The Serpents Hold | Ominis Gaunt

Chapter Eighteen

Tomorrow, 8 o'clock, The Brasserie Royale.

Nova shoved Ominis' invitation back into her pinafore pocket as heavy footfalls thundered through the chaos of wailing outpatients.

The head of the ward barged around the corner into the apothecary storeroom, the force of her entrance accompanied by a sharp scream as if Nova had just sprouted from the ground. "Oh, you're back! Why are you moping in here?"

Nova shot a pointed look at the assortment of cauldrons rattling on their supports, the dense bubbles bursting with trapped steam. "We have a family in the waiting room with blast-ended skrewt burns, and we're out of ointment."

"I see. Well, don't startle me like that; I have an icky heart." The high-ranking healer nearly dunked her subordinate face-first into a scorching cauldron as she shouldered past. "I'm going to assume your trial didn't go well?"

"It went very well, actually."

"Oh! Well, tell your face. Knowing you're not heading on a one-way trip to Azkaban, I would have expected more merriment. It must be a relief."

Nova's brow furrowed in confusion, her hand navigating past the burly woman to grab the pipettes. "That was never an option. It... it wasn't my murder trial. Did you think it was my murder trial?"

Sceptical eyes raked over Nova from head to toe. "It wasn't?"

"No! Why would you hire me if you thought I was on trial for murder?!"

"We're desperate, sweetie." She admitted, cramming a generous amount of dittany into her overflowing pocket. "I did find it odd, given your friendship with the Gaunt brother."

The Gaunt's had become the hotbed of St Mungo's gossip mill when Ominis' father commandeered a private room on the fourth floor. Despite her efforts to keep a low profile, it didn't take long for a meddlesome colleague to unearth Nova's connection to the high-profile murder trial.

"He's not my friend," Nova declared icily; even labelling him as an 'acquaintance' seemed overly generous at this point.

"Really? He dropped by just last week and seemed very interested in what you were up to."

Nova's grip clenched in alarm, the dropper responding with an impromptu spurt of mallowsweet oil. The viscous, crimson goo eagerly absorbed the unintended addition, tainting the entire batch.

Oblivious to Nova's escalating emergency, the healer persisted, "You should have exploited that connection when you had a chance. Maybe you wouldn't be stuck here at two in the morning if you had thrown him a smile every now and then."

"I don't see how that would matter. He wouldn't have seen it," Nova spat back. "Besides, he was never one to smile."

"Well, he was nothing but smiles with me." The older witch spun on her heels, biting her lower lip with a girlish giggle, "If I were thirty years younger, I'd be swinging from that pole like a circus monkey. His fiancé is a fortunate woman."

She left Nova alone with the curdled potion, its contents boiling over much like her simmering anger.

She could lower her head when co-workers fawned over Ominis. She could push aside the looming threat of his father on the floor above. The single catalyst for her stoic facade to crumble was any mention of the fucking fiancé.

I'm not going.

She yanked the invitation from her pocket and flung it into the flames, watching as it twisted and charred into smouldering ash.