Grace rolls onto her back, looks at the ceiling. “Maybe you should be,” she says. “Lots of sorcerers here are from families that have never shared their gifts or special strengths with the world, before now. Lots of powerful magic previously kept behind closed doors.”
And of course I’m afraid—the fear is like a living thing, breathing and humming inside me. But I can’t let it paralyze me. I need to focus on what I’m here for, why I can’t fail. Immediately the image of Ruby, standing at our door, calling “Joan! JOAN!” as Gunn’s car drove me away—it flashes like a bright, clear burst of fireworks onto my mind. “I just don’t have the luxury of being scared.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Who?”
“The little girl in your mind,” Grace says. Wait, can Grace hear my thoughts or something? So was her earlier warning about Stock, or about her? “You were thinking about her so clearly, I almost couldn’t ignore it.”
Finally I concede, “Ruby.” I roll over, suddenly feeling exhausted and exposed. “Thanks again for your help, Grace, but it’s been a long night.”
It’s quiet for a while, and I assume she’s dozed off, same as the rest of them. But then I hear, “Sorry, I—I didn’t mean to get you upset. I just . . . I know what it’s like, to be against the odds. It’s been tough for me, too, past couple days. Some of the sorcerers are small-minded, expected an all-out boys’ club. They’ve been giving me and the other girl, Rose, a lot of heat—but Rose has her brother to stick up for her,” she says. “Plus, my family’s got a bit of a . . . strange reputation around northern Virginia, which doesn’t help.” Grace’s cot squeals and squeaks as she gets comfortable. She waits a moment, then adds, “Was just trying to say this place isn’t an easy corner of the world, to try and navigate alone.”
There’s no sound but the soft chorus of snores and wheezes as her words settle around me. Maybe I’m dreaming, but it almost sounds like Grace is offering some form of friendship, or a pact. Not completely sure why she wants to team up with the likes of me, but that’s not a question I’m going to ask and give her the chance to second-guess now. Gunn’s taking exactly seven of us for some reason, a little less than half. I’ve got a crushing amount to learn to get into the top half of this crowd. And allying with a sorcerer like Grace, who can conjure snakes and delve inside minds, can only help.
“Are you suggesting we . . . team up?” I ask hopefully, as I face her.
“My family’s a superstitious lot. We specialize in signs, chance twists of fate, listen to whispers of nature,” Grace answers. “I get this strong sense about you, that you and I were meant to meet. So maybe I get your back, and you get mine.”
Her words are the first turn of fortune I’ve gotten since I stepped into Gunn’s car. “I’d like that.”
She throws me a sideways smile and rolls over. “Get some sleep, all right, Joan?”
I find myself breathing a little easier. “I will. You too.”
My body’s beyond spent from the tension, the fear, the long trek up here. So I close my eyes, ready to steal some sleep to carry me through whatever lies waiting on the other side of tomorrow. It’s only when I’m a few inches away from finally falling into darkness that I realize I never actually told Grace my name.
INTERROGATION
ALEX
I walk away from the Sigma Phi house fast and purposefully. My high from exposing the fraternity party has dulled, and now I’m left with the aftermath: an intense headache and a pull of regret. I try to keep Warren’s words—it’s like you’re trying to be your father, it’s like you can’t help it, you’re poison—out of my mind, but I keep going back to them, like an itch that refuses to quit, no matter how many times I scratch at it. Because Warren’s right. And no form or amount of apologizing is going to fix me, or the fragile friendship I just shattered on the ground.
Sorry I’m an asshole.
Sorry I’m not the man I’d like to be.
Sorry I can’t just let the past go and move on.
I cut in and out of the lively streets of Georgetown. It’s Friday night, and there’s a moon wild and hazy, drawn like a messy chalk circle on a slate slab of a sky. A recklessness teases from the shadowy alleys of O Street, college parties in full swing, and shining rooms that taunt with their quiet fronts and spellbound doors. A recklessness that whispers, Lose yourself, forget it all, if only for a night.
I force myself to ignore the whispers, follow O Street until it dumps me onto Wisconsin Avenue. Tonight was a wake-up call. I need to move on, let the past lie in its grave for good. Because despite how much I wish I could, there’s no undoing it.
As I cut up quiet Wisconsin toward its residential section, I swear I hear a scurry on the sidewalk behind me. But when I turn to investigate, there’s nothing. Just swaying trees lining the sidewalk and polished, well-kept cars parked on the road.