“I know it’s late into the semester, but I was wondering if you guys are looking for new reporters?” Ellory settled into a chair of her own, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable. She crossed her feet at the ankles, right over left, then left over right. A wayward pen had been left on the table. She straightened it. “I have an idea for an article I’d like to write, if so.”
Boone looked more curious than convinced. “Why the sudden interest in the paper? You don’t need to befriend all of us to date Blackwood, you know.”
“This isn’t about Liam,” she snapped. Then she swallowed. “I mean—”
“Don’t you dare fucking apologize. I like you more with your claws out.” There was a twinkle in his eyes that would have put the stars to shame. “I meant that you haven’t expressed an interest inthe paper before now. Hell, even when it comes to people who are majors, I always ask them the same questions: Why are you really here? What do you want out of being a reporter?”
“The truth.” Ellory was surprised by how easily the answer came. How right it felt. How it didn’t feel like she was only talking about this tangled mystery. “I know that newspapers control the conversation and that all of them have their own agenda to push. But I’m here because I want to find the truth. I want to write stories that illuminate some dark corner of our knowledge of the world. I want that truth to be powerful.”
Her hands trembled on the table. That sense of déjà vu was back, like she had given this speech before, like she’d sat in this room before. She looked around, trying to place the glass walls and the curious faces pretending not to watch them from the other side of it. The muted bubble of the coffee machine making another round for the already-frazzled reporters. The gorgeous prism of colors the glass window stretched across the floor. The tapping of keys as people put the finishing touches on stories that could change the world—or at least the campus.
It felt familiar and unfamiliar.
It felt like magic.
Maybe Hudson’s logic professor had been right. Maybe believing in somethingwasits own kind of magic.
Her eyes returned to Boone, who was watching her in silence. She straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to pitch you my story now.”
“The floor is yours,” said Boone, a smile buried in the corner of his mouth.
Ellory had devoted her weekend to cobbling this idea together, inspired by her endless recordings on the strange happenings oncampus. She’d practiced her casual, passionate tone, shaping the piece into something that was publishable, sensational, and a perfect excuse to be found in places she shouldn’t have been. Now she told Boone the highlights of her research into Warren University history and the legacy families who had built it. A feature on each of those families would not only expand their understanding of the school, she said, but it might also result in extra funding for the newspaper. After all, who didn’t love good press?
“Which is not to say that it would be a fluff piece,” she concluded. “I plan to ask tough questions, then verify with interviews and independent research. But I looked at old articles here and in local papers, and it’s been a while since these names were spotlighted. I think no matter how the story turns out, they’ll be flattered.”
Boone’s chair hit the floor, and his feet joined it a moment later. He walked over to the whiteboard, freeing the marker from behind his ear to write, FAMOUS FUCKERS. She caught a flash of his tattoo and swallowed, silenced by an inexplicable hope that she was wrong, that Boone had nothing to do with the Old Masters at all.
“Welcome to theCommuniqué, Morgan,” he said with a grin she had no idea how to interpret. “Let me start you on the merch closet.”
***
Even though Ellory was balancing a hat, two hoodies, a T-shirt, and a PopSocket on top of her bag, she was buoyant with joy. It wasn’t a real assignment, and she wasn’t really on the paper, but her invigorated body hadn’t gotten the memo. The usual clamor of Moneta Hall couldn’t hold her attention. Instead, she ruminated on ways to approach the article.
Her favorite part of a story was all the legwork that came beforewriting it. Research and sources. Leads and fact-checking. She might have pitched Boone an excuse to do what she was already doing, prying her fingers into the history that Warren wanted to keep hidden, but she still wanted to impress. Besides, she now had full access to a digitized archive ofCommuniquéissues, a budding list of families she wanted to interrogate about Malcolm Mayhew, and an excuse to spend more time with Boone until she could use him to get to the Old Masters.
Everything was connected. She had to figure out how—even if that meant working alone.
The elevatordinged open, and she shuffled out onto her floor. An unusual tension seeped into her muscles, but she chalked it up to her expanding to-do list and the endless tasks that would fill her afternoon. It wasn’t until she rearranged everything she was carrying to find her room key that she realized she was being watched.
A hooded figure stood in front of her dorm room, too short to be Stasie and too suspicious to be Tai.
Ellory’s gasp drew their attention. Time slowed, but her heart rioted in her chest. She took in the scene as a series of piecemeal images: White plastic. Sharp edges. Bottomless blank eyes. Every thought fled her head except one:They’re back.Because the person hovering in front of her closed door wore a white mask with divots in an empty face to indicate where their eyes, nostrils, and mouth should be. Their hood was drawn, hiding any hair, and their clothes were so nondescript that she couldn’t have described them even though she was looking right at them.
This was the person who had attacked her on the quad.
It had to be. She hadn’t heeded their warning, and now she had caught them lurking. Ready to ambush her. Ready to enforce another one of the Old Masters’ arbitrary, clandestine rules.
Her throat lit with phantom pain as she swallowed, though the bruising had long since faded. There was time to run. Right before the elevator was a door to the staircase. She could probably sprint back to the lobby in time to alert the security guard. If this person caught up to her, if theypushedher, then at least she would go down trying to escape. At least she would die doing something more substantial than writhing on the ground, begging for air, as alone as Malcolm Mayhew had been on that terrible night.
No.
Ellory was so fucking sick of running. If they wanted to turn the Lost Eight into the Lost Nine, then she would not make it easy for them. The Old Masters could have her life, her magic, only by taking it from her. She was tired of being the prey. She wanted to be the hunter.
Sometimes, justice looked like vengeance.
Sometimes, violence called for violence.
Sometimes, rage was power.
