Page 6 of Magdalene Nox

If she’d allow herself to be fanciful yet again, she’d look down her torso and observe that gaping wound in the middle of her chest. The one she’d pretended to not walk around with for the past thirty years, as it pulsed around the torn tendons and ichor, veins pumping blood to and from the stuttering, beating heart. A wound the size of a man’s palm. This very man’s palm.

Magdalene twisted the too-large watch band around her wrist and looked away. Yes, she was entirely too familiar. She knew the color of those gray eyes, the flecks of darker shades that would catch the sunlight when he was scandalized, the long, elegant fingers that curled into fists as he tried to lower his voice when angered, the perfectly coiffed, then blond fringe he tended to flick out of his eyes when pacing and unsettled. And the feeling of his hand on her sternum, pushing her away from Hilda.

Magdalene closed her eyes. She knew him at his worst. Sure, she could look at him now—at his very best—calm, collected, cheerful even, surrounded by his peers, who clearly deferred to him, either as the oldest among them, or, as the former Governor of Massachusetts, the most revered.

She made herself look. Forced herself to observe how he presided over the table, despite the younger and obviously eager Tullinger lapping at his coattails and trying to steer the trustees’ attention towards himself.

“That dynamic there…” Timothy motioned with his chin.

“Tullinger simping, you mean?”

“Dog eat dog, yes. And trust you to pinpoint it in a second.” Timothy gestured for another refill and turned away from the group.

“It’s the old dog versus the young-dog-who-wants-his-place dynamic. Alden is very much the alpha, but Tullinger, for all his ass-kissing, is just waiting to stand on his desecrated corpse and howl, his rival’s bloody throat ripped and staining his own muzzle.”

“God, Magdalene, your metaphors, honestly…” He shook his head as he clutched his heart, his laugh rueful.

“You’re the one who brought dogs into this conversation.”

Timothy shuddered, “I had no clue you’d go full Edgar Allan Poe on me.”

She flicked her fingers at him in a dismissive wave before focusing on the men dining beneath her again. It was a good vantage point. It filled her with a sense of superiority. Not that her ego wouldn’t have provided that, anyway. But it was good to not feel small anymore, especially in front of those gray eyes which had uncovered the one secret her sixteen-year-old self had wanted to keep from everyone.

For a moment, Magdalene wondered how well the Dragons’ Board of Trustees had done their research, and whether Stanton Alden knew who’d be joining them for cocktails in ten minutes.

* * *

Her curiosity was soon satisfiedwhen Timothy escorted her towards the now cleared-off table under the watchful eyes of the nine men. Old, young, middle-aged, they seemed to have precious few things in common. Except two: They were rich men, and they all wanted her to take the job.

That much became clear when every single one of them stood up like toy soldiers the moment she and Timothy approached the table. It could have been comical, but the bows and hand kisses, and the general air of beseeching her, reeked of desperation and yet confusingly of something entirely opposite of that. She tried to focus on her own freshly applied jasmine perfume, but even the ever-familiar and comforting scent couldn’t cut through the stench.

As Alden bowed his now graying mane over her hand—one of the few to press his dry lips to her knuckles—it suddenly occurred to Magdalene that he was keenly aware of her identity. And that—as the watery gray eyes indicated by moving past her after a second of close assessment—he didn’t care.

Indifference.

What a strange and dangerous cocktail this was. They were desperate for her to helm Dragons, yet his nonchalance made it obvious they cared little about the school.

Interesting…

The conversation over pretentious drinks went as Timothy had predicted it would.

“…the school needs a strong hand. Fenway allowed the place to fall to shambles.” Tullinger chugged some fruity concoction as if it contained no liquor whatsoever. Magdalene had heard alcoholism ran in the family and that Tullinger Senior had passed away a year or two ago from cirrhosis of the liver.

“Well, if anyone knows how to steer an institution away from the brink, it would be Magdalene.” Timothy gave her hand a patronizing little pat, and she almost slapped him. The men around the table laughed, nodding at each other and exchanging knowing glances.

“Either save it, or throw it clear off that very brink, Ms. Nox. I am so tired of dealing with the old heap of rocks.” Rolffe, old enough to know better and plainly sexist enough to not give a damn, refused to address her by her title, which tempted her to throw a drink at him even more so than his earlier comment about the school being a nuisance to him had.

“I know of your method, Doctor Nox. I understand that your talent is in bringing these schools, these lost causes, up to snuff, so to speak. I am not sure there is enough at Dragons to be straightened out, though.” Alden’s lips attempted a smile that did not quite come out right. Magdalene wondered at his choice of words. “There is some good left there, to be certain, there are a few stellar teachers. I’d like to see them settled no matter the outcome of this entire venture, Doctor Nox. Beyond that, we might as well put a match to the place. Cheaper than maintaining it—open or closed.”

In the lull of general conversation, Stanton Alden’s words sounded raspy, almost too quiet to infer the deeper meaning behind them. What little humane concern he had for some of the souls stranded on that godforsaken island, he himself was obviously finished with it.

Magdalene said nothing, her eyes narrowing as the two of them stared at each other while the conversation picked up around them. She had hated him for thirty years, had carried the insult and humiliation she’d experienced at his hand like an imprint on her skin.

And here he was, saying the exact words she had been longing to hear–the demise of the school all but sanctioned by its Board of Trustees. But instead of rejoicing, she felt sick, bile coating her throat until she thought she’d need to excuse herself, unable to hold on to the nausea for much longer.

Anger.

That was the overwhelming emotion, she belatedly realized. The poison choking her. Venom, ready to spill out. She was furious. How foolish, really. How absolutely absurd.

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