Chapter 11: The Paris Brochure

 

Briar did not know when she fell asleep.

One moment she was sitting on the floor with her box of things in her lap, and then it was morning and her neck hurt and the carpet had left a red pattern on her cheek.

She lay there and looked at the ceiling and waited to feel like getting up.

She did not feel like getting up.

Her phone was buzzing on the nightstand. The canteen manager's name, three times in a row. She watched it buzz and did not move. After the fourth call she turned it face-down and went back to sleep.

By evening Killian had not come home.

The house was quiet.

She put on her shoes and left.

She had been walking for maybe forty minutes when she saw the orange hair.

Mabel was coming out of a corner shop with a paper bag under one arm. She stopped when she saw Briar. Briar stopped when she saw Mabel.

They stood on the pavement and looked at each other.

"Hi," Briar said.

"Hi," Mabel said.

Neither of them moved for a moment.

Then Briar said, "You quit today. Because of me."

"I quit because Vivienne is a menace and I finally ran out of patience. It was not because of you." A pause. "Mostly."

Briar looked at her hands. She had been rehearsing this in her head for two months and now that Mabel was standing right in front of her it all came out wrong and slow. "I need to ask you something. The things that got around the pack. About me. The nightlight, how I still sleep with one on because I'm scared of the dark. And the pull door at the pack hall, how I stood there pushing it for twenty minutes and didn't understand why it wouldn't open, and everyone just... watched." She stopped. "I only ever told you those things. So I thought... I just thought it had to be you."

Mabel looked at her steadily. "And you decided that without asking me."

"Yes," Briar said. "I'm sorry. I just. I couldn't think of who else would know..." She trailed off. "It was you, wasn't it? I'm right?"

"No," Mabel said. "It wasn't me."

Briar blinked. "What?"

"It was not me, Briar. I didn't tell anyone anything." Mabel's voice was very flat and very clear. "I would never. Not those things. Not about you."

Briar stood there and felt the ground shift slightly under her feet.

"But then... then who... I don't..." Briar shook her head. "I don't understand. If it wasn't you then I don't know who it was."

Mabel watched her face.

"Mabel." Briar's voice cracked. "I stopped talking to you for two months. I decided you had done something terrible and I didn't even ask you. I just decided." Her eyes were already wet. "I'm so sorry. I'm really, really sorry. You came into that canteen today and you stood up for me and I had been so horrible to you and I'm so, so sorry."

"Stop apologizing and come here," Mabel said.

She crossed the pavement and put her arms around Briar and Briar grabbed on and did not let go.

——

Mabel's apartment was small and warm and smelled like instant noodles and dry shampoo. She had fairy lights along the bookshelf and a cork board covered in magazine cutouts and paint swatches. Briar borrowed an oversized sweater with a paint stain on the sleeve and did not care at all.

They ate noodles on the floor because the table was covered in fabric samples. Mabel made tea in mismatched mugs and put on a film they both ignored after the first ten minutes.

It felt like being twelve again.

"I've been thinking about leaving," Mabel said, during a quiet part of the film.

"Leaving... leaving where?"

"Here. The pack. All of it." She tucked her knees up. "I want to go somewhere human. Properly human. Study art. Maybe model." She reached over to the desk without getting up and pulled a brochure from the stack and handed it to Briar.

Paris. A school with tall windows and morning light on the cover. Inside were studios and galleries and people who looked like they were exactly where they wanted to be.

Briar turned the pages slowly.

When she was nine she had told her mother she wanted to be a doctor. Her mother had said that was a very good thing to want. She had written DOCTOR on a piece of paper in her nine-year-old handwriting and put it on her bedroom wall.

She could not remember when she had stopped thinking of it as something real.

"You should come with me," Mabel said.

Briar looked up.

"I mean it. You know why he keeps you around. The prophecy, the two children, all of it. Are you really going to wait there until he gets what he needs and throws you out? You can just go, Briar. Before any of that."

"He's my... he's my mate," Briar said. "I know how that sounds. I know. But it's not. I can't just. It still feels like." She stopped and started again. "I can't explain it properly."

"Liam is a good person," Mabel said. "Gideon too, when he's not being an idiot. And the world is very large."

"I know," Briar said. She did know that, in her head. It just did not reach anywhere useful.

Mabel looked at her for a long moment, sighed, and changed direction.

"Okay," she said. "Then fight back. Stop letting things happen to you. You stood up for me today in that canteen. You said something. Do more of that."

Briar picked at the sleeve of the borrowed sweater. "I still need to give Killian a proper birthday gift," she said. "Since the wolf run was... you know. What do I even get him?"

Mabel stared at her. "Briar."

"I know, I know, but I still need to."

"A tie clip," Mabel said flatly. "Simple. Small. Nothing that requires a rehearsal or the participation of anyone else. Just a tie clip."

"What if he doesn't like it?"

"It goes on a tie. There is nothing to like or dislike." Mabel pointed at her. "Promise me. No performances. No howling. The tie clip and nothing else."

"Just the tie clip," Briar said. "I promise."

They watched the rest of the film. Mabel fell asleep against the couch cushions with her mug still in her hand. Briar took it carefully and set it on the floor and pulled the spare blanket over her.

It was past midnight.

She checked her phone.

No messages. No missed calls. No link attempt.

Killian did not know she had been gone all day.

When she heard Briar's breathing even out completely into sleep, she said, very softly, "You were so bright, you know. Before all this."

"Top of the class before you were fifteen. You knew the name of every bone in the body. You used to correct the pack medic and he used to let you because you were right." A long pause. "And then you fell in love with him and everything just... went wrong. Everything got smaller."

She turned her face slightly toward the wall.

"I'm going to get you out," she said. "I don't know how yet. But I'm going to. You deserve to be somewhere that isn't this."

The fairy lights on the bookshelf cast everything in soft gold.