An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole - 35

“Are you moving out?” Stasie asked as Ellory raided the room for more things to stuff into her backpack.

She had a Taser, a water bottle, granola bars, Greek yogurt, a flashlight, a change of clothes and shoes, and a portable battery for her phone, but she still felt like she had packed too light. There was no instruction guide on how to confront a secret society of possible magicians about messing with her life, her head, and her heart. She was making it up as she went along.

“Maybe,” she said, as she shoved a hoodie, a notepad, and a pen into the bag. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, so you might get your wish for a single after all.”

“Should I be worried?” Stasie lowered her voice as if there were anyone but them around to hear her. “Is this a cry for help?”

“If I were going to cry for help, it wouldn’t be in front of you. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Ellory added batteries for the flashlight, the pepper spray and rape whistle they’d been given during welcome week, and her wallet. Then she zipped up her bag and hoped it would be enough. She’d gotten by on nothing but her own determination so far, a drive to solve this mystery that not even she could explain sometimes. But this wasn’t just dangerous. It was potentially lethal. A truly smart woman would have unpacked her bag, gone to bed, and waited for whatever spell had been cast to erase Hudson Graves from her mind.

But Hudson had gone through hell just to help her. She had to do the same for him.

“Hey,” Stasie said before Ellory could go through the door. She took what might be her last look at her roommate and was struck by just how young she was. Her face was bare of makeup, and her hair was down; she wore a pair of baby-pink silk pajamas, and her eyes were Bambi bright. Stasie O’Connor was only eighteen years old, fresh out of high school, and determined to find her place at college, and she looked it. “You weren’t, like, the worst roommate in the world.”

Ellory smiled sadly. Maybe in another world, another life, they could have been friends. Stasie was spoiled and vain, inconsiderate and churlish, but she would have the rest of her life to grow out of that. Maybe they could have learned from each other, helped each other, listened to each other.

But this was the hand this life had dealt them, where Ellory felt a rush of affection for her roommate only when it seemed likely she would never see her again.

“You kind of were,” she said, smile widening at the offended wrinkle of Stasie’s nose. “But I like you, too.”

Then she hurried out of Moneta Hall before anyone—especially Tai—could stop her.

***

The ground floor of Colt’s house was already lit like he was in the middle of a party. The next salon wasn’t for a few more weeks, but the shadows passing behind the windows made it clear that he wasn’t alone. Ellory had been hoping to break in, to get the drop on him, to confront him with what she knew. She considered returning to the dorm, regardless of how much Stasie would make fun of her, and trying again tomorrow. But by tomorrow it might be too late. By tomorrow, she might have forgotten Hudson and Boone, too.

She would try to sneak in the back, hide in a closet until the party was over, and—and what? Threaten her meal ticket with a butter knife? Who did she think she was?

Before she could make a decision either way, the front door swung open. Colt stood bathed in golden light like Zeus on Mount Olympus, a small smile on his face. She didn’t know if it was the shadows cast or if it was because she knew the truth of him now, but he cut a sinister figure, and his smile was an austere slash across an otherwise-remote face.

“Our guest of honor. I saw you coming.” He stepped back, one hand still on the doorknob. “It’s time we have a frank conversation, don’t you think?”

Ellory approached the house as if drawn by an invisible cord. Colt watched her with the focus of an eagle on the hunt, taking her coat like this was just another night while she walked herself to the study. The glittering room was full of people, none of whom she recognized. Some of them wore white masks like the enforcer had, hiding their identities even among their peers, but the rest were just strangers. Old white fucks, as Boone had described, wearing Rolexes and furs, diamonds and designer shoes. Despite everything, she half expected to see him here, but she didn’t. As far as she could tell, she was the only person with any melanin to her skin in the room.

Colt appeared behind her. “We know you’ve been looking for us, and here we are. In a manner of speaking, anyway.”

Ellory gasped as she regained control of her own body and stumbled to put some distance between herself and Colt. This forced her farther into the room, on the outskirts of this anonymous crowd, but even that felt safer than being near someone who could puppet her as if he owned her. “Why? You already had me right where you wanted me, and you let me leave. You took Hudson and Boone. Why? ”

She didn’t dare mention Tai and Cody. If the Old Masters didn’t know about them, Ellory wanted to keep it that way.

“Mister Graves and Mister Priestley were tools that we gave you to get you where you needed to be,” said Colt. One of the masked guests handed him a wineglass of golden liquid, and he swirled it before taking a sip. “You no longer need them, and neither do we.”

Ellory placed her back against a nearby wall, forcing Colt to come to her. She could see the entire crowd from here, and an inlaid flat-screen TV that she could swear hadn’t been there the last time she’d been here. It played camera footage of a dark platform lit by orbs of blue light. The aging arches and vaulted ceiling looked almost familiar, but not as familiar as the faces she could see floating in two of the orbs.

“Tai? Cody?” she blurted out. “Where is that? Where are they? ”

Were Hudson and Boone there, too?

“Since its inception,” Colt said with the relish of a man who loved to hear himself talk, “the School for the Unseen Arts has been a bastion for the Old Masters, their friends, and their families. Magic is a tool to influence the world, as powerful as any other. It sits alongside money and connections, meant for the hands of those who know what to do with it. It’s organized and controlled. A precious resource that we wield for only the most necessary of circumstances. But, every so often, people arrive who have an aptitude for what we call wild magic but would more accurately be described as ancestral magic .”

Ellory swallowed. “Me.”

“You. Tabby Rose, Manuel Sharp, Angel Mclaughlin, Olivia Holloway, Tasha Butler, Eugene Kang, Kristopher Douglas, and Joel Carroll. Taiwo Daniels and Cody Flores.”

The rush that usually came with being right never materialized. Instead, all she felt was dread.

“Where are they?” she whispered through a suddenly dry throat. “What have you done with them? What are you going to do with me?”

“You haven’t guessed?” Colt took another sip of his wine, a frown deepening the creases by his mouth. “They’re asleep, Miss Morgan. In the decades it took to get the spell right, sacrifices were an unfortunate necessity to power our magic. But now things are so much more civilized. Now we siphon it, and we use the power to change the world. In the meantime, they sleep. You sleep. And the magic gives you a beautiful shared dream, a fictitious realm crafted by all of you in tandem, as long as you don’t. Fight. Back.”

The dread, Ellory realized, and the times she had felt like she couldn’t breathe when the déjà vu was strongest. She’d been testing the boundaries of her world and her memory, and the siphoning spell had punished her for it. When she’d investigated the library and the schoolhouse, she’d outright been attacked—and that explained the familiarity. She squinted at the television again, her heart racing. The schoolhouse. This was the layout of the schoolhouse. The monster had driven her from searching further, from searching above, but she recognized those walls and floors.

There was no time. There was no time . She dragged her eyes from the TV to take note of all three exits—the one to the hallway, the one to the kitchen, and the windows that overlooked the yard. She couldn’t get to any of them. Not yet. Especially not when, as Colt had just displayed, their magic was far more powerful than hers, and she wouldn’t even see it coming.

“I thought we were having a frank discussion, Professor,” she said as she formulated a plan. “Start making sense. How can I be asleep if I’m standing right here?”

The room went silent. As one, every head in the room turned to them, blank masks and blank expressions. The eyes she could see were ravenous, like she had something they wanted too badly for her to survive its theft. Ellory’s body coiled tight, her hands fisting at her sides. The crowd inched closer step by step, moving in unison like a toy army, and Colt stood at their head with the casual air of a man used to getting his way.

“I think you’re very bright, full of potential,” he said. “I like you very much. I pushed for your induction rather than contribution to this hecatomb, but we live in a democracy and all that.” Behind him, the Old Masters crept closer and closer, blocking the windows, the fireplace. “I promise this won’t hurt.”

“I don’t,” Ellory said, charging forward.

Colt was too surprised to plant his feet. They went down together in a splash of white wine, and Ellory recovered first. She scrambled up and headed for the kitchen, which, she remembered from helping the cook clean up, opened out into the yard. Once she escaped, she could think, she could process, but not here in the heart of these well-dressed vultures who wanted to suck magic out of her dying body. She expected the crowd to try and grab her, to stop her, but they stood like androids that had powered down, their heads bowed to look at a cursing Colt.

Honestly, at this point in the school year, advanced robots wouldn’t even surprise her.

The kitchen door was locked. Ellory fumbled with it, keeping an ear out for movement from the study. Click . She turned the knob, hurled the door open, and nearly collided with someone.

White mask.

Nondescript clothes.

The enforcer.

Ellory reached for her bag too slowly. The enforcer dropped to the ground, sweeping her legs out from under her. Ellory hit the paneling with a pained cry, her hips burning from the impact. Standing over her, haloed by the fluorescent lighting, the enforcer looked like a duppy, the malevolent kind, ready to make off with her soul.

Their gloved hands reached up to remove the mask, and Gaia Hammond smirked down at her.

“Got you,” Gaia crowed.

A rage like nothing Ellory had ever felt coursed through her. “You fucking bitch—”

She gripped the front of Gaia’s clothes and rolled, slamming her down. She landed on top of the cursing woman and reached for something, anything, to shut her up with. Her searching fingers found the mask. Instead of beating Gaia with it, Ellory cracked it in half right by the woman’s head. Gaia flinched, and it felt good, so good, to make her the terrified one for once. Every conversation they’d ever had played on a loop in Ellory’s mind, combined with every time she had cowered from Gaia’s masked face and every time she’d swallowed her retorts to Gaia’s victim complex. This was who was terrorizing her? Some blond-haired white woman who was more afraid of being called a racist than she was of actual racism?

“ I’ll kill you ,” Ellory snarled, drawing her fist back.

“PROFESSOR,” Gaia screamed. Tears peppered her reddening face, and she looked pathetic and small without her mask to hide behind. “SHE’S HURTING ME.”

Ellory would have been stunned by the audacity if Gaia hadn’t reminded her of how much danger she was in. Ellory drew her up by the collar and slammed the woman’s head against the floor, taking a sick satisfaction in her pained cry. It wasn’t enough to knock her out, but it did disorient her enough that Ellory felt safe climbing to her feet.

The doorway was filled with Old Masters.

Somewhere, Colt’s rickety voice commanded, “Stop her.”

Ellory grabbed her bag and fled into the night.