‘Keep your fucking hands off her,’ Bea says, pushing at Barr’s chest. The man holds up his palms and retreats, smirking.
Luka. I think. Bea knows what it’s like, too.Why aren’t we on the same side?
A shuddering sigh from Okoye settles onto the surface tension of the room, delicately balanced. Which is when I realise my shirt has been ripped open by Barr and the entirety of my midriff is showing. All my tattoos are on display and the Moot President, surely, will see what few others even notice – my very first sigil, Obscurity, carved into my stomach by my shaking, terrified hands using a razorblade I’d prepared with a sevenfold purification.
Even though their presence on my body is a criminal act, I make no effort to draw together my torn shirt. I’m proud of my sigils. My parents saw and accepted them as part of me. Continued to love me. Theirs is the only judgement that counts.
‘So that’s how,’ he says, almost sorrowful. ‘Obscurity. How could your mother do that to you, Harper? Turn you into a walking witchcrime? What was she so afraid of in your magic that she hid it, then put on such a show of grief at your Determination? If you tell us why, we can plead for lenience for you.’
How can he be so stupid? No witch parent would do this to their child, let alone one like my happy-clappy herbalist, healing mom.
‘Is it because Lachlan Frey is your father?’ Sandra Ortiz breaks in. ‘Is there something tainted about his magic – his blood? You can tell us, Harper. He twisted and used my poor boy. Was your mother trying to stop him doing the same to you?’
‘Lachlan Frey?’ I ask, as if I’ve never heard the name.
‘Don’t be stupid, Harper. Neither you nor your mother have ever admitted it, but it’s plain Frey is your father. Even Luka knows it.’
‘I did it to myself. Obscurity.’
The gentleness in Okoye’s voice evaporates like steam, all at once, with a scalding hiss.
‘At age, what, twelve?’
‘Eleven. I was just a stupid kid and afraid of my magic. You know the way lots of girls dread puberty and periods and growing breasts, because of all that comes with it? I didn’t think I could ever live up to my mother or great-grandmother, so I decided to pretend I didn’t have the Gift.’
It’s quick. Clever. I’m patting myself on the back. But then the Moot president frowns.
‘So where did you see the Old Signs, Harper? I’m sure your mother, like a good witch, explained they are absolutely forbidden. It’s illegal to use those sigils or even write them down. So how were they familiar enough that you could cut one into your own skin?’
‘Did your father show you?’ Ortiz presses, breathlessly.
‘Or did you read them,’ Okoye continues. ‘Perhaps in a book that predates legalisation, or even the first Confiscation Act? Maybe a grimoire. A family like yours surely had a few – possibly a Starcross?’
‘It was a vision,’ I say, brazenly.
It’s not entirely untrue. I was always drawn to the Old Signs, even as a child. The way they danced and writhed on the page. I knew they were bad and wrong, but understood also that they were powerful, and that was what men found most fearful about them.
‘You’re saying you have an affinity with the most brutal and forbidden forms of our art?’ Okoye says. ‘Harper, think carefully. If you’re trying to protect one or both of your parents …’
‘I think we have everything we need,’ says Ortiz, rising. Her heels rap the concrete floor with neat, lethal clicks likebullets being loaded into a chamber. ‘Harper has confessed to witchcrime of the highest degree, by both reproducing and using the Old Signs. She has admitted to deceiving the Moot and falsifying its test for magical ability. She is either lying about having access to banned spellbooks or has a disturbing intuitive connection to the darkest magic. Given she’s a witch, her assault upon Beatriz last year was therefore also magically aggravated. I know she’s not the test subject we agreed upon, but given that despite our best efforts we’ve been unable to locate Frey, surely you’d agree she’s an ideal candidate?’
‘Perfect it on her,’ Barr adds, ‘so we’ll know it works when we get hold of her father.’
I don’t know what they mean, though it soundsbeyondnot good. But the important thing is that it doesn’t seem Barr and Okoye are going to strip my magic away right here, right now. That gives me a breathing space to find a way out, or Detective Maggie and my parents time to get to me. I still won’t go easily, though.
‘Yes,’ says Okoye, eventually. ‘Let’s proceed.’
I can see the conflict in his eyes. He’s not entirely happy with whatever Ortiz and his own lieutenant are trying to set in motion here – perhaps I can use that, too?
‘This is really unfortunate, Harper,’ he tells me. ‘You could have been a witch of such promise. But lawless, powerful magicals like you and your father are the reason we’re feared. You endanger every one of us. Witches won’t truly be safe until people feel they can stop seeing us as a threat.’
‘Such bullshit,’ I say. ‘We’re not a threat. It’s their bigotry that makes them think we are.’
‘In that case, congratulations, Harper,’ Ortiz says. ‘You’re going to help end that bigotry, by ensuring no mundane need fear a witch ever again.’
Even though Barr’s large, I don’t notice he’s back at my side until I feel the mosquito bite of a needle in my arm. The room goes dark and swimmy as I swoon.
39
