“Dawes,” said Alex. “What does that look like to you?”
Dawes pushed the file away as if she could banish it. “It’s a crucible.”
“What would Tara have used it for? To process the Merity?”
Dawes shook her head. “No. Merity is used in its raw form.”
“Hey,” said Turner. “How about we pretend for a minute I don’t know what a crucible
is.”
Dawes tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear and without looking at him said, “They’re vessels created for magical and alchemical use. They’re usually made of pure gold and highly reactive.”
“That big gold bathtub Dawes just put me in is a crucible,” said Alex.
“You’re telling me the thing in Tara’s apartment is real gold? It’s the size of an ashtray.
No way Gressang and his girl could afford something like that.”
“Unless it was a gift,” said Alex. “And unless whatever they were making in it was worth more than the metal itself.”
Dawes pulled her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands. “There are stories about holy men
who would use psilocybin—mushrooms—to literally open doorways to other worlds. But
the drugs had to be purified … in a crucible.”
“Doorways,” said Alex, remembering the night she and Darlington had observed the
botched ritual at Scroll and Key. “You mean portals. You said there are rumors of the magic at Scroll and Key failing. Could Lance and Tara’s secret sauce have helped with that?”
Dawes expelled a long breath. “Yes. In theory, a drug like that could help facilitate opening the portals.”
Alex picked up the photo of the tiny crucible. “Do you have this stuff in, uh … custody
or whatever?”
“In evidence,” said Turner. “Yes, we do. If there’s enough residue left in that thing we
can have it tested, see if it matches the hallucinogen we found in Tara’s system.”
Dawes had taken her headphones from around her neck. She sat with them cradled in
her lap like a sleeping animal.
“What is it?” Alex asked her.
“You said Lance was walking through walls, maybe using portal magic to attack you. If
someone from Scroll and Key allowed outsiders access to their tomb, if they brought Lance and Tara into their rituals … The Houses of the Veil consider that unforgivable.
Nefandum. ”
Alex and Turner exchanged a glance.
“What’s the penalty for sharing that kind of information with outsiders?” Alex asked.
Dawes clutched her headphones. “The society would be stripped of its tomb and disbanded.”
“You know what that sounds like?” said Turner.
“Yeah,” replied Alex. “Motive.”
Had Colin Khatri inducted Lance and Tara into the secrets of the society? Had it been
some kind of payment, one he didn’t want to continue to make? Was that what had gotten
Tara killed? It was hard for Alex to imagine clean, cheerful Colin committing violent murder. But he was a boy with a bright future, and that meant he had plenty to lose.
“I’m going to Professor Belbalm’s salon tonight,” said Alex. She would have preferred
to fall asleep right here in front of the fire, but she didn’t intend to piss off the one person who seemed to be looking out for her future. “Colin works for Belbalm. I can try to find
out how late he stayed at her house the night Tara died.”
“Alex,” Dawes said quietly, looking up at last. “If Darlington found out about the drugs, about what Colin and the other Locksmiths were doing with Lance and Tara, maybe
…” She trailed off, but Alex knew what she was suggesting: Maybe Scroll and Key had
been responsible for the portal that had disappeared Darlington that night in the Rosenfeld
basement.
“Where is Darlington?” asked Turner. “And if you say Spain, I’m going to pack up my
files and go home. My bed is looking real good right now.”
Dawes squirmed in her chair.
“Something happened to him,” said Alex. “We’re not sure what. There’s a ritual to try
to reach him, but it can only be attempted at the new moon.”
“Why the new moon?”
“The timing matters,” said Dawes. “For a ritual to work, it helps if it’s built around an