Rawlins
He looked up at Ellsbeth standing by the bookshelf, just as frozen as he was. The look that passed between them was strangely one of mourning. The brittle lock on their hermetically sealed secret was broken. The only question was how far the damage would spread.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “So, so stupid…” Then he saw the hurt look on Ellsbeth’s face, and amended, “I mean…not you. Me. I should have made sure the door was locked…”
Ellsbeth paced, restless and anxious. “What was she even doing here on campus? In the middle of fucking winter break.” Her cursing was uncharacteristic; he could tell that her anxiety was coming out as anger.
“No, let me,” she replied, grabbing her coat. “I can try talking to her, sort of…woman-to-woman. Maybe she won’t feel the need to tell anyone. If I beg.”
“Ellsbeth, no, I’m the one who’s been irresponsible here.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, hoping to get her to pause, but she shrugged off his hand.
“Please. I can handle this.”
“Ellsbeth…you shouldn’t have to—”
“Do you trust me?” she interrupted him pointedly. It was not merely a question, he saw in her expression; it was a challenge.
“I do…” he said cautiously, and he mostly meant it, though he wasn’t sure if he should.
“Then let me take care of this,” she said. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed out the door.
After she left, Rawlins was a bundle of nerves.
He stayed in his office for a while, trying to pretend everything was normal, and not to think about the fact that he may have just torpedoed the rest of his career, and Ellsbeth’s with it.
The romantic ruminations of the last few weeks suddenly felt hopelessly na?ve.
How had he ever imagined that he and Ellsbeth could have a future?
That he would get away with all this, that there would be no consequences?
Once it became clear that he wasn’t going to get anything done in his office, he pulled on his coat and started walking home. The sun set so early these days, most of his walk was in shadow; he slid on the ice, distracted, and bowed his head against the bone-penetrating wind.
He watched his entire downfall unfold as a movie projected in his mind.
He could see Mary-Abigail telling the story of what she had seen to Lennox, whom he knew would fire him immediately.
He imagined his colleagues, sharing the news in gossipy huddles around the office.
He could already picture Gallway’s smug delight, with the rest of the faculty lining up like vultures to poach his classes and be first in line to get his office.
He could see Ellsbeth trying to continue, thinking she was immune to the whispers behind her back, but she wouldn’t last more than a semester; maybe she’d try to transfer somewhere far away, in the hope rumors wouldn’t follow her, but this might derail her career permanently.
And Max. Still seething with anger at the revelation that Rawlins was his father, this public humiliation would only confirm the boy’s suspicions that Rawlins was some sort of monster who preyed on his students. Any hope of his son speaking to him again had just been obliterated.
These thoughts and more followed him all the way home, through the first drink he downed hastily before his coat was even off, and the second one that he sipped, allowing the whiskey to burn on his tongue with every drop.
He was just starting to feel its warmth melting the edge of his anxiety when Ellsbeth sent a text: Talked to her…
we don’t have anything to worry about. Promise.
Rawlins stared at the message, feeling the knot of tension loosen in his chest but uncertain if he could dare believe his good fortune, when she sent another message: I’ll come over later?
In his kitchen that night, Rawlins was eager to hear Ellsbeth recount the incident. “Tell me everything,” he said as he poured her a glass of wine. “I want to know everything.”
“It wasn’t too bad,” Ellsbeth said, taking a sip; there was a peculiar vacancy to her expression, as though she were still in shock. “I just sort of said it was my fault, and that…it wasn’t what she thought it was. And she seemed fine to just forget about it, and not make a big deal.”
“That’s…not entirely reassuring,” Rawlins said. “It sounds like she just wanted to get out of the conversation. But that doesn’t mean she won’t tell anyone.”
Ellsbeth looked away, bit her lip, then let out a dramatic exhale. “Okay, look. The truth is, I told her I’ve had a crush on you for a long time. And that I basically threw myself at you. And you were actually in the middle of rejecting me, and I was practically begging you to hook up with me…”
Rawlins studied her expression, not sure how to react to this. “Really? And…she believed that?”
“She did,” Ellsbeth said. “I’m a terrible liar, normally. But when I was telling her about you rejecting me, I thought about what it would be like if you had rejected me, and…” Ellsbeth sniffed and looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “I cried, okay?”
He pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry…I’m sure that wasn’t easy.” He stroked her hair. “I know you hate the thought of being pitied.”
She sniffled against his chest and laughed at herself. “I promise, it’s taken care of. I won’t let anything…” She didn’t finish the thought.
Rawlins kissed the top of her head, then pulled away. “It was a smart idea, but…Maybe I should still have a word with her, too. Just to…you know, shore up any uncertainty.”
Ellsbeth stared at him intently. “Don’t you trust me?” It was the second time that day she had asked him, and while the intended effect of the question was undoubtedly reassurance, this time it felt defensive.
“I do,” he said hollowly, and gave her a thin smile. “You’re right, I’m sure it’s fine…we’ll just have to be extra careful for a while.”
“Of course,” she said. “Back off a little. No more office fucking…for a while, at least.” She gave him a wounded smile, and he nodded. Then disappointment entered her expression. “Sorry, are you asking me…to leave?”
Part of him did want her to go; getting caught had made him feel prickly and paranoid.
But the hurt already coloring her face was plain, despite her effort to hide it, and he told himself to man up and not make this any worse on her.
He shook his head. “No, of course not. Just…once the semester resumes, we’ll have to be… ”
“Very careful,” she said. “Of course.”
The rest of the night was more strained than any they’d had since before the winter break began.
Rawlins tried to relax during dinner, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how adamant she had been that he not follow up with Mary-Abigail.
It bothered him. But maybe that was just Ellsbeth’s independent streak—the girl who hated the prospect of being taken care of, insisting on being the one to clean up their mess.
They both worked for a while after they ate, and slipped into bed at ten o’clock like an old married couple, reading side by side.
She smiled at him before she turned off the light on her side, and gave him a kiss that was unmistakably an invitation to more.
But he met her lips with a perfunctory peck and continued reading, while she rolled over on her side.
Rawlins tried to focus on his book but found himself increasingly restless, while Ellsbeth dozed peacefully beside him. He was familiar enough with the rhythms of his insomnia to know that staying in bed at this point was useless; he’d have to get up and try again later.
Downstairs, he got himself another drink and took it to the study, which had still not been cleaned up entirely from the obscuration ritual he and Ellsbeth had conducted the day of the ballet.
Pleased to have a worthwhile but mindless task, he started putting away the elementals that had been left out, pushing drawers shut softly so the sound would not carry upstairs and wake Ellsbeth.
As he filed away the vial of yellowish silver iodide powder, he smiled at the memory of Ellsbeth’s brilliant idea, which had indeed worked out perfectly.
But as he recalled the very ease with which it had come to her, he paused.
Troubled. Literature on obscuration was all ancient and obtuse, with nothing about specific elementals.
So how could she have known with such confidence that it would work in exactly the way she anticipated?
There was only one way: If she had already tried obscuration herself.
Rawlins looked around the study, remembering the afternoon he and Ellsbeth had done the obscuration ritual together here—her excitement to try it, her eagerness to see if it worked, the effortless intimacy between them that had lasted all night…
and suddenly, he felt very much like a fool.
Had she been pretending that whole time?
When really, she had used obscuration before and knew perfectly well that it would work.
The thrill of shared discovery had been a lie, a performance; he bristled at being so utterly condescended to.
Of course, the fact that Ellsbeth was already using obscuration should not have been shocking, considering that he had used it as well, and kept that fact secret from her.
But he had a very specific purpose that justified what he did.
A worthwhile reason. What could she possibly be using it for?
Was she really just testing it out on a whim?
No, he realized with a certainty that hit him like a swallowed brick.
She had wanted to pursue this line of inquiry since the beginning of the semester; it had been an outgrowth of her studies into writ magic.
She had brought up the idea of studying obscuration so casually, but now he felt certain that it had always been her plan.
What could she have wanted that required obscuration, bending someone else’s mind to her will? He played through the timeline in his mind, trying to understand.
Ellsbeth had begun studying obscuration around November—the same time he had tried to put an end to their affair.
They had agreed to “no feelings,” but then it had slid into…
not just feelings but professions of love.
And the night of the ballet…that was not just an illicit sexual game, but an outing, a proper date, and afterward he was left wondering if they could actually be together, have a relationship publicly.
He had changed his mind about her in a way that surprised even him—at the exact same time she was studying the magical manipulation of the human mind.
Were his thoughts about her really his own? Were the feelings that caused them even real? Or were they the result of an obscuration ritual, implanting ideas and emotions into his brain so deeply that he would never suspect?
Suddenly every romantic thought he’d had for the last few weeks felt suspect. The way this felt so different, so unique, so unlike him. Was she playing him? How could he ever possibly know?
His mind dove back in time to the one occasion he had been in love before—with Lennox.
If he was honest with himself, it had never been truly reciprocal.
She had always had all the power, a fact that was only revealed when the proverbial shit hit the fan, and he was left devastated and damaged while she sailed on smoothly with her life.
With Ellsbeth, it felt different. He was the older one, in the ostensible position of power.
She liked being in the submissive role. And yet, despite that, their relationship felt uniquely egalitarian.
In the last few weeks, as they had opened up to each other, it all felt so real.
But that was the horrible beauty of obscuration—if it was artfully practiced, the subject might never know they had been manipulated.
Rawlins walked out of the study. His breathing had become shallow as spiraling thoughts spiked his anxiety.
He saw Ellsbeth’s backpack, discarded on the floor by the kitchen island.
He could not help himself; he paused and knelt, tentatively probing a finger around inside it.
He knew it was a violation of privacy, and hoped that he was just being paranoid—but he froze when he noticed, at the bottom, a rolled-up cloth handkerchief.
Tentatively he took it out and opened it, as though pulling the petals from a flower, dread building in his chest as he revealed the secret at its center: a lump of compounding clay. Exactly like the one he had used on Greywall.
Heat flooded his body—a mix of fear that his worst suspicions might be true and anger, already building, at the very possibility that they were.
The fact that she was using obscuration on her own was undeniable.
The questions that assaulted his mind now were about whom she had used it on, and when, and how.
Had she used it on him? It was hard to believe she had not, and his stomach twisted with the sickening discovery that he could no longer trust her, or his own mind, at all.
He wrapped the compounding clay back into the handkerchief and returned it to her backpack, certain that he would not be sleeping tonight, and doubtful that he could ever share a bed with Ellsbeth again.