Gallway breathed through his nose. Behind her column, Ellsbeth was close enough to see his chest rise and fall. “I assume you think you have proof?”
Now Max laughed, a high-pitched honking laugh that became a cough halfway through. “My mother might be content to turn the other way and ignore anything that happens here because of howgenerouslyBanestooth alumni donate to the school, but that doesn’t mean the proof isn’t there. And if someone had access to the dean’s computer, and her internal files—”
“What do you want, Keene?” Gallway interrupted. Gone was the placating, condescending politeness. His voice was sharp as a poison-tipped dagger. “Because I assume you aren’t attempting to blackmail me to borrow a book.”
Maxwell squared his shoulders and made eye contact with Gallway.To Ellsbeth, he looked impossibly young, like a child. “I want the same thing I wanted eight years ago. I wantin.”
Gallway snorted. “If the ritual you’re alluding to is real—and I’m not saying it is—you would be aware that it’s only performed once every four years. If it is real, it would have already been performed just last winter for themembers of Banestooth.A group, I regret to inform you, to which you do not belong.”
“But I could’ve!” Max raised his voice, which warbled slightly. He tried to calm himself. “I was trying to impressyou allwith that thaumaturgy ritual!You saidif I could do something extraordinary I could—”
“—and you could’ve. But you didn’t do anything extraordinary. You killed three innocent students and got yourself sent to prison.”
“It was anaccident! I didn’t kill anyone on purpose!You don’t think I—”His voice sputtered and he took a breath, trying to control himself. “And how areyougoing to try to take the moral high ground here? I know what theFortunatistakes! Youkill a girlevery four years! You pick one and make one of your frat-boy croniesdateher and then you kill her. Murder! I’m right, aren’t I? Tell me I’m right!”
Ellsbeth had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. The skin on her face was hot and tight, tingling like it was crawling with insects.
Gallway didn’t reply to Max, and the boy continued. “All I want,” he said, “is the thing I was promised eight years ago. I want the ritual. I want alifeagain. A successful fucking life. I’m good enough to be in Banestooth. We both know it. I’d be the best fucking mechanist you’ve had in decades. Ishouldbe one of you.”
“We only do the ritual every four years.”
“Make a fucking exception.”
Gallway paused. He adjusted his cuff links. Ellsbeth considered whether she could sprint past them both and make it up the narrow staircase without them hearing her footsteps on the marble or the stairs. No, they would hear the door open. All she could do was wait, hiding behind the pillar and mentally counting down the minutes until her invisibility would wear off and leave her completely without armor.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Maxwell.”
Max looked away from Gallway, first toward his shoes, and then to the far wall of bookshelves, and then, unsettlingly, what seemed to be directly at Ellsbeth. It hadn’t been an hour yet; she should still be invisible. But still, he wasstaringat her.
Ellsbeth felt sweat prickling at her underarms.How is he looking at me?She could try to use the trigger word; try to keep the two men in place until she could escape. But it would require speaking, and giving up her position, and there was no guarantee that the ritual would work.
Ellsbeth built her courage, letting the word hover in the space between her brain and her tongue. But then Maxwell looked away from her.
“What if I prove myself? What if I do something extraordinary again? I’ve researched—you offer honorary memberships for ‘exceptional services to the club and its members,’ don’t you?”
Gallway sighed. “Yes, in theory, we do.”
Time was running out. Ellsbeth knew she had ten minutes—probably fewer—before she would become visible again. Her brain was a bleating siren. She forgot about taking one of the leather-bound books as proof; all that mattered was getting out. She would need to make a break for it, sprint up the stairs, as fast and quiet as she could.
Maxwell nodded his head aggressively. “Okay. Okay.”
Ellsbeth gave herself a countdown, motivating her frozen limbs to come back to life.You have to do this. Three, two, one.
“If that’s all,” Gallway said, turning away from Maxwell and toward the stairs, “I think it’s time you leave the house.”
Fuck.
The two of them walked together up the staircase and Ellsbeth held her breath as she forced herself to follow, three steps beneath them.
When Maxwell reached the basement door, he turned back again, staring at what should to him just appear as empty space. Ellsbeth stopped, and felt her heartbeat in her ears. But then Max turned and slammed the door behind him, leaving Ellsbeth alone on the pitch-black staircase.
She waited ten seconds, hopefully long enough for Gallway and Maxwell to have gone far enough down the hall that they wouldn’t notice a door opening. And then she was gone: out of the basement,down the hallway, dodging the few stirring students pouring themselves cereal and hoisting backpacks onto their shoulders. Sheflew,oblivious to the sound of her footsteps, carried by adrenaline and by a single thought:I need to talk to Rawlins.
She didn’t bother to wait for someone else to open the front door so she could slide out behind him. She opened the door and sped across the patio, down the steps, and past her salt circle. The ground had become frosty while she was inside; she was leaving footprints now, but she didn’t care. She felt her body become visible again with every step, a sensation like blood flooding into a numbed limb. And as she walked, she pulled out her phone and texted:I need to see you now. It’s important.
They were doing rituals. They were killing girls.They were the ones who killed Bertie. Curt knew Bertie—he might have even dated her. He was probably the one that killed her.
Ellsbeth’s mind whirred with a plan being formulated in real time. She could use obscuration on Curt, on Paul Gallway, on any of them. She could get them to confess. But that wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t work. Courts wouldn’t accept a confession given under the power of illegal mind-control magic. She needed to dosomething.
