Ninth House

by Leigh Bardugo

  “Honestly, Alex,” Sandow was saying, “what possible motive could any of these people have for hurting a girl like that?”

  She didn’t really know. She just knew that they had.

  Then someone had found out Alex visited the morgue. Whoever it was thought Alex knew Tara’s secrets—at least some of them—and that she had enough magic at her disposal to learn more. They’d decided to do something about it. Maybe they’d been trying to kill her, or maybe discrediting her was enough.

  And the Bridegroom? Why had he chosen to help her? Was he part of this somehow?

  “Alex, I want you to thrive here,” said Sandow. “I want us to get through this difficult year and I want all of our attention focused on the new-moon rite and bringing Darlington home. Let’s get through this and then take stock.”

  Alex wanted that too. She needed Yale. She needed her place here. But the dean was wrong. Tara’s death hadn’t been the easy ugly thing that Sandow wanted it to be. Someone from the societies was involved, and whoever it was wanted to silence her.

  I’m in danger, she wanted to say. Someone hurt me and I don’t think they’re finished. Help me. But what good had that ever done? Somehow Alex had thought this place was different, with all of its rules and rituals and Dean Sandow watching over them. We are the shepherds. But they were children at play. Alex looked at Sandow sipping his tea, one leg crossed over the other, light glinting off his shiny loafer as his knee bounced, and she understood that at some level he truly did not care what harm came to her. He might even be hoping for it. If Alex got hurt, if she vanished, she would take with her all the blame for what had happened to Darlington, and her short, disastrous tenure at Yale would be written off as an unfortunate mistake in judgment, an ambitious experiment gone wrong. He’d get his golden boy back at the new moon and make everything right. He wanted to be comfortable. And wasn’t Alex the same? Dreaming of a peaceful summer and mint in her tea while Tara Hutchins lay cold in a drawer?

  Rest easy. She’d been ready to do just that. But someone had tried to hurt her.

  Alex felt something dark inside her uncoil. “You’re a flat beast,” Hellie had once said to her. “Got a little viper lurking in there, ready to strike. A rattler probably.” She’d said it with a grin, but she’d been right. All this winter weather and polite conversation had put the serpent to sleep, its heartbeat slowing as it grew lazy and still, like any cold-blooded thing.

  “I want us to get through this too,” said Alex, and she smiled for him, a cowed smile, an eager smile. His relief gusted through the room like a warm front, the kind that New Englanders welcome and that Angelenos know means wildfires.

  “Good, Alex. Then we will.” He rose and put on his coat, his striped scarf. “I’ll submit your report to the alumni, and I’ll see you and Dawes Wednesday night at Black Elm.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Just a few more days and everything will be back to normal.”

  Not for Tara Hutchins, you ass. She smiled again. “See you Wednesday.”

  “Pamela, I’ll send you an email on refreshments. Nothing fancy. We’re expecting two representatives from Aurelian along with Michelle.” He gave Alex a wink. “You’re going to love Michelle Alameddine. She was Darlington’s Virgil. An absolute genius.”

  “Can’t wait,” said Alex, returning the dean’s wave as he saw himself out. When the door shut, she said, “Dawes, how tough is it to talk to the dead?”

  “Not difficult at all if you’re in Book and Snake.”

  “They’re last on my list. I try not to ask for help from people who might want to kill me.”

  “Limits your options,” Dawes muttered to the floor.

  “Aw, Dawes, I like you bitchy.” Dawes shifted uncomfortably and tugged at her murky gray sweatshirt. She closed the laptop. “Thanks for backing me with the dean. And for saving my life.” Dawes nodded at the carpet. “So what are my other options if I need to talk to someone on the other side of the Veil?”

  “The only one I can think of is Wolf’s Head.”

  “The shapeshifters?”

  “Do not call them that. Not if you’re looking for favors.”

  Alex crossed to the window, pulled open the curtain.

  “Is he still there?” Dawes said from behind her.

  “He’s there.”

  “Alex, what are you doing? Once you let him in … You know the stories about him, what he did to that girl.”

  Open the door, Alex.

  “I know he saved my life and he wants my attention. Relationships have been built on less.”

  The rules of Lethe House were opaque and convoluted. Catholic, Darlington had said. Byzantine. Still, the big stuff wasn’t tough to remember. Leave the dead to the dead. Turn your eyes to the living. But Alex needed allies, and Dawes wasn’t going to be enough.

  She knocked on the window.

  Below, on the street, the Bridegroom looked up. His dark eyes met hers in the light from the streetlamp. She did not look away.

  Wolf’s Head, fourth of the Houses of the Veil, though Berzelius would argue the point. Members practice therianthropy and consider simple shapeshifting to be base magic. They focus instead on the ability to retain human consciousness and characteristics while in animal form. Primarily used for intelligence gathering, corporate espionage, and political sabotage. Wolf’s Head was a major recruitment ground for the CIA in the 1950s and ’60s. It can take days for someone to shake off the traits of an animal after a shifting ritual. Keep discussions of an important or sensitive nature around animals to a minimum.

  —from The Life of Lethe: Procedures and Protocols of the Ninth House

  I’m tired and my heart won’t stop racing. My eyes look pink. Not the whites. The irises. When Rogers said we were going to fuck like rabbits, I didn’t think he meant actual rabbits.

  —Lethe Days Diary of Charles “Chase” MacMahon (Saybrook College ’88)

  12

  Winter

  Alex knew she couldn’t go to Wolf’s Head empty-handed. If she wanted their help, she had a stop to make at Scroll and Key first to retrieve a statue of Romulus and Remus. Wolf’s Head had been badgering Lethe to orchestrate its return since it went missing during their Valentine’s Day party the year before, when they’d opened their doors to other society members, as was tradition. Though Alex had since spotted the statue sitting on a shelf in the Locksmiths’ tomb, with a plastic tiara slung over it, Darlington had refused to get involved. “Lethe doesn’t concern itself with petty squabbles,” he’d said. “These kinds of pranks are beneath us.”

  But Alex needed a way into the temple room at the heart of the Wolf’s Head tomb, and she knew exactly what their delegation president, Salome Nils, would demand in payment.

  Alex drank one of Darlington’s disgusting protein shakes from the fridge. She was hungry, which Dawes claimed was a good sign, but her throat couldn’t tolerate anything solid yet. She wasn’t eager to leave the safety of the wards when she didn’t know exactly what had happened to the gluma, but she couldn’t just sit still. Besides, whoever had sent the gluma thought she was laid up somewhere being consumed by corpse beetles from the inside out. As for her public fit in the middle of Elm Street, at least there hadn’t been too many witnesses, and aside from Jonas Reed, it was unikely any of them knew her. If someone did, she’d probably be getting a call from a concerned therapist at the health center.

  Alex had known the Bridegroom would be waiting as soon as she and Dawes stepped out into the alley. It was almost dawn and the streets were quiet. Her “protector” followed them all the way to Scroll and Key, where she found a harried Locksmith writing a paper and convinced him to let her into the tomb to look for a scarf Darlington had left behind during the last rite they’d observed. Lethe was usually permitted entry to the tombs only on ritual nights and during sanctioned inspections. “Gets chilly in Andalusia,” she told him.

  The Locksmith hovered in the doorway, eyes on his phone as Alex pretended to search. He swore when the b
ell beside the front door rang again. Thank you, Dawes. Alex nabbed the statue and shoved it into her satchel. She glanced at the round stone table where the delegation gathered to work their rites—or try to. A quote was carved into the table’s edge, one she’d always liked: Have power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on this dead world to make it live. Something about those words rang a bell but she couldn’t pry the memory loose. She heard the front door slam and hurried out of the room, thanking the Locksmith—now muttering about drunk partyers who couldn’t find their damn dorms—on her way out.

  There was a very good chance Scroll and Key would point the finger at her once they noticed the statue was missing, but she would just have to deal with that later. Dawes was waiting around the corner by the Gothic folly that served as an entrance to the Bass Library. Darlington had told her that the stone swords carved into its decoration were signs of warding.

  “This is a bad idea,” Dawes said, bundled into her parka and radiating disapproval.

  “At least I’m consistent.”

  Dawes’s head swiveled on her neck like a searchlight. “Is he here?”

  Alex knew she meant the Bridegroom, and though she would never admit it, she was unnerved by how easy it had been to secure his attention. She doubted it would be that easy to shake it. She glanced over her shoulder, where he trailed them by what could only be called a respectful distance. “Half a block away.”

  “He’s a murderer,” Dawes whispered.

  Well, then we have something in common, thought Alex. But all she said was, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  She didn’t like the idea of letting a Gray get close to her, but she’d made her choice and she wasn’t going to rethink it now. If someone from the societies was responsible for slapping a target on her back, she was going to find out who, and then she was going to make sure they didn’t have a chance to hurt her again. Even so …

  “Dawes,” she murmured. “When we get back, let’s start looking for ways to break the link between people and Grays. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with Morrissey peering over my shoulder.”

  “The easiest way is not to form a bond to begin with.”

  “Really?” said Alex. “Let me write that down.”

  The Wolf’s Head tomb was only a few doors away from the Hutch, a grand gray manor house, fronted by a scrubby garden and surrounded by a high stone wall. It was one of the most magical places on campus. The alley that horseshoed around it was bordered by old fraternity houses, sturdy brick structures long ago ceded to the university, ancient symbols of channeling carved into the stone above their doorways beside unremarkable clusters of Greek letters. The alley acted as a kind of moat where power gathered in a thick, crackling haze. Passing through, most people wrote off the shiver that seized them to a shift in weather or a bad mood, then forgot as soon as they had moved on to the Yale Cabaret or the Af-Am Center. Wolf’s Head’s members took great pride in the fact that they’d housed protesters during the Black Panther trials, but they’d also been the last of the Ancient Eight to let in women, so Alex considered it a wash. On ritual nights, she regularly saw a Gray standing in the courtyard, mooning the offices of the Yale Daily News next door.

  Alex had to ring the bell at the gate twice before Salome Nils finally answered and let them inside.

  “Who’s this?” Salome asked. For a second, Alex thought she could see the Bridegroom. He had drawn closer, matching Alex step for step, a small smile quirking his lips, as if he could hear the hummingbird beat of her heart. Then she realized Salome was talking about Dawes. Most people in the societies probably had no idea Pamela Dawes even existed.

  “She’s assisting me,” said Alex.

  But Salome was already leading them into the dark foyer. The Bridegroom followed. The tombs were kept unwarded to allow the easy flow of magic, but that meant Grays could come and go as they pleased. It was what made Lethe’s protections necessary during rites.

  “Do you have it?” Salome asked. The interior was nondescript: slate floors, dark wood, leaded windows overlooking a small interior courtyard where an ash tree grew. It had been there long before the university and would probably still be stretching its roots when the stones around it crumbled to dust. A magnetic board by the door showed which delegation members were currently at the tomb, a necessity given the size of the place. They were listed by their Egyptian god names, and only Salome’s ankh, labeled Chefren, had been moved to the At home column.

  “Got it,” said Alex, pulling the statue from her bag.

  Salome seized it with a happy shriek. “Perfect! Keys is going to be so pissed when they realize we got it back.”

  “What does it do?” Alex asked as Salome led them back into another dark room, this one with an elongated lozenge of a table at its center, surrounded by low chairs. The walls were lined with glass cases full of Egyptian curios and depictions of wolves.

  “It doesn’t do anything,” Salome said with a withering look. She set the statue back in the case. “It’s the principle of the thing. We invited them into our house and they shat on our hospitality.”

  “Right,” said Alex. “That’s awful.” But she felt that angry rattle inside her twitch, vibrating against her sternum. Someone had just tried to kill her and this princess was playing stupid games. “Let’s get this started.”

  Salome shifted her weight. “Listen, I really can’t open up the temple without approval from the delegation. Not even alumni are allowed in.”

  Dawes released a small humming sigh. She was clearly relieved at the prospect of turning right around to go home. That wasn’t going to happen.

  “We had a deal. Are you actually trying to run game on me?” Alex asked.

  Salome grinned. She didn’t feel the least bit bad about it. And why would she? Alex was a freshman, an apprentice, clearly out of her element. She’d been nothing but quiet and deferential around Salome and the Wolf’s Head delegation, always letting Darlington, the real presence, the gentleman of Lethe, do the talking. Maybe if Lethe had rescued her from her life sooner, she could have been that girl. Maybe if the gluma hadn’t attacked and Dean Sandow hadn’t ignored her she could have kept pretending to be her.

  “I got your stupid figurine,” said Alex. “You owe me.”

  “Except you weren’t really supposed to do that, were you? So.”

  Most drug deals were done on credit. You got your supply from someone with the real connections, you proved you could move it for a good price, maybe next time you got the chance at a bigger bite. “You know why your boy is amateur and will stay amateur?” Eitan had asked Alex in his heavy accent once. He’d hiked a thumb at Len, who was giggling over a bong while Betcha played Halo beside him. “He’s too busy smoking my product to make anyone but me rich.” Len was always scraping by, always coming up a little short.

  When Alex was fifteen she’d come back to Len without his money, confused and flustered by the investment banker she’d met in the parking lot of the Sherman Oaks Sports Authority. Len usually handled him, leaving sweet-faced Alex to do runs at the colleges and malls. But Len had been too hungover that morning, so he’d given her bus fare and she’d ridden the RTD down to Ventura Boulevard. Alex didn’t know what to say when the banker told her he was short on cash, that he didn’t have the money right then but he was good for it. She’d never had someone flat-out refuse to pay. The college kids she dealt with called her “little sis,” and sometimes they even invited her to smoke up with them.

  Alex had expected Len to be pissed, but he’d been furious in a way she’d never seen before, frightened, screaming it was on her and she was going to have to answer to Eitan. So she’d found a way to pay back the money. She’d gone home for the weekend and stolen her grandmother’s garnet earrings to hock, had gotten a shift at Club Joy—the worst of the strip clubs, full of losers who barely tipped and owned by a tiny guy called King King, who wouldn’t let you out of the dressing room without copping a feel first. It was the only p
lace willing to take her on with no ID and nothing to fill her bikini. “Some guys like that,” King King had said before shoving his hand in her top. “But not me.”

  She’d never come back short again.

  Now she looked at Salome Nils, lean and smooth-faced, a Connecticut girl who rode horses and played tennis, her heavy bronze ponytail tucked over one shoulder like an expensive pelt. “Salome, how about you rethink your position?”

  “How about you and your spinster aunt run home?”

  Salome was taller than Alex, so Alex grabbed her by the lower lip, hard, and yanked. The girl squeaked and bent at the waist, flailing her arms.

  “Alex!” Dawes yelped, hands pressed to her chest like a woman pretending to be a corpse.

  Alex wrapped her arm around Salome’s neck, looping her into a choke hold, a grip she’d learned from Minki, who was only four foot five and the one girl at Club Joy who King King never messed with. Alex fastened her fingers around the pear-shaped diamond drop that hung from Salome’s ear.

  She was aware of Dawes’s shocked presence, of the Bridegroom stepping forward as if chivalry demanded he do so, the way the very air around them was shifting, changing, the haze dissipating so that Salome and Dawes and maybe even the Gray could see her clearly for the first time. Alex knew it was probably a mistake. Better not to be noticed, to keep your head down, remain the quiet girl, in over her head but no threat to anyone. But, like most mistakes, it felt good.

  “I really like these earrings,” she said softly. “How much did they cost?”

  “Alex!” Dawes protested again. Salome scrabbled at Alex’s forearm. She was strong from sports like squash and sailing, but she’d never had anyone lay hands on her, probably never seen a fight outside of a movie theater. “You don’t know, right? They were a present from your dad on your sweet sixteen or on graduation or some shit like that?” Alex jostled her and Salome squeaked again. “Here’s what’s going to happen: You’re going to let me into that room or I’m going to tear these things out of your ears and shove them both down your throat and you can choke on them.” It was an empty threat. Alex wasn’t in the business of wasting a nice pair of diamonds. But Salome didn’t know that. She started crying. “Better,” Alex said. “We understand each other?”