The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(29)

There were eight girls in the League, of whom six were present. Emma was the only Second Year.

“I dunno,” Plum said. “I guess he drinks it.”

“He couldn’t get through a bottle a night,” Darcy said.

“He and his boyfriend then. What’s his name, it’s Greek.”

“Epifanio.” Darcy and Chelsea said it together.

Chelsea lay on the couch at the opposite end from Darcy, knees drawn up, lazily trying to mess up Darcy’s mirror tricks. It was always easier to screw up somebody else’s spell than it was to cast one yourself. That was one of the many small unfairnesses of magic.

Darcy frowned and concentrated harder, pushing back. The interference caused an audible buzz, and under the stress Darcy’s reflection twisted and spiraled in on itself.

“Stop,” she said. “You’re going to break it.”

“He’s probably got some permanent spell running that eats it up,” Emma said. “Has to feed it wine once a day. Like a virility thing.”

“Wait,” Plum said, “you’re suggesting that Wharton has a wine-powered spell going twenty-four-seven on his penis?”

“Well.” Emma flushed mauve. She’d overstepped herself in the presence of her elders and betters. “You know. He’s so buff.”

While everybody else was distracted by the question of Wharton’s virility Chelsea caused Darcy’s reflection to collapse in on itself, creepily, like it had gotten sucked into a black hole, and then to vanish altogether. In the mirror it looked like she wasn’t even there, except that the couch cushion was slightly depressed.

“Ha,” Chelsea said.

“Buff does not mean virile.” That was Lucy, a pale and intensely philosophical Finn; her tone betrayed a touch of what might have been the bitterness of personal experience. “Anyway I bet he gives it to the ghost.”

“There is no ghost,” Darcy said.

Somebody was always saying that Brakebills had a ghost. It was a thing this year—there was practically a cult around it. Emma claimed to have seen it once, watching her through a window; Wharton said he had too.

Plum secretly wanted a ghost sighting of her own, but you could never find it when you were looking for it. She wasn’t completely convinced it existed. It was like saying there used to be a League, no one could prove it either way.

“Come to that,” Chelsea said, “what does virile mean?”

“Means he’s got spunk in his junk,” Darcy said.

“Girls, please!” Plum said. “Neither Wharton’s spunk nor his junk is germane here. The question is what to do about the missing wine. Who’s got a plan?”

“You’ve got a plan,” Darcy and Chelsea said at the same time, again. The two of them were like stage twins.

It was true, Plum always had a plan. Her brain just seemed to secrete them naturally, leaving her no choice but to share them with the world around her. She had a bit of a manic streak.

Plum’s plan was to take advantage of what she perceived to be Wharton’s Achilles’ heel, which was his pencils. He didn’t use the school-issued ones, which as far as Plum was concerned were entirely functional and sufficient unto the day: deep Brakebills blue in color, with BRAKEBILLS in gold letters down the side. But Wharton didn’t like them—he said they were too fat, he didn’t like their “hand-feel.” The lead was mushy. He brought his own from home instead, very expensive ones.

In truth Wharton’s personal pencils were remarkable: olive green and made from some hard, oily, aromatic wood that released a waxy aroma reminiscent of distant exotic rainforest trees. The erasers were bound in rings of a dull-gray brushed steel that looked too industrial and high-carbon for the task of merely containing the erasers, which were, instead of the usual fleshy pink, a light-devouring black. He kept them in a flat silver case like a cigarette case, which also contained (in its own crushed-velvet nest) a little knife that he used to keep them sharpened to wicked points.

Plus he must have been into debate or academic decathlon or something in some earlier stage of his life, because he was always doing these pencil-tricks with them, of the kind generally used to intimidate rival mathletes. He did them constantly, unconsciously and apparently involuntarily. It was annoying.

Plum’s plan was for the League to steal the pencils and hold them for ransom, the ransom being an explanation of what the hell Wharton did with all that wine, along with a pledge to stop doing same. By 11:30 that night the League was yawning, and Darcy and Chelsea had restored Darcy’s reflection and then begun wrangling with it all over again, but the groundwork had been laid. The plan had been fully explained, fleshed out, approved, improved, and then made needlessly complex. Cruel, curly little barbs had been added to it, and all roles had been assigned.

It was rough justice, but someone had to enforce order at Brakebills, and if the faculty didn’t then the League’s many hands were forced. The administration might turn a blind eye, if it chose, but the League’s many eyes were sharp and unblinking.

Darcy’s image shivered and blurred, trapped between spell and counterspell like a teacup in a vise.

“Stop it,” Darcy said, really annoyed now. “I told you—”

She had told her, and now it did: the mirror broke with a loud sharp tick, like one forward increment of a clock’s works. A shatter-white star appeared in the lower right-hand corner of the glass, surrounded by concentric rings and spreading fracture-tendrils. For some reason it made Plum uncomfortable—for a moment she felt like the little room was a bathysphere that had reached crush depth, the windows were cracking, and the cold, heavy, mindless ocean was about to come pouring in . . .