Rawlins
The first week of the semester had been grueling.
He usually enjoyed returning after the holiday break—the rush of energy from new students, new schedules, new possibilities, hurrying in from the cold.
But he was anxious and continuously troubled by his thoughts of Ellsbeth, which had reached a fever pitch earlier that day.
It only seemed to confirm his fears from the previous weekend.
Ever since the night he found the compounding clay, he had pulled away from her—and while he told himself he was merely trying to get some needed perspective, he was also, he realized, testing her.
Perhaps that wasn’t particularly fair, but if she truly cared about him, she would reach out, she would tell him that she was hurt by his distance.
She would be willing to be vulnerable, as he had become so openly vulnerable to her.
But instead, she retreated in sync. She didn’t seek him out at school, she didn’t text him at night.
Which might mean she was guilty of using obscuration on him, and suspected he was onto her, and was keeping her distance to avoid his suspicion.
Or it might mean that she had merely gotten what she wanted, the love of her professor and the power that came with it—and moved on.
He couldn’t square these possibilities with the Ellsbeth he had come to know. But he also couldn’t trust his own mind. The sense of deep familiarity he’d felt with her could be nothing but an obscuration-induced deception.
He considered confronting her, pulling her aside to ask, point-blank…
what exactly? Do I think I’m in love with you because you manipulated me with magic?
In a way, that was the most logical approach: to catch her off guard when he could see her reaction, before she had time to formulate a reply.
But he couldn’t even trust himself. If she had performed obscuration on him, he might be compelled by whatever influence was acting inside his mind to believe whatever she said.
Rawlins pulled out his phone as he walked.
It would be patently stupid to come right out and ask over text if she had manipulated him with magic, but he considered sending something passive-aggressive and oblique like, Hope you’re having a nice time with Curt.
But that wasn’t his style; even that evinced caring more than he was willing to show at this point.
He reread their last exchange, days earlier, as he considered other possibilities for what he might say—but with his eyes focused on the phone’s bright light, he slipped on the ice and nearly lost his balance.
He put his phone away before it cost him a broken bone.
He reached The Parlor and went inside, grateful for the warmth and the noise; even if the raucous undergrads surrounding the dartboards were obnoxious, he appreciated the distraction of their jovial din.
He took a stool at the far end of the bar, ordered a beer and a whiskey neat, and took out one of the books he had brought.
He had reading to do on obscuration. Not because he was trying to figure out how to use it this time, but because he needed to figure out if, and how, he had been so spectacularly used.