Turner rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, give me your list of suspects.”
Alex felt suddenly self-conscious, like she was being asked to work a complicated math
problem in front of the class, but she took a blue marker from Dawes and went to the board.
“Four of the Ancient Eight may have connections to Tara: Skull and Bones, Scroll and
Key, Manuscript, and Book and Snake.”
“The Ancient Eight?” asked Turner.
“The Houses of the Veil. The societies with tombs. You should have read your Life of
Lethe. ”
Turner waved her on. “Start with Skull and Bones. Tara was selling weed to Tripp Helmuth, but I don’t see how that’s a motive for murder.”
“She was also sleeping with Tripp.”
“You think it was more than casual?”
“I doubt it,” Alex admitted.
“But if Tara thought so?” asked Dawes tentatively.
“I’m guessing Tara knew the score.” You had to. All the time. “Still, Tripp’s family is
real old money. She might have tried to get something out of him.”
“That sounds like a soap opera motive,” said Turner.
He wasn’t going to be an easy sell. “But what if they were dealing in harder stuff? Not
just pot? I think a senior named Blake Keely was getting a drug called Merity from them.”
“That’s impossible,” said Dawes. “It only grows—”
“I know, on some mountaintop. But Blake bought from Lance and Tara. Tripp said he
saw Tara with Kate Masters, and Kate is in Manuscript—the only society with access to
Merity.”
“You think Kate sold Merity to Tara and Lance?” asked Dawes.
“No,” said Alex, turning the idea over in her head. “I think Kate paid Tara to find a way to grow it. Lance and Tara lived within spitting distance of the forestry school and the Marsh greenhouses. Kate wanted to cut out the middleman. Get Manuscript its own
supply.”
“But then … how did Blake get his hands on it?”
“Maybe they started growing their own stash of Merity and sold it to Blake. Money is
money.”
“But that would be …”
“Unethical?” asked Alex. “Irresponsible? Like handing a sociopathic toddler a magical
machete?”
“What exactly does this drug do?” Turner sounded reluctant, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“It makes you …” Alex hesitated. Obedient wasn’t the right word. Eager didn’t cover it either.
“An acolyte,” said Dawes. “Your only desire is to serve.”
Turner shook his head. “And let me guess, it isn’t a regulated substance because no one’s ever heard of it to regulate it.” He had the same nauseated expression he’d worn when he saw Alex healed by the crucible. “All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Back to the board. Tara is connected to Bones by Tripp, Manuscript by Kate Masters and this drug. Is
Colin Khatri her only connection to Scroll and Key?”
“No,” said Alex. “She had words from a poem called Idylls of the King tattooed on her arm, and that text is all over the Locksmiths’ tomb.” She passed the file full of photos to
Dawes. “Right forearm.”
Dawes glanced at the autopsy photos displaying Tara’s tattoos, then shuffled hurriedly
past.
“That doesn’t feel like a casual connection,” said Alex.
“What’s this?” Dawes asked, tapping a photo of Tara’s bedroom.
“Just a bunch of jewelry-making tools,” said Turner. “She had a little business on the
side.”
Of course she had. That was what girls did when their lives fell apart. They tried to find
a window to climb out of. Community college. Homemade soaps. A little jewelry-making
business on the side.
Dawes was gnawing at her lower lip hard enough that Alex thought she might draw blood. Alex leaned over and peered at the picture, at the cheap knockoff gemstones and dishes of curved hooks for earrings, the pliers. But one of the dishes looked different than
the others. It was shallower, the metal beaten and raw, the leavings of something like ash
or a ring of lime around its base.