I ran headfirst into someone’s chest.
“Whoa,” the guy said, looking confused and maybe a little pissed until he recognized me.
“Look who we have here! Come to try something a little stronger, I see,” he said, and I laughed, because he sounded like one of those old circus performers enticing you to take a step closer. He leaned in close, his arm looping over my shoulder conspiratorially. “Can I interest you in some apple pie moonshine?”
“You must be Alex.”
“Made it myself.” He took a swig from a cup. “It’s delicious,” he said with a wink, “if I do say so myself.”
One of his friends came over and roped his arm around my other shoulder. “Don’t let this guy fool you, it is absolutely not delicious.”
“Okay, not delicious,” Alex conceded, “but it will for sure fuck you up. Want to try it?”
I looked at them all, with their warm, expectant smiles. I had to keep my wits about me tonight. I couldn’t forget what Joselyn Hart had said about her last party with the Phi Kat members. And rehab or no, something had happened to Emma Garcia.
But at the same time, I needed them to trust me. To not suspect I was there for any reason other than a good time.
“What the hell, hit me,” I said, taking a sip of the liquid that smelled like a cross between gasoline and paint thinner. The guys cheered.
The others were in a heated discussion about … lifting? One stopped another guy who had a plate loaded with hamburgers and hotdogs. I guess Basile didn’t stop the grill after all.
“What’re you doing, man?” Alex said. “You’d better not let the Mathematici see you with all that.”
“I’m hungry.” The edge to his voice caused that little voice in my head to whisperdanger danger danger, or would’ve whispereddanger danger danger, but it was more likedang dune dimmer, and that didn’t really make any sense, so I ignored it.
“Who’s the Mathematici?” I asked.
“Basile,” Paul said.
I frowned. “Why do you—”
“Oh, shit! Did you see that?” I was drowned out by someone smashing a bottle, or maybe several bottles, near the beer pong table. It was loud enough to be intentional, and the guys swarmed to the sound.
I frowned. Why did they call him that, and why wouldn’t Basile want them eating? Maybe there wasn’t enough food for everyone and he wanted the guests to have food, though most of the people at the party looked to be brothers. They were … vaguely man-shaped, at least. The room had filled up quite a bit from when I first got here.
I hovered on the edges of conversation for a while, a pleasant buzz dulling my nerves, not quite sure how to bring up the subject of Dani and Maya without drawing too much attention. The brothers didn’t seem to mind my hovering, even as their words echoed and warped in my ears, and I laughed a little too loudly at their jokes. They were nice to me. Paul came over and offered to get me a burger or a beer or water, and Alex looked over often, sure to include me in the conversation.
Part of me thought they were being nice because I was Basile’s guest; he was flitting around the party doing damage control. Some sort of internal spat, it looked like. It was funny watching the other brothers interact with him, like he was some kind of god.
But another part of me remembered what Max had said.
They know your reputation, Cel, of course they’re going to be nice to you.
And though I suspected Max had said it to dissuade me from getting too close to them, it had the opposite effect. It burnished my ego, a bit, knowing they wanted me here. Knowing they respected me, bumbling gremlin and all. Respected my research, the things I had done.
Sure, I had enemies at Seinford and Brown. People on the council, Luce being at least one of them. Maybe some of the students who disagreed with Object Theory, or those who’d heard about what I’d done, who remembered what happened at the end of my second year of postgrad. But I had followers, too. People who found my social media sites, who every so often would send messages begging me to teach them, to tell them how I was able to do what I do.
Magic didn’t need to be a well-kept secret. Skepticism usually did the job just fine, but there were some outside the community who believed. Who found poor-quality videos on the internet and chased after it with an obsessive fervor.
How does Magic work?they asked hopefully, though they never started with this, of course. They’d start off like they were just trying to be friends, but I knew the question that was coming next. Always the same question.
How does it work? Can you teach me?
I always tried to stop it before it got to that point, because it only got more uncomfortable after I inevitably said no.
Please, I can pay.
I’ll give you anything.
