Alex strode back out of Vanderbilt and across Old Campus. She wanted to go straight to Blake, but that would do no good. A group of Grays flickered in the corner of her vision. “Orare las di Korach,” she spat. Her grandmother’s curse felt good on her tongue. Let them be swallowed alive. All of her anger must have gathered in the words. The Grays scattered like birds.
And what about the gluma? If it was out there hunting, would it go running? She would have been glad for a glimpse of the Bridegroom, but she hadn’t seen him since their encounter in the borderlands.
Alex knew she shouldn’t have riled Detective Turner. He might have been willing to help if she hadn’t messed with him. It was possible he still would. Part of her believed he really was one of the good guys. But she didn’t want to rely on Turner or the law or the administration to fix this. Because the video would still be out there, and Blake Keely was rich and beautiful and beloved, and there was a big difference between things being fair and things being set right.
15
Winter
Alex hadn’t been back to Manuscript since the Halloween party. That night, she’d stayed with Darlington at Black Elm, trying to keep warm in his narrow bed. She’d woken to dawn light trickling through the room and Darlington curled behind her, asleep. He was hard again, the ridge of him tucked against the curves of her ass. One of his hands was cupped over her breast, his thumb moving back and forth over her nipple with the lazy rhythmic sway of a cat’s tail. Alex felt her whole body flush.
“Darlington,” she had snapped.
“Mmm?” he murmured against the back of her neck.
“Wake up and fuck me or cut that out.”
He froze and she felt him wake. He rolled off the bed, stumbling, tangled in covers. “I didn’t… I’m sorry. Did we?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Those assholes.”
A rare swear but a deserved one. His eyes had been bloodshot, his face haggard. It would have been worse if he’d known that the report she showed him over breakfast bore no resemblance to the one she’d actually sent to Dean Sandow.
The Manuscript tomb looked even uglier beneath a noon sun, the circle hidden in its brickwork seeming to appear then disappear as Alex approached the front door. Mike Awolowo waved her inside. The big room and the yard beyond looked airy, safe, all signs of the arcane buried deep beneath the surface.
“I’m glad you reached out,” he said, though Alex doubted that was true. He was an international studies major and had the intense, friendly poise of a daytime talk-show host.
Alex glanced over his shoulder and was happy to see the place seemed empty. Now that Kate Masters was on Alex’s suspect list, she didn’t want to complicate things.
“Time to settle up.”
Mike’s expression was resigned, the look of someone sitting in a dentist’s chair. “What do you need?”
“A way to call back something. A video.”
“If it’s gone viral, there’s nothing we can do.”
“I don’t think it has, not yet, but it could tip any minute.”
“How many people have seen it?”
“I’m not sure. Right now maybe a handful.”
“That’s a big ritual, Alex. And I’m not even sure it would work.”
Alex held his gaze. “The only reason you’re even up and functioning is because of the report I filed on Halloween.”
The night of the party, she and Darlington had stormed out of the tomb, or done their best to, Mike and Kate trailing after in their Batman and Poison Ivy costumes. Darlington was wobbly on his feet, blinking at everything as if it was too bright, clinging hard to her arm.
“Please,” Awolowo had begged. “This wasn’t sanctioned by the delegation. One of the alumni had a bug up his ass about Darlington. It was supposed to be a joke.”
“Nothing happened,” said Kate.
“That wasn’t nothing,” Alex retorted, dragging Darlington farther down the block. But Awolowo and Masters had followed, arguing and then making offers. So Alex had propped Darlington against the Mercedes and made a deal, a favor for a softening of the report. She’d described the drugging as an accident and Manuscript had faced nothing but a fine, when otherwise they would have been suspended. She’d known eventually Darlington would find out, when harsher sanctions never materialized. If nothing else, she’d get a stern lecture on the difference between morals and ethics. But then Darlington had disappeared, and the report had never been an issue. She knew it was a punk move, but if she survived her freshman year, Lethe would be her show to run. She had to do things her way.
Awolowo crossed his arms. “I thought you did that to save Darlington’s pride.”
“I did it because the world runs on favors.” Alex rubbed a hand over her face, trying to shake a sudden wave of fatigue. She held up her phone. “Look at her tongue. Someone’s using one of your drugs to mess with girls.”
Mike took the phone in hand and frowned at the screenshot. “Merity? Impossible. Our supplies are locked down.”
“Someone could be sharing the recipe.”
“We know what the stakes are. And we all have strong prohibitions placed on us. We can’t just walk around talking about what we do here. Besides, it’s not a question of knowing a formula. Merity only grows in the Greater Khingan Mountains. There’s literally one supplier, and we pay him a very steep fee to only sell to us.”
Then where had Blake and his friends gotten it? Another mystery.
“I’ll look into it,” Alex said. “But right now I need to fix this.”
Mike studied Alex. “This isn’t Lethe business, is it?” Alex didn’t answer. “There’s a threshold for media. It varies for music, celebrity, memes. But if you pass it, no ritual can call it back. I guess we could try to reverse the Full Cup. We use it to build momentum for projects. That’s what we did for Micha’s single last September.”
Alex remembered Darlington’s description of the society members gathered naked in a huge copper vat, chanting as it filled gradually with wine that bubbled up from some invisible place beneath their feet. The Full Cup. It had been enough to get a very mediocre single to number two on the dance charts.
“How many people would you need for it?”
“At least three others. I know who to talk to. But it will take a while to prepare. You’ll need to do everything you can to stanch the bleeding in the meantime or none of it will matter.”
“Okay. Call your people. As fast as you can.” She didn’t like the idea of Kate Masters being involved, but mentioning her name would only raise questions.
“You’re sure?”
Alex knew what Mike was asking. This was a violation of every Lethe protocol. “I’m sure.”
She was already at the door when Mike said, “Wait.”
He crossed to a wall of decorative urns and opened one, then drew a small plastic envelope from a drawer and measured out a tiny portion of silver powder. He sealed the envelope and handed it to Alex.
“What is it?”
“Starpower. Astrumsalinas. It’s salt skimmed from a cursed lake where countless men drowned, in love with their own reflections.”
“Like Narcissus?”
“The lake bed is covered in their bones. It’s going to make you really convincing for about twenty-five to forty minutes. Just promise me you’ll find out where that creep got the Merity.”
“Do I snort it? Sprinkle it over my head?”
“Swallow. It tastes awful, so you may have trouble keeping it down. You’re going to have a brutal headache after it wears off, and so will everyone you came in contact with.”