Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

She closed her eyes and saw Hellie’s face, her pale brows bleached by the sun, vomit clinging to her lip. It was Tara Hutchins’s fault. Blondes always made Alex think of Hellie. But why had the crime scene looked so familiar? What had she seen in that forlorn patch of dead earth bracketed by the flow of traffic?

Nothing. She’d just had too many late nights, too much Darlington whispering in her ear. Tara was nothing like Hellie. She was like a bad knockoff, generic to Hellie’s name brand.

No , said a voice in her head—and it was Hellie, standing on a skateboard, rocking back and forth on those wide feet, her balance impeccable. Her skin was ashen. Her bikini top was spattered with clumps of her last meal. She’s me. She’s you without a second chance.

Alex fought her way back from the tide of sleep. The room was dark, little light filtering in from the single narrow window.

Hellie was long gone and so were the people who had hurt her. But someone had hurt Tara Hutchins too. Someone who hadn’t been punished. Not yet.

Leave it to Detective Turner. That was what the survivor said. Rest easy. Let it go. Focus on your grades. Think of the summer. Alex could see the bridge that Belbalm had built. She just had to cross it.

Alex reached into her dresser for the basso belladonna drops. One more afternoon. She could give Tara Hutchins that much before she buried her for good and moved on. The way she’d buried Hellie.

Aurelian, home to the would-be philosopher kings, the great uniters. Aurelian was founded to embrace ideals of leadership and, supposedly, to bring together the best of the societies. They modeled themselves as a kind of New Lethe, tapping members from every society to form a leadership council. That didn’t last long. Lively debate gave way to raucous argument, new members were recruited, and they soon became as clannish as the other Houses of the Veil. In the end, their magic has a fundamental practicality best suited to the working professional, less a calling than a trade. That has made them the object of ridicule by some with more delicate sensibilities, but when Aurelian found themselves banned from their own “tomb” and without permanent address, they managed to survive where other Houses have foundered—by hiring themselves out to the highest bidder.

They just lack any kind of style . Sure, they occasionally burp out a senator or an author of middling renown, but Aurelian nights always feel a bit like you’ve been handed the transcript to a juicy court case. You start out excited, and by page two you realize it’s all a lot of words and not much drama.

He started her small—with Aurelian. Darlington figured the big magics could wait for later in the semester, and he knew he’d made the right choice when he came downstairs at Il Bastone to find Alex perched on the edge of a velvet cushion, gnawing feverishly on a thumbnail. Dawes seemed oblivious, her attention focused on A Companion to Linear B , her noise-canceling headphones firmly in place.

“Ready?” he asked.

Alex stood and wiped her palms on her jeans. He had her run through the stock of protections in their bags, and Darlington was pleased to see she’d forgotten nothing.

“Good night, Dawes,” he said as they unhooked their coats from the hall rack. “We won’t be home late.”

Dawes slid her headphones down to her neck. “We have smoked salmon and egg and dill sandwiches.”

“Dare I ask?”

“And avgolemono.”

“I’d say you’re an angel, but you’re so much more interesting.” Dawes clucked her tongue. “It’s really not a fall soup.”

“It’s barely fall and there’s nothing more fortifying.” Besides, after a shot of Hiram’s elixir it was tough to get warm.

Dawes smiled as she returned to her text. She liked being praised for her cooking almost as much as she liked being acknowledged for her scholarship.

The air felt bright and cold against his skin as they walked down Orange, back toward the Green and campus. Spring came on slow in New England, but fall was like rounding a sharp turn. One moment you were sweating through summer cotton and the next you shivered beneath a sky gone hard enamel blue.

“Tell me about Aurelian.”

Alex blew out a breath. “Founded in 1910. Rooms consecrated in Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall—”

“Save yourself the mouthful. Everyone calls it SSS.”

“SSS. During the 1932 renovations.”

“Around the same time Bones was sealing off their operating theater,” Darlington added.

“Their what?”

“You’ll learn during your first prognostication. But I thought we’d keep the training wheels on for our first journey out.” Best that Alex Stern found her footing among the eager, generous Aurelians rather than in front of the Bonesmen. “The university gave those rooms to Aurelian as a gift for services rendered.”

“Which services?”

“You tell me, Stern.”

“Well, they specialize in logomancy, word magic. So something with a contract?”

“The purchase of Sachem’s Wood in 1910. It was a huge acquisition of land and the university wanted to make sure the purchase could never be challenged. That land became Science Hill. What else?”

“People don’t take them very seriously.”

“People?”

“Lethe,” she amended. “The other societies. Because they don’t have a real tomb.”

“But we’re not like those people, Stern. We aren’t snobs.”

“You are most definitely a snob, Darlington.”

“Well, I’m not that particular kind of snob. We have only two real concerns: Does their magic work and is it dangerous?”

“Does it?” asked Alex. “Is it?”

“The answer to both questions is sometimes. Aurelian specializes in unbreakable contracts, binding vows, stories that can literally put the reader to sleep. In 1989 a certain millionaire slipped into a coma in the cabin of his yacht. A copy of God and Man at Yale was found beside him, and if anyone had thought to look they would have found an introduction that exists in no other version—one composed by Aurelian. You may also be interested to know that Winston Churchill’s last words were ‘I’m bored with it all.’”

“You’re saying Aurelian assassinated Winston Churchill?”

“That’s mere speculation. But I can confirm that half of the dead in Grove Street Cemetery only stay in their graves because the inscriptions on their tombstones were crafted by members of Aurelian.”

“Sounds pretty powerful to me.”

“That was the old magic, when they were still considered a landed society. Aurelian was kicked out of their rooms when union contract negotiations with the university soured. The charge was serving alcohol to minors, but the fact is that Yale felt Aurelian had botched the initial contracts. They lost Room 405 and their work has been shaky ever since. These days, they mostly manage the occasional nondisclosure agreement or inspiration spell. That’s what we’ll be seeing tonight.”

They passed the administrative offices of Woodbridge Hall and the glowing golden screens of Scroll and Key. The Locksmiths had canceled their next ritual. It wouldn’t mean any less work for Lethe—Book and Snake had been happy to move into the Thursday night slot in their place—but Darlington wondered exactly what was going on at Keys. There had been rumors of weakening magic, portals that malfunctioned or didn’t open at all. It might all be talk—the Houses of the Veil were secretive, competitive, and prone to petty gossip. But Darlington would take the delay as an opportunity to dig into what Scroll and Key might be contending with before he dragged his Dante into a possible mess.