“Natalie’s supposed to be sick, but she wasn’t in her room.”

“Perhaps she’s in the infirmary?” Emmi says.

I want to facepalm so hard I’d give myself a black eye. How could I have not thought of that!? But why didn’t MacCrone tell us that’s where Natalie was when we ran into her earlier? It doesn’t add up.

“The infirmary, yes. That’s exactly…” Mom trails off as her gaze seems to lose focus.

“That doesn’t explain the liekkiö though, does it?” Morgan chips in.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for what Taika saw. There was a regrettable incident in our last Thaumaturgy class,” Emmi says. “Perhaps there are some residual effects.”

“What incident?” Mom’s gaze sweeps over me and I feel my spine buckling, my whole body wanting to pretzel into itself.

“An accident, we think,” Emmi says. “But Taika has been bullied before, and in their…situation, it’s hard to know what the lingering side effects might be after they interact with magic.”

Did she have to say this in front of Morgan? I want to die. Please Void, open up and swallow me whole. Right now.

“Bullying?” As if a switch has been flipped, the stern expression melts from Mom’s face. “I’m so sorry, Taika. I didn’t realize.”

She steps forward as if about to hug me and I back away. Any other day I might’ve been grateful for it, but right now I only want to escape. My whole body is a giant blister of mortification.

“It’s whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it matters,” Mom says. “I want to know who the culprits are.”

“Mom! I just want to know where Natalie is.”

“And I’ll look into it,” Mom says. “But we need to have a proper conversation about all this later.”

Finally, she seems to notice Morgan again and how my cheeks are burning. They’re on fire and must be flashing bright as lighthouse beams.

“I’ll see this gets returned to Natalie.” Emmi plucks the phone from my fingers, causing the threads to drift to the floor. I snatch them up and tuck them back into my pocket.

“Shall we get back to our meeting now, Meri?” Emmi gestures to the door.

“Yes, sorry.” Mom pauses before returning to her office. “Tonight, Taika. We’ll talk tonight.”

I can’t move, even after the door closes and the muffled voices resume beyond.

Taika the Talentless, the little voice chants, and now Morgan knows just how pathetic you really are.

Tears burn at the back of my nose. Crying now would only make everything worse.

“Well, that went great,” Morgan says with a hard edge to his voice.