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The red-black liquid seemed to glow in the light from the train window. It was too dark, too opaque, for the light to catch and scatter, so it wasn't jewel-like, but it still felt to Francesca like holding a vial of liquid ruby, rich and emanating power.
She couldn't believe John's uncle had given her this.
She couldn't believe he had had this. It felt like a live bomb in her hands, ready to explode at any moment.
There was a part of her that wished it would explode. Shatter into a mess of fragments and let its contents drip, contaminated down her hands and into a puddle on the floor, so she wouldn't have to get off the train when it stopped. Wouldn't have to follow the runic paper-charm map in her pocket to Gregorovitch's shop, wouldn't have to stand on the street, outside the magical entrance, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as she tried to decide whether or not to go inside.
Kraken's blood.
Francesca had yearned for a wand since she was eleven. She'd wanted spells. She'd wanted charms and transfigurations and defensive hexes and she'd wanted, more than anything, to fit in.
She could have all of it, now, if she wanted. She could walk into that shop and hand over the vial and some galleons and go back to school a wand-mage just like everyone else. (Four years too late, a voice inside her snapped, bitter and angry.)
Francesca didn't want to fit in anymore. Not on the world's terms. Not when she could write her own.
She held up the vial to herself, staring at it even more closely.
"I don't need you," she whispered, and it was true.
(If Francesca Lam ever wielded a wand, it would have a core of circuits.)