Maybe that was why he was giving her answers.
“You talk about them like they’re normal,” Ellory said carefully. “Like this is normal. They’rekilling people, Boone.”
He tilted his head, puzzled. “Are they?”
“Y-yes,” she sputtered, but suddenly she wasn’t sure. She’d assumed the Lost Eight and the Old Masters and the School for the Unseen Arts and Malcolm Mayhew had all been connected, but what if they weren’t? “One of them threatened me away from looking into their group. Twice!”
“The Old Masters,” Boone said on a sigh, “are a bunch of stuffy old white fucks too stuck in their ways. They recruit off this campus and others around New England, but it’s usually from old money and founding families. I mean, you don’t co-opt a term likeold masterswithout being full of yourself, and money makes their research go ’round.”
“Research into the occult? Like the School for the Unseen Arts?”
“What’s that?”
Ellory frowned again, filing that line of questioning away for later. “Well, what do you mean byresearch? Do they not have magic of their own?”
“Not much, as far as I can tell. They find gifted people and bleed them dry.” Sympathy crept into Boone’s eyes. “You’re a Godwin Scholar, right? That’s one of their main recruitment tools. They use their money and power to make sure your other options dry up, and then they use their scholarship exam to test your aptitude for magic. You attend Warren for free, and the Old Masters snatch you up like they’re doing you a favor. They’ve been doing it for decades.”
Ellory’s lips parted, but no words came out. It felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. She thought of the schools she’d gotten into and the financial aid she’d seemed incapable of getting. She thought of how many nights she’d spent feeling like a failure, incapable of living up to her own potential. She thought of how the offer for the Godwin Scholarship had appeared like the sun breaking through the clouds, giving her a second chance.The idea that all of it—every long cry, every sleepless night, every abandoned dream—had been the machination of some shadowy society made her want to overturn this table and scream.
“They…” she finally managed, “they didn’t recruit me, though. They threatened me to stay away, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s what I find weird about this whole thing…” Boone tapped his fingers against the desk. “It’s possible they didn’t want you to find them before they found you, but even that doesn’t explain it.”
“Have they threatened Hudson?”
“Not on my watch.” His eyes narrowed in warning, but this time she could tell his anger wasn’t directed at her. “If theyweregoing to recruit him, it would have happened already. I don’t know why they skipped him over, but it can’t be anything good. I’ve been keeping him off their radar since freshman year. Hell, you’re the only other person I’ve talked to about magic. Like, actual magic.” He snorted. “You know why I got this tattoo? Because I’ve been hoping to find more of us. But no one’s ever asked me about it—even Hudson. Not until you.”
“I’d never even done magic before I came here. I…I thought it was the school.”
“It might be. I heard this is where it all began, and my magic’s more powerful here.” Boone leaned back in his seat, arms behind his head. “I’ve suspected you might be like me for a while. See, I’m good at creating liminal spaces. A place within a place, where everything slows down and I can just breathe. I felt one forming in the orchard when Liam came back without you. It took mehoursto comb through the void and find you, but by the time I did, you had these lights leading you back to us. That wasn’t me, Morgan. That was all you.”
“Why the fuck didn’t yousayanything, then?” Ellory asked. Her voice shook with lethal anger, but she managed not to yell at him if only because she didn’t want their conversation to leak through the glass door. Her knuckles had blanched from how tightly her hands were fisted together, keeping her from strangling him. “I thought I was going out of my mind, and you knew about magic and the Old Masters, and you didn’t say shit to me.Why?”
“Because these are dangerous fucking people,” Boone retorted. “Do you think this is a game? I haven’t seen anyone die or be killed sinceIwas recruited, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong about that. The Old Masters make up the highest echelon of society, the kind of people with the kind of power you couldn’t even dream of. They could wake up one morning and decide to start a war or bomb a city out of existence with a single phone call. And that wasbeforethey had access to magic. I won’t let them get to Hudson, but I barely fucking know you. Consider this your warning to back the hell off.”
Through his angry words, Ellory could sense a thread of fear. Fear not for what they would do to her, but for what they would do to him for having this conversation. It only made Ellory angrier, because that fear was exactly what allowed people like the Old Masters to maintain their power. Someone had to stand up to them. That someone clearly wouldn’t be Boone.
“If they’re so dangerous, then why are you telling me all this?” she finally asked. “Especially in a public office.”
“We’re not in a public office.” Boone tipped his chin toward the glass door behind her. Ellory glanced over her shoulder and was hit by another wave of shock. She and Boone were still standing by the printers, his fingers pointing at tattoo after tattoo, her head bobbing along with whatever he was telling her. It was like the night she hadsummoned the Graves Ghost, except her stomach swooped with sickness at being able to stare at her own body for this long, acting independently of her soul.
Magic. He’d done magic right in front of her, and she hadn’t even noticed.
“See?” Boone said, drawing her attention back to him. “I’m good at liminal spaces. And I found out what you’ve been doing with Hudson. We’re having this conversation because I’m hoping if I give you the answers you want, then you’ll give me something I want.”
“What do you want?”
“Leave him out of all this.Please,” Boone said, crushing his pretzel bag into a crinkling ball. “I can’t lose him to these people. No matter what you think of the Old Masters, I’m not your enemy, Morgan. But for Hudson, I will be.” He got to his feet, tossing the bag into the nearest trash bin like he hadn’t just threatened her. “Now let’s get back out there. This spell holds for only as long as it takes our conversation to end, and I don’t want to disappear in front of a room full of professional gossips.”
You don’t get to tell me what to do, Ellory bit back, breathing until this tidal wave of frustration passed. Boone was entitled, but did she expect any different from someone who would join the Old Masters? At least he was willing to talk. For now.
“Okay,” she lied. “Let’s go.”
29
Ellory awoke to voices.
It was early, too early, for Stasie to have guests in their dorm room. Ellory’s satin bonnet had shifted in the night, freeing her curls to the air, and her oversize Batman T-shirt had shifted with it, revealing her shoulder and collarbone. The blankets were tangled around her bare legs, and her boy shorts were riding up her butt. It was in this state that she contemplated finally killing her roommate. She would end up in jail, but it might be worth it. Every time she thought Stasie had reached the apex of how annoying she could be, she invented a new level.
