“We need to stick together,” Nathaniel countered. “It doesn’t do any good if you’re far away.”
“I’m not going back to New York,” Borden said, his tone a little harsh, but I forgave him, considering the circumstances. “There’s plenty of housing in Harrington. I’ll find a place close by.”
And I knew it then, that the plan I talked about with Mary-Beth needed to happen sooner than later. We needed a safe place. Somewhere that was ours. Somewhere that we could all be together.
I had to get a grip on alchemy. I had to come up with the money to buy Asteria House for us all.
And I had to fully forgive Borden and move on with our lives.
Nathaniel came to my house that night. It was becoming the normal. He’d come over after his shift at the library, if we weren’t all gathering to practice magic. He’d eat the leftovers from whatever Dad or I made. And we’d go up to my room to talk, or we’d hang out in the living room with Dad, or we’d go for walks across the frozen campus.
Tonight, we went up to my bedroom. Dad had been feeling a little under the weather, so he’d gone to bed just after eight o’clock. Nathaniel and I tried to keep quiet so we wouldn’t wake him up.
“I think maybe we need to do something to help Borden,” I said as Nathaniel and I laid in the bed, facing each other. Nathaniel’s eyes were closed, though I could tell he wasn’t quite asleep.
“What do you suggest?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“Borden is in his last semester, so it’s not fair that he get expelled in the last few months before school is over,” I said, largely talking to myself. “This is all David’s doing, I know Borden didn’t cheat on that test, he said so himself that he didn’t do very well on it. And I believe him that he didn’t go change his grade.”
Nathaniel made an acknowledging noise, but hardly stirred and still didn’t open his eyes.
“I think maybe I can go to the Dean and make him forget that any of this happened, revoke the expulsion,” I said, going back to that night that I altered the Society Boy’s memories of what happened the night they tried to drown Nathaniel. “It would serve David right to have this all rewind on him anyway.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Nathaniel muttered, though I wondered if he’d really heard what I’d said.
But I just smiled and leaned forward. I pressed a kiss to his cheek. He smiled slightly, though he was too tired to even do anything more.
I pulled the blanket up over the both of us. I snuggled myself in and Nathaniel lazily laid an arm over my middle.
He was breathing deep and low in a matter of seconds.
I just smiled, looking up at the ceiling.
Chapter Eleven
Dean Lowell got to his office every weekday at seven AM. I knew that because I’d known the man my entire life. He’d come to family Christmas parties and Easter Sunday dinner. I’d been to his house dozens of times for faculty parties and even went for the wake for his wife when she died four years ago.
I knew his habits well.
So, I woke up early the next morning, leaving Nathaniel still sleeping in my bed. I dressed in the bathroom and slipped downstairs before Dad had even gotten up. I pulled on my coat, and I set out across the crunchy, frozen grounds.
I made my way down the silent halls, occupied only by the day shift janitor, Paul. I turned the corner and saw the heavy wooden door at the end. Confidently, I knocked.
“Come in,” his deep voice boomed from inside.
I turned the knob, and walked in.
“Margot,” Dean Lowell greeted me with a surprised, but warm smile. “This is quite the surprise. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said as I took a step inside. “How’s Barnabus?”
That was his cat, a grumpy ancient thing with only one eye and one and a half ears. He had a habit of going out into town at night and getting into fights.
“Getting ornerier by the day,” the Dean chuckled. Dean Lowell didn’t have any of his own children, so Barnabus was as close as it got, and it showed.
I smiled and took another step closer toward his desk. “I came here this morning because I wanted to talk to you about Borden Stewart.”
Instantly, Dean Lowell’s expression grew a little darker. “Why?”
I took yet another step closer into the office. “Borden didn’t cheat, and he didn’t go and change his grades,” I said, pushing confidence into every word I spoke. “I don’t know if you are aware, but Borden recently left the Society Boys, and there’s been a falling out because of it. I think David Sinclair has taken it quite personally. He’s been at Borden’s throat ever since.”
Dean Lowell braced his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands together. “While I am sorry to hear there has been contention between Borden and David, I did not base my decision on anything said from David. I went off of the word of Borden’s professor. He showed me the grades himself.”
“But there weren’t any sure signs that it was Borden who did it,” I pointed out.
“With declining grades, Borden seems to be the only one who has reason to do so,” Lowell came back.
“I have reason to believe that the Society Boys are sabotaging Borden,” I said, taking another step closer. “They’re going after him, personally. They’re trying to destroy his life because he made the decision to step away from them. Would you take any of that knowledge into consideration and possibly overturn his expulsion?”
Dean Lowell’s eyes darkened and I saw that he was taking me less and less seriously by the moment.
Which made me feel less bad for what I was about to do.
“My decision is final, Margot,” he said, his voice firming with each passing moment. “You are a good friend to Borden for coming here on his behalf, but I’m afraid I can’t do anything different.”
I sighed. “I was afraid you would say that.”
He sat back in his seat just a little as I stepped forward, closing the distance between us. But he didn’t get a chance to do much of anything else before I placed my fingers to his temples and closed my eyes.
Instantly, he was still.
I brought up my own recollection of the event, even though I had no connection to it. I dove into Lowell’s mind, searching for the instance of the professor coming to him and telling him about Borden’s cheating on the test, and about his grade changing. I felt the memory pulse and quiver as I pushed my will into it.
And then the memory broke. Cracks formed, and I slipped inside.
I put it in Lowell’s memory that the professor did come to him. He did tell him about the cheating and the grade changing. But Lowell investigated the matter himself. He went to Borden, he interrogated the Society Boys, and he got them to confess that they were trying to sabotage Borden.
Dean Lowell cleared Borden. He knew Borden had done nothing wrong.
And then I planted it in his mind that he needed to write two letters. One to the economics professor that Borden was cleared, and the second to Borden himself, saying that his expulsion was reversed, and he could finish out the semester in good standing.
I paused there, with my fingertips pressed into Lowell’s temples. I searched to be sure that I’d done everything I could. That I’d altered his memories solid and deep.