Rawlins
Reading arcane mechanicals work on a phone screen was far from ideal, and Ellsbeth’s obscuration ritual was particularly challenging—sixteen pages dense with written instructions and diagrams, so he had to zoom in and scroll with his finger to read it.
As he scanned the work, at first he felt perplexed, wondering if Ellsbeth had veered off entirely in the wrong direction.
But then he started to understand the strategy she was attempting—using Poirier’s system to “account” for the mind of the subject, and then conducting the ritual in such a way that it could be rendered latent in the medium of a clay compound, to be used later by touching the target.
Reading through the ritual was like watching someone move around puzzle pieces without clicking any two together, so it seemed like they were making no progress—until suddenly they were all in the right place and fit perfectly.
There was not a single wasted step; Ellsbeth had apparently mastered his feedback and lost her tendency toward overcomplication.
The ritual was stunning in its elegance.
His heart rate quickened with a rush of excitement, not just at her achievement, but at the possibility of trying it.
Of testing out this new form of arcane influence.
Then self-consciousness came upon him suddenly as he glanced up and realized he was standing to the side of the coffee table, hunched over his phone screen with an expression of delirious wonder.
He probably looked psychotic, and he tried to adjust his face to appear more casual—worried his expression might somehow betray that he was reading a recipe for a highly illegal and dangerous strain of magic.
He tried to calm himself, but he knew that simply by reading these words, he was taking another step down a dangerous path.
The faculty mixer suddenly felt oppressive; he needed to get out of there, to go back to his office and peruse the ritual on his computer, where he could take his time with it, understand it properly…
and more important, figure out what to do here.
He headed for the doors leading back inside the building, hoping he had stayed long enough that his attendance had been noted, but his absence would not be missed.
But Lennox clocked his passage and broke from her conversational circle to intercept him on the steps.
“Tad, can I have a word?” she asked, her expression inscrutable.
He felt a moment of panic, suddenly afraid that she might know what he had just read, but he simply gave her a tight smile and stepped aside to where they would not be overheard.
“It’s about Ellsbeth Storer,” Lennox said flatly, then raised her eyebrows in a manner that felt accusatory.
Rawlins’s stomach dropped; an adrenaline rush of fear flooded his veins.
He fought to keep his expression neutral while his mind raced, wondering if they had been caught, and how had he been so foolish, and how had it happened?
Had someone walked by and overheard them in his office?
Stumbled upon them in the Practicum? Was this in response to rumor, which he could deny, or was there actual evidence that would get him fired?
Was Lennox coming to him early so she could warn him to stop, or was he about to be publicly humiliated and ruined?
Did she somehow know about the email he had received just minutes earlier?
The whirl of thoughts created a moment of deer-in-headlights silence, which Lennox mercifully broke. “You haven’t submitted her thesis topic to the department. Those were due two weeks ago, and it’s your responsibility, as her adviser, to keep her on track.”
Relief washed over him, and his shoulders softened. He swallowed, finding his voice. “Right, sorry about that. I’ll get on her about it.”
He paused, awaiting a signal that there was nothing else to say, but Lennox evidently regarded his reply as exasperatingly vague. “Well, what is her topic?” Lennox asked.
“Sorry?”
“I understand if she’s behind, with the late start and all, and I don’t want to be insensitive about that business with her sister. But if I’m going to wait indefinitely for a précis to approve, at least tell me what to expect.”
“Oh, well…she’s been narrowing in on a topic,” Rawlins said evasively. “We’ll get you something once it’s ready.”
“Surely you can give me some sense of what you’ve been working on with her,” Lennox insisted. “Or what she’s deciding between? I might be able to weigh in, help steer the ship.”
Rawlins should have been prepared for this inquiry, but he had been too caught up in the excitement of working with Ellsbeth—well, more than just working—to give much thought to the bureaucratic requirements of the university.
His intention had been to get his arms around the problem and have a fully baked case to make before he went to Lennox and sought her approval for his student to write a thesis, even theoretically, about an illegal branch of magic.
Now he was flat-footed, still reeling and trying to suss out how much Lennox knew or didn’t.
“Give her a minute, Maggie. She’s ambitious, and she knows what this means for her career, so it’s been hard to pin her down,” Rawlins said, wincing at his own choice of words.
“Surely you’ve made progress, in the many meetings you’ve had,” Lennox said, an edge entering her tone. “Most of the cohort seem to think that she’s your favorite student, so I know it’s not an issue of neglect.”
There it was. The rumor. The suspicion. It was irritating to know he had been gossiped about, but also a relief in some ways, since a suspicion that ill formed and obliquely referenced meant that Lennox was in the dark about the extent of the relationship. But her hackles had been raised.
“Ellsbeth is a remarkably capable student,” Rawlins said, trying to steer the conversation in another direction.
“I think there’s potential for her to do exceptional work, but that takes time…
” He saw Lennox opening her mouth to speak, and added quickly, “I will impress upon her the importance of deadlines, and we’ll have something for you to consider… soon.”
Lennox frowned, but apparently thought better of pressing the matter further. “See that you do…I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the dangers of giving too long a leash to a gifted student.”
Rawlins’s eye twitched and his chest tightened; scathing replies crept up his throat, but he swallowed them down, knowing better than to provoke further conflict. “You certainly don’t,” he replied dryly, then headed back to his office.
He closed the door. The din of the gathering wafted up from down below, a murmur under the oppressive silence of his office.
He could not help but try to tune his ear, attempting to overhear what was being said—as though every conversation down there were about him and Ellsbeth, and picking up on what was being said about them might somehow help him get ahead of the disaster they were hurtling toward.
Rawlins’s mind raced with troubled thoughts, and he was gripped with a fever of anxiety.
He hated that feeling; it was worse than fear.
When you knew what a threat was, you could take action to address it.
But this was only a vague, amorphous sense of potential danger, which left him hypervigilant, buzzing with uncertainty.
He opened Ellsbeth’s email on his laptop and stared at the PDF. What had filled him with excitement ten minutes earlier…now only filled him with dread. He couldn’t believe he had been so careless, had let this go so far.
Lennox was right, unfortunately. Infuriatingly.
He had somehow forgotten the lesson he should have learned with Max.
He had gotten himself into an even worse situation—not only a dangerous mentorship, but one entangled with desire and irrational affection.
His entire relationship with Ellsbeth was like a sports car on an open road, accelerating dangerously; it was only a matter of time before they lost control and this ended very, very badly.
Heartbreak was the least of his concerns; prison, or worse, was a very real possibility.
It was time to put a stop to this while he still could.