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.”
Alex shook her head. So much power just left on the mantel for anyone to seize. What
was in the rest of those urns?
“You shouldn’t have these things,” she said, thinking of Darlington’s wild eyes, of Mercy on her knees. “You shouldn’t be able to do this to people.”
Mike’s brows rose. “You don’t want it?”
“I didn’t say that.” Alex folded the envelope into her pocket. “But if I ever find out you used something like this on me, I’ll burn this building down.”
The house on Lynwood was two stories of white wood and a porch sagging beneath the
weight of a moldy couch. Darlington had told her that Omega once had a house in the alley behind Wolf’s Head, a sturdy stone cottage full of glowing brown wood and leaded
glass. Their letters were still worked into the stone, but Alex found it hard to imagine parties like Omega Meltdown and Sex on the Beach in what looked like a cozy tea room
for Scottish spinsters.
“Fraternity culture wasn’t quite the same then,” Darlington had said. “They dressed better, dined formally, took the ‘gentlemen and scholars’ bit seriously.”
“ ‘Gentleman scholar’ seems like a good description for you.”
“A true gentleman doesn’t boast of the title, and a true scholar has better uses for his
time than downing flaming Dr Pepper shots.”