Bertie had always been puzzled by Ellsbeth’s fascination with the subject. “It’smagic,” Ellsbeth had said once, trying to explain. “It’s thepoetryof the universe given rules thatwe can control! Don’t you see how extraordinary that is?” Bertie had sighed and stretched her tan legs on Ellsbeth’s bed. She was lying backward, with her head carelessly dangling off the baseboard, but she was careful not to touch her bare feet to Ellsbeth’s pillows. She must have been fifteen or so, watching on while Ellsbeth re-alphabetized her already impressive library of arcane books. Bertie’s toenails were painted green, the color of industrial waste.
“I know that it’s technically ‘magic,’ ” she said, sighing. “But really, it’s no more magical than chemistry, or…physics. And just as much math. And having to translate, like, ancient Assyrian or whatever. And for what? To move a stapler six inches to the left. You could do that just by picking it up, and then you wouldn’t have to spend four hundred dollars on distilled mercury and take three hours drawing concentric circles.”
Bertie wasn’t wrong: The field of arcane mechanicals was, by and large, expensive and impractical, with results that were seldom worth the effort, especially considering that the consequences of a millimeter’s miscalculation would be dire. There was a reason that, especiallygiven the international legal restrictions on the arcane, it was pursued almost exclusively in academia or rarefied corporate laboratories—and occasionally, by children’s entertainers applying basic transfiguratory devices to the delight of clapping toddlers. The twenty-first century had, somehow, restricted applications of arcane mechanicals to two distant, opposite realms: the most elite and esoteric, and the most inane.
But Ellsbeth didn’t care. Bertie would never understand—she came to Newlyn University as an undergraduate in order to pursue subjects comfortably beyond the reach of any class that would require her to reckon with integrals or Mersenne prime numbers—but Ellsbeth would forever be the teenager reading and rereadingThe Arcane and the Ordinary,enthralled by the fact that the pulsing matter of human existence was something with hidden rules that, with enough study, she could master.
Ellsbeth was trying to remind herself of her childhood passion for the arcane while sitting on the South Green and struggling through a paragraph in Rawlins’s assigned reading so dull that she found her eyelids drooping shut mid-sentence as if in protest. It was an academic treatise, published by the Oxford University Press several decades prior, centered on the debate over whether ancient Etruscans used pi in their rituals. To the best of Ellsbeth’s understanding, the answer was maybe, but the author found it worth six thousand words and several lengthy tangents, usually embarked on mid-sentence, in order to get there. She needed to finish it before Rawlins’s lecture.
“So it’s true.”
Ellsbeth shielded her eyes and looked up at the speaker. In a pair of high, clean riding boots and a silk blouse, Gracie Fitzwilliams stood over Ellsbeth, one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows raised. “They really let you into the program.” She gestured with one of her boots toward the pages Ellsbeth was holding. “No one would be readingThe Etruscan Understanding of Irrational Numbers as Demonstrated Through Cultural and Physical Evidence: A Debatefor fun.”
“Oh, no,” Ellsbeth said, deadpan. “This is for my book club.”
A thin smile expanded over Gracie’s face in slow motion. “I’m Gracie Fitzwilliams.”
“Ellsbeth Storer.”
“Oh, I know,” Gracie said. “We haven’t been talking about anything else.”
Ellsbeth folded the article back into her bag and pressed herself to her feet. She was several inches shorter than Gracie. “You’ve been talking about me?”
From the bright flickering in Gracie’s eyes as they ran up and down Ellsbeth’s person, Ellsbeth became aware that there was an evaluation happening in real time; Gracie had taken it upon herself to act as emissary for the other CotAA students, to scope out the interloper and report back. She imagined herself as Gracie must see her—grass stains on her jeans, unpolished and quick-bitten nails—and did her best to square her shoulders, to ensure, at least, that her posture matched her evaluator’s.
“The girl who joined the arcane arts program two weeks in, without even taking the Arcanus? How could we not?” Gracie said. “The current bet is that you have some really good blackmail on Dean Lennox. Otherwise, why would they bother?”
“Reallycompromising photos,” Ellsbeth said.
Gracie’s smile was quicker this time, almost a smirk. “So is Rawlins your adviser? Or Gallway?”
“Rawlins.”
“Well,” Gracie said, tucking a glossy strand of blond hair behind her ear. “However you did it, I’m impressed. Though don’t tell the others I said that. Priya Srinavasan—do you know her?—she’s convinced you have a thing going with Curt Ladove, and I’m not sure she’ll forgive you for that.”
“Oh, she can have him,” Ellsbeth said. There were so few graduate students in the arcane arts department that Ellsbeth found she could easily identify them on sight the way one might celebrities. They were lean, coltish types, with ink-stained fingers and round glasses. They strolled across the greens in pairs and trios, holding thick manuscripts and airs of self-satisfaction. Curt Ladove was tall and blond, favoring fleece vests and expensive shoes. They hadn’t actually met, and so Ellsbeth wondered abstractly why Priya would have ever connected them. “That prep-school, my-daddy-bought-me-a-sailboat thing never did it for me.”
“It’s like you know him already,” Gracie said. “You could give agrizzly bear a lacrosse stick and I swear Priya would blow him. So what’s your thesis on? Our proposals were due last week, did you already send yours in? I don’t see how you could have.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Ellsbeth lied. “And no, I think the department is giving me a few extra days to gather my thoughts.”
“Sure,” Gracie said. “You know, not everyone actually graduates. This program is incredibly competitive. I think most years, half the students end up dropping out before they actually get their DAA.”
“I’ve heard.”
Gracie gave Ellsbeth a frank, appraising look, as though Ellsbeth were a puzzle she wasn’t certain was worth the energy of trying to crack. “I’m hosting a little get-together for the cohort this Thursday,” she said finally. “We listen to a record all the way through and try to be the first to come up with a ritual that works with the rhythm of a song. Every time a ritual fails, you have to finish your drink. Of course, the drunker you get, the harder it is.”
“You do rituals? Out of the Practicum?” The words were out before Ellsbeth realized how they made her sound—nervous and unsophisticated. Gracie’s eyes rolled and Ellsbeth quickly amended her response. “I mean, yeah. Thank you. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll text you the address,” Gracie said, turning away as if she was already regretting extending the invitation. Ellsbeth resisted calling out after her that she had forgotten to ask for her number. If she was still invited to the party, Ellsbeth had no doubt in her mind that Gracie Fitzwilliams was the type of girl capable of finding a phone number.
It wasn’t until Gracie was halfway across the green that Ellsbeth realized they were headed to the same place—Rawlins’s lecture. And it only took a moment after that for Ellsbeth to realize that the class began in exactly three minutes, and if she was going to make it on time, she would need to race, undignified as a newborn giraffe, across the lawn. The conversation with Gracie had been unplanned and unexpectedly lengthy: Ellsbeth hadn’t managed to finish the reading.
Ellsbeth slid into the wooden classroom seat just as the old-fashioned clock on the wall struck one, her forehead beaded with sweat and her ponytail sticking to her neck. The graduate symposiums took place in the turret of the red-brick department building, in a round room that looked like a Victorian surgical amphitheater inminiature. Rawlins stood onstage before a large, empty blackboard. He gave her an imperceptible glance, the tiniest raise of an eyebrow, before turning his attention to the class.
But he had barely managed the basic greetings before Gracie’s manicured hand shot into the air.
“Professor? Obviously we have a new student in our cohort, and I had the pleasure of meeting her a little earlier. Ellsbeth?” Ellsbeth felt every pair of eyes in the room turn toward her.
