I stop a few paces from him when I realize he’s got stuff for a fireball. “Really?”
“What thefuckis in here?” he snaps, eyes darting around.
Nick’s fedora bobs behind Elethior. I swear it bobssmugly.
Oblivious, Elethior hits me with a glare, and I open my mouth to explain Nick.
“What did youdo?” Elethior cuts me off. He rises out of his attack stance, pockets his spell components, and redirects his defensiveness at me. “I refuse to spend the next several months fending off your idiotic pranks, so allow me to bring you in on a secret: I am not threatened by you. Yet you, obviously, feel threatened by me, and I am telling you right now that I won’t tolerate petty insecurities from an obsolete man. I have a job to do here, and you will not interfere with that. I willcrushyou if you keep on with this time-wasting bullshit.”
Three weeks of fortifying myself to face Elethior as a calm, level-headed adult.
Thirty seconds of him reminding me that that’s not possible.
My chest seizes, stealing a breath that I cover by clamping my jaw tight.
“What you felt,” I start through my teeth, “was my familiar.”
I point to the fedora.
I see my words process. I see him realize he overreacted—is that regret in the smoothing of his forehead?
But he follows where I’m pointing and, of course, sees nothing. Nick’s now tucked under Elethior’s desk and the fedora is only half-visible behind one of the legs.
“I don’t—” Elethior clears his throat. His voice is thinner. “What is it?”
“A fox.”
He bends, still seeing nothing. “A—fox?”
“Yeah.” I put my lip between my teeth and whistle. “Nick, c’mere.”
The fedora bobs out.
Elethior jerks upright at the disembodied hat. “What are you playing at?”
My face stays neutral. I’m locked down now. He threw that lock, he melted the key. I’m a vault, baby, and he’s gettingnothingfrom me but what I choose to give.
“Huh? Oh, the hat?” I shrug. “He likes to dress up. Familiars, ya know? What can you do?”
“No, I—” Elethior studies the fedora. “He’s… invisible?”
I scoff. “Good one.”
Elethior points at the fedora. “He’sinvisible.”
I put on my bestwhat the fucklook. “Um. No. I think I’d know if I couldn’t see my own familiar.”
“But he’s—”
I scoop Nick into my arms and hold him up for Elethior. “Wait, wait—are you telling me you can’t see thisfull-grown American red fox? Elethior. I’m not sure I can, in good conscience, work with a lab partner who’s such a moron.”
I’m grinning when he looks at me.
“He’s invisible,” he says, this time flat and declarative.
I set Nick down. “Mad observation skills you have.”
“Go fuck yourself, Walsh.”
