“Yes, Daniel, with magic. Most everything of note in Crenshaw is done with magic.” Sondre stepped closer. “As to money, members of each house—which is a group of witches with the same type of magic—are given an annual allowance by the head of that house. What you do with it is up to you.”
Dan paused in his study of his new home. “Are there gambling spots?”
“Not legal ones, but yes.” Sondre’s voice pitched low as he added, “There are factions in Crenshaw, and choosing the right one can makea difference in whether or not someone of influence argues to reject you or advocates for you to stay.”
Dan swallowed the terror of losing this world, of going back to a nonstop pursuit of dying, and looked back at Sondre. “Are you a person of influence?”
Sondre watched Dan with the kind of calculating look that made Dan tense. “For the right sort of people…”
Threat. Dan wasn’t a stranger to threats—a gay man wasn’t as imperiled in modern Baltimore as he was even a decade or two prior, but “not as imperiled” wasn’t the same as always safe.
“Any issues with men loving men?” Dan was ready to fight dragons, but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his essential nature even to stay cancer-free.
“Not a one,” Sondre said. “Not my path, but it’s not an issue here.”
A weight slid off Dan’s shoulders. There was toleranceandmagicandnot-cancer. That was everything.
He held Sondre’s gaze and declared, “Then, whichever side you support is my choice, too, Headmaster. I’m the right sort of people.”
The smile Sondre offered made Dan suspect he might’ve chosen dangerously, but then Sondre nodded. “Welcome to the College of Remedial Magic, Daniel. I’ll be expecting great things from you.”
Dan was fairly sure no one whollygoodsounded quite that deadly.
“And Daniel?” Sondre held Dan’s gaze. “You will keep your silence about anything I share with you or request of you.”
Dan swallowed. Then he grinned just a little, surprised by his own audacity. “Why do I feel like I just joined the dark side of whatever’s going on?”
“Because you are astute.” Sondre dropped Dan’s massive backpack at the edge of the room, turned, and left.
5Ellie
Later that afternoon, back in Ligonier, Ellie pulled out a list of search terms for the last two weeks. She ought to go home, but she was hoping the mysterious femme fatale from earlier would return. Oddly, Ellie had been thoroughly exhausted since The Kiss, although her heartbeat was no longer erratic.
The library closed early on Tuesdays, so Ellie was alone with her research. Typically, she updated her research on the missing every week. It was one of the many reasons she’d become a research librarian: she liked the peace and found comfort in sifting through old newsprint and journals.
Inside the century-old building where she worked, the sound of the air conditioning was punctuated by the whir and hum of the printer.
Once Ellie entered the usual search terms—missing, disappearance, or the name from whichever cases she was updating—she skimmed the results on the screen as she printed the articles. There was something comforting in the solidity of paper, especially when it came to something as ethereal as missing people.
Tonight, she was adding a new case, the latest entry in her printouts, to the binders that housed her research:
MISSING HIKER: YOSEMITE SEARCHERS HAVE FOUND NO CLUES
SAN FRANCISCO—The search for Daniel Monahan, missing three weeks, continues this week. “Even seasoned hikers can get lost, and Mr. Monahan was a novice with poor health. We aren’t ruling out foul play, however,” one park ranger explained. “The chances of finding him decrease every day. Nature can be unforgiving.”
Monahan, an employee of a bank in Baltimore, was last seen standing alongside his backpacking gear. Several hikers saw him earlier that day. “We suggested he hire a guide.” Authorities are hoping tourists saw Monahan after this and will reach out with information to narrow the search area.
Daniel Monahan would have a tab in Ellie’s binder and a divider so he could be updated. Monahan joined the long list of people in the “National Parks” category, so his tab had a “NP” in the lower corner. Others had “accident” or “witness” in their tab corners. A few had “child” or “group” in the corner. Most missing people fit into categories, and often the likelihood of resolution was tied to that.
Monahan was likely to be found in a spring thaw—or at least, his remains were. His picture, as with many black-and-white images, implied a sense of time that was, in this case, a lie. Monahan was a thin man, certainly not in the shape to carry a lot of back country supplies. Bookish. Thick-framed glasses. He could’ve been in any era post-photography, if not for the fantasy-costumed people behind him in the snapshot. Monahan looked at homethere,but he didn’t look like an outdoorsman.
Was he trapped out of exhaustion? A bear or cougar victim? Therewere many possibilities, most of which meant he wouldn’t be seen again—at least not alive.
The truth Ellie had come to embrace was that no one’s disappearance was truly mysterious. Clues were obscured either intentionally or by time, nature, and error. Despite every television program or book offering scintillating tales of crimes solved by intrepid detectives and amateur sleuths—and Ellie adored such books—the reality was that not all crimes were solved in an hour or three hundred or so pages.
Many people were “last seen,” but never resolved. The cases fell into the margins, forgotten and unanswered by everyone but loved ones—and Ellie.
The Missing files that Ellie maintained over the last decade had started as a way to comfort herself. If Ellie understoodwhyit happened, then Hestia wouldn’t vanish again, and the adult version of the little girl everyone said was “just like” Hestia wouldn’t vanish either.
