chapter 2
Three Weeks Later – The Steaming Cauldron
Percy spotted her through the café window—curled in her usual corner, annotating a report with ruthless efficiency. He stormed inside, ignoring the way the other patrons instinctively leaned away.
“You.” He slammed a scroll onto her table, unfurling twelve meticulously numbered arguments, complete with:
Footnotes (three ink colors)
Case studies (including a chart on therapeutic relapse rates)
A damning comparison of her methods to 18th-century “hysteria treatments” (with citations)
Audrey didn’t look up. “You’re blocking the light.”
“Point four,” Percy hissed, jabbing the parchment, “proves your so-called ‘breakthrough technique’ has a sixty-two percent relapse rate—”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Audrey interrupted, eyeing the ink stains on his cuffs.
“Irrelevant. Point seven addresses your unethical termination—”
She flipped the parchment upside down. Percy made a noise like a scalded cat.
“Your citations are outdated,” she said mildly. “Grimshaw’s study was debunked in Mind Magic Quarterly, Volume 89.”
Percy’s mouth opened. Closed.
“And you misspelled ‘cognitive.’” She tapped footnote twelve. “Twice.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. The elderly witch at the next table Summoned more popcorn.
Audrey leaned back, arms crossed. “Tell me, Weasley—did you really spend twelve hours researching how to win an argument with your therapist?”
“Former therapist,” he snapped. Then, stiffly: “It was nine hours.”
Something dangerously close to amusement glinted in her eyes. She slid the sugar bowl toward him. “Sit. I’ll buy you tea.”
“I don’t—”
“Earl Grey. Two sugars.” Her smirk returned. “Don’t pretend you drink it black.”
Percy hesitated. The parchment between them rustled like a chastised first-year.
Then, with a noise of disgust, he collapsed into the chair. “Fine. But I have six more points about your bedside manner.”
Audrey signaled the waitress. “Add them to my tab.”
As Percy sipped his tea—two sugars, exactly as predicted—Audrey hid a smile behind her own cup. Checkmate.