Maybe it was best that the elixir cost so much and tasted so bad. Otherwise Darlington
would be downing it every other afternoon just for glimpses like this. But now it was time to work. “Send him on his way, Stern. But do not make eye contact.”
Alex rolled her shoulders like a boxer stepping into the ring and approached Prokosch,
keeping her gaze averted. She reached into her bag and pulled out the vial of graveyard dirt.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I can’t get the lid off.”
Prokosch looked up from the glass case and drifted toward Alex.
“Then say the words, Stern.”
Alex took a step backward, still fumbling with the lid.
“He can’t hurt you,” said Darlington, putting himself between Prokosch and the entry
to the circle. The ritual hadn’t yet begun, but best to keep it clean. Darlington didn’t love the idea of dispelling the Gray himself. He knew too much about the ghost as it was, and
banishing him back behind the Veil risked creating a connection between them. “Go on, Stern.”
Alex squeezed her eyes shut and shouted, “Take courage! No one is immortal! ”
Prokosch shuddered in apprehension and lifted a hand as if to shoo Alex away. He bolted through the library’s glass walls. Death words could be anything, really, as long as
they spoke of the things Grays feared most—the finality of passing, a life without legacy,
the emptiness of the hereafter. Darlington had given Alex some of the simplest to recall,
from the Orphic lamellae found in Thessaly.
“See?” said Darlington. “Easy.” He glanced at the Aurelians, a few of whom were
giggling at Alex’s ardent declaration. “Though you needn’t shout.”
But Alex didn’t seem to care about the attention she’d drawn. Her eyes were alight, staring at the place where Prokosch had been moments before. “Easy!” she said. She frowned and looked at the vial of dirt in her hand. “So easy.”
“At least crow a little, Stern. Don’t deny me the enjoyment of putting you back in your
place.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “Come on, they’re ready to start.”
Zeb Yarrowman stood at the head of the table. He had removed his shirt and was naked
to the waist, his skin pale, his chest narrow, his arms tight to his sides like folded wings.
Darlington had seen many men and women stand at the head of that table over the last three years. Some had been members of Aurelian. Some had simply paid the steep fee the
society’s trust charged. They came to speak their words, make their requests, hoping for something spectacular to happen. They came with different needs, and Aurelian moved locations depending on their requirement: Ironclad prenups could be fashioned beneath the
entryway to the law school. Forgeries might be detected beneath the watchful eyes of poor, duped Benjamin West’s Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes in the university art gallery. Land deeds and real estate deals were sealed high atop East Rock,
the city glittering far below. Aurelian’s magic may have been weaker than that of the other societies, but it was more portable and more practical.
Tonight’s chants began in Latin, a soothing, gentle recitation that filled Beinecke, floating up, up, past shelf after shelf encased in the glass cube at the library’s center.
Darlington let himself listen with one ear as he scanned the perimeter of the circle and kept one eye on Alex. He supposed it was a good sign that she was so tense. It at least meant she cared about doing a good job.
The chants shifted, breaking from Latin and shifting into vernacular Italian, sliding from antiquity to modernity. Zeb’s voice was the loudest, beseeching, echoing off the stone, and Darlington could feel his desperation. He would have to be desperate given what came next.
Zeb held out his arms. The Aurelians to his right and his left drew their knives and, as
the chants continued, drew two long lines from Zeb’s wrists up his forearms.
The blood ran slowly at first, welling to the surface in red slits like eyes opening.
Zeb settled his hands on the edge of the paper before him and his blood spread over it,