Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

It’s over , she thought. Even if you don’t want it to be, buddy.

“Unwept, unhonored, and unsung,” she growled. North recoiled and vanished, his expression wounded.

“How are you tonight?” the driver asked as she slid into the back seat.

Half dead and disillusioned. How ’bout you? She wanted to be behind the wards, but she couldn’t bear the idea of returning to Il Bastone. “Can you take me to York and Elm?” she said. “There’s an alley. I’ll show you.”

The streets were quiet in the dark, the city faceless.

I’m done , Alex thought, as she dragged herself out of the car and up the staircase to the Hutch, the smell of clove and comfort surrounding her.

Dawes could run off to Westport. Sandow could go home to his housekeeper and his incontinent Labrador. Turner… well, she didn’t know who Turner went home to. His mother. A girlfriend. The job. Alex was going to do what any wounded animal would. She was going where the monsters couldn’t reach her. She was going to ground.

Others may falter and take the false step. What penalty but pride? Ours is the calling of the final trumpet on the horseman’s last ride.

Ours is the answer given without pause and none too soon. Death waits on black wings and we stand hoplite, hussar, dragoon.

Cabsy wasn’t actually any good as far as poets go. Seems to have missed the last forty years of verse and just wants to write Longfellow. It’s ungenerous to carp, what with him losing his hands and all, but I’m not sure even that justifies two hours cooped up at Il Bastone, listening to him read from his latest masterpiece while poor Lon Richardson is stuck turning the pages.

Alex woke to the sound of glass breaking. It took her a moment to remember where she was, to take in the hexagon pattern of the Hutch’s bathroom floor, the dripping faucet. She grabbed the lip of the sink and pulled herself up, pausing to wait out the head rush before she padded through the dressing room to the common room. For a long moment she stared at the broken window—one leaded pane smashed, the cool spring air whistling through, the glass slivers scattered on the plaid wool of the window seat beside her discarded falafel and Suggested Requirements for Lethe Candidates , the pamphlet still open to the page where Alex had stopped reading. Mors irrumat omnia.

Cautiously, she peered down at the alley. The Bridegroom was there, just as he had been every day for the last two weeks. Three weeks? She couldn’t be sure. But Mercy was there too, in a belted jacket patterned with cabbage roses, her black hair pulled into a ponytail, a guilty expression on her face.

Alex thought about just not doing anything. She didn’t know how Mercy had found her, but she didn’t have to stay found. Eventually her roommate would get tired of waiting for Alex to show and she’d leave. Or throw another rock through the window.

Mercy waved and another figure stepped into view, dressed in a purple crochet coat and glittery mulberry-colored scarf.

Alex leaned her head against the window frame. “Shit.”

She pulled on a Lethe House sweatshirt to cover her filthy tank top and limped barefoot down the stairs. Then she took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

“Baby!” her mom cried, lunging toward her.

Alex squinted against the spring sunshine and tried not to actually recoil. “Hi, Mom. Don’t hug—”

Too late. Her mother was squeezing her and Alex hissed in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Mira asked, pulling back.

“Just dealing with an injury,” Alex said.

Mira bracketed Alex’s face with her hands, pushing the hair back, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, baby. Oh, my little star. I was afraid this might happen.”

“I’m not using, Mom. I swear. I just got really, really sick.” Mira’s face was disbelieving. Otherwise, she looked good, better than she had in a long time. Her blond hair had fresh highlights; her skin was glowing. She looked like she’d put on weight. It’s because of me , Alex realized with a pang. All those years that she looked tired and too old for her age, she was worrying about me. But then her daughter had become a painter and gone to Yale. Magic.

Alex saw Mercy hovering near the alley wall. Snitch.

“Come on,” Alex said. “Come in.”

She was breaking Lethe House rules by allowing outsiders into the Hutch, but if Colin Khatri could show Lance Gressang how to portal to Iceland, she could have her mother and her roommate in for tea.

She glanced at the Bridegroom. “Not you.”

He started moving toward her and she hurriedly closed the door.

“Not who?” said her mother.

“Nobody. Nothing.”

Climbing the stairs left Alex winded and dizzy, but she still had enough sense to be embarrassed when she opened the door to the Hutch and let them inside. She’d been too out of it to realize just how bad her mess had gotten. Her discarded blankets were crumpled in a heap on the couch, and there were dirty dishes and containers of spoiled food everywhere. Now that she’d had a breath of fresh air, she could also tell the common room stank like a cross between a swamp and a sick ward.

“Sorry,” said Alex. “It’s been… I haven’t been up to housekeeping.”

Mercy set to opening the windows, and Mira began picking up trash.

“Don’t do that,” said Alex, skin prickling with shame.

“I don’t know what else to do,” said Mira. “Sit down and let me help. You look like you’re going to fall over. Where’s the kitchen?”

“On the left,” Alex said, directing her to the cramped galley kitchen, which was just as messy as the common room if not worse.

“Whose place is this?” asked Mercy, removing her coat.

“Darlington’s,” Alex said. It was true in a way. She lowered her voice. “How did you know I was here?”

Mercy shifted uneasily. “I, uh… may have followed you here once or twice.”

“What?”

“You’re very mysterious, okay? And I was worried about you. You look like hell, by the way.”

“Well, I feel like hell.”

“Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick. We didn’t know if you’d gone missing or what.”

“So you called my mom?”

Mercy threw up her hands. “Don’t expect me to be sorry. If I disappeared, I hope you’d come looking.” Alex scowled, but Mercy just jabbed her shoulder with her finger. “You rescue me. I rescue you. That’s how this works.”

“Is there recycling?” Mira called from the kitchen.

Alex sighed. “Under the sink.”

Maybe good things were the same as bad things. Sometimes you just had to let them happen.

Mercy and Mira were a surprisingly efficient team. They got thegarbage packed away, made Alex shower, and got her an appointment at the university health center to get on a course of antibiotics, though she didn’t go so far as to show them her wound. She said she’d just been dealing with some kind of flu or virus. They made her shower and change into clean sweats, then Mira went to the little gourmet market and got soup and Gatorade. She went back out again when Alex told them she’d had to throw away her boots.

“Tar,” she said. “They were ruined.” Tar, blood spatter. Same difference.

Mira returned an hour later with a pair of boots, a pair of jeans, two Yale T-shirts, and a set of shower sandals that Alex didn’t need but thanked her for anyway.