Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I wanted to return to the library and our research, but since the frat party, Max had harped on me nonstop about practicing together.
Other than the attempt in Maritza’s cottage, I hadn’t done Magic since I was back on campus, and Max and I hadn’t cast together at all.
Word had spread quickly of my actions at the frat party, and now it felt like every room I entered greeted me with an icy silence.
The students took off ense to my role as a “spy”—only had myself to blame for that one—and believed I’d name them as suspects if they said the wrong thing around me.
I caught whispers of rumors that I was actually an Arbiter, and other, more disturbing ones, too.
That the underwear found in Dr. Strauss’s office was mine.
That we’d had an illicit aff air, and now I was looking to pin the crime on someone else to protect him.
That I’d gone mad. I was the one who’d cast the hex on Dani and was looking for my next victim.
I had to agree with Max. Being confident in our Magic use would make me feel a lot safer here. And I had to face it sooner or later.
“Nice boots,” Max said.
“Picked up some clothes from home.”
“No shit? That’s awesome. I hope you told your mom I said hello.”
We were sitting across from each other in a little-used courtyard outside the Science building.
A peaceful spot, with a few old pavers buried in the grass, beneath the roots of a gnarled juniper that provided a little shade.
Max put his jacket down for me to sit on.
I stared at him for a moment, his throat bobbing, eyes focused on the ground.
Felt the brush and dip of his Magic—he was nervous.
I was nervous, too. It had been a long time since we’d trusted each other enough to do this.
I closed my eyes, waiting for his breathing to settle and match mine. My mind wandered. A bee buzzed past. I was reminded of another breakthrough Max and I’d had together, a short while after we’d found out we were dimidiums.
We’d been at it all night, practicing in an abandoned room in Ludlow House, and we’d finally done it.
We’d actually cast together, and I could feel his Magic surging through me.
It wasn’t perfect; we still had a long way to go, and our Magic came out in small spurts, as though from a faulty hose, but it worked.
After weeks of long nights and brutal days, pushing ourselves to the absolute brink of our strength, finally, it had worked.
“That was … fucking amazing,” he’d said, breathing hard. He broke out in a fit of exhausted, giddy laughter. “I mean, that was fucking amazing, Cella.”
“I know,” I said, beaming. Our first touch of Magic, what a head rush. I felt electric, like all my senses were on fire.
“Fuck, we’ve got to celebrate. Unless”—a rare glimpse of self-consciousness in the usually so self-assured Max—“unless you had plans?”
I shook my head. “I was going to eat Twizzlers and sneak my dog into my dorm room. It can wait.”
And he laughed again, that adorable, boisterous laugh where he gripped his sides. I loved hearing him laugh. Suddenly, I knew that if I could, I’d make him laugh, every day, for the rest of my life.
He took us to a small club near Albuquerque, dark and smoky, and the music pounded through my veins. After a couple of drinks, we could’ve been anywhere in the world and it wouldn’t have made a difference to me, as long as I was with him.
We soon found out that Magic wasn’t the only thing that worked well as dimidiums. When we danced, we moved smoothly, his hips pressing against mine, perfectly in sync. He’d drunk just enough for a buzz, to laugh that warm laugh that melted me to my core. I took another sip and looked into his eyes.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me closer, letting my hand rest on his chest. “I love this song,” he whispered.
I couldn’t look away from him. His eyes were a clear, liquid blue. A thin line of stubble ran over his chin and down his neck. “Me too.”
He put a hand on my waist and whispered in my hair, “Come here.”
He cupped my chin in his hand and tilted it up to him.
His lips were feverishly hot, parting slightly to invite me inside.
We fell into the dark, the music pumping all around us.
My legs tangled in his, his hips pressing me into the wall.
A knee slipped between my legs, and my hands looped around his waist, pulling him closer.
My dorm room afterward was a blur of hot breath on lips, flashes of his chest, and the sharp line of his hip in the sliver of light shining through the curtain. We breathed together, and one by one, more pieces of clothing slipped to the floor.
I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and yanked him close, greedy for the heat of his lips on me.
His lips traced down my neck, my shoulder, to my collarbone, and down.
All along the line to my stomach. And as we tangled together in a flurry of clothes and hot breath and sticky kisses, for once I felt clean, I felt whole, I felt safe.
“You fucking wreck me,” he said, lips against my neck.
“Are you sure we should do this?” I whispered, in between soft kisses in the moonlight. Despite how good it felt, I was afraid of what people would say, afraid of rumors and of stupid people’s talk. God, I was afraid of so many things.
And here he was, afraid of nothing.
“Fuck them. Forget about everything else except this right here. Because you and me, this is real. This is what matters.”
Now the bell outside the Science building trilled four p.m. Max frowned.
“Did you want to go first?”
I blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“Did you want to go first pulling? Or should I?”
“Oh. I can.”
I cleared my throat and tentatively reached out to his aura.
Our Magic brushed up against each other, as if we were reacquainting ourselves.
In a way, his Magic balanced mine. On my own, my Magic was dark and watery—but when we cast together, I ended up in altogether nicer locales.
Instead of at the bottom of a murky lake, seaweed clawing at my legs, I’d be on a sunny beach, splashing in tide pools, or floating down a peaceful, rolling river.
I pulled a couple of threads to me. First only two, then another and another, and gathered them in my palms. Even if my body wasn’t truly there, my mind filled it in for me.
I could feel the water trickling onto my feet, the wind lifting my air, the night sky blinking back at me.
But I wasn’t alone. In the distance—somewhere far, but not too far—were galloping horses.
They were breathing hard, writhing to get free of the leather binding their bodies. To reach me.
I remembered all of a sudden what Dr. Simmons had said about Max and me when I’d first arrived. Extraordinary, much like the law of gravitational force. The closer you are in each other’s orbit, the stronger your pull to each other.
I felt our Magic swirling and twisting and whipping around, a thousand tiny pieces of electricity firing on all my nerves.
Somewhere outside all of it, Max took a shuddering breath. “Cel.”
Too much.
“Sorry,” I murmured, my voice not sounding quite like my own.
Because while my body was in the courtyard with him, I was here, in the Magic, on a short stretch of windswept, forgotten beach, tree roots tangled in the rocks behind me.
I let some of the threads I’d pulled from him go and took a deep breath.
I scooped a palmful of water beneath me, watched with wonder as it stayed molded to the shape of my palm afterward. As if it had gone as solid as metal, the threads of Magic writhing beneath it, all lit up like stars.
“Cel,” he said again, breathing hard. “Cel, it’s too much. I’ve got to stop.”
“I can hear the galloping,” I said faintly. “What’s wrong?”
Then, like a cold wind receding, I felt him tug his threads back. The stars in the sky above me blinked out one by one, until I was left in complete darkness.
I dropped my own threads and opened my eyes. “You okay?”
But he was looking at me with a scrutinizing gaze.
“What?”
“You weren’t holding an object.”
“Oh.” I dug it out of my pocket. “Here.”
Sweat shined across his forehead. He frowned, nodding before wiping the sweat off his face with his shirt. He wearily leaned forward, and his hands shook. “I guess I’m just not used to it. It’s a lot of power; we really need to practice with it more regularly.”
“Yeah.”
He got up to get a drink of water, and I closed my eyes, willing away the cold, dark feeling I’d been left in when he’d gone. I felt it when he walked away. Just like I’d felt it every day when he was gone. Alone, in the dark. And I didn’t want to be alone. Not anymore.
I realized out here under the dry, unrelenting New Mexico sun, I felt the first clarity I had in months. I knew what Vern would say, that it was because I was here with Max. Connected to my dimidium.
Maybe he was right, and maybe he wasn’t. All I knew was that, for once, things weren’t so overwhelming. For once, things felt like they were going to be alright.
Field Journal of Luce Montgomery
My hands are shaking so badly I can hardly hold the pen, but I’ve got to get this down.
I found something.
Something terrible. Something—I have to tell someone.
I was looking for animal trails using the map from the mycologists’ network.
There were signs of a small predator in the area, scatterings of tiny bones belonging to a bird and grass tamped down by scampering bodies.
As I followed the trail farther, I noticed bits of fur and blood scraped across the grass.
It wasn’t as far from the school as I thought I would need to go.
The rocks were loose, so I had to watch my footing, but I continued down to the bottom of the canyon.
It was there I found mushrooms.
It wasn’t the right conditions for fruiting bodies, but food was food, and whatever nutrients this fungi fed on were sure to spark the interest of Agaricus cataphractus as well.
I used the small hand trowel I’d brought with me and got on my hands and knees.
I’d found plenty of decomposing animal bodies, dead birds, cats, coyotes in my line of work.
I wasn’t squeamish. But when my shovel hit bone and I caught a glimpse of long hair that didn’t belong to any animal, my scream sent the birds scattering across the sky.
I dropped the trowel right where I stood.
My only question is what now? Where do I go? Who can I go to with this? And why do the voices chanting on the breeze sound like they’re getting closer?
I’ll make for the closest building to me, the Phi Kat house. I can see it now in the distance. In the upstairs window, a light is on.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DANICA STEWART
APRIL 1ST [THE DAY OF THE MURDER]
Danica DANICA DANICAAA DANICA Danica Dani Dani
Deni Deneni Deani Deai Dead Dead DEAD DEADDEAD
DAEAD DEADDEADDEAD
we’re all a little bit monster nowadays, aren’t we?*