Page 21 of The Arcane Arts
The applause was robust as Rawlins stepped down from the stage. But he was not satisfied; he knew the speech was giving voice to something that was still only dimly forming inside him, and he had a long way togo.
The rest of the night,he moved through the ballroom as if he were navigating a minefield, avoiding ambush at every turn.
Academic conferences were the place where Rawlins’s star of celebrity shone most brightly. Out in the larger world, he was occasionally recognized, but he could mostly move unaccosted through the world. In the company of arcanists, however, his name and face were ubiquitously familiar, and he could feel the weight of his reputation upon each interaction. Every visiting professor who came to an eventat Newlyn would inevitably want to return home with a story about the conversation they’d had with the author ofThe Arcane and the Ordinary.Which made him the target both of fawning sycophants eager to praise his contribution to the field and of Ivory Tower skeptics who sought to embarrass him. The former had once brought him pleasure, but whatever nourishment his self-esteem used to get from the praise of strangers, that well had long since run dry.
As soon as Rawlins had gotten himself a drink, Paul Gallway appeared out of nowhere and put an arm on his shoulder, steering him over to meet a pair of “fascinating” visiting lecturers from Cambridge who turned out to be anything but. Gallway acted like he and Rawlins were the best of old pals, evidently eager to show off his closeness with Newlyn’s most well-known professor. After a few minutes of Gallway’s complaining about academic publishers, Rawlins announced that he needed a breath of fresh air and headed outside.
Fresh air, of course, meant a cigarette, which he hoped to bum from some other beleaguered smoker—but he found the balcony empty and leaned against the balustrade, breathing in the crisp night air.
“Settle for a cigar?” He turned to find Lennox approaching. Even with her pushing sixty-five, he had to concede that she looked great in a dress with a slit up the thigh. She carried two cigars, offering him one along with a lighter. “The talk was great, by the way. When you first gave it—what was that, three years ago, in Stockholm?”
“I play the hits,” he said with a shrug. “But I added a new riff to the end. How’d it work?”
“Very…vive la révolution,” she said dryly.
“Seemed to get the crowd going,” he offered. “Isn’t that what the donors want to hear?”
Lennox shook her head, exasperated. “I’m just wondering if I need to be worried about some kind of midlife crisis. Going off script…and taking on that pretty young Storer girl, despite an incomplete on the Arcanus. Out of character for you.”
Rawlins lit his cigar, puffing thoughtfully. “I thought you wanted me to take her on.”
“I wanted her out of my office, and for you to take responsibility foryour choices,” Lennox replied. “And that’s exactly what I need you to do now that you’ve let her in. Proceed with caution.”
Rawlins didn’t appreciate her tone, or her insinuation, and replied bluntly, “Maggie.Idon’t fuck my students.”
Lennox winced; it was a low blow and they both knew it, but she did not dignify the implicit accusation with a response. “I couldn’t care less about your sex life, Thaddeus. Not as long as you keep it private and don’t embarrass the university. But I do care a great deal about maintaining a safe learning environment for our students. And in that regard, you do not have a pristine track record.”
Rawlins’s lip curled instinctively, his anger starting to rise. “You really want to bring up Max with me right now? I thought I was told not to mention him to you if I valued my position and our friendship.”
“All I’m saying,” Lennox replied, “is that you were the one who tutored him. Beyond the curriculum. Beyond what he was capable of…managing. Youpushedhim. And I want to ensure that none of our arcane students are ever in a position to…do what he did.”
Rawlins knew that he should back off, to leave things be and walk away. But a numbness spread from his scalp down his neck. His field of vision narrowed, swimming black at the edges. She had opened the door, and Rawlins found himself unable to resist saying the words he had been trying not to say for so many years.
“You know, Max might not have been so lost ifhis motherhad just paid him a little attention.” Rawlins could see Lennox’s mouth opening in protest, but he barreled on. “And he might not have been convicted at all if you had been willing to stick your neck out and speak up on his behalf. Cared a little less about your reputation, and damage control for the fucking university, and a little more about your ownson.”
Her left eye twitched, a small clump of mascara spidering at its corner. Rawlins knew that he had poked at a deep wound, and it was not entirely fair.
Lennox, of course, cared immensely about Max, as any mother would; the whole affair had nearly unraveled her. While Max had begun at Newlyn, the relationship between him and the school’s dean was not even widely known, since Lennox had never taken the last name of her husband, Benjamin Keene. But within days, the presslearned the truth, and the already sensational story leapt into the stratosphere, as it was reported that the young man responsible for innocent deaths at Newlyn was the son of the dean of the College of the Arcane Arts.
Lennox had cited that prurient interest as her reason not to testify on Max’s behalf; she would never be viewed favorably by a jury, she said, when the press had already tarnished her so viciously. Surely her position of power within the university had been the reason Maxwell had been granted special treatment, why he had been granted permission to study rituals that never should have been accessed by a teenager. Rawlins suspected her refusal to testify had been more out of craven self-interest, protecting her own reputation and her position at the university. Likely, her motives involved some indecipherable combination of both reasons.
In public, Lennox had maintained a stoic façade, commenting on the “tragedy” involving her son only as proof of the necessity of a responsible approach to teaching arcane mechanicals, and requesting privacy with regard to her personal life. Still, Rawlins knew that in private, she had been beside herself, and was still traumatized by the whole affair.
So it was not without a twinge of guilt that he now impugned how much she cared about her child. But he was spoiling for a fight, and Lennox was always a worthy opponent; he expected her to lambaste him just as sharply, as she certainly had good reason todo.
Instead, she looked away wistfully and shook her head, as though she were more disappointed than angered. But Rawlins knew that look: It was cold-fusion fury, controlled and powerful. Without another word, Lennox stubbed out her cigar on the balustrade and headed inside, leaving Rawlins to consider his error.
Lennox had not been a friend in any meaningful sense for quite some time, but they hadn’t been adversaries, either. Considering that she was his boss, and that he was planning on undertaking a secret and illegal course of study with Ellsbeth Storer, it was very unfortunate timing for him to have just made Lennox his enemy.
Ellsbeth
Gracie lived in a loft with a wall of windows with glass so thick it warped the view down to the ink-dark river. After years of living in dormitories, among particleboard bookshelves and chipped IKEA consoles, Ellsbeth found Gracie’s place astonishing in its adultness, itscompleteness.Her furniture wasn’t accumulated from a rotation of latchkey roommates who left behind an end table, a dresser, a fraying couch with Rorschach-test stains. Gracie’s coffee table wasn’t cluttered with crumbs or unread magazines; it was vast and shining, mirror-clean beneath a few arcane journals and a ceramic, architectural ashtray. Her couch was black leather and low to the ground—Curt Ladove at one end, one arm casually thrown across the back of it, while Sora Burns smoked across from him, her eyes barely visible beneath her long bangs.
Ellsbeth hadn’t brought a hostess gift for Gracie, but as soon as she saw her loft, like something out of anArchitectural Digestspread, she was relieved. Anything she might have brought—a lemon loaf, a candle—would have been humiliatingly out of place, a reminder that Gracie was privy to an adult world of money and careful curation that Ellsbeth could inexpertly only playat.
“Ellsbeth,” Gracie purred as soon as she entered. Gracie embraced Ellsbeth in a half hug, enveloping Ellsbeth more in her scent (something musky and complex) than in her arms. “I’m so glad you made it. Have you met everyone yet?”
Ellsbeth knew the cohort by name, but Gracie pointed them out one by one: Curt and Sora, over on the couch. Priya Srinavasan, dark hair blown out in perfect waves, making herself a gin and tonic. Valentine Pall-Thomas and Victor Hamada were playing chess on a set that looked as though it might be made of carved ivory, both boys too deep in concentration to offer more than a raised hand of acknowledgment when Gracie said their names.
