Interlude
Dean Edwin Thomas Godwin had been among the first to suggest the idea of different classes of magic.
Though he never claimed a source for this flash of brilliance, it was rumored he had been inspired by Scholomance, the legendary underground school for black magic in Romania, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Freemason-founded secret society for occult study and practice in Great Britain.
Magic, he wrote, was at the heart of too many disparate cultures to be nonexistent. And there were too many forms—or classes—to presume that one was superior to another. For those who believed, there was simply ability: what kinds one could and could not do.
Enter the Godwin Scholars.
They tried alchemy and scrying. They learned tarot cards and astrology.
They created charms and studied ley lines.
Mediumship and mysticism, rune casting and wonder-working.
Even Santeria and Kabbalah, Shinto and Māyā, vodou and obeah—religious traditions from around the world that they considered far beneath them were appropriated for their occult properties and discarded for their refusal to give up their cultural secrets.
There was magic a breath away, an undeniable element of the world like death and taxes. The scholars knew it, but they could not unlock it.
In a world of appearances and deceptions, desperation lifts a mirror and forces people to face who they are when no one’s watching. For most, this answer is shameful. And for those who have never before known what it is to want, this answer is downright chilling.
Maybe if the Godwin Scholars had chosen failure, there would be no story to uncover.
Instead, their access to magic became an arcane inheritance of lives taken and bodies buried.