on ritual nights and during sanctioned inspections. “Gets chilly in Andalusia,” she told him.
The Locksmith hovered in the doorway, eyes on his phone as Alex pretended to search.
He swore when the bell beside the front door rang again. Thank you, Dawes. Alex nabbed the statue and shoved it into her satchel. She glanced at the round stone table where the delegation gathered to work their rites—or try to. A quote was carved into the table’s edge,
one she’d always liked: Have power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on this dead
world to make it live. Something about those words rang a bell but she couldn’t pry the memory loose. She heard the front door slam and hurried out of the room, thanking the Locksmith—now muttering about drunk partyers who couldn’t find their damn dorms—
on her way out.
There was a very good chance Scroll and Key would point the finger at her once they
noticed the statue was missing, but she would just have to deal with that later. Dawes was
waiting around the corner by the Gothic folly that served as an entrance to the Bass Library. Darlington had told her that the stone swords carved into its decoration were signs
of warding.
“This is a bad idea,” Dawes said, bundled into her parka and radiating disapproval.
“At least I’m consistent.”
Dawes’s head swiveled on her neck like a searchlight. “Is he here?”
Alex knew she meant the Bridegroom, and though she would never admit it, she was
unnerved by how easy it had been to secure his attention. She doubted it would be that easy to shake it. She glanced over her shoulder, where he trailed them by what could only
be called a respectful distance. “Half a block away.”
“He’s a murderer,” Dawes whispered.
Well, then we have something in common, thought Alex. But all she said was, “Beggars
can’t be choosers.”
She didn’t like the idea of letting a Gray get close to her, but she’d made her choice and
she wasn’t going to rethink it now. If someone from the societies was responsible for slapping a target on her back, she was going to find out who, and then she was going to
make sure they didn’t have a chance to hurt her again. Even so …
“Dawes,” she murmured. “When we get back, let’s start looking for ways to break the
link between people and Grays. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with Morrissey
peering over my shoulder.”
“The easiest way is not to form a bond to begin with.”
“Really?” said Alex. “Let me write that down.”
The Wolf’s Head tomb was only a few doors away from the Hutch, a grand gray manor
house, fronted by a scrubby garden and surrounded by a high stone wall. It was one of the
most magical places on campus. The alley that horseshoed around it was bordered by old
fraternity houses, sturdy brick structures long ago ceded to the university, ancient symbols
of channeling carved into the stone above their doorways beside unremarkable clusters of
Greek letters. The alley acted as a kind of moat where power gathered in a thick, crackling
haze. Passing through, most people wrote off the shiver that seized them to a shift in weather or a bad mood, then forgot as soon as they had moved on to the Yale Cabaret or
the Af-Am Center. Wolf’s Head’s members took great pride in the fact that they’d housed
protesters during the Black Panther trials, but they’d also been the last of the Ancient
Eight to let in women, so Alex considered it a wash. On ritual nights, she regularly saw a Gray standing in the courtyard, mooning the offices of the Yale Daily News next door.
Alex had to ring the bell at the gate twice before Salome Nils finally answered and let
them inside.
“Who’s this?” Salome asked. For a second, Alex thought she could see the Bridegroom.
He had drawn closer, matching Alex step for step, a small smile quirking his lips, as if he
could hear the hummingbird beat of her heart. Then she realized Salome was talking about
Dawes. Most people in the societies probably had no idea Pamela Dawes even existed.
“She’s assisting me,” said Alex.