Page 47 of Wicked Waters

I stared at him in horror. “Plagiarised?”

“Yes. I expected so much more from you, Quinn. To stoop so low as to cheat?—”

“I didn’t cheat! I didn’t—I didn’t plagiarise anyone! The only reason I wanted those journals was to make sure I could structure my essay properly! I would never—” My voice cracked, tears filling my eyes. “Please. You have to believe me!”

“Enough!” His hand came down on the desk, hard. “I am looking at your draft right now, and I can see the evidence in front of me.”

“What?”

Spinning the laptop to face me, he scrolled past highlighted passages scattered throughout my paper, furiously clicking the mouse. “Here. Here. Here.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of what I was seeing on the screen. Leaning forwards, I blinked back my tears, focusing on the words.

The words.

Those weren’t my words.

“This isn’t my paper,” I gasped.

“Don’t give me that. We’d already signed off on your chosen research subject, andthe paper came from your email address. I suppose I should thank Mr. Cavendish for bringing your misdemeanours to my attention. Without the knowledge that you’d taken the journals, I might not have inspected it so closely. You were clever, I’ll give you that. Rewording it just enough that it wasn’t obvious at a casual glance.”

“I-I-I—” Roman. He wouldn’t. A hot lash of betrayal sliced through me. “Roman told you?”

“Emailed me, yes. Even gave me the names of the journals you’d taken.”

“No. There’s no way—” That wasn’t the most important thing right now. “Please. You have to believe me. This isn’t my work. I swear it. I’d never, ever steal someone else’s hard work and try to claim it as my own.”

Professor Fitzgerald pinched his brow. “You mean to say this isn’t your opening paragraph?” Scrolling back up to the top, he began to read aloud, and nausea rose in my throat as I heard the words I’d carefully crafted over hours and hours of notes, research, deliberation, and countless rough drafts.

“Y-yes.” The tears fell, and this time, I didn’t bother wiping them away. How could I refute what was so plain to him? How could I defend myself when those were the words I’d written? “I-I didn’t plagiarise, though. I didn’t. I would never. S-someone must’ve tampered with it. I have backups. I can show you.”

“Quinn.” His gaze softened fractionally. “I’m sorry. I have to disqualify you from the extra-credit project, and I’ll be keeping a careful eye on all your future work.”

I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so much. “P-please.”

“I’m sorry.”

The consequences hit me all at once. This was really happening. “Please don’t tell my parents. I-I’ll do anything.”

He sighed heavily. “Plagiarism is a serious offence. I have no choice in the matter. Your head of house will also be informed. As far as I’m concerned, detention for the rest of the term will be a suitable punishment. You can serve it in the library, returning books to the shelf. It seems fitting.”

“M-my future…”

“You did this to yourself, Miss Farrow. Cheating has consequences. Please remember that.”

I was sobbing now, unable to see through my tears. Professor Fitzgerald cleared his throat, and then he rose to his feet. Coming around the desk, he placed his hand on my shoulder. “Against my better judgement, I’ll keep it to myself until after the ball. I know you’ve been campaigning to be one of the goddesses, and, well…I won’t take that away from you.”

“Th-thank you,” I said brokenly. It hurt even more that he thought he was showing me a small kindness, which, if I had cheated, I most definitely wouldn’t have deserved.

“I hope you’ll learn your lesson from this.” Removing his hand from my shoulder, he sighed again. “I’ll give you a minute.”

When he’d left me alone, I buried my face in my hands and cried and cried and cried.

27

ROMAN

Devastated.

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