Chapter 5 – Lights Out

Sol

“He was selling something. I don’t know what. He just had money all of a sudden, and before he, like, didn’t,” Marcus Bell’s roommate says.

It’s been a week since I found Marcus behind Kron house. Until tonight, nobody’s accused him of dealing out loud. This kid just said it into a microphone, at the first session of the conduct board.

The dean of students runs things from the head of the table. He’s a werewolf, and he opened by telling us the university’s lawyers want everybody to remember this isn’t a trial.

The two human reps sit on his left. Laz and I are at opposite ends, which I guess is supposed to be a kindness. It’s nowhere near far enough. I’d want a table that runs out the window and down the street, with Laz at the bottom of it in Antarctica, hanging out with the penguins.

Marcus’s roommate is a skinny freshman in a hoodie three sizes too big, and he checks with the dean before every answer.

“Selling what?” one of the reps asks.

The roommate picks at his sleeve. “He’d go out really late. And he’d come back smelling, like... sweet? Like somebody spilled a slushie on him.”

Every head at the table turns my way.

I’m the only warlock in the room, and I’m the guy in all the videos. And my prints are on that kid. Fisk made sure I’d never forget that part, and now I’m sweating about it in front of a werewolf.

The dean’s nostrils move, just a little. He can smell exactly how scared I am. “Eyes on the witness, please,” he says, and he looks down at his notes to give me some privacy, which is weirdly nice of him.

Marcus’s pen is in my hand. I’ve been clicking it since we sat down. My thumb stops all by itself.

“Who was he selling to?” Laz asks.

It’s the first thing he’s said all session. He’s been taking notes in a little leather notebook, with an actual fountain pen. Who the fuck does that? He might as well have shown up in a cape.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He just said they had a lot of money.”

Rich people. In a room with a Kron in it. For some reason they’re still looking at me.

Laz caps his pen and doesn’t say another word. I stare at him intently and he ignores me.

If anybody in this room knows I didn’t kill Marcus Bell, it’s the guy who did. I want to climb across this table and stab him with that stupid fountain pen.

* * *

Professor Whitaker catches me on the stairs before I can get out of the building.

“Solomon. Do you have ten minutes? Let’s go have a chat in my office.”

There are plants on every flat surface and a kettle that she switches on as soon as we get inside. She hands me tea in a mug that says I’D RATHER BE WARDING. It’s the dorkiest thing I’ve ever seen.

The moment I sit down, my throat tightens. I’d blame the chair, but I suspect I’ve just gone too long without anything being easy. Under normal circumstances I can handle sitting down without getting emotional.

“How are you holding up?” she asks.

I can tell she means it, which makes answering harder. I haven’t had to give a real answer since Mom died, and I’m not sure I can without embarrassing myself.

“Fine,” I say. I don’t know how to explain without telling her everything.

She nods, and I’m relieved when she changes the subject.

“There’s a grant I give to promising wardcasters.”

“Me?” I ask incredulously.

“You’re the best natural talent in that lecture hall, and you sit in the back so nobody notices.” She smiles. “It’s a private endowment. I pay for it myself out of my research funding, so there’s no committee and no forms. It’s not a fortune, but enough to live on.”

I think about the email from my landlord, still sitting there unopened.

“I’ll need a few vials of your blood for my research; I hope that won’t be an issue? Are you squeamish about needles?”

I shake my head. Even if I was, I’d still do it. Paying my rent is a major headache every month.

I’m halfway down the corridor before I notice I’m smiling.

Laz is leaning on the wall by the fire door.

“You were in there a while,” he says.

“Are you following me now? Is that a Kron thing? Do you guys put AirTags on everybody you don’t like?”

“I wanted a word without an audience.” His eyes go over my face slowly. “You look like you haven’t eaten since that party.”

“Wow. Diet tips from a guy who drinks people.” I step closer, consequences be damned. “You can take your concern and shove it up your ass. There’s room. It’s only got a silver spoon and Daddy’s stick in it.”

He doesn’t laugh, which comes as no surprise. The truth hurts.

“You sat in that room and let them look at me like I did it,” I tell him. “One sentence, Laz. ‘Hallowell found him and tried to help him.’ That’s all it would’ve taken. Instead, you ran straight to Fisk about my prints, so don’t stand there and pretend you care if I eat.”

“Believe whatever you like. You will anyway. You spent that entire session glaring at me as though I’d done it. I’m here to strongly suggest you stop.”

He tips his head, putting his mouth right next to my ear.

“I said nothing because I have no idea what you were doing behind my house in the dark. Neither does anyone in that room. And every one of us knows exactly what Fang & Sons pays.”

He just called me a dealer. To my face, in the voice people use to send back a steak that’s not to their liking.

Yeah, Fang & Sons pays like garbage. Everybody on the Strip knows it. That doesn’t make me a dealer, asshole, it makes me broke.

I get right up in his space, close enough to spit on him. “Say that again.”

He doesn’t. He steps in instead.

He can’t Pull me, so he’s doing it the old-fashioned way, with his whole stupid body. He’s taller than me and wider, and he takes up every bit of air I had left. I back up without meaning to, and my shoulders hit the wall.

He still doesn’t touch me. I almost wish he would, so I’d have an excuse to punch him.

Marcus is dead, and I should be thinking about him. Instead I’m staring at Laz’s mouth. It’s so close. I want to find out what it does when it isn’t saying something shitty.

What the fuck, dick. He’s the guy I think killed Marcus Bell, and you’re perking up like a dog that heard the treat bag from three houses away.

I should shove him. He needs to back off and go be a rich fuckwit somewhere else. Neither of those things happens. His face stays exactly where it is, and his breath is on my mouth.

The grey-green’s gone out of his eyes. They’re black, all the way, and they drop to my neck. My pulse is slamming right where he’s looking. I know he can hear every beat.

My magic comes up under the scar on my wrist, hot and fizzy, climbing my arm before I can grab it.

The light above us pops.

The next one goes, and the one after that, all the way down the corridor, bang, bang, bang. The exit sign dies last. Glass pings off the floor, and some of it lands in my hair.

Every single person on this campus knows what that means. And the one guy I’d rather die than let figure it out is standing right on top of me.

I’m not into him. I’m pissed off, I haven’t slept in a week, and a werewolf sniffed me in front of the whole board. Anybody’s magic would pop off.

In the dark, his breath slides off my mouth and down to my jaw. He doesn’t move away. Neither do I.

“You appear to have blown all the lights, Hallowell,” he says, very softly.