“Not,” Colt continued, “that there’s anything wrong with the esoteric. There are many reasons people need to believe in a higher power. Especially in times of strife.”
“Yeah, I could see that. The school hasn’t been without strife either, I’ve heard.”
Colt sighed. “What school is? Since you asked me about Malcolm Mayhew, I suppose you’ve been looking into the disappearances. Awful, awful things.”
Ellory glanced at the window, half expecting to see Hudson crossing the lawn, late but whole, pissed that she’d dived into trouble without him again. But this turn in the conversation made a lump form in her throat, the bad feeling she’d had outside following her here. Hudson should be here. Hudsonwouldbe here. With or without a phone, he’d find his way here.
Her grip tightened around the mug to keep her hands from trembling. “There hasn’t been a disappearance since, right?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Colt finished his tea and set the empty mug on the tray. “Unless, of course, you count Mister Graves.”
Ellory froze. “What?”
“That was a joke, Miss Morgan. Perhaps in bad taste, given the subject matter… My apologies,” said Colt. “I meant only that he missed my last salon without a word.”
Ellory set down her mug, unconvinced. Her heart pounded against her rib cage.Hudson should be here.“Have you heard from him today?”
“I haven’t. Why?”
She wanted to overturn the tray and demand answers, but there wasn’t a hint of recognition in Colt’s eyes. Either he was a remarkable liar, or he genuinely had no idea what she was hinting at—and, most likely, he thought he was indulging her in some random tangent. She didn’t dare get into her more specific questions without Hudson—should be here, should be here, should be here—and yet she felt like she’d hit another dead end by coming.
Maybe the same curse that had taken her memory had also taken Colt’s. If the School for the Unseen Arts was willing to kill students to protect its privacy, they might have cast spells of forgetting on the former deans as well. People too important to kill, but with too much information to be allowed to roam the streets.
No matter what, she was wasting her time here. She had a Taser, hot tea, and her screaming instincts, which wasn’t enough to keep her safe without Hudson and his magic. Colt was older, more experienced, and that made him too dangerous to follow through on her plan right now. Eventually, she might be able to get him somewhere public. Until then, she got to her feet. “I just remembered that I’m late for something. Thank you so much for your time, Professor. I’ll email you my questions about the research when I have a free moment.”
Colt blinked. “Well, all right. Is something wrong, Miss Morgan? If you’re in some sort of trouble…”
His kindness only terrified her more.
“I don’t want to take any more time from your grading.” She was already halfway to the door, her thoughts tumbling over one another. “See you at the salon.”
But even when she made it outside, she could still feel his eyes burning into her back.
***
Ellory’s call to Hudson went to voicemail, so she sent him a text to call her later. She spent the rest of the day until her shift at work theorizing in circles and waiting for Stasie to come back so she could demand, once again, that she turn over her grandfather’s phone number. As usual, her roommate let her down, and Ellory went to serve coffee to the exhausted masses with no more answers than she’d started her day with.
She was so close, that was the worst thing. The puzzle was almost complete, but the parts that were missing were just large enough to keep her from seeing the whole picture. She’d written everything down in her notebook, hoping that writing notes would help shake a realization loose, but all it had done was make her wrist ache. She needed to talk to more people. She needed to do more research. She needed at least one more séance, with another member of the Lost Eight.
She needed Hudson totell her he was okay, but her text went unanswered.
Ellory got back to her dorm at eleven at night, smelling like coffee beans and caramel sauce. Stasie was already asleep, a sleep mask protecting her eyes from the light. Instead of shaking her awake, Ellory sat in the hallway to call Hudson one more time, hoping he hadn’t been summoned home again.
“The number you have dialed is out of service…”
She frowned and ended the call. Tried again.
“The number you have dialed is out of service…”
Again.
“The number you have dialed is out of service…”
She checked her call log, but it read GRAVES (3) like normal. She tried Boone once, twice, three times, but the same bizarre message greeted her each time. Boone was one thing, butHudson’snumber being out of service made no sense. Even when he’d last been home, her messages had gone through and she’d reached his voicemail just this afternoon, full though his inbox had been. To be out of service now…
The strangeness of it made Ellory too anxious to sleep. She rose with the sun to take a taxi to Hudson’s, but immediate action didn’t soothe her the way it usually did. The closer she got to his off-campus housing, the harder it was to breathe. Her body was in the midst of dealing with some horrible truth that her mind had yet to catch up with. That clawing dread would choke her before she ever got to see that Hudson was all right.
Hudson had to be all right. Hehadto be.
