“He never showed at Scroll and Key last Thursday. He was at a party at a professor’s house. Bell-something. A French name.”
She wanted to laugh. “Not a party. A salon.” Colin had been at Belbalm’s salon. Alex was supposed to attend the next one… tomorrow? No, tonight. Her magical summer working in the professor’s quiet office and watering her plants had never seemed more far away. But had Colin actually been at the salon? Maybe he’d slipped away. Alex hoped that wasn’t the case. Belbalm’s world of peppery perfume and gentle conversation felt like a refuge, the reward she probably didn’t deserve but would happily accept. She wanted to keep it separate from all of this mess.
Alex felt her awareness drifting, that first bright burst of the basso belladonna letting go. She heard a beep that sounded too loud, then Turner talking over the radio, explaining the damage at Lance and Tara’s apartment. Someone looking for drugs. He had pursued on foot but lost the perp. He gave a vague description of a suspect who might have been male or female in a parka that might have been black or dark blue.
Alex was surprised to hear him lying, but she knew he wasn’t covering for her. He didn’t know how to explain Lance or what he’d seen.
At last, Turner said, “We’re coming up on the green.”
Alex forced herself to sit up so she could direct him. The world felt red, as if even the air touching her body was out to get her.
“Alley,” she said, as the dark brick and stained glass of Il Bastone came into view. There were lights on in the parlor window. Be home, Dawes. “Park in back.”
Alex shut her eyes and released a sigh when the engine stopped. She heard Turner’s door slam and then he was helping her climb out of the car.
“Keys,” he said.
“No keys.”
She had a worried moment when Turner fumbled with the doorknob, wondering if the house would let him in. But either her presence was enough or it recognized Centurion. The door swung open.
Il Bastone made a worried rattle as she entered, the chandeliers tinkling. To anyone else it probably would have felt like a truck rolling by, but Alex could feel the house’s concern and it put a lump in her throat. Maybe it just disapproved of so much blood and trauma crossing its threshold, but Alex wanted to believe that the house did not like the suffering of one of its own.
Dawes was lying on the parlor carpet in her lumpy sweatshirt, headphones on.
“Hey,” said Turner, and repeated, “Hey!” when she didn’t answer.
Dawes jumped. It was like watching a big beige rabbit come to life. She startled and cringed backward at the sight of Turner and Alex in the parlor.
“Is she a racist or just twitchy?” asked Turner.
“I’m not a racist!” said Dawes.
“We’re all racists, Dawes,” said Alex. “How did you even make it through undergrad?”
Dawes’s mouth went slack as Turner dragged Alex into the light. “Oh my God. Oh my God. What happened?”
“Long story,” said Alex. “Can you fix me?”
“We should go to the hospital,” said Dawes. “I’ve never—”
“No,” said Alex. “I’m not leaving the wards.”
“What got you?”
“A very big dude.”
“Then—”
“Who can walk through walls.”
“Oh.” She pressed her lips together and then said, “Detective Turner, I… could you—”
“What do you need?”
“Goat’s milk. I think Elm City Market stocks it.”
“How much?”
“As much as they have. The crucible will do the rest. Alex, can you get up the stairs?”
Alex glanced at the staircase. She wasn’t sure she could.
Turner hesitated. “I can—”
“No,” said Alex. “Dawes and I will manage.”
“Fine,” he said, already heading toward the back door. “You’re lucky this dump of a town is gentrifying. Like to see me walk into the Family Dollar looking for goat’s milk.”
“You should have let him carry you,” Dawes grunted as they made their slow way up the stairs.
Alex’s body was fighting every step. “Right now he feels guilty for not listening to me. I can’t let him make up for it just yet.”
“Why?”
“Because the worse he feels, the more he’ll do for us. Trust me. Turner doesn’t like to be in the wrong.” Another step. Another. Why didn’t this place have an elevator? A magical one full of morphine. “Tell me about Scroll and Key. I thought their magic was waning. The night Darlington and I observed, they couldn’t even open a portal to Eastern Europe.”
“They’ve had a few bad years, trouble getting the best taps. There’s been some speculation in Lethe that portal magic is so disruptive it’s been eroding the power nexus their tomb is built on.”
But maybe the Locksmiths had been pretending, running a little con, trying to look weaker than they actually were. Why? So that they could perform rituals in secret without Lethe interference? Or was there something shady about the rituals themselves? But how would that connect Colin Khatri to Tara? All Tripp had said was that Tara had mentioned Colin once in passing. There had to be more to it. That tattoo couldn’t just be coincidence.
Dawes led Alex to the armory and propped her up against Hiram’s Crucible. It felt like it was vibrating gently, the metal cool against Alex’s skin. She had never used the Golden Bowl, just watched Darlington mix his elixir in it. He had treated it with reverence and resentment. Like any junkie with a drug.
“The hospital would be safer,” Dawes said, rummaging through the drawers in the vast cabinet, opening and closing one after another.
“Come on, Dawes,” Alex said. “You gave me that spider-egg stuff before.”
“That’s different. It was a specific magical cure for a specific magical ailment.”
“You didn’t hesitate to drown me. How hard can it be to fix me up?”
“I did hesitate. And none of the societies specialize in healing magic.”
“Why?” Alex said. Maybe if she kept talking, her body couldn’t give up. “Seems like there’d be money in it.”
Dawes’s disapproving frown—that “learning should be for the sake of learning” look—reminded her painfully of Darlington. Actually, everything she did in this moment was painful.
“Healing magic is messy,” said Dawes. “It’s the most commonly practiced by laypeople, and that means power gets distributed more broadly instead of being drawn to nexuses. There are also strong prohibitions against tampering with immortality. And it isn’t like I know exactly what’s wrong with you. I can’t x-ray you and just cast a spell to mend a broken rib. You could have internal bleeding or I don’t know what.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“We’re going to try reversion,” said Dawes. “I can take you back… will an hour do it? Two hours? I hope we have enough milk.”
“Are you… are you talking about time travel?”
Dawes paused with a hand on a drawer. “Are you serious?”
“Nope,” said Alex hurriedly.
“I’m just helping your body revert to an earlier version of itself. It’s an undoing. Much easier than trying to make new flesh or bone. It’s actually a kind of portal magic, so you can thank Scroll and Key for it.”
“I’ll send them a note. How far back can you go?”
“Not far. Not without stronger magic and more people to work it.”
An undoing. Take me back. Make me into someone who has never been done harm. Go as far as you can. Make me brand-new. No bruises. No scars. She thought of the moths in their boxes. She missed her tattoos, her old clothes. She missed sitting in the sun with Hellie. She missed the gentle, dilapidated curves of her mother’s couch. Alex didn’t really know what she missed, only that she was homesick for something, maybe for someone, she’d never been.