Ninth House

²⁴ Winter

The plan was trickier than Alex had anticipated. The mirror would fool the guards they encountered but not the cameras in the jail.

Dawes came to the rescue with an actual tempest in a teapot. Alex hadn’t thought Darlington was being literal when they’d walked through the bizarre basement of Rosenfeld Hall, but apparently back in their heyday, St. Elmo’s had managed all kinds of interesting magic.

“It’s not just the vessel,” Dawes explained to Alex and Turner the next day, standing at the counter in the kitchen at Il Bastone, a golden teapot and jeweled strainer before her. “It’s the tea itself.” She carefully measured out dried leaves from a tin stamped with the St. Elmo’s crest, a sinister little design referred to as “the goat and boat.”

“Darlington said they’re campaigning for a new tomb,” Alex said.

Dawes nodded. “Losing Rosenfeld Hall broke them. They’ve been petitioning for years, claiming all sorts of new applications for their magic. But without a nexus to build over, there’s no point to a new tomb.” She poured the water over the leaves and set the timer on her phone. The lights flickered. “Make the brew too strong and you could short the grid for the entire Eastern Seaboard.”

“Why are the tombs so important?” Turner asked. “This is just a house and you’re standing there… working magic.” He ran his tongue over his teeth as if he didn’t like the taste of the word.

“Lethe House magic is spell-and object-based, borrowed enchantments, very stable. We don’t rely on rites. It’s why we can keep the wards up. The other societies are trafficking with far more powerful forces—telling the future, communicating with the dead, altering matter.”

“Big magic,” said Alex.

Turner leaned back against the counter. “So they have machine guns and you’re working with a bow and arrow?”

Dawes looked up, startled. She rubbed her nose. “Well, more like a crossbow, but yes.”

The timer sounded. Dawes swiftly removed the strainer and poured the tea into a thermos. She handed it to Alex. “You should have about two hours of real disruption. After that…” She shrugged.

“But you’re not going to knock the power out, right?” Turner asked. “I don’t want to be at a jail when all the lights go down.”

“Aw, look how far you’ve come!” Alex said. “Now you’re worried about magic being too powerful.”

Dawes tugged at her sweatshirt sleeves, the surety she’d displayed while caught up in brewing the tea evaporating. “Not if I got it right.”

Alex took the thermos and stowed it in her satchel, then yanked her hair into a tight bun. She’d told Mercy she had a job interview as an excuse to borrow her fancy black pantsuit.

“I hope you get the job,” Mercy had said, and hugged Alex so tight it felt like her bones were bending.

“I hope I get it too,” Alex had replied. She’d been happy to play dress-up, happy to have this adventure to fill the hours, regardless of the danger. The new-moon rite had felt distant, impossibly far off, but tonight it would happen. She was having trouble thinking about anything else.

She checked her phone. “No signal.”

Turner did the same. “Me neither.”

Alex turned on the little television that sat above the breakfast nook. Nothing but static. “A perfect brew, Dawes.”

Dawes looked pleased. “Good luck.”

“I’m about to commit career suicide,” said Turner. “Let’s hope we’ve got more on our side than luck.”

The drive to the jail was short. No one there knew Alex, so she didn’t have to worry about being recognized. She made a perfectly reasonable assistant in her borrowed corporate drag. Turner was another matter. He’d had to pop by the courthouse that morning to bump into Lance Gressang’s attorney and secure his visage in the compact.

They passed through security without incident.

“Stop looking at the cameras,” Alex whispered as she and Turner were escorted down a dingy hallway lit by buzzing fluorescents.

“They look like they’re working.”

“The power is on, but they’re just recording static,” Alex said with more confidence than she felt. The thermos was tucked into her bag, its weight resting reassuringly against her hip.

Once they were inside the meeting room, they’d be safe at least. There was no video or audio recording allowed in a conference between an attorney and his client.

Lance was seated at the table when they entered. “What do you want?” he said when he caught sight of Turner, who had pocketed the compact after flashing it at the scowling guard.

“You’ve got one hour,” the guard said. “Don’t push it.” Gressang shoved back from the table, looking from Turner to Alex. “What the fuck is this? Are you two working together?”

“One hour,” the guard repeated, and locked the door behind him.

“I know my rights,” Gressang said, standing. He looked even bigger than he had at the apartment, and his bandaged hand didn’t do much to put Alex at ease. She had made it her business not to get trapped in small spaces with men like Lance Gressang. You didn’t want to be the only thing in sight when their moods went sour.

“Sit down,” said Turner. “We need to have a conversation.”

“You can’t talk to me without my lawyer.”

“You walked through a wall yesterday,” said Turner. “That in the penal code?”

Lance looked almost sheepish at the accusation. He knows he’s not supposed to be using portal magic, Alex thought. And he most definitely wasn’t supposed to be seen doing it by a cop. Lance had no way of knowing that Turner was associated with the Houses of the Veil.

“Sit down, Gressang,” Turner repeated. “You might be glad you did.”

Alex wondered if Lance would just pop a mushroom in his mouth and vanish through the floor. But slowly, sullenly, he dropped back into his seat.

Turner and Alex took chairs opposite him at the table. Lance’s jaw set and he jutted his chin toward Alex. “Why were you at my place?”

My place. Not our place. She said nothing.

“I’m trying to find out who killed Tara,” said Turner.

Lance threw up his hands. “If you know I’m innocent, why don’t you get me out of this shithole?”

“ ‘Innocent’ is a big word for what you are,” Turner said in that same pleasant, condescending tone he’d used on Alex just a few days ago. “Maybe you’re innocent of this particular bit of brutality, and if that’s the case it will be my great pleasure to make sure the murder charge against you is vacated. But right now what I want to convey to you is that no one knows we’re here. The guards all think you’re chatting with your lawyer, and what you need to absorb is that we can do whatever we want.”

“Am I supposed to be afraid?”

“Yes,” said Turner. “You are. But not of us.”

“Hey, he can be afraid of us,” said Alex.

“He can, but he has bigger problems to worry about. If you didn’t kill Tara, then someone did. And that someone is just waiting to lay hands on you too. Right now you’re a useful scapegoat. But for how long? Tara knew things she wasn’t supposed to, and maybe you do too.”

“I don’t know shit.”

“I’m not the one you need to convince. You’ve seen what these people can do. Do you think that they care about wiping away a little shitstain like you? Do you think they will hesitate to eradicate you or your friends or that entire neighborhood if it will help them sleep a little better at night?”

“People like you and me don’t matter,” said Alex. “Not when we stop being useful.”

Lance placed his injured hand gingerly on the table and leaned forward. “Who the fuck are you?”

Alex held his gaze. “I’m the only person who thinks you didn’t kill Tara. So help me figure out who did before Turner loses patience, shuffles me out that door, and leaves you to rot.”

Lance’s eyes darted back and forth between Alex and Turner. At last he said, “I didn’t hurt her. I loved her.”

Like those things couldn’t go hand in hand. “When did you start working with Sveta Myers?”

Lance shifted in his seat. He obviously didn’t like that they knew that name. “I don’t remember. Two years back? Tara went up there for a plant sale, got to chatting with her. They got on real good, talking about community gardening and shit. We sold to her for a while, then we started growing with her, giving her a cut.”

“Tell us about the Merity,” Alex said.

“The what?”

“You weren’t just growing cush. What did you grow for Blake Keely?”

“That model guy? He was always sniffing around Tara, flashing cash like he’s a celebrity. I can’t stand that asshole.”

Alex didn’t know how she felt about finding common ground with Lance Gressang.

“What were you growing for him?” Turner pushed.

“It wasn’t for him. Not at first. We were selling green to his frat for a while—none of this shit is admissible, all right? It’s all off the record?” Turner waved him on. “Nothing special. Dime bags, twenty bags. The usual shit. Then this year, this girl Katie shows up—”

Alex sat forward. “Kate Masters?”

“Yeah. Blond, real cute, but kinda butch?”

“Tell me more about your taste in women.”

“Really?”

“No, you ass. What did Katie want?”

“She wanted to know where we were growing and if Tara could make some space at the greenhouses for something new. Some medicinal shit, had all these specific rules about moisture or I don’t know what. Tara got real into working on it with Sveta. Took a minute but eventually it started growing pretty well. I tried some of it once. Didn’t even give me a buzz.”

Jesus. Lance Gressang had gotten his hands on Merity and he hadn’t even known it. When Alex thought of the damage he might have done if he’d realized the control it could give him over others… But someone else had gotten there first.

“You thought it was worthless,” said Alex. “A shit buzz. So you sold it to Blake.”

“Yeah,” Gressang said, grinning.

“And what did you think when he came back for more?”

Gressang shrugged. “Happy to take his money.”

“Did Kate Masters know you sold Merity to Blake?”

“Nah, she was real uptight. Told us it was poisonous and whatever, not to mess with it. I knew she’d be pissed if she found out. But Blake kept hitting us up for more, and then he brings this other guy around who wants to know if we can get mushrooms.”

“Who?” Turner asked Lance. But Alex already knew what Lance was going to say.

Lance wriggled in his seat. He looked uneasy, almost scared.

“It was Colin Khatri, wasn’t it?” said Alex. “From Scroll and Key.”

“Yeah. He…” Lance leaned back. The bravado had gone from him. He looked at the wall as if expecting to find some kind of answer there. The clock was ticking, but Alex and Turner stayed quiet. “I didn’t know what we were starting.”

“Tell me,” said Turner. “Tell me how it began.”

“Tara was at the greenhouses all the time,” Lance said haltingly. “Coming home late, staying up to try mixing shit, putting the mushrooms together with I don’t know what. She had this little yellow dish Colin gave her. Called it her witch’s cauldron. Colin couldn’t get enough of the tabs she made. He kept coming back for more.”

“Tabs?” asked Turner. “I thought you were dealing with mushrooms.”

“Tara distilled that shit down. It wasn’t acid. I don’t know what it was.” Lance rubbed his good hand up his other arm, and Alex could see his skin had puckered with goosebumps. “We wanted to know what Colin was using it for, but he was real cagey about it. So Tara’s like, guess I won’t be cooking for you guys anymore.” Lance held his hands out like he was pleading with Alex. “I told her. I told her to just leave it alone, just keep taking Colin’s cash.”

“But it wasn’t enough,” Alex said. Rather die than doubt. Tara had sensed something big at play and she’d wanted to be part of it. “So what happened?”

“Colin caved.” Alex couldn’t tell if he sounded more smug or regretful. “One weekend, he and his buddies come get us at the apartment. We all take the tabs Tara made and then they blindfold us and take us into this building, this room. It was real pretty, with these screens with, like, Jewish stars on them, and the roof was open so you could see the skies.” Alex had been in that room the night of the failed Locksmith ritual, when they’d tried to get to Budapest. Had they staged the whole thing knowing it wouldn’t work without Tara’s tabs? “We stand in a circle at this round table and they start chanting in, like, I don’t know, Arabic maybe and the table just… opens up.”

“Like a passage?” asked Turner.

Lance was shaking his head. “No, no. You don’t understand: There was no bottom. It was night down there—some other night—and night up top, our night. It was all stars.” There was real awe in his voice. “We walked through and we were standing on a mountaintop. You could see for miles. It was so clear you could see the bend in the horizon. It was incredible. I was sick as shit the next day, though. And, God, we smelled. It didn’t wash off for days.” Lance sighed and said, “I guess it just went on from there. Colin and that whole crew wanted Tara to keep cooking up her stuff for them. We wanted to keep tripping. Tara wanted to see the world. I only wanted to fuck around. We went to the Amazon, Morocco, those hot pools in Iceland. We went to New Orleans for New Year’s. It was like the best video game ever.” Lance released a little laugh. “Colin couldn’t figure out how Tara was mixing the shit. He acted like he thought it was funny, but I could tell it pissed him off.”

Alex tried to reconcile this Colin—greedy, jealous, tripping with drug dealers—with the ambitious, perfectly groomed boy she’d seen at Belbalm’s house. Where had he thought this would end?

“How did Blake and Colin know each other?” Alex asked. She couldn’t imagine them hanging out.

Lance shrugged. “Lacrosse or some shit?”

Lacrosse. Colin seemed so distinctly un-jocklike it was hard to picture. Had he seen one of Blake’s nasty little videos and recognized Merity the way Alex had? The Locksmiths’ magic had started to fail. The nexus beneath their tomb wasn’t working anymore and they were desperate for ways to open portals. And Colin—bright, friendly, polished Colin—hadn’t reported what Blake had been doing with the Merity. He hadn’t stopped him from hurting girls. Instead, he’d seized an opportunity for himself and his society.

“What about Tripp Helmuth?” said Turner. It felt strange to ask about rosy-cheeked, good-vibes-only Tripp, but Alex was glad he wasn’t ruling anyone out.

“Who?”

“Rich kid,” said Alex, “sailing team, always seems to have a tan?”

“That could be a lot of guys around Yale.”

Alex didn’t think he was playing dumb, but she couldn’t be sure.

“The other day you opened a portal in the jail,” said Turner.

“I had a tab on me when you guys picked me up.” Lance grinned. “Plenty of places to stash something that small.”

“Why not just escape?” asked Turner. “Go to Cuba or something?”

“What the fuck would I do in Cuba?” Lance asked. “Besides, you can’t portal big distances from anywhere but the table.”

He meant the tomb. Scroll and Key still needed the nexus. Tara’s tabs weren’t enough on their own.

“Wait,” said Alex. “You wasted your only tab going back to your apartment?”

“I thought I could get some cash, maybe make a run for it or get something to trade in here, but your asshole cops had tore the whole place apart.”

“Why didn’t you just portal to the tomb—the table—and then go wherever you wanted?”

Lance blinked. “Shit.” He slumped back in his chair. “Shit.” He trained his gaze on Alex. He looked impossibly mournful. “You’re going to help me, right? You’re going to protect me?”

Turner stood. “Keep your head down, Gressang. As long as you look like you’re taking the fall, you should be safe in here.”

Alex expected Lance to protest, try to bargain, maybe even threaten them. Instead, he just sat there, his big body frozen like a stone idol beneath the fluorescent lights. He didn’t say a word when Turner knocked on the door and the guard came to fetch them, didn’t look up when they left. He’d been to the jungles of the Amazon, explored the markets of Marrakesh. He’d seen into the mysteries of the world, but the mysteries of the world had taken no notice of him, and after all of it, he’d still ended up here. The doors had closed. The portals too. Lance Gressang wasn’t going anywhere.

Turner and Alex rode back to campus in silence, the Dodge’s heater cranked up against the bitter cold. She texted Dawes to let her know they were in the clear and that she’d be at Black Elm by eight at the latest, then slipped off the pumps she’d borrowed from Mercy. They were a half size too small and her feet were killing her.

It wasn’t until they were exiting the highway that Turner said, “Well?”

“I think we may have more motives than we started with.”

“I’m not taking Gressang off the table. Not until we can put someone else at the scene. But Colin Khatri and Kate Masters are looking a lot more interesting.” He tapped his gloved hands on the wheel. “It’s not only Colin and Kate, though, is it? It’s all of them. All the little children in their robes and hoods pretending they’re wizards.”

“They’re not pretending.” But Alex knew exactly what he meant. Colin was the most direct connection between Scroll and Key and Tara, but all of the Locksmiths had shared their rituals with outsiders and hidden the truth from Lethe. If Tara had become a danger to the society, any one of them could have decided to shut her up. It also didn’t seem likely Kate Masters had opted to go rogue from Manuscript. Alex remembered what Mike Awolowo had said about the rarity of the drug. Maybe they’d all thought they could cut out their Khingan Mountain supplier and start growing their own. He’d seemed genuinely surprised that the Merity had gotten out, but that could have been an act.

“Who do you like for this?” Turner asked.

Alex tried not to show her surprise. Turner might just be using her as a sounding board, but it felt good to be asked. She wished she had a better answer.

Alex flexed her aching feet. “Any member of Manuscript could have used a glamour to make Tara think she was meeting Lance. Plus if Keys relied on Tara for the secret sauce, why would they want her dead? Their magic has been a mess the last few years. They needed her.”

“Unless she was pushing too hard,” said Turner. “We have no idea what her relationship with Colin was really like. We don’t even know exactly what was in those tabs of hers. We aren’t talking about magic mushrooms anymore.”

That was true. Maybe Colin the chem whiz hadn’t liked being shown up by a town girl. And Alex doubted anyone in Scroll and Key liked being blackmailed into sharing their rites. It was also possible someone had cracked Tara’s recipe and decided they didn’t want her around anymore.

“Colin Khatri had an alibi that night,” Alex said. “He was at Belbalm’s salon.”

“You’re telling me he couldn’t just open up a convenient little portal, pop through, kill Tara, be back before anyone noticed?”

Alex wanted to smack herself. “Smart, Turner.”

“It’s almost like I’m good at my job.”

Alex knew she should have thought of it herself. Maybe she would have if she wasn’t too busy hoping Colin wasn’t involved in the worst of this, that her perfect, promising summer with Belbalm could remain untouched by the ugliness of Tara’s murder.

Turner steered the car up Chapel and pulled in at the Vanderbilt gates. She saw North hovering by the steps to her entryway. How long had he been waiting? And had he found Tara on the other side? With a shiver, she realized he’d been killed—or killed pretty Daisy and himself—only blocks from where she was sitting.

“What would you say if I told you there’s a ghost outside my dorm?” asked Alex. “Right there in the courtyard?”

“Honestly?” asked Turner. “After everything I’ve seen the last few days?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d still think you were screwing with me.”

“What if I told you he’s working our case?”

Turner’s real laugh was completely unlike his false chuckle, a deep, full belly laugh. “I’ve had weirder CIs.”

Alex shoved her feet into the too-tight pumps and pushed open the car door. The night air was so cold it hurt to breathe, and the sky was black above her. New moon rising. She was due at Black Elm in a matter of hours. When Dean Sandow had first started talking about the ritual, Alex assumed they would try to contact Darlington from Il Bastone, maybe even using the crucible. But Sandow really did intend to call him home.

“I’ll shake Kate Masters’s tree tomorrow,” said Turner. “Colin Khatri too. See what falls out.”

“Thanks for the ride-along.” Alex shut the car door and watched Turner’s headlights recede down Chapel. She wondered if she’d ever get to speak to the detective again.

Everything might change tonight. Alex had longed for Darlington’s return, and she’d feared it—and she couldn’t quite pull apart those feelings. She knew that when he told Dean Sandow what she’d done, what she really was, it would mean the end for her and Lethe. She knew that. But she also knew that Darlington was Tara’s best chance at justice. He spoke the language of this world, understood its protocols. He would make the connections that the rest of them were missing.

She could admit she missed his pompous, know-it-all ass. But it was more than that. He would protect her.

The thought was embarrassing. Alex the survivor, Alex the rattler, should be harder than that. But she was tired of fighting. Darlington wouldn’t stand for any of what she and Dawes had been put through. He might not believe she belonged in Lethe, but she knew he believed she was worthy of Lethe’s protection. He had promised to place himself between her—between all of them—and the terrible dark. That meant something.

North kept his distance, hovering in the golden light of the streetlamp, murderer or victim, but partner either way. For now.

She nodded to him and left it at that. Tonight she had other debts to pay.