“Why didn’t you just portal to the tomb—the table—and then go wherever you
wanted?”
Lance blinked. “Shit.” He slumped back in his chair. “Shit.” He trained his gaze on Alex. He looked impossibly mournful. “You’re going to help me, right? You’re going to
protect me?”
Turner stood. “Keep your head down, Gressang. As long as you look like you’re taking
the fall, you should be safe in here.”
Alex expected Lance to protest, try to bargain, maybe even threaten them. Instead, he
just sat there, his big body frozen like a stone idol beneath the fluorescent lights. He didn’t say a word when Turner knocked on the door and the guard came to fetch them, didn’t look up when they left. He’d been to the jungles of the Amazon, explored the markets of
Marrakesh. He’d seen into the mysteries of the world, but the mysteries of the world had
taken no notice of him, and after all of it, he’d still ended up here. The doors had closed.
The portals too. Lance Gressang wasn’t going anywhere.
Turner and Alex rode back to campus in silence, the Dodge’s heater cranked up against
the bitter cold. She texted Dawes to let her know they were in the clear and that she’d be
at Black Elm by eight at the latest, then slipped off the pumps she’d borrowed from Mercy. They were a half size too small and her feet were killing her.
It wasn’t until they were exiting the highway that Turner said, “Well?”
“I think we may have more motives than we started with.”
“I’m not taking Gressang off the table. Not until we can put someone else at the scene.
But Colin Khatri and Kate Masters are looking a lot more interesting.” He tapped his gloved hands on the wheel. “It’s not only Colin and Kate, though, is it? It’s all of them. All the little children in their robes and hoods pretending they’re wizards.”
“They’re not pretending.” But Alex knew exactly what he meant. Colin was the most direct connection between Scroll and Key and Tara, but all of the Locksmiths had shared
their rituals with outsiders and hidden the truth from Lethe. If Tara had become a danger
to the society, any one of them could have decided to shut her up. It also didn’t seem likely Kate Masters had opted to go rogue from Manuscript. Alex remembered what Mike
Awolowo had said about the rarity of the drug. Maybe they’d all thought they could cut out their Khingan Mountain supplier and start growing their own. He’d seemed genuinely
surprised that the Merity had gotten out, but that could have been an act.
“Who do you like for this?” Turner asked.
Alex tried not to show her surprise. Turner might just be using her as a sounding board,
but it felt good to be asked. She wished she had a better answer.
Alex flexed her aching feet. “Any member of Manuscript could have used a glamour to
make Tara think she was meeting Lance. Plus if Keys relied on Tara for the secret sauce,
why would they want her dead? Their magic has been a mess the last few years. They needed her.”
“Unless she was pushing too hard,” said Turner. “We have no idea what her
relationship with Colin was really like. We don’t even know exactly what was in those tabs of hers. We aren’t talking about magic mushrooms anymore.”
That was true. Maybe Colin the chem whiz hadn’t liked being shown up by a town girl.
And Alex doubted anyone in Scroll and Key liked being blackmailed into sharing their rites. It was also possible someone had cracked Tara’s recipe and decided they didn’t want
her around anymore.
“Colin Khatri had an alibi that night,” Alex said. “He was at Belbalm’s salon.”
“You’re telling me he couldn’t just open up a convenient little portal, pop through, kill
Tara, be back before anyone noticed?”
Alex wanted to smack herself. “Smart, Turner.”
“It’s almost like I’m good at my job.”
Alex knew she should have thought of it herself. Maybe she would have if she wasn’t
too busy hoping Colin wasn’t involved in the worst of this, that her perfect, promising summer with Belbalm could remain untouched by the ugliness of Tara’s murder.