And she had room in her life for only one mystery right now.
“If you must know, I’ve always wanted to be a part of something extraordinary,” he murmured without looking at her. “I’ve always wanted to discover worlds within wardrobes and magic behind mirrors. I know it’s childish and impractical andsilly, but part of me never stopped believing in the impossible. And everything we’ve researched…it’s impossible.” He smoothed down the invisible wrinkles across the front of his sweater, then adjusted his collar. Anything, she realized, to distract from his childhood dream laid bare. “Thesis or not, I want to see this through, Morgan. With you.”
“That,” she managed, “is a lot of faith to put in someone you don’t even like.”
“I beg you to see a therapist about this obsession you have with how I feel about you.”
Ellory’s mouth dropped open and then snapped shut without a word. Damn him, he was right. There was no reason for her to want him to like her, no reason for her to constantly toss his inexplicable hatred for her toward him like a bomb, hoping he would finally defuse it. Ellory had always craved validation—she was, afterall, a former honors student—but only from authority figures and crushes: Teachers. Parents. Liam. The hot Korean woman in her Spanish class with the lesbian flag pinned to her messenger bag.
Hudson Graves didn’t fall into either category, so why did she keep doing this to herself?
She straightened her shoulders and reached for her to-go cup. “I just think it’s weird to declare your undying loyalty to someone whose arguments you once calledneonatal in complexity.”
“First of all, you had called mehuman coccydynianot even thirty seconds prior to that. Second of all, I’m committed to the cause, not to you.”
Ellory coughed as lukewarm coffee hit her tongue instead of the lavender tea she’d been expecting. Hudson Graves didn’t believe in sugar, and the bitter aftertaste of his roast coated her tongue like oil. He gingerly took his cup from her, making a face that said,I will be throwing this in the trash at my earliest convenience. His sneer struck her with the realization that her lips had been where his lips had been. Now they both tasted of cinnamon.
That felt unbearably intimate for this not-quite-cordial interaction.
“In any event,” Hudson said, still looking put out about his coffee, “Liam used to date a Mayhew. Sophomore year, I think. I don’t remember her name.”
“Shocking.”
He ignored her. “I doubt their bedside conversations dove into exploring the branches of her family tree, but he might know more about the Mayhews in general. If there’s one thing rich families know better than anything else, it’s keeping up appearances. Malcolm Mayhew’s murderer could have had the money and the resources to ensure his death was reported an accident.”
“Oh, great. I’ve always wanted to disappear.”
The words turned to ash in her mouth, sending a shudder down her spine. There it was again, that déjà vu, as if they’d had this exact conversation before. As if she’d said these exact words, and it had been more dire than simply tempting fate. Her breathing rattled like a stone in a tin can. The white walls turned black, then white, then black again—or was it her eyes playing tricks on her? Even if sirens weren’t blaring from every nerve ending, her body was exhausted. Too exhausted for this level of stress.
“Let me know what you find out,” said Hudson, jumping down from the table. “And try not to do any more séances without me, Morgan. If you keep playing with fire, sooner or later you’re going to get burned.”
The glass door slid shut with the finality of a prison cell.
16
Ellory walked back to Moneta Hall alone, unenthused by the approach of her morning shift at the Powers That Bean. This early, the campus was vacant, as etiolated as a neglected houseplant—or maybe her world was muted by the lack of sleep. She tossed the dregs of her tea in a nearby trash can and buried her hands in the deep pockets of her overalls. During fall break, it had been a relief that life kept moving on despite her mind bisecting it into abefore magicandafter magic. Now it grated on her, how normal the university could look. Slowly, the student body would wake and head to class, ignorant of the fact that Warren’s emerald lawns and cobblestone pathways were topographic artifice, pristine lies to blind them to the poisonous powers at work underneath.
Of course, that was hardly new information.
Ellory had done everything right—or thought she had. She prioritized her grades and her extracurriculars above all else. She wrote exemplary essays and filled out convoluted forms. She worked to have enough money for SAT classes and application fees. She triedher luck with every single scholarship and grant she qualified for, no matter how small. It would all add up, after all. On paper, she was the perfect applicant. But she got rejection after rejection—not from the schools but from the financial aid she would have needed to attend.
“You’re a Black immigrant,” Aunt Carol had said from her hospital bed, weak from her latest stroke and still trying to make Ellory feel better. “There’s no number of right things you can do to get the same results in this country. You did your best, Lor. Don’t hate yourself for losing a rigged game.”
Warren University was no different than any other college in that respect: The wealthy bought their way in. The poor begged their way in. Both groups were praised for their admission as if their journeys had been equal. And so did the foul forces underneath remain unseen and unchallenged.
Now they even had magic hidden from the world at large. It was as disturbing as it was infuriating. With every advantage at their fingertips, did they have to hoard magic, too?
Footsteps clomped down the path behind her.
Ellory looked over her shoulder, half expecting to see Hudson fresh from some early-morning detour that had kept him from going home until his first class. But there was no one there. The sound was gone, butallsounds were gone. Dawn birdsong and susurrant wind had been replaced by a stillness so comprehensive that her own heartbeat was muffled. Ellory placed two fingers to her chest, feeling the vibrations of an escalatingthadum thaDUM THADUM. Her skin prickled with warning.
And then the footsteps returned, louder and closer than before.
Ellory ran. She ran before she even knew she was running, blinking to find herself three feet farther down the path. Four. Five.The footsteps followed—clomp, clomp, clomp—as her own feet moved soundlessly over gray stone. On the horizon, the sun bled vermilion and coral, tinting the clouds, trees, and buildings in red orange and pale pink. Ellory imagined her pursuer catching up with her, imagined her own blood painting the quad, the only sign she had ever existed, and her throat closed in terror.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
Her lungs burned.
