Alex rubbed her arms miserably. She wanted her coat. “Didn’t have to.”

“I told Sandow I’d keep him up-to-date. If I thought any of the young psychopaths under your care were connected, I would be pursuing it.”

Alex believed that. “There could be things you’re not seeing.” “There’s nothing to see. Her boyfriend was arrested near the scene. Their neighbors heard some ugly arguments the last few weeks. There’s blood evidence linking him to the crime. He had powerful hallucinogens in his system—”

“What exactly?”

“We’re not sure yet.”

Alex had stayed away from any kind of hallucinogen after she realized they just made the Grays more terrifying, but she’d held plenty of hands during good and bad trips and she had yet to meet the mushroom that could make you feel like you weren’t being stabbed to death.

“Do you want him to get away with it?” Turner said.

“What?” The question startled her.

“You tampered with a corpse. Tara’s body is evidence. If you mess around with this case enough, it could mean Lance Gressang doesn’t go away for this. Do you want that?”

“No,” Alex said. “He doesn’t get away with it.”

Turner nodded. “Good.” They stood in the cold. Alex could see the old Mercedes idling in the lot, one of the only remaining cars. Dawes’s face was a dim smudge behind the windshield. She raised her hand in what Alex realized was a limp wave. Thanks, Pammie. It was long past time to let this go. Why couldn’t she?

She tried one last play. “Just give me a name. Lethe will find out eventually. If the societies are messing around with illegal substances, we should know.” And then we can move on to kidnapping, insider trading, and—did cutting someone open to read their innards fall under assault? They’d need a whole new section of the penal code to cover what the societies dabbled in. “We can investigate without stepping on your murder case.”

Turner sighed, his breath pluming white in the cold. “There was only one society name in her contacts. Tripp Helmuth. We’re in the process of clearing him—”

“I saw him last night. He’s a Bonesman. He was working the door at a prognostication.”

“That’s what he said. Was he there the whole night?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Tripp had been banished to the hallway to stand guard. It was true that once a ritual started, people rarely went in or out, only when someone got faint or sick or if something had to be fetched for the Haruspex. Alex thought she remembered the door opening and closing a few times, but she couldn’t be certain. She’d been worrying about the chalk circle and trying not to vomit. But it was hard to believe Tripp could have skipped out on the ritual, gotten all the way to Payne Whitney, murdered Tara, and gotten back on duty without anyone knowing. Besides, what homicidal beef could he have with Tara? Tripp was rich enough to buy himself out of any kind of trouble Tara or her boyfriend might have tried to make for him, and it wasn’t Tripp’s face Alex had seen hovering above Tara with a knife. It was Lance’s.

“Do not talk to him,” Turner said. “I’ll send you and the dean the info once we lock in his alibi. You stay away from my case.”

“And away from your career?”

“That’s right. The next time I find you anywhere you’re not supposed to be, I’ll arrest you on the spot.”

Alex couldn’t help the dark bubble of laughter that burst from her.

“You’re not going to arrest me, Detective Turner. The last place you want me is in a police station, making noise. I’m messy and Lethe is messy and all you want is to get through this without our mess getting on those expensive shoes.”

Turner gave her a long, steady look. “I don’t know how you ended up here, Ms. Stern, but I know the difference between quality goods and what I find on the bottom of my shoe, and you are most definitely not quality.”

“Thanks for the talk, Turner.” Alex leaned in, knowing the stink of the uncanny was radiating off her in heavy waves. She gave him her sweetest, warmest smile. “And don’t grab me like that again. I may be shit, but I’m the kind that sticks.”

9

Winter

Alex parted with Dawes near the divinity school, at a sad horseshoe-shaped apartment building in the grad school ghetto. Dawes hadn’t wanted to leave the car in Alex’s care, but she had papers to grade that were already late, so Alex said she would return the Mercedes to Darlington’s home. She could tell Dawes wanted to refuse, papers be damned.

“Be careful and don’t … You shouldn’t …” But Dawes just trailed off, and Alex had the startling realization that Dawes had to defer to her in this situation. Dante served Virgil, but Oculus served them both. And they all served Lethe. Dawes nodded, kept nodding, nodded all the way out of the car and up the walkway to her apartment, as if she was affirming every step.

Darlington’s house was out in Westville, just a few miles from campus. This was the Connecticut Alex had dreamed of—farmhouses without farms, sturdy red-brick colonials with black doors and tidy white trim, a neighborhood full of wood-burning fireplaces, gently tended lawns, windows glowing golden in the night like passageways to a better life, kitchens where something good bubbled on the stove, breakfast tables scattered with crayons. No one drew their curtains; light and heat and good fortune spilled out into the dark as if these foolish people didn’t know what such bounty might attract, as if they’d left these shining doorways open for any hungry girl to walk through.

Alex hadn’t driven much since she’d left Los Angeles and it felt good to be back in a car, even one she was terrified of leaving a scratch on. Despite the map on her phone, she missed the turn into Darlington’s driveway and had to double back twice before she spotted the thick stone columns that marked the entry to Black Elm. The lamps that lined the drive were lit, bright halos that made the bare-branched trees look soft and friendly like a winter postcard. The bulky shape of the house came into view, and Alex slammed her foot down on the brakes.

A light glowed in the kitchen window, bright as a beacon, another up in the high tower—Darlington’s bedroom. She remembered his body curled against hers, the cloudy panes of the narrow window, the sea of black branches below, the dark woods separating Black Elm from the world outside.

Hurriedly, Alex turned off the headlights and the engine. If someone was here, if something was here, she didn’t want to scare it away.

Her boots on the gravel drive sounded impossibly loud but she wasn’t sneaking—no, she wasn’t sneaking; she was just walking up to the kitchen door. She had the keys in her hand. She was welcome here.

It could be his mom or dad, she told herself. She didn’t know much about Darlington’s family, but he had to have one. Another relative. Someone else Sandow had hired to look after the place when Dawes was busy.

All of those things were more likely, but … He’s here, her heart insisted, pounding so hard in her chest she had to pause at the door, make herself breathe more steadily. He’s here. The thought pulled her along like a child who had hold of her sleeve.

She peered in through the window, safe in the dark. The kitchen was all warm wood and patterned blue tiles—the tiles are Delft—a big brick hearth and copper pots gleaming from their hooks. Mail was stacked on the kitchen island, as if someone had been in the middle of sorting it. He’s here.

Alex thought of knocking, fumbled with the keys instead. The second one turned in the lock. She entered, gently shut the door behind her. The merry light of the kitchen was warm, welcoming, reflected back in flat copper pans, caught in the creamy green enamel of the stove that someone had installed in the fifties.

“Hello?” she said, her voice a breath.

The sound of the keys dropping onto the counter made an unexpectedly loud jangle. Alex stood guiltily in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for someone to chastise her, maybe even the house. But this was not the mansion on Orange with its hopeful creaks and disapproving sighs. Darlington had been the life of this place, and without him the house felt huge and empty, a shipwreck hull.

Ever since that night at Rosenfeld Hall, Alex would catch herself hoping that maybe this was all a test, one given to every Lethe House apprentice, and that Dawes and Sandow and Turner were all in on it. Darlington was in his third-floor bedroom hiding out right now. He’d heard the car in the driveway. He’d raced up the stairs and was huddling there, in the dark, waiting for her to leave. The murder could be part of it too. There was no dead girl. Tara Hutchins would come waltzing down the stairs herself when this was all over. They just had to be sure Alex could handle something serious on her own.