Chapter 52 #2
Then I watched as Basile carefully walked over to Dr. Robetresse, a million emotions flashing across his face, and his anger slipped away, replaced by a controlled, easy charm.
“Dr. Robetresse,” he said, his voice turning liquid and melodic.
More softly, “Thea. Aren’t you sick of scouring the country for professors willing to teach at Seinford and Brown?
Aren’t you sick of the measly funds coming in that barely keep the buildings from collapsing around us?
Picture it: students flocking in from all over the world, begging you to teach them, begging you to help them make their mark on history.
Imagine the most influential Magicians all over the world calling you, begging for a teaching position. Begging the Thea Robetresse.”
He turned to Ellendale, standing stiffly in the corner.
“Ellendale, it’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? What you thought was merely theoretical but couldn’t stop yourself from dreaming of all the same. I can show you how to surpass even your own reputation.”
“And, Cella,” he said, turning toward me as I opened my mouth in protest. The anger in his eyes was gone, replaced by smooth charm, the same charm that had gotten thousands of people to follow him, to tune into his posts, his videos, his math proofs.
He cast a sidelong glance at Max. “You were sick of living in someone else’s shadow, sick of being overlooked.
People told you that you couldn’t do it, that there was no way someone like you could do it.
Here’s your chance to prove them wrong.” He stroked his fingers down the side of my face. “Come with me.”
I smacked his hand away.
He grinned, and the shape took readily to his mouth.
With a sinking feeling, I realized I should have never fought him on his own turf.
He was made for this. He was made for eloquent speeches, tailor-made to pull people over to his side.
“Most Greeks believed that, upon death, you would live a shadowy and bleak existence in the underworld. Then when our teacher came, He taught that the soul was immortal, and that you could be reborn into a life similar to the one you left. He brought hope to the Greeks. And through His teachings, we are doing the same for people today, people who feel powerless, who feel lost. Just imagine. When you die, your soul will have all the control you lacked in this life. You could correct all those horrible things you saw in this world but never had the power to do anything about. Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that’s not something any of you want? ”
He turned his sculpted chin to the light, took an elegant hand and gestured all around us.
“Why fight the power that we could reach out and take? Magic has always been there, pushed to the side, belittled and scorned. Attacked and mocked by a religion that feared the threat to its power. But we were the ones who had the power all along. We hide like rats when we could be kings.”
I backpedaled, looking at Dr. Robetresse and the others, afraid they were falling for it. Ellendale stroked his chin, considering what Basile said. Dr. Nguyen’s spool of thread tangled faster and faster behind her. “He’s manipulating you,” I pleaded.
Dr. Robetresse shook her head, eyes hardening. “Why? Why unbind people from their objects? Why all of this just to get to some other world?”
“Not just some other world, the other world. The world of Being, where your soul could live on forever, influencing every action of this world for all of time. Objects fracture the soul when it needs unification to be pure for the One. Removing those limitations by unbinding is the fastest, most direct way to get to the world of Being.”
Dr. Robetresse clenched and unclenched her hands to stop their shaking, her usual calm authority knocked off balance. “You’re with Britton, then. They set you up to this? Did they want to see me fail so badly they sent some cult leader to defy me?”
“My dear, Britton could never,” he said.
“We are our own. We have existed before that silly little school was even a thought, was even a murmur. We have existed before time itself. Our one purpose is to keep safe the Book, to carry on His word. To purify the souls of the world through mathematics and His teachings.” He looked to me.
“We have kept the Book safe for centuries, and we will not stop now.” The door to the cottage swung open, showing the brothers lined up outside the door. At least thirty of them, and more still coming, all clad in black robes. A chill shot down my spine.
They drew the shape of a Y across their brows and started a low chant.
The Pythagorean Letter two ways spread,
Shows the two paths in which Man’s life is led.
One of them tipped his hood back so I could see him and grinned. Grant. I looked at Max, frowning, when the realization dropped like a stone in my stomach.
Of course.
The gruesome meme he’d posted of Maya, standing before two paths.
The curling snake symbol of snakes formed into a Y I’d seen in Basile’s office.
S joining a mystery school thousands of years ago run by a man “famed for his wisdom,” who had all these rules for initiation and prized mathematics and an understanding of the world and all its mysteries.
And the interview on the Dawn Underground, the mention of Pythagoras’s belief in “immortality of the soul” and its transmigration into a new body upon death.
“S’s teacher was Pythagoras?” I nearly whispered it, but Basile looked at me, a cold glaze over his eyes, before turning to the crowd to address them.
“Brothers! Today, you are all Mathematici! Let us not stop now, when everything we want is within reach. Danica has done it. She has ascended to the realm of immortals. And we can, too. Think of it, my brothers! To be immortal. Never forgotten. Never discounted. Never ignored.” He raised his arms in the air.
“Don’t you want them to hear you?”
They chanted in unison. “Katharí psychí!”*
He spread his arms wide, lovingly, as if embracing them all. “Danica accepted that if she died in the process, we have still given her a great gift. We have united her soul so she may live on in the beyond forever.”
“A gift?” I spat. “You’ve nearly killed her.”
Basile’s face was set in a firm line. “Dani isn’t just some poor, overlooked, under-loved girl anymore.
I made her matter. I made her a god.” He turned to the crowd again.
“And I can do the same for any of you. Power is there for all of us, if only we reach out and take it. Remember, my Mathematici, a man must be made good, then a god.”
Screams came from outside the cottage as the group tussled with students.
Grant cast a spell that threw a girl across the yard.
A freshman was surrounded by three of them, sporting a bloody nose.
Dr. Robetresse looked to the other council members and closed her eyes, summoning her Magic.
“Perez, de Vries, Nguyen, with me.” Dr. Robetresse and the council members rushed into the crowd, clashing with the brothers.
Max tackled a brother trying to rush into the room.
Besides the conduits, Basile and I were the only ones left in the room. I positioned myself between them and him.
“It’s over, Basile. You’re not getting away with this.”
He smiled, and the curl of it reminded me of smoke.
“You can’t stop us. Even Aaron believed in us.
The poor thing was so desperate for any type of belonging, we barely had to offer more than an outstretched hand.
He drank up our teachings almost as readily as you did.
Unfortunately, unlike you, he didn’t take as easily to the spell.
” He reached a hand beneath my chin and whispered, “It’s a shame that he wasn’t as strong as you. Didn’t have the stamina.”
My voice quivered. “You’re lying.”
“We couldn’t have him ratting us out, could we? Poor thing, the Magic was too much for him. I imagine it drove him to the untimely end you witnessed. Terrible waste.”
“I’ll kill you,” I whispered, my hands shaking with rage. I closed my eyes and called my Magic to me.
But before I could, something slammed into my side. Searing pain flashed against the side of my head, and the last thing I saw was Basile, looking down at me.