“I can borrow one.”
“Great. Then all we need is this.” She pulled the mirror she’d used to gain access to Tara’s apartment from her pocket.
“You want me to walk into a secure jail with a compact and a nice attaché case?”
“It’s worse than that, Turner.” Alex flipped the mirror in her hand. “I want you to believe in magic.”
24
Winter
The plan was trickier than Alex had anticipated. The mirror would fool the guards they
encountered but not the cameras in the jail.
Dawes came to the rescue with an actual tempest in a teapot. Alex hadn’t thought Darlington was being literal when they’d walked through the bizarre basement of
Rosenfeld Hall, but apparently back in their heyday, St. Elmo’s had managed all kinds of
interesting magic.
“It’s not just the vessel,” Dawes explained to Alex and Turner the next day, standing at
the counter in the kitchen at Il Bastone, a golden teapot and jeweled strainer before her.
“It’s the tea itself.” She carefully measured out dried leaves from a tin stamped with the
St. Elmo’s crest, a sinister little design referred to as “the goat and boat.”
“Darlington said they’re campaigning for a new tomb,” Alex said.
Dawes nodded. “Losing Rosenfeld Hall broke them. They’ve been petitioning for
years, claiming all sorts of new applications for their magic. But without a nexus to build
over, there’s no point to a new tomb.” She poured the water over the leaves and set the timer on her phone. The lights flickered. “Make the brew too strong and you could short
the grid for the entire Eastern Seaboard.”
“Why are the tombs so important?” Turner asked. “This is just a house and you’re standing there … working magic. ” He ran his tongue over his teeth as if he didn’t like the taste of the word.
“Lethe House magic is spell-and object-based, borrowed enchantments, very stable. We
don’t rely on rites. It’s why we can keep the wards up. The other societies are trafficking
with far more powerful forces—telling the future, communicating with the dead, altering
matter.”
“Big magic,” said Alex.
Turner leaned back against the counter. “So they have machine guns and you’re
working with a bow and arrow?”
Dawes looked up, startled. She rubbed her nose. “Well, more like a crossbow, but yes.”
The timer sounded. Dawes swiftly removed the strainer and poured the tea into a
thermos. She handed it to Alex. “You should have about two hours of real disruption.
After that …” She shrugged.
“But you’re not going to knock the power out, right?” Turner asked. “I don’t want to be
at a jail when all the lights go down.”
“Aw, look how far you’ve come!” Alex said. “Now you’re worried about magic being
too powerful.”
Dawes tugged at her sweatshirt sleeves, the surety she’d displayed while caught up in
brewing the tea evaporating. “Not if I got it right.”
Alex took the thermos and stowed it in her satchel, then yanked her hair into a tight bun. She’d told Mercy she had a job interview as an excuse to borrow her fancy black pantsuit.
“I hope you get the job,” Mercy had said, and hugged Alex so tight it felt like her bones
were bending.
“I hope I get it too,” Alex had replied. She’d been happy to play dress-up, happy to have this adventure to fill the hours, regardless of the danger. The new-moon rite had felt
distant, impossibly far off, but tonight it would happen. She was having trouble thinking
about anything else.
She checked her phone. “No signal.”
Turner did the same. “Me neither.”
Alex turned on the little television that sat above the breakfast nook. Nothing but static.
“A perfect brew, Dawes.”
Dawes looked pleased. “Good luck.”
“I’m about to commit career suicide,” said Turner. “Let’s hope we’ve got more on our
side than luck.”
The drive to the jail was short. No one there knew Alex, so she didn’t have to worry
about being recognized. She made a perfectly reasonable assistant in her borrowed