Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

A ledger was waiting for her on the middle shelf. It was marked with the Lethe spirit hound, and there, one after another, were deeds of acquisition for land all over New Haven, the locations that would one day house each of the eight Houses of the Veil, each one built over a nexus of power created by some unknown force.

But Darlington had known. The first. 1854: The year the Russell Trust had acquired the land where Skull and Bones would build their tomb. Darlington had pieced together what had created those focal points of magic that fed the societies’ rituals, that made all of it possible. Dead girls. One after another. He’d used the old editions of the New Havener to match the places they’d died to the locations of the societies’ tombs.

What had been special about these deaths? Even if all these girls had been murdered, there had been plenty of homicides in New Haven over the years that hadn’t resulted in magical nexuses. And Daisy hadn’t even died on High Street, where Skull and Bones erected their tomb, so why had the nexus formed there? Alex knew she was missing something, failing to connect the dots Darlington would have.

North had given her the dates; he had seen the connections too. Alex sprinted back to the bathroom and filled the basin of the sink.

“North,” she said, feeling like a fool. “North.”

Nothing. Ghosts. Never there when you needed them.

But there were plenty of ways to get a Gray’s attention. Alex hesitated, then took the letter opener from the desk. She slashed it across the top of her forearm and let the blood drip into the water, watching it plume.

“Knock knock, North.”

His face appeared in the reflection so suddenly she jumped.

“Daisy’s death created a nexus,” she said. “How did you find out?”

“I couldn’t find Tara. It should have been easy with that object in hand, but there was no sign of her on this side of the Veil. Just like Daisy. There’s no sign of Gladys O’Donaghue either. Something happened that day. Something bigger than my death or Daisy’s. I think it happened again when Tara died.”

Daisy had been an aristocrat, one of the city’s elite. Her death had started it all. But the other girls? Who had they been? Names like DeLauro, Mazurski, Mishkan. Had they been immigrant girls working in the factories? Housemaids? Daughters of freed slaves? Girls who would have no headlines or marble headstones to mark their passing?

And was Tara meant to be one of them too? A sacrifice? But why had her murder been so gruesome? So public? And why now? If these really were killings, it had been over fifty years since the last girl died.

Someone needed a nexus. One of the Houses of the Veil was in need of a new home. St. Elmo’s had been petitioning to build a new tomb for years—and what good was a tomb without a nexus beneath it? Alex remembered the empty plot of land where Tara’s body had been found. Plenty of room to build.

“North,” she said. “Go back and look for the others.” She read their names to him, one after another: Colina Tillman, Sophie Mishkan, Effie White, Zuzanna Mazurski, Paoletta DeLauro. “Try to find them.”

Alex plucked a towel from the rack and pressed it against her bleeding arm. She sat down at the desk, looked out the window onto Orange Street, trying to think. If Darlington had uncovered the cause of the nexuses, the first person he would have told was Sandow. He’d probably been proud, excited to have made a new discovery, one that would shed new light on the way that magic worked in his city. But Sandow had never mentioned it to her or Dawes, this final project Darlington had been pursuing.

Did it matter? Sandow couldn’t be involved. He’d been violently attacked only a few feet from where she was sitting. He’d almost died.

But not because of Blake Keely. Blake had hurt Dawes, had nearly killed Alex, but he hadn’t hurt the dean. It had been the snarling half-mad hounds of Lethe that had come to Alex’s defense. She remembered Blake’s clenched fist. He’d struck her with that hand but then he’d kept it closed.

She walked back to the hallway at the top of the stairs. Ignoring the dark stains on the rug, the lingering scent of vomit, she got down on her knees and began to search—the slats of the floor, under the runner. It wasn’t until she peered beneath an empty wicker planter that she saw a glint of gold. She wrapped her hand in the sleeve of her shirt and carefully pulled it into the light. A coin of compulsion. Someone had been controlling Blake. Someone had given him very specific orders.

This is a funding year.

Darlington had brought his theory of the girls and the tombs to Sandow. But Sandow had already known. Sandow, who was strapped for cash after his divorce and hadn’t published in years. Sandow, who wanted so desperately to keep Darlington’s disappearance quiet. Sandow, who had delayed the ritual to find him until after that first new moon and who had used that ritual to bar Darlington from ever returning to Black Elm. Because maybe Sandow had been the one to set a trap for Darlington in the Rosenfeld basement in the first place. Even then, he’d been planning for Tara Hutchins to die—and he’d known only Darlington would comprehend what her murder really meant. So he got rid of him.

Sandow had never intended to bring Darlington back. After all, Alex was the perfect patsy. Of course everything had gone wrong the year they’d brought in an unknown as a Lethe delegate. It was to be expected. They’d be more cautious in the future. Next year, brilliant, competent, steady Michelle Alameddine would come back to see to educating their wayward Dante. And Alex would be in Sandow’s debt, forever grateful thanks to that grade bump.

Maybe I’m wrong , she thought. And even if she was right, that didn’t mean she had to speak up. She could stay quiet, keep her passing grades, get through her calm, beautiful summer. Colin Khatri would graduate in May, so she wouldn’t have to make nice with him. She could survive, bloom , in Professor Belbalm’s care.

Alex turned the coin of compulsion over in her hand.

In the days after the massacre at the apartment in Van Nuys, Eitan had run all over Los Angeles, trying to find out who’d killed his cousin. There were rumors it was the Russians—except the Russians liked guns, not bats—or the Albanians, or that someone back in Israel had made sure Ariel would never return from California.

Eitan had come to see Alex in the hospital, despite the police officer posted at her door. Men like Eitan were like Grays. They found a way in.

He’d sat by her bed in the chair Dean Elliot Sandow had occupied only a day before. His eyes were red and the stubble on his chin was growing out. But his suit was as slick as ever, the gold chain at his neck like some throwback to the seventies, as if it had been handed down by another generation of pimps and panderers, the passing of the torch.

“You almost die the other night,” he’d said. Alex had always liked his accent. She’d thought it was French at first.

She hadn’t known how to reply, so she licked her lips and gestured to the pitcher of ice chips. Eitan had grunted and nodded.

“Open your mouth,” he’d said, and spooned two ice chips onto her tongue.

“Your lips are very chapped. Very dry. Ask for Vaseline.”

“Okay,” she’d croaked.

“What happen that night?”

“I don’t know. I got to the party late.”

“Why? Where were you?”

So this was an interrogation. That was fine. Alex was ready to confess.

“I did it.” Eitan’s head shot up. “I killed them all.”

Eitan slumped back in his chair and ran a hand over his face. “Fucking junkies.”