Chapter 9: Throw coffee on me!

The clapping was still going when Mabel moved.

She raised her hand and hit herself across the face, hard, and the sound cut through the room and the clapping stopped dead.

Everyone stared.

Mabel pulled her staff badge off her lanyard and threw it on the nearest table.

"I quit," she said.

She walked out without looking back at anyone.

The room held its silence for three full seconds.

Then Vivienne said, softly, "I never wanted anyone to get hurt." She looked at the badge on the floor. Her voice was very gentle. "I really didn't. I hope everyone knows that."

Several people nodded. Someone picked up the badge.

Killian's face had gone very still. The particular stillness that meant he was furious and had decided not to show it.

Briar stood at the cutlery station with sauce drying on her neck and watched the canteen doors settle shut behind Mabel and felt something crack open in her chest.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Nobody was listening.

She went after Mabel. She checked the corridor, the stairwell, the bathroom on the third floor. She called Mabel's name twice in the empty hallway and got nothing.

Briar looked down at her uniform. The sauce had soaked through to her skin and was starting to smell. She needed to change. She went to the staff changing room.

It was locked.

She tried the handle twice. She knocked. She went to the secondary break room further down and that one was locked too. She stood in the corridor and a woman from the canteen walked past without slowing and Briar said excuse me, could she borrow a key, and the woman kept walking.

"Someone should report that Mabel," she heard from around the corner. "Assault. In front of everyone."

"Vivienne handles everything with such grace. She didn't even raise her voice."

"And Briar just stood there. As usual."

Briar stopped knocking.

---

Killian's office was on the forty-second floor.

Briar knocked on the office door.

"What," Killian said.

She opened it. He was at his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled, not looking at her.

"The changing rooms are locked," she said. "I don't have anything to change into. I can't find Mabel. I didn't know where else to go."

He looked up then. His eyes moved over the stained uniform, her damp neck, her face.

"You walked through my building like that," he said. "You came up to this floor, in that state, because you couldn't find a key."

"I knocked on both doors. Nobody would"

"I don't want to hear about the doors." He set down his pen. "You are a canteen worker, Briar. This floor is not somewhere you come because you are having a difficult morning. Go back downstairs and find your supervisor."

"My supervisor won't help me, Killian, everyone down there is"

"I said go downstairs." His voice did not rise. "And sort out whatever you did to make Mabel walk out of here. That was embarrassing. For everyone."

The rest room door opened.

Vivienne came out in a change of clothes, a pale blue dress, her hair loose. She looked clean and unhurried.

Briar looked at her own uniform.

She looked at Vivienne's waist and her bare arms and the easy way she moved across the room.

*Look at her face,* Kallie said, almost fondly. *Same expression every single time. Like a dog that just realized it's not allowed on the furniture.*

"Killian," Vivienne said, her voice warm and easy, "I'll take care of this. You have the three o'clock." She glanced at Briar. "Go wait outside for me."

Briar went.

---

Vivienne found her by the elevator.

"You're not stupid," Vivienne said. "You just get overwhelmed. There's a difference."

"Mabel quit," Briar said. "Because of me."

"Mabel made her own choice. You didn't ask her to do any of that."

"She was trying to help me."

"She was trying to start a fight. That is not the same thing." Vivienne's voice stayed patient. "Briar. Things go wrong because you act before you think. Like the wolf run."

Briar's chest tightened. "You told me to do the wolf run."

"I told you showing effort was meaningful. I did not tell you to organize a formation with the patrol gammas and run across a sacred field on two feet." She paused. "You heard what you wanted to hear. You do that."

"You said the howl was important."

"I said connecting with the pack was important. You turned that into a howl." She tilted her head. "The pieces are there, Briar. But somewhere between hearing and doing, things get scrambled. You know that about yourself."

Briar opened her mouth. There was something at the edge of her thoughts, something she kept almost getting hold of and then losing.

"And through the link," she said slowly. "In the forest. You said I ruined everything."

"Because you had," Vivienne said simply. "And if I hadn't said it first, Killian would have. Would you rather he added it to the list of reasons to restrict you?" She let that sit for a moment. "I said it so he didn't have to. That is what I do."

Briar looked at her.

Vivienne felt that Briar was becoming increasingly difficult to handle. Well—she always had a way to deal with things.

"Here," Vivienne said.

She took a small box from her pocket. Inside, on white cotton, sat a pair of ruby earrings.

"Natural rubies," Vivienne said. "Untreated. I had three pairs made and the other two melted down. These are the only ones." She closed Briar's fingers around the box. "I've been meaning to give them to you for months."

Briar looked at the earrings. Her eyes went wet.

"Why," she said.

"Because you're my sister," Vivienne said. "Even when everything is a mess."

"Viv..."

Vivienne steered her toward the small coffee station at the end of the corridor. It was quiet there, just a counter and a machine and two stools.

They talked for a few minutes about nothing important. Briar was still thinking about Mabel. Vivienne was thinking about Killian's three o'clock and how long she needed to spend here before she could reasonably leave.

Then her eyes moved to the fresh cup of coffee sitting on the counter beside Briar. Still steaming.

*Oh,* Kallie said. *Oh, that is very good.*

Vivienne looked at the coffee. All she had to do was provoke the fool standing before her into spilling hot coffee on her; then, she could quite naturally turn to Killian for comfort. Killian would grow to loathe that fool even more, while she—Vivienne—would forever remain the gentle, understanding victim.

"Actually," Vivienne said, sliding the cup toward Briar, "can you do something for me?"

Briar looked at the cup. "What?"

"Take that and pour it on me."

Briar stared at her. "Why?"

"We're going to need to rehearse the water ceremony for the founders' commemoration next month," Vivienne said. "The elder receives the offering. It should feel natural. If we practice now, with something in hand, the motion will come more easily on the night."

Briar looked at the coffee. She looked at Vivienne.

"That's hot," she said.

"It's fine. It's just a dress."

"You just changed into that dress."

"Briar." Vivienne kept her voice gentle. "It's a rehearsal. Just pour it."

Briar picked up the cup. She held it for a moment. Then she put it back down.

"I don't think that's what the water ceremony looks like," she said. "The elder doesn't get wet. I looked it up once. The water goes on the ground."

Vivienne looked at her.

Briar's expression was open and slightly uncertain, the usual expression, nothing behind it that suggested she had figured anything out.

*She just looked it up,* Kallie said, disgusted. *Of all the times for her to look something up.*

"You're right," Vivienne said smoothly. "I was thinking of a different ceremony. Never mind." She smiled and picked up her own cup. "The earrings really do suit you."

Briar looked down at the box and her face went soft immediately.

"They're so pretty," she said.

Vivienne watched her and said nothing and kept smiling.

Bitch. She thought.