Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

“I got you a dress too.”

“I don’t wear dresses.”

“But you might.”

They settled in front of the fireplace with cups of tea and instant cocoa. Unfortunately, Alex had eaten all of Dawes’s fancy gourmet marshmallows. It wasn’t quite cold enough for a fire, but the room felt snug and safe in the late-afternoon light.

“How long are you here for?” Alex asked. It came out with an ungrateful edge she hadn’t intended.

“First flight out in the morning,” said Mira.

“You can’t stay longer?” Alex wasn’t sure how much she wanted her to. But when her mother beamed, so happy to be asked, Alex was glad she’d made the gesture.

“I wish I could. Work on Monday.”

Alex realized it must be the weekend. She’d only checked her email once since she’d holed up in the Hutch and hadn’t read any of Sandow’s messages. She’d let her phone go dead. For the first time she wondered if the societies had continued meeting without Lethe to oversee them. Maybe activity had been suspended after the attack at Il Bastone. She didn’t much care. She did wonder if her mom could afford a last-minute cross-country flight. Alex wished she’d extorted some money from Lethe along with that grade bump.

Mercy had brought notes from the three weeks of classes she’d missed and was already talking about a plan of attack before finals. Alex nodded along, but what was the point? The fix was in. Sandow had said he’d make sure Alex would pass, and even if he didn’t, Alex knew she didn’t have the will to catch up. But she could pretend. For Mercy’s sake and for her mother’s.

They ate a light dinner and then made the slow walk back to Old Campus. Alex showed her mom the Vanderbilt courtyard and their shared suite, her map of California and the poster of Leighton’s Flaming June , which Darlington had once rolled his eyes at. She let Mira coo over the sketchbook she’d tried to make herself pick up once in a while for the sake of appearances but admitted she hadn’t been drawing or painting much.

When her mom lit up a bundle of sage and started smudging the common room, Alex tried not to melt into the floor in embarrassment. Still, she was surprised at how good it felt to be back in the dorms, to see Lauren’s bike leaning up against the mantel, the toaster oven topped by boxes of Pop-Tarts. It felt like home.

When it was time for Mira to head back to her hotel, Alex walked outside with her, trying to hide how much it took out of her just to descend the few steps to the street.

“I didn’t ask what happened and I’m not going to,” said Mira, gathering her glittery scarf around her neck.

“Thank you.”

“It’s not for you. It’s because I’m a coward. If you tell me you’re clean, I want to believe you.”

Alex wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I think I may have a job lined up for the summer. But it means I won’t be coming home.”

Mira looked down at her shoes, handmade leather booties she’d been getting from the same guy at the same craft fair for the last ten years. She nodded, then brushed tears from her eyes.

Alex felt her own tears rising. How many times had she made her mother cry? “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Mira drew a tissue from her pocket. “It’s okay. I’m proud of you. And I don’t want you to come home. After all of those horrible things with those horrible people. This is where you belong. This is where you were meant to bloom. Don’t roll your eyes, Galaxy. Not every flower belongs in every garden.”

Alex couldn’t quite untangle the wave of love and anger that rushed through her. Her mother believed in faeries and angels and crystal visions, but what would she make of real magic? Could she grasp the ugly truth of it all? That magic wasn’t something gilded and benign, just another commodity that only some people could afford? But the car was pulling up and it was time to say goodbye, not time to start arguments over old wounds.

“I’m glad you came, Mom.”

“I am too. I hope… If you aren’t able to manage your grades—”

“I’ve got this,” Alex said, and it felt good to know that thanks to Sandow she wasn’t lying. “Promise.”

Mira hugged her and Alex breathed in patchouli and tuberose, the memory of being small. “I should have done better,” her mother said on a sob. “I should have set clearer boundaries. I should have let you have fast food.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh, then winced at the pain. No amount of strict bedtimes and trans fats could have kept her safe.

Her mother slid into the back seat of the car, but before Alex closed the door, she said, “Mom… my dad…” Over the years, Mira had made an effort to answer Alex’s questions about her father. Where was he from? Sometimes he told me Mexico, sometimes Peru, sometimes Stockholm or Cincinnati. It was a joke with us. It doesn’t sound funny. Maybe it wasn’t. What did he do? We didn’t talk about money. He liked to surf. Did you love him? I did. Did he love you? For a while. Why did he leave? People leave, Galaxy. I hope he finds his bliss.

Had her mother meant it? Alex didn’t know. When she’d gotten old enough to realize how much the questions hurt her mother and to realize the answers were never going to change, she stopped asking. She decided not to care. If her father couldn’t be bothered with her, she wasn’t going to bother with him.

But now she found herself saying, “Was there anything unusual about him?”

Mira laughed. “How about everything?”

“I mean…” Alex struggled for a way to describe what she wanted to know without sounding crazy. “Did he like the same stuff you did? Tarot and crystals and all that? Did you ever get the sense he could see things that weren’t there?”

Mira looked down Chapel Street. Her gaze turned distant. “Have you ever heard of the arsenic eaters?”

Alex blinked, confused. “No?”

“They would ingest a little bit of arsenic every day. It made their skin clear and their eyes bright and they felt wonderful. And all the while they were just drinking poison.” When Mira turned her eyes back to Alex, they were sharper and steadier than Alex ever remembered them being, free of the usual determined cheer. “That’s what being with your father was like.” Then she smiled and the old Mira was back. “Text me after you see the doctor.”

“I will, Mom.”

Alex closed the door and watched the car drive away. The Bridegroom had stood a respectful distance away, watching the whole exchange, but now he drew closer. Was he ever going to let up? She really didn’t want to go to Il Bastone, but she was going to need the Lethe library to figure out how to break their connection. “No one is immortal,” she snapped at him, and saw him reluctantly shrink back, vanishing through the bricks.

“Your mom okay?” Mercy asked as Alex entered the common room. She’d put on her hyacinth robe and curled up on the couch.

“I think so. She’s just worried about me getting through the rest of the year.”

“And you’re not?”

“Sure,” Alex said. “Of course.”

Mercy snorted. “No, you’re not. I can tell. So continues the mystery of Alex Stern. It’s okay. Mystery is good. I played softball for two years in high school.”

“You did?”

“See? I have secrets too. Did you hear about Blake?”

She hadn’t. She hadn’t heard about anything during the weeks she’d hid at the Hutch. That had been the point. But according to Mercy, Blake Keely had attacked a woman in her home and her husband had fought him off with a golf club. Forensics had matched the knife he’d been carrying with the weapon in the Tara Hutchins murder investigation. There was no mention of Dawes, or the mansion on Orange, or Hiram Bingham III’s fatal marble noggin. No discussion of Merity. Not a single word about the societies. Case closed.