Mercy had changed clothes three times before they left their dorm room, finally arriving on a snug tweed jacket and velvet skirt.
“You know you’re doing us the favor, right?” Alex had asked.
“Dress for the job you want.”
“What job do you want?”
“I don’t know,” Mercy said. “But if magic is real, I want to make a good impression.”
Do we all hunger for this? Alex wondered as she shepherded Mercy into Il Bastone, watching her eyes grow wide at the sight of the sunflower staircase, the stained glass, the painted tiles that framed the fireplace. Why raise children on the promise of magic? Why create a want in them that can never be satisfied—for revelation, for transformation—and then set them adrift in a bleak, pragmatic world? In Darlington she’d seen what grief over that loss could do to someone, but maybe the same mourning lived inside her too. The terrible knowledge that there would be no secret destiny, no kindly mentor to see some hidden talent inside her, no deadly nemesis to best.
Maybe that grief, that longing fostered by stories of more beautiful worlds and their infinite possibility, was what made them all such easy prey for Lethe. Maybe it made Mercy dress in velvet and tweed and put fake emeralds in her ears, driven by the dream of finding her way through the back of the wardrobe. Alex just hoped there wouldn’t be something awful waiting behind the coats.
Earlier that night, she’d had to watch the members of Manuscript tie a chart-topping pop singer to a chair, crane her neck back, and place a nightingale in her mouth, securing it with a tiny rope bridle. Then they’d waited for the bird to shit down her throat. It was supposed to bring back her legendary voice. That was the truth of magic—blood and guts and semen and spit, organs kept in jars, maps for hunting humans, the skulls of unborn infants. The problem wasn’t books and fairy tales, just that they told half the story, offering up the illusion of a world where only the villains paid in blood, the ogre stepmothers, the wicked stepsisters, where magic was just and without sacrifice.
They found Turner sitting at the dining room table, poring over the notes Dawes had prepared. Alex suspected he was mostly trying to ignore Tripp, who was stuffing himself in front of the elaborate spread of charcuterie, fondue, and geometric bits of puff pastry laid out in the kitchen.
“Alex!” he cried when he saw her, his mouth half full of cheese. “Your buddy Dawes is a sick cook. Like insane.”
Dawes, ladling hot cider into a cup, looked caught between acute delight and stern disapproval, and the result was a kind of constipated half smile. She was in jeans instead of her usual sweats, her hair combed into a French braid.
Even Tripp had worn a blue blazer and a polo instead of his usual T-shirt and sweats. Alex felt suddenly underdressed.
“Let’s get started,” Turner said. “Some of us have work in the morning.”
And some of us have papers due, thought Alex. Not to mention a stack of reading that grew ever higher: To the Lighthouse, which had bored her; Novelon Yellow Paper, which had surprised her; page after page of Herodotus, which had quickly made her rethink her newfound passion for Greek history; long, opaque poems by Wallace Stevens, which sometimes put her in a kind of dream state and other times lulled her straight to sleep. If she could have chosen something other than the English major, she would have, but she wasn’t equipped for anything else. Which meant she might come into even closer contact with their new Praetor.
They’d met in the parlor that afternoon to discuss Alex’s preparations for the songbird ritual at Manuscript. Professor Walsh-Whiteley had sipped
sherry and nibbled biscotti while he perused Alex’s index cards, then given a brief sniff and said, “Passable.”
Alex had struggled to retain a victory whoop, though it had been difficult to maintain that triumphant mood once she actually understood what the ritual entailed. She’d wanted to go home and never think about it again, but she was determined to get her report typed up and sent to the Praetor before they attempted the Gauntlet. No reason to worry, sir. No need to pay close attention.
“Turner,” Alex murmured as they took their seats at the table, “does Professor Lambton have kids?”
“A son. Lives out in Arizona. And yes, he has an alibi.” He answered instantly, and Alex realized he might be sitting at this table, but his mind was elsewhere, constantly turning over the details of the faculty murders.
“You might want to check that alibi again.”
“Why? What do you know?”
“The quotes we’ve been chasing all lead back to the execution of Charles I. But it was his son who went looking for revenge.”
“And how did you suddenly figure this out?”
“I’m a sleuth,” Alex said, tapping her head and enjoying his eye roll way too much. “I did some digging. Pieced it together.” She wasn’t about to mention her lunch with Michael Anselm, or start talking about demons and vampires and the possibility that someone had bled the life from Marjorie Stephen. Not until she knew there was something more to it than her own paranoia.
Dawes clinked her knife against her water glass, the sound surprisingly clear and resonant. She flushed pink beneath her freckles when everyone turned to look at her and said, “We … should start?”
Tripp joined them at the table, his plate heaped high, a bottle of beer in his other hand. “Do we have to take an oath or something?”
“Don’t die. Try not to be an asshole,” Turner said. “That’s the oath.
Let’s get on with it.”
Dawes wiped her hands on her jeans and took up her position beside the whiteboard, where she’d drawn a rough plan of Sterling. She pointed to the entrance, to the first station of the Gauntlet.
“We’ll arrive at eleven sharp to get settled. Stay in the Linonia Room.
We’ll be using a very basic shrouding glamour to keep ourselves hidden when the library closes.”
“What are we going to tell Lauren?” Mercy whispered as Dawes described where in Linonia they should hide and which part of the room would be glamoured. “She’s going to be furious if we leave the party early.”
Alex wasn’t sure. It would have to be something so dull Lauren wouldn’t want to come along.
“There is very little guidance to work from,” Dawes continued. “But it would be wise to fast for at least six hours before. Do not consume any meat or dairy.”
“Only vegans go to hell?” Tripp said with a laugh.
Dawes looked at him with her stern, studious eyes. “You’re going to want empty bowels.”
That shut him up fast.
Dawes gestured to Mercy. “Our sentinel will be stationed in the courtyard. The four pilgrims will walk the Gauntlet together starting at one o’clock exactly.”
“How are we protecting Mercy?” Alex asked.
Mercy held up a small red notebook. “I’ve got my death words.” “You’ll want to commit them to memory,” said Dawes.
