But before he could answer, Professor Belbalm sailed through the swinging doors.

“Of course he was,” she said. “That man loves to drink my bourbon.” She popped a tiny wild strawberry into her mouth and wiped her fingers on a towel. “He said the most inane thing about Camus. But it’s hard not to be inane about Camus. I’m not sure why I expected better—he has a Rumi quote framed beside his desk. It pains me. Darling Colin, please make sure we always have white and red at hand?” She held up an empty bottle and Colin’s face went ashen. “It’s all right, love. Grab a bottle and come join us. Alex and the others can keep things under control here, yes? Did you bring something to read?”

“I … yes.” Colin drifted from the kitchen as if his ankles had just sprouted wings.

“Meringues,” commanded Isabel.

“Meringues,” repeated Alex, walking over to the mixer and handing the bowl to Isabel. She snapped a picture of the kitchen for her mom and texted, At work. This was the way she wanted Mira to think of her. Happy. Normal. Safe. Everything Alex had never been. She texted Mercy and Lauren too. At Belbalm’s salon. Fingers crossed for leftovers.

“I cannot believe Colin gets to read tonight,” Isabel complained, piping the meringue onto a baking sheet. “I’ve been with her a semester longer than he has, and I aced her Women and Industrialism seminar.”

“Next time,” murmured Alex, brushing melted butter over the tiny apple tarts. “Was it this crowded last week?”

“Yes, and Colin bitched the entire night. We were here cleaning up until after two.”

Then Colin’s alibi was good. Alex felt a rush of relief. She liked Colin, liked sour Isabel, liked this kitchen, this house, this comfortable space. She liked this piece of world that had nothing to do with murder or magic. She didn’t want to see it disrupted by brutality. But that didn’t mean she could cross all of Scroll and Key off her list. Even if Colin hadn’t killed Tara, he’d known her. And someone had taught Lance portal magic.

“Did Sandow stick around for the whole salon last week?”

“Unfortunately,” said Isabel. “He always drinks way too much. Apparently he’s been going through some kind of awful divorce. Professor Belbalm tucked him away in her study with a blanket. He left a ring of urine around the powder room toilet that Colin had to clean up.” She shuddered. “On second thought, Colin totally deserves to read. You have so much to look forward to, Alex.”

Isabel had no reason to lie, so Dean Sandow’s bad aim had just earned him an alibi. Dawes would be glad. And Alex supposed she was too. It was one thing to be a murderer, quite another to work for one.

It was a long, late night in the kitchen, but Alex couldn’t resent it. It felt like working toward something.

Around one in the morning, they finished serving, tidied up the kitchen, packed bottles into the recycling bins, accepted air kisses from Belbalm, and then floated into the night with platters of leftovers in hand. After the violence and strangeness of the last few days, it felt like a gift. It was a beautiful taste of what life might become, of how little the societies mattered to most people at Yale, of work that asked nothing of you but time and a bit of attention in a house full of harmless people high on nothing more than their own pretensions.

Alex saw a Gray in Rollerblades ahead of her, weaving her way between the lampposts, drawing closer. Her skull and torso looked like they’d been crushed, a deep dimple left by the wheels of some careless driver’s car.

Pasa punto, pasa mundo, Alex whispered, almost kindly, and watched the girl vanish. A moment passes, a world passes. Easy.

Alex didn’t have classes the next morning. She got up early to eat breakfast and to try to do a little reading before trekking up to Marsh, but as she was finishing her pile of eggs and hot sauce, she caught sight of the Bridegroom. His expression turned disapproving when she followed up with a hot fudge sundae, but ice cream was available at all meals in every dining hall, and that was not an opportunity to be squandered.

After breakfast, she ducked into the bathroom off the JE common room and filled the sink. She wasn’t eager to talk to him; she wasn’t ready to discuss what she’d witnessed in his memories. But she also wanted to know if he’d had any luck finding Tara.

After a moment, North’s face appeared in the reflection.

“Well?” she said.

“I haven’t found her yet.”

Alex flicked the surface of the water with her finger and watched his reflection fracture. “Seems like you’re not much good at this.”

When the water stilled, North’s expression was grim. “And what have you discovered?”

“You were right. Darlington was interested in your case. But his notes weren’t in his desk at Il Bastone. I can look at Black Elm tomorrow night.” When the new moon would rise. Maybe then Darlington would be able to answer the Bridegroom’s questions himself.

“And?”

“And what?”

“What did you see when you were in my head, Miss Stern? You were distressed when you cast me out.”

Alex contemplated how much she wanted to tell him. “What do you remember from the moment you died, North?”

His face seemed to go still, and she realized she’d spoken his name out loud. Damn it.

“Is that what you saw?” he asked slowly. “My death?”

“Just answer me.”

“Nothing,” he admitted. “One moment I was standing in my new office, talking to Daisy, and then … I was no one. The mortal world was lost to me.”

“You were on the other side.” Alex could see how that could mess with your head. “Did you ever try to find Gladys O’Donaghue behind the Veil?”

“Who?”

“Daisy’s maid.”

North frowned. “The police interviewed her. She found our … bodies, but she wasn’t even there to witness the crime.”

“And she was just a maid?” said Alex. Guys like this never noticed the help. But North was right. Alex had spotted Gladys outside enjoying the spring weather herself. If Gladys had seen or heard something strange at the scene, she had every reason to share that information with the police. And Alex suspected there had been no one to see—just magic, invisible and wild, the frightened spirit of a man who had been brutalized by the Bonesmen and somehow found his way into North. “I’ll let you know what I find at Black Elm. Quit following me around and go hunt down Tara.”

“What did you see in my head, Miss Stern?”

“Sorry! You’re breaking up!” Alex released the plug in the drain.

She headed out of the common room and texted Turner that she was on her way to the Marsh greenhouses. On her way, she placed a phone call to the hospital to ask after Michael Reyes. She should have checked in on the victima from Skull and Bones’s latest prognostication sooner, but she’d been more than a little distracted. It took her a while to get the right person on the line, but eventually Jean Gatdula came on to tell her that Reyes was recovering well and would be sent home in the next two days. Alex knew “home” was Columbus House, a shelter far away from campus. She hoped Bones at least left him with a pocketful of cash for his trouble.

The Marsh Botanical Garden sat at the top of Science Hill, the old mansion topped by what looked like a bell tower, the grounds of the former estate rolling down the slope toward the apartment Tara had shared with Lance. There was no real security and Alex blended in easily with the students coming and going from the facility. Four massive forestry school greenhouses stood near the back entrance, surrounded by a cluster of smaller glass structures. Alex had worried she wouldn’t be able to identify where Tara had tended her dangerous garden, but as she made a circuit around the grounds, she detected the stink of the uncanny beneath the smells of manure and turned soil. Though the little greenhouse looked ordinary enough, Alex suspected it had the remnants of a glamour on it—probably courtesy of Kate Masters and Manuscript. How else would Tara have cultivated her crops without inviting suspicion?

But when Alex pulled open the door, she found nothing but empty planters and overturned pots on the tables. Someone had cleaned the place out. Kate? Colin? Someone else? Had Lance opened a portal from his jail cell and come here to destroy potential evidence?

A single, slender tendril of some unknown plant lay in a pile of dirt beside a toppled plastic container. Alex touched her finger to it. The little vine unfurled, a lone white bud appearing from its leaves. Its petals parted in a burst of glittering seeds like a firework, with a soft but audible puh, and it withered to nothing.

Outside, Alex found a lean woman in jeans and a barn jacket digging through a bucket of some kind of mulch with gloved hands.

“Hey,” she said, “can you tell me who uses that greenhouse?”

“Sveta Myers. She’s a grad student.”

Alex didn’t remember her name from Tara’s case file.

“You know where I can find her?”