in false embarrassment. Lauren went utterly still. Mercy shrank deep into the neck of her
sweater, her whole body shaking. Alex tensed, waiting.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Lauren.
But Evan Wiley swooped down into the seat beside her. “Oh my God, I am dying.”
“It’s okay,” Lauren said to Mercy, and then muttered angrily, “What is your problem?”
“I knew Blake was gross, but I didn’t know he was that gross.”
Lauren’s phone buzzed, then Alex’s. But no one was looking at Mercy; people were just shrieking and gagging at their tables, faces glued to their own screens.
“Just look,” said Mercy, her face in her hands. “Tell me.”
Lauren took a deep breath and picked up her phone. She frowned.
“Gross,” she gasped.
“I know,” said Evan.
There on the screen was Blake Keely, bent over a filthy toilet. Alex felt the snake inside her unwind, warm and gratified, as if it had found the perfect sunbaked rock to warm its
belly.
“Are you serious?” Blake said, giggling in exactly the same wild, high-pitched way he
had when he’d said, Look at all that bush!
“Okay, okay,” he went on in the video. “You’re so crazy!” But whoever he was talking
to couldn’t be seen.
“No,” said Lauren.
“Oh my God,” said Mercy.
“I know,” repeated Evan.
And as they watched, Blake Keely dipped his cupped hand into the clogged toilet, scooped up a handful of shit, and took a big bite.
He chewed and swallowed, still giggling, and then, brown smearing his even white
teeth and caking his lips, Blake looked at whoever was holding the camera and gave his
famous, lazy, shit-eating smile.
Alex’s phone buzzed again. Awolowo.
WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU.
Alex kept her reply simple: xoxoxo
You had no right. I trusted you.
We all make mistakes.
Mike wasn’t going to complain to Sandow. He’d have to explain that his delegation had
somehow let the secret to Merity slip free and that he’d handed Alex a dose of Starpower.
Alex had used Blake’s own phone to send the new video to all of his contacts, and no one
at Omega knew her name.
“Alex,” whispered Lauren. “What is this?”
Around them, the dining hall had exploded into pockets of heated conversation, people
cackling and pushing their food away in disgust, others demanding to know what was happening. Evan had already moved on to the next table. But Lauren and Mercy were staring at Alex, quiet, their phones placed facedown on the table.
“How did you do it?” asked Lauren.
“Do what?”
“You said you would fix it,” Mercy said. She tapped her phone. “So?”
“So,” said Alex.
The silence eddied around them for a long moment.
Then Mercy dragged her finger over the table and said, “You know how people say two wrongs don’t make a right?”
“Yeah.”
Mercy pulled Alex’s plate toward her and took a huge bite of her remaining
cheeseburger. “They’re full of shit.”
Whether the magic of Scroll and Key was learned or stolen from Middle Eastern sorcerers during the Crusades is not really a matter of debate—
fashions change, thieves become curators—though the Locksmiths still like
to protest that their mastery of portal magic was gotten by strictly honest
means. The exterior of the Scroll and Key tomb pays homage to the origins
of their power, but the interior of the tomb is nonsensically devoted to
Arthurian legend, complete with a round table at its heart. There are some
who claim the stone comes from Avalon itself, others who swear it comes
from the Temple of Solomon, and still others who whisper it was quarried
down the road in Stony Creek. Regardless of its origins, everyone from Dean
Acheson to Cole Porter to James Gamble Rogers—the architect responsible
for Yale’s very bones—has jostled elbows at it.
—from The Life of Lethe: Procedures and Protocols of the Ninth House
Sunburn keeping me awake. Andy said we’d be in Miami in time for kickoff
no problem, all of it on the books and approved by the S&K board and the
alumni. But whatever magic they got cooking went wobbly fast. At least now