An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole - 9

Ellory had spent her first month in Hartford exploring the area in search of the perfect bookstore, and she had found it in Cover Story. Located ten minutes away from campus—twenty-five if she was walking—it was an independent bookstore up a short flight of stairs painted to look like classic books: Persuasion and Moby-Dick , The Age of Innocence and Things Fall Apart , Les Misérables and The Count of Monte Cristo . Beyond the mint-green-and-pearl-white awning, rustic cedar bookshelves were packed with titles, all sorted by category. The armchairs scattered throughout the space were also bookshelves, lined with tomes in the arms and base. Plants atop the shelves kept the open room smelling like a garden, and the front windows allowed a steady stream of sunlight inside to help them grow.

From the moment Ellory had first stepped inside, she’d felt comfortable. Safe. When she wasn’t on shift at Powers That Bean or pulling her hair out over homework at the Graves, she was here in this cozy harbor, tracing the spines of beloved stories or buying one of the ever-changing homemade bookmarks that decorated the front counter. It was like Cover Story had an enchantment within its walls that forced her shoulders to relax and her anxieties to fade.

“We can have lunch after this,” Tai said as she led Ellory inside the stacks, her braids decorated by a powder-blue crochet turban-beanie. “But clearly you’re under way too much pressure right now and need some chill vibes.”

Music was playing in the bookstore, a classical song Ellory didn’t recognize but knew was from a Looney Tunes rerun. Bubblegum-pink hydrangeas and silver-lavender Russian sage glanced down at them from the pots, adding extra flashes of color. Ellory’s hand was in her pocket, brushing against her phone, and her mind was fixed on the pictures that still waited in her camera roll to unbalance her again. When Tai had heard the whole story, she had insisted on this trip before Ellory could even suggest it, diagnosing Ellory with an acute case of stress brought about by spending too much time in the presence of that shit stick, Graves .

Meanwhile, that shit stick Graves hadn’t contacted Ellory since dropping her off at Moneta the night before. That was normal, and yet she could still feel the echoes of their time together: His fingers around her wrist, palm kissing her pulse point. His eyes on her face like she was the answer to a question he had yet to ask. His pointed absence for the rest of the night. Every time she forced these snapshots of midnight delirium to the back of her mind, they pinballed to the forefront, gliding through the lateral fissure of her brain to attack her. And she couldn’t tell if it was stressful or frustrating or even meaningful, this unexpected shift in her understanding of Hudson Graves, but the chasmal potential of it sent restless energy zinging through her body.

She exhaled slowly, pushing herself to focus. She had bigger problems than Hudson Graves right now.

Tai disappeared into the graphic novels section, and Ellory walked on. The store was filled but not overcrowded; every so often she would pass someone tucked into an armchair or sitting on the floor between shelves, reading or having hushed conversations with a companion. A bulletin board half her size spanned one wall, brimming with colorful advertisements for tutoring and babysitting services, for local bands and comedy shows, for African hair braiding and psychic readings. Someone was blocking the right-hand side, adding a new graphic poster to the noise. It took her a moment to recognize that fluffy brown hair, those broad shoulders, those thick biceps.

Liam Blackwood turned at the sound of his name. His face lit up when he caught sight of her, that model smile firmly in place. He wore a thick cream cardigan with oversize brown buttons over a coffee-colored polo shirt with off-white stripes. A pair of relaxed-fit khakis in the same shade as his shirt completed the outfit. She half expected a pair of sunglasses to be hanging from his collar and artificial wind to tousle his chestnut waves, but he instead had a slate-gray jacket thrown over his arm and white tennis shoes on his feet. No wind. No pretense. Just Liam, as chipper as a puppy.

“Ellory Morgan,” he exclaimed, “how the hell are you?”

She had no idea how to answer that question, so she nodded toward the bulletin board instead. “What are you doing?”

Liam turned back to the board as if he’d forgotten that it was there, even though his hand was still on the flyer he’d pinned to it. It appeared, Ellory gathered from squinting around his thick fingers, to be an advertisement for an upcoming lacrosse game. “My duty as captain,” he answered. His brown eyes twinkled as he watched her. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in coming to one of our games?”

“I’m not really a sports person.”

“Are you a dinner person?”

Ellory raised her eyebrows. “They eat dinner during lacrosse?”

“Afterward, you and I could grab some.” Liam’s charm was like a physical touch, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine. He was a hard man to dislike, and he clearly knew it. “I’m interested in figuring out what kind of person you are.”

“I’ll think about it,” she managed. “Right now, the only thing I’m interested in is books.”

Liam accepted this answer easily. “Well, you’re in a great place for it. How did you find this bookstore?”

Ellory lost track of how long they stood there, talking about Cover Story and the first time they’d each stumbled inside. That turned into a conversation about favorite books, which dissolved into a playful argument about which Jane Austen novel had the best film adaptation, which somehow swung into a debate on whether dogs or cats were superior. She laughed harder than she could remember laughing in a while, and she did not miss her apprehension at all. This close to Liam Blackwood’s inherent light, there was no room for shadows.

“I have to hit up the rest of the businesses on this block.” Liam sighed. When he checked his watch, a quick glance at the face told Ellory they’d been talking for a little over an hour. “But can I at least get your number? You know, so you can share more of your wrong Sherlock Holmes opinions.”

“Smooth,” Ellory said, but she still gave it to him. A smile tugged at her lips. “ Elementary was a masterful Sherlock Holmes adaptation, and I will die on that hill.”

“I can’t believe I wanted to have dinner with you,” Liam said in mock offense. Then he winked. That wink . She shivered again. “See you around, Morgan.”

Once he was gone, Ellory tried to stop smiling, if only because he clearly knew the effect he had on people and was delighted that it worked on her. She failed hard until she remembered that she had not come here for Liam Blackwood.

She grabbed a slip for African hair braiding and moved on.

Ellory started in the psychology section, wading through Jung and Vygotsky and Thorndike until she found titles on repressed memories and auditory hallucinations and general cognitive psychology. Next, she pulled books on neurophysiology in the medicine section, books on past lives in the occult section, and a Moleskine notebook from the writing section. Finally, she spread her haul across one of the tables near the back of the store, many of which were already bursting with people taking advantage of the outlets and Wi-Fi, and prepared to take detailed notes that she could copy into her Word document later. She only had the money to leave the store with the Moleskine, but each book came with an index that helped her focus her skimming to relevant paragraphs only.

That familiar rush energized her, the sense of rightness that came with chasing down a lead like a golden retriever in pursuit of a ball. It was a high she couldn’t replicate with quantitative political research or social choice theory, though she’d spent the last month and a half trying. She wanted to become Elle Woods or Annalise Keating, getting her thrills from picking the scorched remains of her opponents’ arguments out of her teeth as she won another case, but she wasn’t even in law school yet and she could feel herself fumbling.

Investigative journalism—though itself inherently political—felt like wading through the muck to unearth a clean nugget of truth. It was shining a light down a dark hallway. It was giving a voice to the voiceless. Politics felt like reaching into the grime to find another, filthier layer underneath. It was the slow erosion of long-held morals for short-term gains. It was constantly choosing the least awful option until there were none left.

But political science would keep the lights on in her apartment. Journalism would only give her four roommates all sharing the same fork over the last bowl of ramen for years before she had a spare dime to put in her savings account.

Do you want to be a lawyer?

Annoyed by the direction of her thoughts and the intrusion of Hudson Graves, Ellory gathered up the books to return them to the shelves. She had to pay for the Moleskine, and she had to find Tai. Her stomach growled, a reminder that she’d had nothing but overnight oats for breakfast, and though she could still taste faint traces of the honey and Greek yogurt she had mixed in, that was no substitute for a full meal.

But as she passed the local-interest section, she slowed in consideration. Here, the shelves boasted books about Warren University and Connecticut as a whole. It was a long shot, but maybe she would find something about Warren being built behind a deadfall or in the center of a fairy circle—something that turned it into the kind of liminal space where she could slip more easily into a shadow world. It sounded ridiculous even as she thought it, but the sound of that incessant buzzing and the sight of those teeming shadows drove her deeper into the stacks. Dread pooled in her stomach, but she clenched and unclenched her fingers as if she could massage the terror from her epithelium.

Ellory froze when something caught her eye.

Ǝ.

On the otherwise-empty spine of a book, the letter was written in gold and surrounded by a circle of silver ivy leaves—the same stylized ivy that surrounded the Warren University crest. She tugged the volume from the shelf, frowning when she saw it was another reference book about the school’s founding. Her fingers ran over the symbol before she flipped it open, searching for something she didn’t have words for yet. Whatever it was, she reached the end without finding any sign of it.

Ellory went to put the book back and paused. The hole it had left on the shelf was shadowed, but there was a flash of something corpse pale within. Switching the book to her nondominant hand, she reached inside, her fingertips catching on a torn edge of paper. She tugged it free of the tape keeping it affixed to the back panel of the shelf. Only a quick fumble kept her from dropping the book when she saw her own handwriting on the paper, which was nondescript and lined like she’d torn it from a notebook.

She didn’t remember writing this. She couldn’t even remember a time she’d come down this aisle before.

hudson will hɘlp , the note read. The single e , like the one on the book, like the one that had been on her neck, was backward.

Ellory crumpled the paper in her fist as her rising unease was swallowed by furious disbelief. This had to be a joke. Of all the absurd things that had come to define this school year, leaving herself the advice to rely on Hudson Graves for any kind of help had taken this one step too far. He obviously wrote it. Maybe the entire salon was in on it. There was an optical illusion on the mirror that made her see ink where there was none. He’d learned to forge her handwriting and left this note in her favorite store.

And all the rest? Coincidences and a stubborn need to see beyond the veil. She’d created a story out of nothing.

She was such an idiot .

“Ready to go?” Tai asked, appearing at the mouth of the aisle holding no fewer than three graphic novels. “Or are you buying that first?”

Ellory realized she was still clutching the book. She switched it to her other hand to hide the paper and moved away from the shelf as casually as she could. Her wrath—at herself, at Hudson Graves, at herself again—built like a storm, and her body coiled like lightning about to strike.

Tai lifted an eyebrow. “You look even less chill than you were before we got here,” she observed. “Maybe we should have had lunch first.”

“I’m fine.”

“ Okay , snappy. Come on, then.”

Ellory glanced back at the hollow in the shelf where the book had once been and felt another hot rush of anger at Hudson Graves. She would get her answers, one way or another. Whether he survived the questioning was a different story.