Ninth House

by Leigh Bardugo

  Because it wasn’t a hyphen. None of them were hyphens. Rhinelander. Stone. Phelps. Kingsley. Russell. Wrexham. They were the names of the trusts, the foundations and associations that funded the societies—that paid for the construction of their tombs.

  Alex ran back to the library and slammed the shelf shut; she yanked the Albemarle Book free again but made herself slow down. She needed to think about how to phrase this. Russell was the trust that funded Skull and Bones. Carefully, she wrote out: Deed for land acquired by Russell Trust on High Street, New Haven, Connecticut.

  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.”

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

  “I’m not a junkie.” She didn’t know if that was true. She’d never gotten into the hard stuff. She’d been too afraid of what might happen if she lost too much control, but she’d kept herself in a carefully modulated haze for years now.

  “You kill them? Tiny little girl. You were pass out, full of fentanyl.” Eitan cut her a sidelong glance. “You owe me for the drugs.”

  The fentanyl. It had come into her blood from Hellie somehow, left enough in her system to make it look like she’d almost overdosed too. A last gift. A perfect alibi.

  Alex laughed. “I’m going to Yale.”

  “Fucking junkies,” Eitan repeated in disgust. He rose and dusted off his perfectly tailored trousers.

  “What are you going to do?” Alex asked.

  He glanced around the room. “You have no flowers. No balloons or anything. That’s sad.”

  “I guess it is,” said Alex. She wasn’t even sure if her mother knew she was in the hospital. Mira had probably been waiting for that call a long time.

  “I don’t know what I will do,” said Eitan. “I think your asshole boyfriend got into debt with the wrong person. He rip someone off or piss someone off and Ariel was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He rubbed his face again. “But it doesn’t matter. Once you are chump, is like a tattoo. Everyone can see it. So someone will die for this.” Alex wondered if it would be her. “You owe me for fentanyl. Six thousand dollars.”

  After Eitan had left, she asked the nurse to move the hospital phone closer. She took out the card Elliot Sandow had left with her and called his office.

  “I’ll take your offer,” she told him, when his secretary put her through. “But I’m going to need some money.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he’d replied.

  Later, Alex wished she’d asked for more.

  Alex flipped the coin of compulsion once more. She pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the throb of pain that shot through her. She walked back to the desk where she’d spread Darlington’s scribblings beside her bloody Shakespeare notebook.

  Once you are chump, is like a tattoo. Everyone can see it.

  She took out her phone and called the dean’s house. His housekeeper picked up, as Alex had known she would. “Hi, Yelena. It’s Alex Stern. I have something to drop off for the dean.”

  “He is not home,” Yelena said in her heavy Ukrainian accent. “But you can bring package by.”

  “Do you know where he went? Is he feeling better?”

  “Yes. Went to president’s house for big party. Is welcome back.”

  Alex had never been to the university president’s house, but she knew the building. Darlington had pointed it out—a pretty stack of red brick and white trim on Hillhouse.

  “That’s great,” said Alex. “I’ll be by in a bit.”

  Alex texted Turner: We got it wrong. Meet me at the president’s house.

  She folded the list of names and placed it in her pocket. She was done being Sandow’s chump. “All right, Darlington,” she whispered, “let’s go play knight.”

  30

  Early Spring

  Alex stopped back at her dorm room to shower and change. She combed her hair carefully, checked her bandages, put on the dress her mother had bought for her. She didn’t want to look out of place. And if something bad went down, she wanted as much credibility as possible. She poured herself a cup of tea and waited for North to appear in the cup.

  “Any luck?” she asked, when his pale face emerged in the reflection.

  “None of them are here,” he said. “Something happened to those girls. The same thing that happened to Daisy. Something worse than death.”

  “Meet me outside the wards. And be ready. I’m going to need your strength.”

  “You’ll have it.”

  Alex didn’t doubt it. Stray magic had killed North and his fiancée, Alex felt sure of it. But something else had gone on in the aftermath, something Alex couldn’t explain. All she knew was that it had kept Daisy from passing behind the Veil, where she might have found peace.

  She took a car to the president’s house. There was a valet out front, and through the windows, she could see people crowding the rooms. Good. There would be witnesses.

  Even so, she texted Dawes. I know you’ve gone MIA, but if anything happens to me, it was Sandow. I left a record in the library. Just ask the Albemarle Book.

  No reply from Turner yet. Now that he thought his case was solved was he done with her? She was glad of North’s presence beside her as she walked up the path.

  Alex had expected someone checking names at the door, but she entered without incident. The rooms were warm and smelled of damp wool and baked apples. She slipped off her coat and hung it on top of two others on a peg. She could hear a piano being played beneath the murmur of conversation. She snatched a couple of stuffed mushroom caps from a passing server. Hell if she was going to die on an empty stomach.

  “Alex?” the server asked, and she realized it was Colin.

  He looked a little tired maybe, but not distressed or angry.

  “I didn’t know you worked for the president too,” Alex said cautiously.

  “I’m on loan from Belbalm. I have to drive her home later if you want a ride. You working today?”

  Alex shook her head. “No, just dropping something off. For Dean Sandow.”

  “I think I saw him by the piano. Come back to the kitchen when you’re done. Someone sent Belbalm a bottle of champagne and she brought it by for us.”

  “Nice,” Alex said, feigning enthusiasm.

  She found the powder room and darted inside. She needed a moment to compose herself, to make sense of Colin’s easy demeanor. He should be mad. He should hate her for uncovering his connections to Tara, for revealing that Scroll and Key had shared their secrets with outsiders, that they had been using illegal drugs. Even if Sandow had kept her name out of the disciplinary proceedings, she was still a representative of Lethe.

  But hadn’t Alex known there would be no real repercussions? A slap on the wrist. A fine. The blood price was for someone else to pay. And yet she’d thought there would be some kind of reckoning.

  Alex leaned her hands on the sink, staring into the mirror. She looked exhausted, dark shadows carving trenches beneath her eyes. She’d worn an old black cardigan over the cream wool sheath her mother had bought for her. Now she stripped it off. Her skin looked sallow and her arms had the lean, ropy look of someone who would never be full. She could see pink from her wound seeping through the wool of her dress; her new bandage must have come loose at the edges. She’d meant to look reputable, like a good girl, a girl who tried, someone to be trusted. Instead, she looked like the monster at the door.

  Alex could hear the sounds of glasses clinking and civilized conversation in the living room. She had tried so hard to be a part of it all. But if this was the real world, the normal world, did she really want in? Nothing ever changed. The bad guys never suffered. Colin and Sandow and Kate and all of the men and women who had come before them, who had filled those tombs and worked their magic—they weren’t any different than the Lens and Eitans and Ariels of the world. They took what they wanted. The world might forgive them or ignore them or embrace them, but it never punished them. So what was the point? What was the point of her passing GPA and her bargain cashmere sweaters when the game was rigged from moment one?

  Alex remembered Darlington placing the address moths on her skin in the dim light of the armory. She remembered watching her tattoos fade, believing for the first time that anything might be possible, that she might find a way to belong to this place.

  Be careful in the throes, he’d said. Saliva could reverse the magic.

  Alex made her hands into fists. She ran her tongue along the knuckles of her left hand, did the same to the right. For a moment nothing happened. Alex listened to the faucet drip.

  Then ink blo
omed dark over the skin of her arms. Snakes and peonies, cobwebs and clusters of stars, two clumsy koi circling each other on her left biceps, a skeleton on one forearm, the arcane symbols of the Wheel on the other. She still had no idea what those symbols meant. She’d pulled that card from Hellie’s tarot deck moments before they’d walked into a tattoo shop on the boardwalk. Alex watched in the mirror as her history spilled over her skin, the scars she had chosen for herself.

  We are the shepherds. The time for that was done. Better to be a rattler. Better to be a jackal.

  Alex stepped out of the powder room and let herself be absorbed into the crowd, the clouds of perfume, the suits and St. John knitwear. She saw the nervous glances cast her way. She did not look right. She did not look wholesome. She did not belong.

  She glimpsed Sandow’s salt-and-pepper hair in a cluster of guests by the piano. He was balanced on a pair of crutches. She was surprised he hadn’t healed himself, but she also couldn’t imagine him dragging a dozen cartons of goat’s milk up the stairs at Il Bastone without help.

  “Alex!” he said in some confusion. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

  Alex smiled warmly. “I was able to find the file you requested and I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

  “File?”

  “On the land deeds. Dating back to 1854.”

  Sandow startled, then laughed unconvincingly. “Of course. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on tight. Excuse us for just a moment,” he said, and led them through the crowd. Alex stayed behind him. She knew he was already calculating what she knew and how to question her, maybe how to silence her. She took her phone out and hit record. She would have liked the protection of the crowd, but she knew the microphone would never be able to pick up his voice in all of the party noise.

  “Stay close,” she whispered to North, who hovered at her side.

  Sandow opened a door to an office—a lovely, perfectly square room with a stone-manteled fireplace and French doors that looked out on a back garden caught between the leavings of snow and the green beginnings of the spring thaw. “After you.”