Chapter 3 #2
Dr. Robetresse’s mouth twisted. “I don’t believe it was a spell Danica cast, but one that was cast upon her.
She was at the top of her class, according to her advisor, and headed to MIT’s graduate program in the fall.
Attempting a spell with such disastrous consequences strikes me as out of character.
And not only that—all our preliminary questioning suggests nothing more than a girl who loved Maya Hagood, who would do anything the other girl asked.
No, it is my belief that Danica Stewart was hexed. ”
“A hex? But who would do such a thing?” asked Dr. Nguyen.
“That’s just what I hope this investigation will uncover,” said Dr. Robetresse, turning to me.
“I’ve called in some help. You all remember our former students and council members, Marcella Gibbons and Maximilian Middlemore.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with how much their contributions to the field of Object Theory have enhanced our knowledge of objects and Magic use.
I would like the two of them to use their expertise in Object Theory to investigate the objects of anyone relevant to the case.
Figure out who hexed Danica. Who would have cause to hurt these girls.
We’ve done some preliminary questioning of the students, but haven’t made much progress.
Objects, at least, lack the ability to lie. ”
“And if they can’t figure out what has happened?” Ellendale asked.
“Let’s give our dimidiums some credit,” said Dr. Robetresse. “These two know perhaps more about objects than anyone in the world and are some of the strongest wielders of Magic alive.* I’m confident they’re up to the task.”
Ellendale snorted, and I sank farther into my chair. Max’s brow got that furrow it did when he was trying to figure out what I was thinking. Our connection was close, but we couldn’t read each other’s minds. There was at least some justice in the world.
In spite of myself, the more they explained about the case, the more intrigued I’d become.
The whole thing was a murky mystery, a puzzle whose pieces lay shrouded in fog.
I thought back to Danica, floating in that dark room.
All those scars, like she was being torn apart from the inside.
Something was wreaking havoc on her body.
Levitation wasn’t common. It took an exceptionally large amount of power, otherwise we’d all be flying around.
? It was most typically presented as a loss-of-control effect from Magic. But a hex …
A hex was something else entirely. A malevolent spell, one of the most violent things a Magician could do to another. The range of side effects made them especially difficult to recognize. Not to mention cure. Whoever did it must’ve had some grudge.
I cleared my throat, curiosity outweighing my nerves. “Could someone else have been in the room? Maybe they did it and put the hex on Dani afterward to cover their tracks.”
“We’ve already spoken to the girl working the front desk on the night of the attack,” Ellendale said, a little more forcefully than necessary. “No visitors entered or left the dorm that night.”
“Someone living in the dorm, then?”
“It’s possible, though not likely,” said Dr. Robetresse. “As it was the holiday break, most students were gone, home for the weekend.”
Ellendale scoffed. “The last thing we need are the Arbiters* getting wind of this and coming down here at the request of one of the students’ parents.
Suits swarming the school, investigating a malignant practice of Magic.
If you think enrollment is down now, I shudder to think what that will do.
Not to mention what people at Britton will say.
They’ll have a field day! I can just hear them now: ‘They use objects and look where it got them! Their students are practically possessed and murdering each other!’” He shook his head.
“Danica will be back to herself in a few days’ time. The police can question her then.”
Murmurs traveled around the table. He’s got a point. Don’t want the Arbiters.
A spark of annoyance flared in my chest. They’d dragged me back here, forcing me to relive memories I’d spent years trying to forget.
I could feel Aaron haunting every step I took on this campus, reminding me of every way I’d failed him.
And now they had me actually willing to sit here and listen, and some of them wanted to dismiss the whole thing.
“No offense, Dr. de Vries,” I said, adrenaline making me stumble over my words. “You’re one of the world’s foremost experts on the Magic inherent in numbers, but this is not your area of expertise.”
I meant to say it as gently as possible, but I guess it didn’t come off quite right because Ellendale looked like he might like to stab me himself. Ellendale’s teaching assistant guffawed and spiraled into a coughing fit to cover it up.
“Sorry, that came out wrong—” I murmured. I suddenly wished I could melt into jelly and slip right under the door.
The others ignored me entirely. Dr. Nguyen turned to Max. “What do you think?”
Max leaned back, manspreading in his chair. “A hex that strong, their object is gonna be acting all kinds of screwy afterward. It’ll be obvious who did it. The Magic will tell on itself.”
“That at least makes some sense,” said Ellendale.
I squinted. Magic didn’t tell on itself. To be honest, a lot of what Max said was nonsense, but that didn’t seem to matter. I’d dubbed it the Max Middlemore Effect. The others nodded sagely at him, as if it made all the sense in the world. The only one who paid me any mind was Robetresse.
I didn’t blame them. I sat there in my Bee Kind shirt and pink jellies, with my hair ballooning to epic proportions, and wondered if anyone would notice if I left.
After all, Max had been getting by just fine on his own for the last five years.
He’d bullshit a little, get help from some starry-eyed freshman, and stumble into a solution, like he always did. No reason for me to even be here.
I was pulling up the route home on my phone when I realized Robetresse was talking to me.
“The priest said she spoke to you. What did she say?”
“Oh.” I hesitated. She also smiled creepily at me and winked, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. “She said, ‘Nothing ever changes.’”
I heard the mutterings of the others in the room trying the words out. “Nothing ever changes,” they repeated.
I looked around the table at the inquisitive glances, as if they’d just noticed me sitting there.
“Maybe it would be better if someone else …”
“You’ll keep trying, won’t you?” Robetresse asked. “That’s the most progress we’ve had in days.”
My eyes flickered past them and landed instead on Max, who met my gaze with an unabashedly hopeful look of his own.
I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “Oh. Um, okay.” I tried to look more confident than I felt. I’d never had cause to doubt Dr. Robetresse’s judgment before. If she thought we could do it, I wanted to believe her. “We’ll do our best.”
As I was leaving, Dr. Robetresse asked Max and me to follow her to her office.
Dr. Robetresse cared deeply about propelling Magic into a new era, one where it wasn’t hoarded among the wealthy in private institutions or kept locked behind expensive tutors.
She’d left her career at Britton Arcane to open the first public university of Magic, where Magic was safer to use and open to all—and taken a lot of criticism for it.
She’d done a lot for me and a lot for Magic, and though I hadn’t wanted to take one step into Marble County again, I found it hard to say no to her.
She sat down behind a huge, wood-carved desk. “Thank God for you two. Ellendale and Amy will never be able to agree on a course of action; they disagree with each other for sport. And we don’t have the time for it.”
She pulled out a checkbook, and my eyes zeroed in on the little numbers she filled in with her pen. “Half now. Half when it’s done,” she said, before handing one to each of us. I could’ve cried tears of joy.
“That’s why I’m giving you two full rein over your investigation,” she continued.
“Ellendale says there’s too much potential to draw the Arbiters, but there were rumblings of an inappropriate relationship between a council member and a student long before all this. I don’t want anything overlooked.”
“Was there anyone who had a problem with either of the girls?” Max asked. “Anyone who might’ve wished them harm?”
“Not that I was able to find, though there were some issues with a previous roommate of Dani’s, Joselyn Hart. I take it she moved out some months before the incident.”
She glanced quickly at a telescope in the corner.
“I also have one of Danica Stewart’s objects here …
though I hesitate to touch the thing. The other council members objected to even having it in the room, so it’s been here since the incident.
According to Ms. Stewart’s advisor, her other object is Polaris, more commonly known as the North Star.
Obviously, we don’t have physical access to a celestial body, but Dr. Strauss will know more. ”
Just looking at the lone brass telescope, dark and looming in the corner, I understood her discomfort. There was something unsettling about it. Its tarnish had faded to a dusky ochre, and the Magic around it felt hollow and expectant, like a mouth open wide.
“What about the third?” I asked.
“Undiscovered, according to our records.”*
I nodded. “We’ll learn what we can.”
“Good. Well then, I trust you two to keep us apprised of the situation. I’m confident in your strength as dimidiums, in light of any potential threat.” She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with said threat, but we understood her meaning.
If, by some chance, Dani attacked us, the Magic of two people combined would always be stronger than one.
“One last thing.” She handed me a small blue journal. “The staff found this in Dani’s room. I’ve looked through it myself, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Maybe you two will find something I couldn’t. Good luck,” she said and then swept off down the hall.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DANICA STEWART
FEbrUARY 3RD [TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE MURDER]
And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. (Apostles Acts 19:19)
Facta arguebantur, dicta inpen errant.* Eh, Augustus?