
Like a puppet-master had pulled up on a string, Beth rose from the couch in a single, fluid motion. She might have fled half of London’s police force earlier that afternoon, but her movements were steady and sure. She met Jason’s gaze with a flash of that defiance that Simon loved so well, but the second she raised up her arms, her hands started shaking.
“I don’t know how to control it,” she said quietly, either unwilling or unable to stop the trembling. “Every time I try...it only gets worse.”
Jason’s eyes seemed to glow in the soft light of the lamp. “I’m not asking for a blaze here, nothing flashy. Just a single flame. Show me what you can do.”
She glanced nervously around his apartment, and he stepped calmly right in front of her.
“Beth,” it was the first time he said her name, and it made an impression, “just a flame.”
Simon leaned forward intently, while Tristan knowingly inched back. For his part, Jason held his ground. Perhaps it was his confidence in her that made Beth confident herself.
With a look of steady determination, she closed her eyes and opened her hand in the same gesture. A tiny blue flame sprang into the air.
Simon’s expression turned almost smug as he looked quickly to Jason. Sure enough, his mentor’s eyes widened slightly at the color and intensity of the flame. No, this was not the usual fire that passed through these gates. This was something more. This was something better.
His eyes might have been glowing with the excitement of a new challenge, but when he spoke Jason’s voice was passive almost to the point of indifference.
“Put it out.”
Beth’s eyes shot open in surprise, and without even seeming to think about it, the fire went out. Her face tightened with a look of hurt at the lack of enthusiasm, and Simon shot his mentor an accusatory glare. But Jason regarded the entire thing intently, taking in all of the details.
“Good,” he said suddenly. “That was very good.”
Tristan and Simon shared a quick look of confusion, and Beth’s eyes flickered unconsciously to Simon for help. She wasn’t supposed to turn to him. She wasn’t supposed to show any kind of bond or favoritism, but she was so out of sorts at the moment she hardly seemed to notice.
“We’ll begin training tomorrow. There’s an empty room in the apartment behind mine; you can stay there for the night before we find you something more permanent in the morning.” Jason was all business now, as if suddenly realizing that he had to get up in less than three hours to begin work. “Be at the Oratory at eight a.m. sharp. It’s the big domed building across the lawn.” A look of faint amusement flickered across his face. “Simon can show you.”
Beth and Simon paled at the same time. Both asking themselves the same question.
What the hell did that mean?!
Fortunately, Simon had seen fit to bring a wingman. With the same charming smile that had gotten him out of so many jams before Tristan got to his feet, pulling both of his friends along with him.
“Thank you, sir.” He nodded respectfully as he herded the lot of them to the door. “We’re very sorry again for coming here so late. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Jason said nothing, but simply watched as the three of them flooded out the door into the chilly night. They were already halfway down the porch when Simon silently doubled back, a crippling worry still on the forefront of his mind.
“You’re sure we have to tell them?” he asked softly, his eyes flickering to the administration office with something close to dread. “You’re sure it’s the best thing to do?”
For the second time that night, Jason fixed him with that probing stare. He was searching for something. Something that Simon didn’t quite realize yet himself.
When he did speak, it sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully. “There are things that we don’t hide, Simon.”
His tone implied an ending. The conversation was clearly closed.
Simon nodded as he hurried after his friends, but as he leapt down the front steps he couldn’t help but think that the way Jason had said it was strange. Like he was implying there were certain things that were different. Certain things that they did hide.
They found the empty apartment behind Jason’s without any problem, and quickly settled Beth inside. Simon wanted desperately to kiss her goodnight, to hold her once in his arms after this nightmare of a day and whisper that everything would be alright. But the walls had ears in a place like this, and after a long wistful look he bid her a simple goodbye.
She nodded quickly and disappeared into the dark bedroom. Very much alone.
“Come on, man,” Tristan prompted gently. “We may have been talking with a trainer, but Masters will still throw our asses out of school if we’re caught out after curfew again. I don’t think Jason would find it in his heart to write us a note.”
Simon sighed reluctantly and followed him outside, using his tatù to follow as they sprinted silently across the grass. As they darted up the steps to Joist Hall, Tristan flashed him a look.
“You sure edited that story a lot.”
Simon sighed again. “Shut up. It worked, didn’t it? At least she’s in.”
And she was. After surviving the catastrophic events of the day, Beth had earned her place at their freak school.
And, as it turned out...she wasn’t the only one.
