Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

Sandow sighed. “Darlington liked to talk about how New Haven was always on the brink of success, always about to tip over into good luck and good fortune. He didn’t understand that the city walks a tightrope. On one side, success. On the other, ruin. The magic of this place and the blood shed to retain it is all that stands between the city and the end.”

This town has been fucked from the start.

“Did you do it yourself?” Alex asked. “Or did you not have the balls?”

“I was once a knight of Lethe, you know. I had the will.” He actually sounded proud.

Isabel had said that Sandow was sleeping off too much bourbon in Belbalm’s study the night Tara died, but he could have slipped out somehow or even used the same portal magic she’d suspected Colin of using. He still would have had to manage a glamour—but of course that was no problem for Sandow. Alex thought of the compact she’d used to get into Tara’s apartment and then the jail. When she’d taken it from the drawer, there had been a smudge on it. But Dawes never would have put it away dirty. Someone had used it before Alex.

“You put on Lance’s face. You got Tara high so she wouldn’t hurt and then you murdered her. Did you send the gluma after me?”

“I did. It was risky, maybe foolish. I have no talent for necromancy. But I didn’t know what you might have discovered at the morgue.”

She remembered Sandow sitting across from her at the Hutch, his teacup perched on his knee, telling her that her power had brought on the gluma attack, that she was to blame for it, for Tara’s murder. “You told me it was my fault.”

“Well, you weren’t meant to survive. I had to say something.” He sounded so reasonable. “Darlington knew you would be trouble. But I had no idea how much.”

“You still don’t know,” said Alex. “And Darlington would loathe everything about you.”

“Darlington was a gentleman. But this isn’t a time for gentlemen.” He picked up his pipe. “Do you know the terrible thing?”

“That you murdered a girl in cold blood so some rich kids can build a fancy clubhouse? Seems pretty terrible.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her. “It didn’t work,” he said, shaking his head, his steepled brows creasing his forehead. “The ritual was sound. I built it perfectly. But no nexus appeared.”

“So Tara died and you’re still screwed?”

“I would have been if not for you. I’m advocating for Manuscript to be stripped of their tomb. St. Elmo’s will have a new home by the next school year. They’ll get what they want. I’ll get my money. So the question is, Alex, what do you want?”

Alex stared at him. He was actually trying to negotiate with her. “What do I want? Stop killing people. You don’t get to murder a girl and disappear Darlington. You don’t get to use me and Dawes and Lethe because you want to live in a nice neighborhood and drive a nice car. We aren’t supposed to be walking that tightrope. We are the goddamn shepherds.”

Sandow laughed. “We are beggars at the table. They throw us scraps, but the real magic, the magic that makes futures and saves lives, belongs to them. Unless we take a bit of it for ourselves.”

He lifted his pipe, but instead of lighting it, he tapped the contents of the bowl into his mouth. It glittered against his lips—Astrumsalinas. Starpower. Compulsion. He’d given it to Blake to use on Alex that night at Il Bastone. The night Sandow had sent Blake Keely to kill her.

Not this time.

Alex reached out to North and, with a sudden rush, felt him flood into her, filling her with strength. She launched herself toward Sandow.

“Stay right there!” said the dean. Alex’s steps faltered, wanting only to obey. But the drug had no power over the dead.

No , said North, the voice clean and true inside her head.

“No,” said Alex. She shoved the dean down into a chair. His crutches clattered to the floor. “Turner is coming. You’re going to tell him what you did. There isn’t going to be another tomb for St. Elmo’s. This isn’t all going away with fines and suspensions. You’re all going to pay. Fuck the societies, fuck Lethe, and fuck you.”

“Alexandra?” She and Sandow turned. Professor Belbalm hovered in the doorway, a glass of champagne in her hand. “What’s going on here? Elliot… are you all right?”

“She attacked me!” he cried. “She’s unwell, unstable. Marguerite, call campus security. Get Colin to help me subdue Alex.”

“Of course,” said Belbalm, the compulsion taking hold.

“Professor, wait—” Alex began. She knew it was futile. Under the influence of Starpower, there would be no reasoning with her. “I have a recording. I have proof—”

“Alexandra, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Belbalm said with a sad shake of her head. Then she smiled and winked. “Actually, I know exactly what’s gotten into you. Bertram Boyce North.”

“Marguerite!” snapped Sandow. “I told you to—”

“Oh, Elliot, stop.” Professor Belbalm shut the door behind her and turned the lock.

Alex stared. It wasn’t possible. How was Belbalm resisting the Starpower? And could she somehow see North?

Belbalm set her champagne on a bookshelf. “Please, won’t you sit, Alex?” she asked with the gracious air of a hostess.

“Marguerite,” said Sandow sternly.

“We’re overdue for a talk, yes? You’re a desperate man, not a stupid one, I think. And the president is already pleasantly sozzled and settled in front of the fire. No one will interrupt us.”

Warily, Sandow sat back in the desk chair.

But Alex wasn’t ready to oblige. “You can see North?”

“I can see the shape of him,” said Belbalm. “Tucked inside you like a secret. Didn’t you notice my office was protected?”

Alex remembered the sense of peace she’d had there, the plants growing in the window boxes—mint and marjoram. They’d bloomed in the borders around Belbalm’s house too, though it had been the dead of winter. But she couldn’t quite grasp what Belbalm was suggesting. “You’re like me?”

Belbalm smiled and gave a single nod. “We are Wheelwalkers. All worlds are open to us. If we are bold enough to enter.”

Alex felt suddenly dizzy. She sank into a chair, the creak of the leather strangely reassuring.

Belbalm picked up her champagne and relaxed into the seat opposite her, elegant and poised as ever, as if they were a mother and daughter who had come to meet with the dean.

“You can let him out if you like,” she said, and it took Alex a second to realize Belbalm meant North.

Alex hesitated, then gave North a gentle nudge and he poured out of her, taking shape beside the desk, wary eyes darting between Alex and Belbalm.

“He’s not quite sure what to do, is he?” Belbalm asked. She cocked her head to the side and a lively smile played over her lips. “Hello, Bertie.”

North flinched backward.

Alex remembered that sunlit afternoon in the office at North & Sons, sawdust still in the corners, a deep feeling of contentment. What is it you’re thinking, Bertie?

“Daisy?” Alex whispered.

Dean Sandow leaned forward, peering at Belbalm. “Daisy Fanning Whitlock?”

But that couldn’t be.

“I prefer the French, Marguerite. So much less provincial than Daisy , yes?”

North shook his head, his expression turning angry.

“No,” said Alex. “I saw Daisy. Not just her photo. I saw her. You look nothing like her.”

“Because this is not the body I was born into. This is not the body my smug, adoring Bertie destroyed.” She turned to North, who was glaring at her now, his face disbelieving. “Don’t worry, Bertie. I know it wasn’t your fault. It was mine in a way.” Belbalm’s accent seemed to have vanished, her voice taking on North’s broad vowels. “I have so many memories, but that day at the factory is the clearest.” She closed her eyes. “I can still feel the sun pouring through the windows, smell the wood polish. You wanted to honeymoon in Maine. Maine , of all places… A soul shoved into me, frantic, blood soaked, bristling with magic. I had spent my life in communion with the dead, hiding my gift, borrowing their strength and their knowledge. But I had never had a spirit overtake me in that way.” She gave a helpless shrug. “I panicked. I pushed him into you. I didn’t even know I could do such a thing.”