Ellsbeth
“What is it?”
“Don’t worry,” Mary-Abigail said, her straight white teeth Day-Glo bright in the dim evening light. “It’s just a whiskey Coke.”
“Really, it’s just a publication game,” he said. “My essay on energy amplification got into Cambridge Review, and the MacGregor people eat that shit up.”
Sora blew a thin cloud of smoke from between her red lips.
“As if you needed the funding. Didn’t your dad, like, donate a building here when you were an undergraduate?
And you were in the Banestooth Club, right?
I heard that to join they make you buy a first-class ticket to Paris and then burn it just to show you don’t need money. ”
Curt rolled his eyes. “That’s a rumor. And the building was a tax break. And don’t pretend you’re here representing the proletariat when your dad owns half of Seoul.”
“Stepdad.”
“Oh, my sincerest apologies.”
“Wait,” Ellsbeth said. “You went to undergrad here? At Newlyn?”
Curt turned to her, his beer half raised. “Yeah, why?”
Sora smirked. “Didn’t you know he was punched by the Banestooth Club? He only talks about it constantly?”
Of course he was, Ellsbeth thought. She often saw those undergraduate boys congratulating one another on their existence as they entered and exited the three-story brick clubhouse at the end of her street.
The most exclusive fraternity on campus, which boasted as alumni a handful of senators, a president, and half the subjects of any given issue of Fortune.
“How old are you? Did you take time off to study for the Arcanus?” Ellsbeth asked.
Curt smiled at Ellsbeth then, all charm, and from the other side of the room, Ellsbeth could sense Priya clocking it, eyeing them both from the kitchen island. “I’m twenty-two,” he said. “Took the Arcanus my senior year.” He grinned. “Too young for you? Too old?”
“No,” Ellsbeth said, trying to prevent the flush crawling up her neck.
She wasn’t attracted to Curt, with his perfectly combed blond hair and polo shirt layered under a quarter-zip sweatshirt.
But even as there was something in his energy that made her feel as though his attention on her was a prank, that a vat of pig’s blood was bound to spill from the ceiling at any moment, there was also something undeniable about his fundamental attractiveness in the abstract, the masculine contours of his low, prominent brows and square jaw.
“I was wondering if you maybe knew my sister. She was only here for one semester, though, and you were probably already a senior.”
“Oh,” Curt said, already losing interest, his eyes circling back toward Sora and the black tattoos that crawled up her arm. “What’s her name?”
“Bertie—uh, Roberta Storer.”
“Sorry,” Curt said. He shrugged absently. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Sora extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray, and Ellsbeth realized from the smell that there was something more than tobacco rolled into it. “Why did she only go here for a semester?” she asked. Ellsbeth was surprised that she had been listening at all.
“Oh,” Ellsbeth said. “She died.”
That unleashed a deep, sympathetic moan from Mary-Abigail, whose southern manners manifested in comforting gestures of condolences, as if Ellsbeth had lost her sister mere moments ago.
The change in energy summoned Gracie, a cigarette and a champagne flute both balanced in one hand. “So how’d she die?” She dropped down next to Curt and wrapped an arm around his neck. “Sorry, is that rude?”
“No, it’s fine. She…” Ellsbeth paused here, and let the simplest version of the story come out. “Committed suicide.”
Gracie deposited her cigarette neatly between her lips. “Jesus Christ,” she said, and then she faced Curt. “And you didn’t hear about that when you were here?”
“Oh, shit,” Curt said. “Yeah, that does sort of sound familiar. I didn’t realize that was your sister. Fuck. I’m sorry.”
Ellsbeth felt the room’s eyes on her, the combination of pity and the prurient, vampiric fascination that surrounded tragedy. “It’s okay,” she said quickly, hoping to get off the subject. “My parents didn’t want to make it a big story. It wasn’t really a scandal or anything.”
“God, yeah,” Gracie said. “I guess if it’s not the dean’s son burning down half of Pembroke dorm and killing his entire suite, it’s not a real Newlyn scandal.”
Ellsbeth sat forward. “Do you mean Maxwell Keene? He was Dean Lennox’s son?”
“Uh, yeah,” Gracie said, “You didn’t know that?
But obviously he died and killed, like, a bunch of kids by accident, so no wonder she doesn’t like to talk about it.
Probably because she gave him special treatment.
Otherwise why would an undergraduate have been actually doing arcane mechanicals in the first place? ”
“He didn’t die,” Valentine called out from his chess game without looking up from the board. “Just went to prison forever.” He took Victor Hamada’s queen. “And checkmate.”
Gracie gasped, and her unlit cigarette leapt in her mouth.
“That’s what we’re doing tonight. Thaumaturgy.
Conjuring fire. Rules are the same as always.
Everyone makes the protective circle, and if you fail you take a shot.
” She looked at Ellsbeth like a snake sizing up a mouse to determine if it could swallow it in a single go. “How about you go first?”
Ellsbeth laughed, but no one else did. “Is this the hazing ritual? A prank? Asking me to do the thaumaturgy that caused half of Pembroke to burn down?”
“And killed three people,” Sora added.
Gracie rolled her eyes. “It’s fine if you’re scared, Ellsbeth. You don’t have to do it.”
From across the room, Priya shifted her weight between her legs. “Maybe she’s right, Sisi,” she said quietly. “We’ve already been drinking.”
“Don’t be boring, Priya,” Gracie spat back.
“Wait. Priya’s right,” Curt said, and for a second, Priya’s face beamed with the glow of his approval.
But then his face twisted into a smirk and he swigged his beer, a ring of condensation left on the coffee table.
“We all know rituals should only be performed by completely sober professionals. Hamada, come help me move the couch.”
The couch was pushed back, and the group of them gathered in a circle: Ellsbeth, Priya, Valentine, Curt, Gracie, Victor, Mary-Abigail, Sora, and two more students whom Ellsbeth hadn’t met yet—a short boy with a mop of messy curls and a girl with cornrows braided like a swirling galaxy across her head.
Valentine cleared his throat and stepped forward to begin the ritual, pulling a gold ring off his own finger and placing it in the center of the circle. “All right, all?” he asked. He was a few drinks in, swaying slightly, his posh English accent coming out stronger than normal.
“Step a little to the left,” Ellsbeth whispered to Priya, who shot a venomous sideways glance at Ellsbeth before realizing she was correct and obeying.
Valentine swaggered up to Sora and extended his hand. She placed an unlit cigarette into his palm, and he thanked her with a wet smack of a kiss on the cheek. “Gross,” she said. “You smell like booze.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it, darling.” Still swaying slightly, he raised the cigarette to eye level.
“Hold on.” It was the short boy who was speaking, with the curly hair. “He’s actually drunk. I don’t want him to burn Gracie’s loft down.”
“God, what is it with all of you tonight? He’s lighting a cigarette, Ari,” Gracie said.
“Go on, Val,” Curt said. “But if you can’t do it on the first try, you’re taking a shot.”
Valentine was drunk, Ellsbeth could tell, but she was still impressed by the focus in his eyes and the skill of his pronunciations when he began chanting.
At least, she was impressed until his wool vest caught on fire.
“Fuck!” Valentine tore the vest off before the flames began to lick at his skin and threw it down to the floor. He stomped at it until the fire transformed into smoldering embers. “Bollocks,” he said. “That was Loro Piana.”
Curt was already pouring him a shot.
“That isn’t fair,” Val protested. “I did make a fire. Technically, the ritual worked.”
Gracie shook her head. “Ritual isn’t just wielding the correct power; it’s wielding it in the correct application. That’s Arcane 101. Drink up.”
Valentine took the shot while Gracie looked around the circle. “Who’s up next?”
Ellsbeth had been drinking on an empty stomach, and the booze was making a pleasant buzz in her brain and warming the tips of her fingers. “I’ll do it,” she said.
No one challenged her, but Gracie did raise an eyebrow.
Ellsbeth glanced at Valentine’s gold signet ring, still sitting undisturbed in the middle of the circle.
“Mind if I use your ring? I didn’t bring one.
” Valentine just shrugged. Before she entered the circle, Ellsbeth pulled an unlit taper from the candelabra on the dining room table.
She adjusted their standing positions slightly—Gracie was still standing too close to Curt, and the ratio wasn’t correct.
“And you—Valentine, you’re swaying. Get out of the circle, I’d prefer fewer focal points as long as they’re standing still.
” Valentine took a step back, happy to obey and take the chance to pour himself another drink.
Ellsbeth closed her eyes. She tried to see the ritual the way it would be written out on the page. She hadn’t practiced the incantation, of course, but she knew how it should go. She kept her eyes closed, shut out the world, and began the chant.
Her fist clenched around the taper, her palm sweating. She could feel their gazes on her, feel their anticipation and impatience.
And then the electricity in the room went out. Someone—Mary-Abigail?—shrieked.
But it was dark only for a split second.
Not even long enough for Gracie to make a snide comment about Ellsbeth failing.
After just a moment, a yellow glow reflected back on the faces of the students in the circle.
The taper in Ellsbeth’s hand was lit, but so was every candle in the apartment.
The loft was lit like a Catholic mass, and for a moment, the entire cohort held their breath, in surprise and something like reverence.
Then came a low, monotonous buzz and the electricity vibrated back to life and the magnificent light of the candles diminished like stars disappearing in a daytime sky.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Curt muttered.
“She definitely doesn’t have to take a shot,” Sora said.
“I’m bored,” Gracie said. “Someone put on some music.”