The Oxford Inheritance (11 page)

“Sound away.” Cassie smiled, glad to see Evie's cheeks flushed with determination and the haunted look in her eyes replaced with something livelier. Although the skies outside were cloudy and wet, the attic was bright with lamplight, and with such a bustle of life and activity now filling the small apartment, the dark terrors of night seemed like a distant dream.

Leaving the food packages on the table, Cassie drifted closer to the table, seeing photocopies of old documents and curled, typewritten pages. “I found some papers by an undergrad from years ago,” Evie explained. “She was looking at the myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the School of Night, but she led me to a whole new cache of
documents. Well, new old. They've been sitting down in the vaults for decades, can you believe it? If it wasn't for that break-in the other week, nobody would have remembered they were even down there.”

“I'm glad you found something useful.” Cassie hid her smile.

“Not yet, but I will.” Evie exhaled, looking around at her piles of notes. “Eventually.” She shook her head swiftly, as if to snap out of the contemplative mood, and wandered over to the kitchen. “Ooh, you got food. Thanks so much!”

“No problem.” Cassie joined her, pulling down plates from the drying rack and unpacking the wedge of paper napkins. Her breakfast sandwich was still warm, oozing ketchup and the vinegary brown sauce Cassie had become so attached to since arriving in England. “I ran into Olivia,” she remembered. “And this other girl too, Paige.”

“You did?” Immediately, Evie brightened. “Aren't they the best?”

Cassie nodded slowly. “They said they hoped you felt better.”

“They're just great. I can't believe we only just met this term; we have a ton of people in common.”

Cassie was surprised. “You seem so close, I assumed you guys went way back.”

“I know, right?” Evie took another bite. “That's how it is sometimes, I suppose—you run into someone here and find out they spent their summers in the next villa along, and their sister dated your best friend from riding camp.”

Not for everyone. Cassie thought back to her friends and neighbors in Indiana. She wasn't likely to meet any of them here, so far away.

After their lunch, Evie bent her head over a thick stack of essays, and
Cassie returned to her philosophy essay, cozy in the attic as the rain slashed against their windows. But only a couple of hours had passed when Evie's phone sounded with a chirp. She glanced at the screen, and then snatched it up. “Hi you,” she breathed, voice low and intimate.

Cassie tried to focus on her books. It was Hugo—she could tell from the delight in Evie's voice and the coy giggle she sounded in response to whatever he said. “I can't,” she murmured, wavering. “I have to work . . . No, you know I can't . . . I have that outline due, remember?” As Cassie watched, Evie blushed, biting her lip in indecision. “Hugo, I can't. No . . . Without me? You wouldn't . . .” Finally she laughed. “Okay, all right. I'll be down in ten.” She snapped the phone shut and leaped up. “They're going down to London,” she explained. “It's Miles's birthday.”

“What about the outline?” Cassie asked. “Another late night, after what happened . . . ? You need your rest.”

“I feel fine,” Evie insisted, already heading for her room. “Hugo says we won't be out too late. One or two at the most. And he really wants me there . . .” Her face slipped into the secret smile again, and Cassie knew there would be no stopping her.

“Have fun,” Cassie told her, accepting defeat. “Think of me, working the night away, while you're off sipping champagne.”

Evie laughed, and soon she was out the door, leaving Cassie alone for the evening. The rain continued its soothing drum against the attic windows, and she read on.

“. . . SO DESCARTES'S ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE A BENEVOLENT
God with errors in human judgment are fundamentally flawed, and his reliance on faulty interaction between understanding and will cannot support his larger argument.”

Cassie lowered her paper and took a deep breath, trying to calm her fluttering nerves. She was back in Tremain's study, and all the attention was on her. She'd gone overboard preparing: proofreading her essay three times and submitting it well before the six
P.M.
deadline. This morning she'd arrived, alert and neatly dressed, long before the nine o'clock bells began to chime, carrying a freshly printed copy to read aloud. She'd even declined the begrudging offer of a cup of espresso, for fear of knocking it to the floor and doing irreparable damage to the antique rug. Now she waited, looking to Tremain for some indication of approval, any reaction at all.

The professor scribbled a note in his leather-bound file and gave the slightest of nods. “Mr. Rhodes?”

Sebastian raised his head from the Moleskine notebook that, from her angle, Cassie could see was hollowed to contain a slim phone. Julia sat across from them, but as usual remained silent. Sebastian had barely glanced over as Cassie read, instead absorbed by whatever he was surreptitiously reading on-screen. “Well, clearly he didn't have a leg to stand on.”

There was a pause. “Would you care to expand on that?” Tremain prompted.

Sebastian shrugged. “They were all pretty much stuck, weren't they? I mean, as long as you try and bring God into the equation, everything else falls apart. There's an irony to it, really: all these men going on about certain knowledge and fact, and then wiping it all away with their ancient ideas about God.”

“You find the two incompatible?” Tremain raised an eyebrow.

“Not just me, all of the analysis.” Sebastian lifted his lip in a superior sneer. “For supposedly smart men, they were all rather stupid. Why bother wading through all that history if it all relies on a faulty premise?”

Cassie happened to be looking at Professor Tremain as Sebastian spoke and saw the change in his expression, an almost-imperceptible stiffening of his jaw. “Is that how you feel about our curriculum?” Tremain asked, his voice quiet. “A waste of your precious time?”

Sebastian seemed to realize his mistake. “I . . . no, I was just saying, I mean . . .” He blustered, finally lost for words.

Tremain regarded him coolly. “Perhaps your classmates agree? Miss Jessops? Miss Blackwell?”

Julia slouched lower in her seat, shaking her head, eyes wide.

“I don't,” Cassie said, her voice clear in the small room. “Even if their arguments were flawed, they're a reflection of the era. We're looking at the evolution of the debate here,” she added, with a look to Sebastian. “You can't just take what we know now and cast off everything that came before. That doesn't tell you anything about how we got here, how the arguments developed. It's all nothing without context.” Cassie kept her tone controlled, but there was a special fervor to her voice. “Nobody—not ideas, or people, or things—exist as their pure current state; everyone and everything is the product of their past. Acting like that doesn't matter is willfully naive at best.”

Sebastian's face darkened, but Tremain let out a chuckle. “Well said, Miss Blackwell,” he said, and Cassie felt a wave of relief. “Now, Mr. Rhodes, you're excused.”

Sebastian startled, and even Julia looked up from her notes in shock. “What?”

“From the tutorial.” Tremain let his gaze slide across to him. “Since discussing flawed reasoning holds no interest for you, I think it's best you leave. Perhaps you can study Miss Blackwell's essay and return next week more willing to participate.”

Sebastian flushed, an angry mottled color. He opened his mouth as if to protest, and then closed it again. Shooting Cassie a look of pure venom, he grabbed his coat and strode to the door. His footsteps echoed angrily down the staircase.

Professor Tremain waited until the sound had faded, then lifted his copy of Cassie's essay, stone-faced again. “Miss Blackwell, let's discuss your points about limitless will. I have some issues with your theories on dual faculty reasoning . . .”

Cassie made it through the tutorial with her nerves—and scholarship—
intact. Although Tremain tried to trip her up with questions, she was able to keep it together and defend her essay until at last the college bells rang out, signaling the end of the session.

“Your structure is still sloppy,” Tremain added as a final word, passing her back the essay that was now covered in red marks. “We don't have time to play catch-up with you every week.”

Cassie gritted her teeth and held back her retorts until she was safely out of the room.

“He's not always like this,” Julia offered, as they made their way downstairs. “He's the nice one. At least, he used to be. I don't know what's happened this year.”

Cassie watched as Julia scurried away. Just her luck. Cassie sighed, crossing the courtyard and ducking into the mail room, brushing past a girl who came bolting out of the room at full speed. “Hey,” Cassie protested, but the girl was already gone, the brim of her winter cap pulled low over her eyes.

Cassie found her pidge and sorted though the mail, still thinking about Tremain and his inscrutable glare. Flyers, society leaflets—and a photograph.

She stopped, her breath freezing in her chest.

It was her mother, Joanna.
No,
Cassie corrected herself,
Margaret;
she was wearing a formal gown, arms linked with another girl, flanked by two boys in tuxedos. They were posing at a dinner table set with silver and polished goblets, in a room somewhere with portraits on the wall.

Cassie turned the photo over, her heart racing.

Black is the badge of hell, the hue of dungeons, and the school of night.

She felt a shiver of fear. Then it hit her: there was no envelope, no address on the photo. Somebody had delivered it in person. Somebody who knew the truth about who she was—and what she was looking for.

Her secret was out.

Cassie rushed straight to the Radcliffe library. She found Elliot in the
back room cataloging returns. “Did you send this to me?” she demanded, putting the photo on the desk in front of him.

Elliot barely glanced at it. “Nope,” he replied, distracted. “Say, are you free for a shift this afternoon? I know we haven't done the paperwork yet, but I'm snowed under.”

“Are you sure it wasn't you?” Cassie asked again. “Elliot, look. Does this look familiar at all?”

The panicked note in her voice made him look up properly this time. “I've never seen that. But it's Margaret, right?” Elliot studied her, curious. “What's going on? Where did you find it?”

Cassie quickly caught her breath, trying to sound calm. “Someone put it in my mail. It must have been one of my other friends, that's all.”

Elliot gave her a look, as if he was unconvinced, but didn't press. He flipped the photo over and read the back. Then he sounded a laugh. “Somebody's big on intrigue.”

“What?” Cassie asked. “Where's that from? I don't know what it means.”

Elliot slid his wheeled desk chair across the floor. “Here . . .” He clicked through on the computer, loading a search site. A moment later, the same quote appeared on-screen. “It's from
Love's Labour's Lost
. Meant to refer to Sir Walter Raleigh and his cabal of dastardly atheists.”

“You mean the founders of the college?” Cassie asked, recognizing the names listed on-screen. “My roommate is doing her research into them. She says they were at the forefront of all the big advances of the time. An intellectual group.”

“Or, as many think, a corrupt secret society who ruled the country through scurrilous means,” Elliot said, smirking.

“You don't sound convinced.”

“Do I think a group of intellectuals hung out in the sixteen hundreds, chatting about God and literature? Yes.” Elliot gave her a look over the rims of his black square-framed spectacles. “Do I think they were an all-powerful secret society whose influence still runs the country today? Not so much.”

Cassie perched on a bench nearby. “People think the School of Night is still around?”

“Rumors and legend.” Elliot shrugged dismissively, turning back to his card catalog. “If Oxford held even half the secret societies people say it does, you and I and every person in the city would have to be a member. Don't get me wrong, there are groups around,” he added. “Drinking societies, so-called secret groups. But they're just excuses for overprivileged children to dress up and prance around with secret code words. The real power you need to worry about is out in full sight.” He nodded toward the bulletin board of flyers on the wall behind her, covered with political campaign ads for the upcoming Oxford Union elections.

“But the photo.” Cassie tried to focus his attention back on the most important thing. “Do you think Margaret had something to do with one of these societies? This School of Night?” She stared closely at the
photo, trying to distinguish some new clue from the frozen scene. The students were wearing their formal robes, but she didn't recognize the paintings behind them, so they weren't in the Raleigh dining hall.

Elliot plucked the photo out of her hands. “That's stretching a little. Odds are, they were just palling around with some rich bastards.”

“But those are the people who would be part of a secret society, aren't they?” Cassie's mind ticked on, pulling apart the puzzle. “Groups like that wouldn't advertise if they were really powerful. It's supposed to be a secret.”

“And therein lies the conundrum.” Elliot laughed. “How do you know which drunken idiots are just pissing away the family fortunes, and which are secretly running the world?”

He kept working, scanning bar codes for returned books, but Cassie thought carefully. “Well, groups like this are always hereditary, right? Legacy students, passed down from generation to generation. They don't just invite anyone, they keep things private, to their own kind.”

“I guess.” Elliot shrugged, not taking it seriously. “Welcome to the joys of the British class system.”

Cassie drummed her fingertips on the pockmarked old desk. “So how do I find out more about this School of Night?”

Elliot sighed. “You really want to track them down? Find a group of the most obnoxious rich bastards in this whole place. Odds are it'll be them.”

“Elliot,” Cassie protested. “I'm serious.”

“I know you are, but this is just someone messing with you,” Elliot insisted. “If you want to know more about your Margaret, just call up her old classmates and ask. You don't need to go chasing after conspiracy theories. Now, do you want to help with these returns? I was supposed to be done already, but
someone's
been distracting me.”

Cassie stayed until evening, helping
Elliot and working on her own stud
ies. She decided to take his advice and use the class rolls to try and
track down Margaret's old classmates. It was a risk, especially now that somebody knew she was looking for Margaret, but Cassie told herself she was being paranoid. She needed the information, and there was no harm in seeing if anyone remembered anything. They'd scattered by now, some as far afield as China and Australia, but a few were still living in London and even Oxford itself. She sent a short e-mail, explaining she was a friend of the family looking to talk about Margaret's time in college; hopefully at least a few of the former students would reply.

By the time she arrived back at Raleigh, it was almost dinnertime, and students were making their way in the direction of the grand dining hall, decked out in their flowing black formal robes. Twice a week Raleigh hosted a “formal hall”—a lavish three-course meal complete with wait service and wines, for which ceremonial robes and RSVP payment was required. Cassie had never attended, but she knew it was popular with the other students, who enjoyed inviting visiting family or friends from neighboring colleges and dressing up in their fancier clothing. They would gather in some of the event rooms for cocktails beforehand, and often afterward too, tipsy laughter echoing late into the night.

When Cassie walked in the door, Evie was getting ready to leave, fixing on a pair of sparkling diamond earrings and shimmying her feet into a pair of heels. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “I've been waiting for you. When will you get a cell phone, like everyone else?”

“Sorry,” Cassie apologized, setting down her bag. “What's up?”

“Formal hall at Merton,” Evie announced, naming a college nearby. “We've got a spare ticket, want to come? It'll be fun, I promise.”

“I don't know . . .” Cassie was already shaking her head.

“You're always promising to come out with me, and you never do,” Evie told her, mocking a pout. “Olivia was asking after you.”

Cassie paused. “Olivia will be there?”

“The whole gang.” Evie nodded, slipping a lipstick into her jeweled clutch. “What do you say?”

Cassie thought fast. She wanted to talk to Evie about her research into Raleigh and the rest of the School of Night. Despite Elliot's denials, she wasn't so sure that this society was just a rumor; somebody had slipped the photo into her mailbox for a reason, and if the group still existed . . . If her mother had been involved with one of Oxford's most elite secret societies . . .

There were too many questions whirling around her mind, shadows and possibilities, but Cassie knew she wasn't going to discover the truth holed up alone in her garret or cloistered in the library. She needed access to the most exclusive social circles in the city for her answers. And there were none more exclusive than the Mandevilles and their clique.