Page 33 of The Exorcism of Faeries

Atta shook her head sharply, hoping her cheeks weren’t aflame.

Murdoch returned to his route around the corpse, but Atta’s shadow self, her darker side, the one festering with all the Plague had wrought over the last six years, that side betrayed her. “Actually,” she heard herself say, like an out-of-body experience, “I do.”

One of the students behind her snickered, the little gobshite, and two others let out audible gasps.

“By all means.” Murdoch splayed a palm in a gesture for her to continue.

Her blood was boiling enough that it pushed out trepidation and perhaps logic. He did that to her, this man, just like the Plague. “The elite like to pretend that horrific events or circumstances make them equal with lower classes, but it’s only to pacify their own conscience and lull the lower classes into thinking they’re not just existing in an open-air prison.”

A flicker of something glittered in Murdoch’s gaze as he levelled her with it. “Death comes for us all, Miss Morrow. There is no one left untouched by the Plague, not anymore.”

Atta stood from her seat. “That is a cop-out. Something the wealthy say to blur the harsh lines drawn between classes. You said yourself that we have too many lines. The elite use blue instead of red, but it doesn’t mean the harshness is actually softened, it only portrays the illusion that it is.”

She knew the class had no idea what she was referring to, but Sonder Murdoch did. And if the look on his face was any indication, she’d struck a chord. Or a nerve.

“And yet we all die,” he said evenly. “Do we not?”

“Of course we do.” Atta gestured angrily at the cadaver. “But nothing short of a cataclysm, nature steamrolling even the elite, can makeequalsof us all as long as wealth and power rule the world. And they still do.”

“And if the Plague is that event?” he challenged.

“How can it be? You can’t tell me the elite have felt the effects of the Plague as harshly as the lower class.”

“Has it not killed the wealthy as ruthlessly as the poor?”

“Perhaps it has,” she argued, “but is it the wealthy who are going to be helped first, or the poor?”

“Hypotheticals will not help your case, Miss Morrow.”

Her head was on fire, but he looked to be enjoying himself.

Despite the inferno in her gut, Atta smiled, let it be a wicked little grin. “You’ve just proven my point. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“You make rash, snap judgements,” he shot back with a dark, humourless laugh. “That might be acceptable in Botany, but it will not bode well in Morbid Anatomy, inrealscience.”

Atta’s head jerked back as if he’d slapped her. Rather than responding, she collected her things and left.

She spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the cocoon of the library, lost to her studies, to her tapes of Liszt, headphones blocking out everything and everyone. Most of all Sonder Murdoch and the unsettling cemetery of Infected she couldn’t stop thinking about.

The sun was beginning to set and her stomach growled, alerting her it was time to make her way home. Maybe she and Emmy could make cheese toasties and pretend the world was normal before her late shift at Gallaghers’.

“Good evening.”

Atta looked up at the sound of the terse, gravelly voice, shocked to see Murdoch lounging on the green sofa in the Briseis common room like he still lived there. The colour made his eyes stand out, and she merely blinked at him, watching him as he rose and crossed the room toward her.

“Walsh asked if you and I would debate in every class.” He tried at a smile, but as usual, it fell flat. “I wanted to apologise to you.”

Atta crossed her arms. “Then do it. I’m going to be late for work.”

“I won’t apologise for the debate. I rather enjoyed it, to be frank. But I insulted you and it was cruel. I’m sorry.”

As far as apologies went, it wasn’t half bad. “I’m sorry I challenged you in front of your class.”

Murdoch shook his head, a dark curl falling across his forehead. “If we were never challenged, Atta, we would never grow.”

Before she could say anything, he reached out a hand, one finger gliding up the elongated spine of her collar chain, ending at one of the two skulls attached on either side. “I like this.”

Turning on his heel, he strode away, one hand in his pocket and the other—the one that had just been so very close to touching her—clenched in a fist at his side.

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