Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

“I need you to make sure there’s nobody in the hall,” Alex said. “No one can see me leave this room.”

North drifted through the door, and for a long moment Alex wondered if he’d just leave her here with a dead body and a carpet covered in powdered evil.

Then he passed back through the wall and nodded the all-clear.

Alex made herself walk. She felt strange, wide open and exposed, a house with all its doors thrown open.

She smoothed her hair, tugged down the hem of her dress. She would have to act normal, pretend nothing had happened. But Alex knew that wouldn’t be a problem. She’d been doing it her whole life.

We say “the Veil,” but we know there are many Veils, each a barrier between our world and the beyond. Some Grays remain sequestered behind all of them, never to return to the living; others may be glimpsed in our world by those willing to risk Hiram’s Bullet, and others may pierce still further into our world to be seen and heard by ordinary folk. We know too that there are many borderlands where the dead may commune with the living, and we have long suspected that there are many afterlives. A natural conclusion is that there are also many hells. But if there are such places, they remain opaque to us, unknown and undiscovered. For there is no explorer so intrepid or daring that he would dare to walk the road to hell—no matter how it may be paved.

Cuando ganeden esta acerrado, guehinam esta siempre abierto. While the Garden of Eden may be closed, Hell is always open.

Alex met Dawes at the Hutch and they walked up Elm to Payne Whitney, to the intersection that Sandow had chosen for his murder rite, the place where Tara Hutchins had died. Auspicious. Spring flowers had begun to emerge on the edges of the empty plot of land, pale purple crocus, tiny white bells of lily of the valley on their hesitant bent necks.

It was hard for Alex to be away from the wards. All her life she’d seen Grays—the Quiet Ones, she’d called them. They weren’t keeping quiet anymore. She could hear them now. The dead woman clad in a nightgown singing softly to herself outside the music school. Two young men in coats and breeches, perched on the Old Campus fence, exchanging gossip, the left sides of their bodies charred black from some long-ago fire. Even now she had to actively ignore the drowned rower running wind sprints outside the gym. She could hear his heavy breathing. How was that possible? Why would a ghost need to breathe? Was it just the memory of needing air? An old habit? Or a performance of being human?

She gave her head a little shake. She would find a way to silence them somehow or lose her mind trying.

“Someone talking?” Dawes asked, keeping her voice low.

Alex nodded and rubbed her temples. She didn’t know how she was going to fix this particular problem, but she did know she had to make certain the Grays didn’t realize she could still hear them, not when so many were desperate for connection with the living world.

She hadn’t seen North since the afternoon of the party at the president’s house. Perhaps he was somewhere grieving what Daisy had become. Maybe he’d created a support group on the other side of the Veil for the souls she’d kept captive for so many years. Alex didn’t know.

They paced the perimeter of the land the dean had intended for St. Elmo’s. Alex hoped flowers would grow over the place where Tara had died. She had sent the recording of Sandow’s confession to the Lethe board. It was horrible, they agreed. Grotesque. But mostly it was dangerous. Even if Sandow’s ritual had failed, they didn’t want anyone getting the idea there might be a way to create a nexus through ritual homicide—and they didn’t want Lethe connected to Tara’s death. Excluding a few members of the board, everyone still believed Blake Keely was responsible for the murder, and Lethe intended to keep it that way.

This time, Alex wasn’t going to push. She had too many new secrets that needed keeping. Sandow’s death had been chalked up to a sudden, massive heart attack during his welcome-home party. He’d had a bad fall only a few weeks before. He was under tremendous financial stress. His passing had been cause for sadness, but it had drawn little attention—especially since Marguerite Belbalm had disappeared after being seen with him at the same party. She’d last been observed entering the president’s office to speak to Dean Sandow. No one knew where she was or if she’d come to harm, and the New Haven PD had opened an investigation.

Lethe had no idea what Belbalm had been or how she was connected to Sandow’s death. Alex had made sure to cut off the recording before the professor entered the office. The Lethe board had never heard the term “Wheelwalker” and they were never going to, because unless Alex was very much mistaken, she had the ability to create a nexus anytime she wanted—all she had to do was develop a taste for souls. She’d seen the way Lethe and the societies worked. That wasn’t knowledge any of them needed.

Dawes glanced at the time on her phone, and in silent agreement they left Payne Whitney behind and turned right down Grove Street. Ahead, Alex saw the massive mausoleum of Book and Snake, a gloomy block of white marble surrounded by black wrought iron. Now that Alex knew they hadn’t sent the gluma after her, that they hadn’t had any involvement in what happened to Tara, she had to wonder if they could help her find Tara’s soul. Though she didn’t like the idea of stepping beneath that portico or of what the Lettermen might demand in trade, Lethe owed Tara Hutchins some kind of rest. But that would have to wait. She had another task to accomplish before she could help Tara. One she might not survive.

Alex and Dawes passed under the massive neo-Egyptian gates of the cemetery, beneath the inscription that had pleased Darlington so: THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED.

Maybe not just the dead if Alex put her mind to it.

They passed the graves of poets and scholars, presidents of Yale. A small crowd was gathered at a new headstone. Dean Sandow was still keeping the best company.

Alex knew there might be Lethe alumni in the crowd today, but the only one she recognized was Michelle Alameddine. She wore the same stylish coat, her dark hair pulled back in a neat twist. Turner was there too, but he gave her the barest nod. He wasn’t happy with her.

“You left me a body to find?” he’d growled at her when she’d agreed to meet him at Il Bastone.

“Sorry,” Alex had said. “You’re really hard to shop for.”

“What happened at that party?”

Alex had leaned against the porch column. It felt like the house was leaning on her too. “Sandow killed Tara.”

“What happened to him ?”

“Heart attack.”

“Like hell. Did you kill him?”

“I didn’t have to.”

Turner had looked at her for a long moment, and Alex had been glad that for once she was telling the truth.

They hadn’t spoken since, and Alex suspected that Turner wanted to be done with her and all of Lethe. She couldn’t blame him, but it felt like a loss. She’d liked having one of the good guys in her corner.

The service was long but dry, a recitation of the dean’s accomplishments, a statement from the president, a few words from a slender woman in a navy dress that Alex realized was Sandow’s ex-wife. There were no Grays at the cemetery today. They didn’t like funerals, and there wasn’t enough emotion at this graveside to overcome their revulsion. Alex didn’t mind the quiet.