Ninth House

by Leigh Bardugo

**PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS BOOK IS FOR ADULT READERS, SO THIS REVIEW WILL BE WRITTEN FOR ADULTS AS WELL.**

Also, to reward you for coming to read my reviews [which I can’t express how much I appreciate you being here and reading these, thank you so, so much!], but I got early access to Hell Bent, so definitely consider subscribing if you’d be interested in a non-spoilery-with-an-option-for-spoilery-thoughts review for it! You’re learning about it here first as a big thank you for being here! [Can you tell I’m excited about it?]

I believe my first read through of Ninth House predates my reviewing days, but, either way, this will be my first review of it.  However, it’ll be a Reread Review, since I read it originally a few years back, around when it published.

I’m going to try to also treat the portion of the review after the spoiler line as a sort of refresher/cliff-notes of the book for those who can’t fit in a reread of Ninth House before Hell Bent comes out, and want to just jump back into this world. Hopefully, this helps as many of you as I hope it does!

That said, I’ll leave my recommendation and non-spoiler thoughts below, like a normal review, before jumping into my attempt at a recap.

As always, though, before that – here’s your chance to read a summary of Ninth House on Goodreads here!

Recommendation: Read it! So, so good! It’s slow at first, like a lot of really good adult books that are also the first of a series because of all the world-building, but, my goodness, I’m always left needing the sequel. It’s really hard to put to words how good it is, but, if you like dark academia, if you like complicated, dark magic systems, and you like reading about the dead/ghosts/love reading about glimpses of the afterlife, this book is worth a try. [Just remember that the beginning is slow. You need to really be willing to give it a go and not give up early on.]

Alex Stern, our bad-ass Grey-seer and general Queen of All Things Fucked Up. She had rough, lower-class beginnings, became a school drop-out, and a had brutal childhood [and technically also brutal adulthood], but finds herself being given the chance of a life-time – to attend Yale University on a full ride. We see her character progression, and, let me just tell you – not only does she change a lot from the girl we see in Chapter 1, but it’s such a satisfying, fantastic transformation.

Per the Goodreads review, we don’t know any other character before diving in, so all thoughts on other characters [and, therefore, all of Alex’s interactions and relationships with those people] will be below the spoiler line.

What I can say, without spoilers, is that Leigh Bardugo manages to really sell all the various possible motivations behind some of the society’s actions, especially the ones revolving around what essentially becomes the main plot. Nothing feels forced or fabricated or unrealistic. Everything feels organic and possible, and that just really sells it and makes it the amazing book that it is, in my opinion. More details on that below the spoiler like, because I can’t really talk about it without spoilers, but it’s something I felt like should be provided, without spoilers, for those worried about that. Don’t worry!

**I FORGOT HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS BOOK, SO THIS IS BOTH A SPOILER AND A GUSHING WARNING LINE THIS TIME. BE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS AND FANGIRLING AFTER THIS – SO GO, READ THE BOOK, AND COME BACK, OR READ THE SPOILERS AND RECAP, YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE THE WAY YOU WANT TO, I’M ONLY HERE TO HELP.**

Alex isn’t quite a Queen in her own right now, but she ends up well on her way by the end of Ninth House, and I’m SO here for it – not only for that, but also for the continuation in general of her, Darlington’s, and Dawes’s journey in Hell Bent. Bring. It. On!

I NEED TO SEE DARLINGTON AS A DEMON.

Ok, with that behind us, let’s talk a little more . . . not fangirl-y, eh? Darlington is a wonderful, romanticizing know-it-all. I imagine, were I to spend the kind of time with him that Alex does before he’s gone, the know-it-all side of him might annoy me, but, otherwise, I feel like he’d be fantastic company, in my personal opinion. We might even be friends. But I love his obsessed with New Haven, both it’s history and seeing it as a living thing. I love his need to learn about everything that he feels relevant or interesting. I love that he feels this drive to romanticize everything.

And I love that that drive causes him to be at odds with Alex’s entire existence, because you can’t really romanticize her life. The parts of her he seems possibly jealous of have cost her a great deal in return, and none of it is really romance-able. I love it.

And Dawes. I love Dawes. She starts off very distant and not terribly present in the story, but then she’s on the page more, and I love her so, so much. I love that she hates people and doesn’t warm up to people quickly or easily. I love that you have to earn her alliance, and that she’s fantastic when you do. I love that she hates confrontation, but is still undeniably amazing at her job.

I love the dynamic between Alex and Dawes [and I enjoyed the little bit we saw between Darlington and Dawes, too]. I really hope we see a lot more of it in Hell Bent.

At first, I remember the time jump kinda feeling blah to me? At first, I wasn’t really hooked into the major two time frames we were jumping between, but then I found myself really looking forward to one or the other, then both, and then I just wanted every bit she’d give me. And that’s how I’m left feeling before diving into Hell Bent, and I can’t even begin to explain to you how badly I want to abandon this review that maybe a handful of people will read to get to Hell Bent, but it’s taking every ounce of my will power [and maybe a charge to future will power, so I’m now in will-power debt] to do.

Sandow always sort of felt like a full-of-it, self-centered, entitled, power-hungry guy to me, even before we found out about his possible [and then total] involvement in Tara’s murder, so it didn’t really surprise me that he was behind it, but it did surprise me how well he actually knew Tara, and still did it. Just – WOW. I mean, suprising, but kinda . . . not, ya know?

I love how Leigh Bardugo was able to construct completely believable and possible motives for Tara’s murder without making any of it feel forced. All of it felt like how things Tara got involved with would have naturally progressed, and that just really sells it for me. We really don’t know the most likely story of Tara’s ending, and that’s fantastic to me.

I’m also curious to see if Alex freeing the souls of the girls Belbalm/Daisy consumed will impact the magic at the nexuses at all. I imagine, mindblowingly, that it won’t, but I don’t know if I can believe that there’s no impact for it at all. Because those girls were still murdered, there’s still great violence having been created in those spots, so perhaps the fact that the girls weren’t able to go to an afterlife, to go behind the Veil, isn’t really relevant, so their ability to do so now maybe won’t cause the societies any issue? I don’t know. I just feel like there should be a cost to what Alex did – more than her now being stuck hearing Grays. But I suppose we’ll see in Hell Bent.

Alright, if I haven’t sold Ninth House for you yet, perhaps this weird cliff-notes-but-not recap will? I’ve put what I’m calling “The Gray Rules” first, then the little “The Houses of the Veil” blurbs provided in the back of Ninth House rewritten for your easy reference/refresh, then a recap summary. Enjoy!

[In case you don’t make it to the end, I’m putting my goodbye here: until next time, be safe, be kind, and read on!]

Gray rules/info:
1) Do not make eye contact.
2) Do not smile.
3) Do not engage.
4) Do not use their names. [It’s intimate, and risks forming a bond.]
5) They’re usually docile and vague.
6) For protection: salt, caramels to distract them, etc..
7) Reminders of death are the best way to keep the Grays at bay. [Cemeteries are the least haunted places in the world.] Directly listed/quoted examples: bone dust, graveyard dirt, and the leavings of crematory ash.
8) It takes a lot for them to take any kind of form in the mortal world. It’s close to impossible, but possible, to pass through the final Veil, to become physical and capable of touch and damage.
9) They’re attracted to things that remind them of life. Directly listed/quoted examples: salt, sugar, sweat, fighting, fucking, tears, blood, human drama, salt tears, fragrant flowers, spilled beer, raucous laughter, anxiety, coffee, open cans of Coke, gossip, panting couples, food going to rot, dreams full of sex and terror, sadness, any strong emotion, fear, the supermarket, hot food cases, bakery boxes, and school cafeterias.
10) Only a few Grays can pass through the Veil at any level, leaving the vast majority remaining in the afterlife.

Repercussions for breaking the above rules:
1) A Gray might follow you home.
2) A Gray may haunt you.
3) A Gray may possess you.

Prologue: [Early Spring] A glimpse of Alex in a semi-future, semi-current state. Post-Darlington-Incident, but not quite the end of the book.  She’s in rough, rough shape and hiding at the Hutch.

Chapter 1: [Winter] We see a glimpse of a slightly past Alex – before the Prologue events, but after the Chapter 2 events. Winter, as opposed to Fall.  She’s in a general swing of Lethe House responsibilities, including attending a prognostication she should oversee [but doesn’t arrive early enough to perform her most important responsibility], though Darlington is already gone, but she isn’t in as rough of shape as Prologue Alex. [Tripp is guarding the door to the prognostication.] During this procedure, the Grays act erratically – stretched towards the chalk circle around the procedure, mouths open unnaturally, like they’re trying to consume something, every muscle in their bodies strained, eyes wide, moaning a sound that more closely resembled a bee hive than anything human. This behavior made the room seem to vibrate. Something big from the next world “knocked”. “Something that should not be let through.”
Then it all suddenly stopped. Alex vomits.
There’s still hope that a new moon ritual will bring Darlington back. Tara’s murder is introduced, along with Pamela Dawes’s Lethe title of Oculus, her own title of Dante, and Darlington’s title of Virgil. Centurion is mentioned, but not introduced.

Chapter 2: [Last Fall] We see a glimpse of how Darlington and Alex start off. Cosmo is mentioned, but who he is isn’t explained. They put each other to the test, trying to feel each other out. Her father is brought up, but no details are learned beyond that she never knew him. The paths crossing the green are mentioned as having been intentional on the part of Freemasons, trying to appease the dead when the cemetery had been moved a few blocks away, the paths followed compass lines or formed a pentagram, “depending on who you asked”. The Lincoln Oak being unearthed because of Hurricane Sandy is mentioned, including the skeleton tangled in its roots. We don’t get the full history of Alex, but the meeting of our heroine and her “mentor”. Darlington’s mentor had been Michelle Alameddine. We learn a bunch more [and more direct] information about Lethe and Grays. We also learn the Lethe House is sentient.

Chapter 3: [Winter] Darlington suggests Alex “better” herself with free weights and cardio. He also sics the Lethe House spirit hounds on her when she first arrives there. We see Tara’s murder scene. Here, we learn about more of her Dante responsibilities along with her horrific past, which includes her wariness with cops. Unfortunately for her, Centurion is a cop. A detective, more specifically. Centurion is explained to be the liaison between Lethe House and the Chief of Police. We learn Alex is on academic probation because of her academic performance her first semester. She uses [and we’re introduced to the existence of] a compulsion coin on the coroner. We learn details about Tara, including her name for the first time. She also makes a connection between Tara’s death and the Gray’s weird behavior and the knocking/attempted entry from the next world during the earlier procedure she oversaw. She noticed the Grays seemed possibly frightened near the murder scene.

Chapter 4: [Last Fall] Alex recovers from her introduction to the spirit hounds, and she’s taken into Lethe House for the first time. Darlington sees some of her tattoos for the first time, and we finally meet Pamela [Darling calls her “Pammie”] Dawes, aka Oculus. Bathsheba Smith is brought up and explained as being the seventeen-year-old daughter of a farmer whose body had been found in the basement of the Yale Medical School in 1824. [She’d been dug up by the students for study.] She’s believed to be an early attempt to communicate with the dead. The people angry about her treatment nearly burn Yale to the ground. Darlington points out the stores of Gray repellents they have in Lethe House, and the rare vials of Perdition Water, “said to come from the seven rivers of hell and there were to be used only in the case of emergency.” We’re also introduced to Hiram’s Crucible, the vessel required to create Lethe’s elixir, the elixir also known as Orozcerio, The Golden Trial, and Hiram’s Bullet. The elixir gives them a glance behind the Veil, allowing them to see Grays, which Alex sees naturally, and in full color rather than just in grays, like those that take the elixir. Her file is mentioned, specifically the event that had started her Yale offer. It’s hinted at that it’s when Hellie dies and that Alex isn’t a suspect because the murderer of all the other people were done by a left-handed assailant and Alex is right-handed, and she also is too small to have handled a weapon with that much force. Let alone the fentanyl amount in her system that should have probably killed her but didn’t. She was found with wet hair and naked as a newborn. Darlington suspects there’s more to it, he felt it in his bones. We also learn Alex is 20. Darlington feels guilty for pressing her, and removes her tattoos [temporarily] with address moths. To prevent Darlington from going to get Dawes, who Alex is convinced doesn’t like her, she removes her shirt in front of Darlington so he can place those address moths on her skin. We also learn Alex hates/is afraid of butterflies [and, she guesses, moths]. She makes him promise, if she regrets what he’s doing with the moths, that he’ll take her and her roommates to Ikea, for pizza after, and “Aunt Eileen” is going to buy her new fall clothes. He agrees. She doesn’t seem to regret the tattoo removal.

Chapter 5: [Winter] Alex showers to remove the stink of the Veil. We learn Alex has too few possessions to leave clothes stashed at various Lethe locations [the Hutch and Il Bastone, aka Lethe House] and that there are Lethe House sweats. The ritual to bring Darlington back is mentioned again. Mercy is there when Alex returns to the dorm, and they discuss Alex’s essay, which Mercy offers to help her with over breakfast. We learn a bit of details about Alex’s mysterious, missing father and that Lethe has encouraged her to stage her room so people don’t get suspicious at her lack of expected things. We also learn about basso belladonna eye drops, which apparently are, “a bit like magical Adderall.” We also learn they have a brutal crash. And that Alex only really smiles when she’s going to eat. [Alex’s protruding ribs/general state of being malnourished is mentioned frequently.] We learn she stashes sandwiches and cookies for use later, between her three meals a day at the dining hall, and, in case it all ended/it all got taken away, she’d have food for a couple days, stashed in her backpack. During her trip to get seconds at breakfast with Mercy, Marguerite Belbalm [“La Belle Belbalm”, Mercy calls her] steals Alex away. When that happens, we learn about Colin Khatri, one of Belbalm’s assistants and a member of Scroll & Key. We learn here, between the tea with mint leaves and Belbalm’s prodding questions, that Alex basically worships her and wants to be her, to exist in her office space, and that the pro-offered potential to work for her over the summer is now her goal. She must do better this semester, including getting off academic probation, to earn that. [It’s also hinted at here that Belbalm’s origins aren’t as posh and privileged as one might assume – she relates and seems to see herself in Alex. We’re left with the impression that she might be an ally for Alex.] Interaction with her mother is mentioned for the first time [Alex sends her a photo]. We learn Alex and Hellie enjoyed using make-up, specifically glitter eyeliner and lip gloss, but we learn it’s socially unacceptable at Yale. After her Spanish II class, she walks back by Tara’s murder scene, and she thinks it looks familiar in a way she can’t pin point, something beyond it just being viewed again in the daylight. It sparks a memory of Hellie, Len, and Betcha, the latter two carrying the former’s unconscious or dead body, trying to take her through a door, implying they were taking her outside. Once Alex clears the memory from her head, we are introduced to the Bridegroom, teaching us about Grays that can haunt as well as his history. He moves towards her, but she avoids him. The eye-drop basso belladonna crash hits her, and, when she closes her eyes, she sees Hellie. This time, though, we get a glimpse of how she saw Hellie for the last time mixed with a memory of Hellie alive – or, perhaps, a memory of Hellie alive, after being sick from her drug use but surviving. “She closed her eyes and saw Hellie’s face, her pale brows bleached by the sun, vomit clinging to her lip, then, “… and it was Hellie, standing on a skateboard, rocking back and forth on those wide feet, her balance impeccable. Her skin was ashen. Her bikini top was splattered with clumps of her last meal.” Regardless, she seems to tie Tara’s fate to Hellie’s, and she seems to decide getting revenge for Tara’s death will help her deal with her loss of Hellie.

Chapter 6: [Last Fall] Darlington takes Alex to her first Lethe responsibility, an Aurelian ritual – specifically, an inspiration spell, held in Beinecke. Alex is taught the specifics of this ritual, and we see Darlington use the elixir to see beyond the Veil. We learn what occurs when one takes the elixir – both the feelings it imparts as well as the impact on vision. It’s described as making vision milky, like, “looking through a thick cataract of cobwebs.” And those cobwebs are explained to be the layers of the Veil. We see Alex use Lethe’s instructions on how to send Grays away for the first time. Once the ritual started in earnest, suddenly the Grays went from being a good number but handle-able amount, with Alex and Darlington doing just fine, to Alex suddenly struggling, the protection lines messed up, and the Grays had become a horde. Even though Darlington blames Alex, he blows up at the Aurelians, blaming them. Because they’re trying to regain their rooms in SSS, they offer to ensure their donation for this donation year is a generous one instead of Darlington reporting them to Dean Sandow. Darlington remains mad until his anger dissolves when Alex reveals that she struggled because a Gray touched her, freaking her out. This causes Alex to launch into a rant about how Lethe mistreated her, how this knowledge could have been useful to her when she was a kid, helping her keep the Grays at bay and hinting that she had bad experiences with them as a result of not knowing this protection knowledge, and she breaks Darlington’s wine glass as she goes. Darlington, thinking he understands that, as much as he wishes it weren’t true, that there’s truth to her accusation, offers for her to break more things, mainly glassware, plates, pitchers, platters, butter dishes, gravy boats, thousands of dollars in crystal and china, before handing her a glass full of wine.

Chapter 7: [Winter] Alex is determined to solve Tara’s murder, resorting to asking the Lethe House, Il Bastone, for help through the library mentioned before. [Apparently, Dawes dislikes Alex even more than before because of what happened to Darlington.] As Alex uses the library, the magic behind it is explained, mentioning that it uses magic from Scroll & Key to function the way it does. We see a glimpse into Alex’s past [trigger warning scene], the first truly dark story she tells. We learn why she hates butterflies, and the first time Alex is touched by a ghost – who was drawn to the blood of her first period, and rapes her on the bathroom floor, face down, rear up, and her friend at the time and a teacher find her that way. She tries to stay away from school, but is eventually forced back, where she becomes the source of ridicule. She’s led to a trap of meeting a girl from her class at the mall, but she meets Mosh, who is dating Len, giving us a glimpse into her history with him. We “meet” him for the first time, outside of Alex’s vague memory mentions. We also learn Alex discovers that smoke weed keeps her from seeing Grays. She starts hanging out with a bad crowd and slowly becomes the delinquent kid at school, being held back, being suspended, and leading her mom to try to send her off to be “fixed”. By then, she wasn’t consistently coming home, and runs into Mosh for the first time since Mosh left for art school. Mosh apologizes, but Alex doesn’t understand, telling Mosh she saved her. Mosh seems so sad, that Alex returns home, where her mom has her rushed in her sleep and they try to send her off again. Alex gets away, runs to Len [7 miles away], where he treats her blistering feet with the Baskin-Robbins ice cream from where he works, and then they get high and have sex for what’s implied to be the first time. She begins working at various places, eventually landing in a mail shipping place, where she runs into Meagan [her friend she lost to the bathroom/butterfly scene] again. She spends the next few years in and out of that delinquent haze, considering occasionally getting clean, but then seeing a Gray, and going back to it. Len brings in Hellie, Alex thinks to make her jealous, and Alex ends up loving her. We get drawn back to the present, her hunt to solve Tara’s murder, and she drags Dawes into it by convincing Dawes to go with her to the morgue.

Chapter 8: [Winter] Alex switches her peacoat for Dawes’s sweatshirt, and conned her way past the morgue’s front desk, then used her last compulsion coin on the coroner to avoid signing in. Once to Tara, Alex has less than 30 minutes to perform the ritual she found on her. It allows Alex to relive the various sources of harm/pain on Tara. She sees irrelevant things, but begins to relive her murder. She sees a boy Tara’s memories tell Alex is Lance. We’re to presume that’s the boyfriend, and Tara describes a taste on her tongue as acrid. Tara felt excitement and anticipation, but Alex didn’t know where they were going. Lance apologizes to Tara. She’s suddenly on her back, looking up at the stars, everything growing distant and blurring. She realize she’s being stabbed and her bones are breaking just before an unfamiliar voice tells her to close her eyes. Alex reels out of the memory, realizing Tara felt no pain, and wonders if she – and maybe Lance – was high. Despite the unfamiliar voice, Alex assumes Lance murdered Tara and decides that should appease Hellie’s memory – and then runs into Detective Turner, Centurion. They get into it, but Alex discovers Tripp is on Tara’s and Lance’s distribution list.

Chapter 9: [Winter] Alex and Dawes split ways, and Alex brings Darlington’s car back to his house. Because of a few lights being on, one being Darlington’s bedroom, Alex convinced herself Darlington is back, that this is all just a ruse to see if she can handle being Dante, that’s it’s part of the initiation process. Alex walks through his house, recalling memories that imply she and Darlington got much closer than we’ve seen so far. But, despite Alex’s fiercest wishes, he isn’t back nor has he always been there, just testing her, so Alex blames herself all over again, and we finally meet Cosmo – Darlington’s cat. We get a glimpse of why Alex blames herself, because she tells Cosmo, “Come on, Cosmo. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Not really.” Not really. She cries. She falls asleep in Darlington’s bed [bundled in three of his sweaters and, “an ugly brown hat she’d found on his dresser but never seen him wear” – all because she was afraid to mess with the thermostat], and dreams about him curled behind her on the bed. He has claws on the tips of his fingers, and he swears to serve her until the end of days. When she wakes, she cleans up after herself, and takes her laptop to the “dusty sunroom” to write her report on Tara Hutchins’s murder. She leaves a lot out of the report, mainly her gut feeling on it being tied to the Houses, and sends it to the Dean with Dawes CC’d. She plans the rest of her day and the next as she leaves Darlington’s house behind, stopping at a “fancy mini-mart” on her way back. She gets attacked by a strange Gray, who is somehow able to hurt her but no one else can see, his skin reminding her of glass. He breathes red mist into her and she breathes it in. During this attack, the Bridegroom Gray steps in and fights the attacking Gray, giving Alex the chance to flee. She manages to text Dawes that she needs help and tried to get inside the warded Hutch to protect herself. Luckily, Dawes is there and not at the house, and she helps Alex treat the Corpse Beetle magic. She learns the strange Gray that attacked her is a gluma, which is, “a husk, a spirit raised from the recently dead to pass through the world, go-betweens who could travel across the Veil. They were messengers. For Book and Snake.” Through her pain and suffering, Alex smiles. She takes this as a sign that she’s onto something. But the reason she smiles is because of the thought that closes the chapter, “That means I get to try to kill them.“

Chapter 10: [Last Fall] Darlington gives out candy at Black Elm before joining Alex at the Hutch, both in costume. Darlington thinks about how well Alex has done since that first ritual, after breaking a few thousand dollars of glass and china, including watching a series of, “first transformations” of Wolf’s Head, the first time that House is really mentioned. A Book and Snake raising is also mentioned, the House seemingly tasked with relaying the final accounts of recently dead Ukrainian soldiers. And an unsuccessful portal opening at Scroll and Key, and an equally unimpressive storm summoning by St. Elmo [also the first real mention of that House]. Darlington described Manuscript as, “the house of illusion and lies.” When Alex learns there are nine total levels to Manuscript, she assumes it represents the nine circles of hell, but Darlington tells her the inspiration came from Chinese mythology [eight being considered a lucky number]. The spiral staircase leading you through the descending stories represents a divine spiral. Darlington discovers her costume is intended to be Mab, Queen of the Night, and internally confesses that, “maybe he wanted her to be the kind of girl who dressed as Queen Mab, who loved words and had stars in her blood.” The Grays are “all over” the party, and Darlington asks Alex to tell her what she can see. She keeps it vague, under his suggestion, but obliges him. One floor is glamoured to resemble the VIP section of a nightclub. Another to resemble a forest, including a horse. The next floor, the ceiling vaulted like a cathedral, painted the bright blue and gold of a Giotto sky, the floor was covered in poppies, and it was all somehow a church but not a church. The next was a mountaintop arbor, “which didn’t bother trying to look real” – all hazy peach clouds, wisteria hanging in thick clusters from pale pink columns. Finally, to a quiet room with a long banquet table against one wall and lit by fireflies. One wall was taken up by a vast, circular mirror that was roughly two stories tall and its surface seemed to swirl. It was a sort of magic vault, a repository of magic fed by desire and delusion. That floor was the central floor, separating the culling and ritual levels. One member was selected every year to be Lan Caihe, one of the eight immortals of Chinese myth, “who could move amongst genders at will.” Shortly after conversing with that individual, the drugs in the mist that had been “blown” into Darlington’s face take effect, and he ends up on his knees, his face pressed into Alex’s panties after hiking her dress up, his hands braced on her thighs. During the trip, he sees Alex in a way that more resembled Queen Mab than Alex’s mortal appearance – most notably, a constellation glowed above her head – “a wheel, a crown.” The chapter closes with, “Alex Stern was not what she seemed.”

Chapter 11: [Winter] Alex awakes post-attack, and Dawes continues to help her recover from it. Alex begins telling her everything that had happened, but then she discovers Sandow is on his way, and she demands Dawes not tell him anything about the attack that she told her. They discussed trying to bring Darlington back – but also about if that fails. Sandow ruffles Dawes’s feathers by implying victim-blaming in regards to Alex, that the attack was her fault, etc., when Alex tries to say that Tara’s death is related to the societies and that the gluma was sent to silence/stop her from investigating further. After Sandow leaves, Alex discusses with Dawes who she can go to to talk to the dead that isn’t Book & Snake [since she doesn’t want to turn to the people possibly trying to kill her]. After some banter, they settled on Wolf’s Head.

Chapter 12: [Winter] Alex and Dawes go to Scroll and Key before going to Wolf’s Head so Alex can steal back the Romulus and Remus statue back for Wolf’s Head. With Dawes’s helps, she successfully does just that, and then Salome tries to give her the runaround. Alex drops her “quiet girl” mask and basically goes crazy on her. Salome folds, and Alex, Dawes, and the Bridegroom perform the ritual they need in the Wolf’s Head temple. Basically, Alex dies, talks to the Bridegroom in the river you cross in death, and they come to an agreement. During her visit, Alex asks about Darlington, and the Bridegroom tells her, “Even the dead don’t know where Daniel Arlington is.” Alex hears something on the other side of the river, something that isn’t human, and she notes what she thinks its saying. Alex nearly dies on her way back to the living, but manages. The Bridegroom is going to find Tara, and, in exchange, Alex finds out who murdered his fiancée.

Chapter 13: [Last Fall] This chapter is mainly about Darlington’s history, mostly surrounding Black Elm. We learn about his negligent parents, his gruff grandfather, and how he spent most of his childhood, giving us a glimpsed into why Darlington is the way he is now. We also learn how Lethe picked him up – he tried to make his own elixir and nearly died in the process, leaving him in a hospital bed like Alex was, waking like she did to Sandow and his offer.

Chapter 14: [Winter] We start the chapter with Alex and Dawes tentatively bonding over a cup of hot chocolate and a gourmet marshmallow. They part ways with Dawes agreeing to look into what Alex heard during the ritual – “Jean Du Monde? Or maybe Jonathan Desmond?” – and Alex going to talk to Tripp about Tara and who else was tied to her. Before they part, they briefly discuss what Dawes knows about the Bridegroom. Once she’s done questioning Tripp, she borrows his bike, and went to talk to Turner about Tara and her apartment. As usual, their exchange is hostile, but Alex comes out a little on top. But Alex returns to the dorm and finds Mercy crying, Lauren comforting her. Alex discovers Mercy was drugged with Merity, the acolyte drug that surrenders the user’s will. She takes evidence with her, storms out, and seeks justice on her own terms.

Chapter 15: [Winter] We open with Alex reminiscing to the last time she was at Manuscript – the Halloween party where Darlington had been drugged. She recalls having woken up to Darlington hard against her, his hand cupping one of her breasts, his thumb brushing across her nipple. She snaps at him about it, and he stumbles awake. We find out that vague report she shows Darlington is a fake, and that she sent a completely different, likely more accurately detailed, version to Sandow. She goes back to Manuscript to grill someone about Merity. She meets Mark, who was part of the ones begging Alex and Darlington not to report them, and he swears they’re locked tight, and so is their supplier. We find out here that maybe the report the sent was the opposite – that it covered for Manuscript, which resulted in a fine rather than a suspension, and, in exchange, she requests a favor to try to undo the damage done to Mercy via the video taken of her. In the end, he agrees, and even offers her Starpower, a terrible-tasting powder that helps you be really convincing for about 25-40 minutes. Alex uses this to wipe as many phones of Mercy’s video as she can find, along with other videos of other girls, over at the frat house – and then it’s implied that she records an embarrassing video with them as the stars involving a backed-up toilet and it’s fecal contents.

Chapter 16: [Winter] We come back to Alex in the dorm, comforting Mercy and telling her the video was gone. After some pushing, Alex finally convinces her to go get something to eat [and not drop out of school], so the three of them go to the dining hall. There, they discover a video has gone viral – and it’s Blake, the guy who shot the video of Mercy, literally eating shit out of the clogged toilet. Mercy basically/indirectly forgives Alex for not being at the original party to protect her.

Chapter 17: [Winter] Alex dedicates time to Mercy [and Lauren], but returns to her Lethe/Tara duties on Monday. She stopped by Il Bastone to get grave dirt [for protection], a pocket watch [for the glumae], and a mirrored compact. After a flashback to Darlington, which only serves to show more of his love of New Haven, Alex waits until a guy leaves Tara’s apartment building [which has an officer standing guard], follows him, flashes the compact mirror at him, and heads back. We learn when she flashes the mirror at the officer that the mirror is from Manuscript, and it convinces the officer he’s seeing that same guy who just left. She slips inside and finds the cops have removed the lock from Tara’s apartment, so she gets in without picking a single lock. She walked through the apartment, trying to find an item for the Bridegroom [he asked for something “with effluvia“]. She gives him Tara’s retainer, and then a guy appears and attacks her, breaking her rib(s), possibly breaking skin at the back of her head to bleed down her neck, and is blocking her exit as he chokes her to death. The chapter closes with, “No one knew who she was. Not North. Not this monster in front of her. Not Dawes or Mercy or Sandow or any of them. Only Darlington had guessed.”

Chapter 18: [Last Fall] Darlington drags Alex to St. Elmo’s on a not-scheduled night because it was causing trouble with the grid. He walks her through how to handle the weather, to give it a direction so it doesn’t take out the grid, and they stumble on the knowledge that Alex is behind all the murders she was found among, even though there’s no way she should have been able to do it. Darlington assumes she “hosted” a ghost/spirit, and they committed the murders, using her body as a temporary vessel. He goes to close the portal they stumbled on, and he realizes, too late, that it isn’t a portal, and he’s whisked away, saving Alex from being turned in to Sandow. And the curiosity of what happened to Darlington is satisfied, but we’re still left with the question of where did Darlington go?

Chapter 19: [Last Summer] We finally find out what happened at Ground Zero, where Alex was found. To not dwell on what might be the saddest/worst chapter of the whole book, Len basically attempts to pimp out Alex and Hellie to a guy with a reputation for being a guy who, “doesn’t just like it rough; he likes it ugly.” Hellie decides it’s a price she has to pay, for her and Alex, to keep a roof above their head. Hellie slips Alex, goes back home, and Alex finally catches up. She waits for Hellie, who returns saying only, “No” on repeat as she holds Alex. She dies in her sleep, having vomited on herself [and possibly choking on it?], and Alex wakes up to Hellie’s ghost. While Len and the others talk about throwing her body out like trash, Alex is trying to talk Hellie into staying with her. Alex doesn’t realize what she’s doing, but ends up inviting Hellie into her own body, making her a temporary vessel for Hellie’s rage – and Hellie proceeds to murder the entire house [including the man who hurt her just before she died], then walks Alex through cleaning herself of the evidence before they lie down together as Alex succumbs to exhaustion. As Alex drifts off, she begs Hellie to stay with her.
Alex awakes alone to a paramedic shining their light in her eyes.

Chapter 20: [Winter] We’re back to a choking to death Alex, and, against the Bridegroom’s [North’s] desire, Alex pulls him into her like she pulled Hellie into her, to help her fight her attacker. Similar to Hellie, but it’s unclear if Hellie was in control that night or if Alex was. She still nearly loses until Detective Turner shows up, ultimately and accidentally chasing her attacker away. When she explains it seems like the guy was using portal magic, Turner informs us that Alex’s attacker is none other than Lance, Tara’s boyfriend and supposed-murderer.

Chapter 21: [Winter] Turner takes Alex to Dawes, during which time Alex seems to [maybe] convince Turner of Lance’s innocence. Alex barely gets into the crucible [the same one Darlington uses to make his elixir] that Dawes fills with goat’s milk that Turner runs to get while Dawes is slowly helping Alex get undressed, and then Dawes “resets” Alex’s body back an hour or two back to before when Lance “broke” it. Turner awkwardly finds a reason to leave, and Dawes and Alex bond over what seems like Turner’s dislike of them. Dawes brings Alex her food just as Alex offers for North into her body again because she discovers they can see into each other’s heads when they do. We see North’s last day alive in his memories and we discover that someone else took over his body, likely a confused Gray that temporarily had enough power to overtake him, and the Gray killed Daisy and then North himself.

Chapter 22: [Winter] We reel back into Alex’s perspective and time, and she kicks North out as she tells him she just saw him kill Daisy and himself. She then gets dressed in sweats and starts looking through Virgil/Darlington’s room for clues/notes of whether he looked into North’s murder. She finds nothing, but then goes to check the library search logs – and she finds his searches for both North and Daisy. While she’s trying to brainstorm where him notes on this research might be, Dawes appears and tells her Turner has something to show them. He’s changed into jeans and a button-down that he still manages to make look sharp, and he and Dawes are looking at prison security footage as Alex joins them. We learn Lance just turns a corner and disappears at the jail – and that he returned to the jail after his fight with Alex. Turner reluctantly listened to Alex’s theories of Tara’s ties to four of the Ancient Eight societies. By the end, Dawes agrees to go to Sandow’s housekeeper to try to find out where Sandow was the night of the murder, and Alex is going to visit the greenhouses. We find out Alex’s mother sent Alex a photo of her wearing a Yale sweatshirt with crystals behind her on the mantel that one of her friends had taken for her to send. Turner is convinced that Sandow’s possible money issues is behind it all because it’s “nice and clean.”

Chapter 23: [Winter] Alex goes to Belbalm’s salon as she planned, realizing as she arrives that she’s intended to be staff – and she’s grateful and relieved. She works with Colin and Isabel before Colin is invited to join the group and read something he’s brought with him. Then Alex and Isabel are more or less alone. Throughout the night, she discovers Sandow was present, though he, “drank too much” and, “Professor Belbalm tucked him away in her study with a blanket.” And Colin worked with Isabel in the kitchen, “until after two.” The next morning, Alex doesn’t have classes, so she intended to get some reading done before heading up to Marsh, but sees the Bridegroom, so she catches water in a sink to talk to him, and he tells her he hasn’t found Tara, and Alex admits that Darlington was looking into North’s murder-suicide, but she hasn’t been able to find his notes and says she’ll look at Black Elm tomorrow. She then goes to the greenhouses and discovers the greenhouse used, but finds it empty. She learns from someone there who had run the greenhouse, but is told she left for the semester. Alex meets up with Turner, and updates him on what she found. She convinces Turner to let her interview Lance, the plan involving her magic mirror, a brief case, and Turner being dressed in his normal, sharp suit [though she keeps the last part, and her plan details, to herself].

Chapter 24: [Winter] We start the chapter with Dawes, Turner, and Alex discussing their jail visit in Il Bastone with Dawes using the literal tempest in a teapot that Darlington had told Alex about during her tour, but that Alex hadn’t realized he meant literally. Dawes informs them that it’s also the tea itself that’s critical, so she brews it herself. She informs the two that it’ll give them two hours of real disruption. After that, she leaves vague. They go to the jail, rattle Lance into giving them info that seems to spell a few new motives for the societies Tara seems tied to, and Turner drops her off.

Chapter 25: [Winter] We open with Alex walking back into her dorm suite to Mercy asking how it went. Alex barely remembers she told her she had a job interview, and gives an honest but vague answer about the actual jail visit event she really needed the clothes for. Alex debates her next cover-up story and goes with looking like she has a date. We see Alex, Mercy, and Lauren playfully bantering before Alex leaves for the new moon ritual. She finds Dawes making Darlington’s favorite food, Dawes compliments her on how nice she looks, and she begins searching the office and Darlington’s bedroom for the notes on North’s murder-suicide. She finds an old carriage catalog, with just one note of, “the first?” written in the margins of a page talking about the brand-new North and Sons’ factory which was fronted by a showroom for prospective buyers. Then everyone begins to arrive for the ritual, and they seem to socialize for a bit before undergoing it. It goes wrong, according to Sandow, and they decide that Darlington had been consumed by a hellbeast, soul and all. That’s why he wasn’t on the other side – he was gone.

Chapter 26: [Winter] Dawes asks Alex to stay, and Alex is grateful she wants her to, so she agrees. Alex grasps at straws that maybe Darlington isn’t gone, that Sandow got the ritual wrong, but Dawes insists that what they saw tonight wasn’t wrong, that Darlington was consumed by a hellbeast, but that Sandow had been wrong in that something could survive the hellbeast consumption, just no human – only a demon can. Alex tells her she’s going to order a pizza, that she has dibs on the first shower, and Dawes offers to get wine. When Alex gets upstairs, there’s suddenly a knock on the door that confuses her, as no one knocks on the door of this place, and then a voice from the door says, “Let me in.” She gets all the way back downstairs before she realizes that the person at the door is using compulsion and tries to warn Dawes, who had beat her to the door, not to open it, but she’s too late. Dawes gets thrown back, hits her head, and goes down. Alex grabs Dawes’s headphones, jams them down on her head, sealing them to her ears to prevent herself hearing anything, and runs away from who she identifies as Blake Keely, the guy she made eat shit on video and passed it around. Eventually, Blake gets Alex’s ears free, and proceeds to slowly attack her. Sandow shows up just before Blake stabs her, and he compels Sandow to do it instead. Just before he does, Alex manages to call the house jackals Darlington had sent on her – but doesn’t have control of them, so they attack everyone, not just Blake – even her. Blake still tries to kill Alex, but Dawes kills him with the bust from downstairs.

Chapter 27: [Winter] Alex comes to in a hospital, thinking she’s back to last summer, back in California, Hellie’s death still fresh and new. But then her body, with its various injuries, reminds her she’s in New Haven, and everything comes rushing back. The nurse that took care of the prognostication comes to check on her, and she decides that’s a bad sign, so she runs away to Dawes’s room, and they cram themselves to fit together on Dawes’s bed. They both drift off, but Alex comes to when Turner wheels Sandow in his cast into the room, and they all discuss what’s happened, the truth that was unraveled from Blake’s attack. Before the end, Turner leaves, and discuss turns more specifically to Lethe and Alex. Dawes pushes for Sandow to give Alex a minimum of a 3.5 GPA for the semester to help set her up for the next year, to get her off academic probation and continue her work at Lethe, but both she and Dawes are disappointed to learn that the societies that made huge errors of judgement are probably going to get away with maybe hefty fines and naught much else. Dawes kicks Sandow out [politely but not friendly] and Alex discovers Dawes is leaving to stay with her sister because, ” ‘This was suppose to be a research job. It’s too much.’ ” Alex runs away, back to her hospital room, where she disconnects her IV, collects what she needs, steals a doctor’s jacket, and walks out of the hospital. She passes Dawes’s sister on the way out, gets a car to take her back to the Hutch, and, “goes to ground.”

Chapter 28: [Early Spring] Alex wakes in the Hutch to the sounds of glass breaking. She’s disoriented for a bit, but remembers where she is. Turns out, Mercy had broken the window to get Alex’s attention – and Mercy had snitched to Mira, Alex’s mom, and she had flown out to see her. Even though embarrassed with the state of the place and the fact that it technically broke the rules, she invites them into the Hutch. They clean up after her, get her cleaned up, force her to make an appointment to get looked at, feed her, spend some time with her there, and take her back to campus. Mercy and Alex show her the suite and Alex’s room, and then Mira leaves, blaming her parenting for Alex’s bad turn in life. Mira insists Yale is where Alex is suppose to be. Alex asks after her dad again for the first time in a long time, gets a cryptic answer about how being with her father was like being an arsenic eater – people who consumed arsenic daily because, “it made their skin clear and their eyes bright and they felt wonderful” but, “all the while they were just drinking poison.” Mercy brings up Blake when Alex comes back to the suite, tells her what happened, and then they talk about Mercy’s great-grandmother and Alex’s grandmother [and, indirectly, Alex’s father]. Alex decides her true answer to Belbalm’s question from earlier in the semester about what Alex wanted, and decides, “I want to live to grow old. I want to sit on my porch and drink foul-smelling tea and yell at passerby. I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me.”

Chapter 29: [Early Spring] Alex decides to “at least try to make a good show of it” and go to class. North hounds her, so Alex asks Dawes if she had any luck looking into how to sever connections to Grays. She uses a sink to tell North to, “fuck off” and leave her alone. She continues to ignore him, but he possesses her, forces her to write three years down as she sees into his head for the duration of the possession. She comes back to with blood splattered over her notebook page from a nose bleed, and she gets pissed. She threatens North just before running into Tripp again. After their conversation, she decides that maybe he isn’t as useless as he seems, and then she’s off to Il Bastone’s wards. Despite herself, she’s curious about the years North gave her, so she gives in and looks into them. Eventually, she discovers that Darlington had stumbled onto how the nexuses were created – by the murders of girls throughout the years. She pieces together that Sandow is behind it all, that a tomb was needed, so he created one with Tara’s death, had gotten rid of Darlington because Sandow knew he’d put it together, and she reaches out to Turner that they had gotten it wrong and to meet her at the president of Yale’s house, where Sandow was currently attending a welcome back party of sorts in his honor.

Chapter 30: [Early Spring] Alex stops by her dorm to clean up and change. She puts on the dress her mom bought for her when she visited to give herself as much credibility as possible for her Sandow confrontation. She uses a cup of tea to ask North if he had any luck and to get permission to use him. She finds our he had no luck, and his strength is hers. She texted Dawes to give her a vague update/back-up plan, and wonders why Turner hasn’t replied. Alex runs into Colin at the president’s house working staff like he was for Belbalm’s salon. She’s surprised that he isn’t angry with her, that he even goes so far as to invite her to the kitchen later to join them in enjoying the champagne Belbalm brought for them. She realizes he doesn’t know what’s happened, that he felt no real punishment for his actions with Tara. She gathers herself in the bathroom, staring at her reflection over the sink. She takes off the black cardigan she wore over the cream dress her mom got her, and notices some pink leeching through where her bandage must have come loose at the edges. She decides her passing GPA trade off isn’t worth doing nothing, and she licks her knuckles to release her tattoos from the address moth’s magic. She finds Sandow, and pretends she’s dropping something off that he asked for, leaking a little of what she knows to get his attention. He goes along, and they go off to the president’s at-home office to talk. She starts recording with her phone’s microphone on the way, and keeps the office door open to the party for her defense/safety. Sandow admits to it all, even telling Alex she was also meant to be consumed by the hellbeast with Darlington. He consumes Starpower to compel her, but she pulls North into her before he can. Belbalm interrupts, and Sandow gives her commands to aid him. She seems to go along – and then clearly doesn’t, closing the office door as she tells Sandow to stop.

Chapter 31: [Early Spring] Alex discovers Belbalm is not only Daisy, but that she took over Gladys’s body, consuming Gladys’s soul to do so, using it to sustain her, and that she and Alex are what Belbalm/Daisy calls “Wheelwalkers”. Alex realizes that Belbalm/Daisy has been killing all these girls over the years, creating the nexuses by consuming their souls. The reason there’s a sudden jump in years is because Daisy discovered that consuming a fellow Wheelwalker’s soul is more sustaining, their souls last her longer between feeds. Her intent is to [eventually] consume Alex – “I wanted to let you ripen for a while. Wash the stink of the common from you. But . . .” And then she began to rip Alex’s soul from her body, consuming memories as she went, and Alex begins to lose herself in the process, essentially surrendering to Belbalm/Daisy. But she regains herself, calls all the Grays to aid her, and forces the souls Daisy has consumed to be ripped from her body, including Gladys’s and Daisy’s. North tries to protect her, to save her, but Alex and the other Gray girls refuse. Once she’s pulled free, the Grays embrace Gladys, who was reluctant to be pulled out, but they all swarm to Daisy, presumably to attack her, maybe destroy her. Once it’s over, she finds herself on her knees in the president’s office, all the Grays but the Bridegroom gone. She watches Belbalm’s body – Gladys’s body – dissolve into ash from it’s hundred-ish years of existing. Alex apologizes to North, but follows it up with the comment that he has terrible taste in women. She sees Turner finally texted her back, and it’s to tell her he’s working a case, that he’ll call, to warn her not to do anything stupid. She comments, “It’s like he doesn’t even know me.” She asks North to help her make sure the coast is clear, so that she can return to the party without people noticing where she’s coming from, so that Belbalm will possibly be the last person to be seen going into talking with Sandow, that she’ll be blamed for her death, since Alex opened the French doors in the office that led to the garden, and the cold air had scattered Belbalm’s ashes, removing the evidence she died there. Alex then returns to the party, pretending like nothing happened, which she knew she could do because she, “had been doing it her whole life.”

Chapter 32: [Spring] Alex and Dawes meet up and walk to Tara’s murder site, where flowers are beginning to grow at the edges of the plot. Alex had always called the Grays The Quiet Ones, but now she could hear them, like she had heard North and the Consumed Girls in the president’s office after Belbalm attempted to consumer her soul. They walked the perimeter of the land Sandow had intended to be St. Elmo’s new tomb, and we discover Alex submitted the recording of Sandow’s confession to the Lethe board. They decided to leave the story as it was, blaming Blake, and attributing Sandow’s “sudden, massive heart attack” to his recent divorce and a fall he had taken a few weeks before [his broken leg story, presumably]. The New Haven police had opened an investigation into Belbalm’s disappearance. But Belbalm’s true identity, what she truly was, was withheld from Lethe – Alex had ensured the recording was cut-off before Belbalm had joined them in the office. Dawes and Alex move on from the site to head to the cemetery. Michelle and Turner were at Sandow’s funeral when they arrived, the latter not having spoken to her since they met about what happened to Sandow at the party. He seemed to know the vague details of what had gone down, that Sandow had been the one to murder Tara, and that Alex hadn’t killed him – which she was glad was wholly and completely the truth. As Sandow’s coffin was lowered, Alex caught Michelle’s eye, and bobbed her head invitation as she and Dawes walked a little ways away, Alex hoping Michelle would follow and meet them. She does, and Dawes and Alex explain to Michelle that they had reason to believe Darlington wasn’t gone, he had just transformed into a demon when the hellbeast had consumed him. Michelle was skeptical, since demons were only formed one way – “the union of sulfer and sin.” She goes on to explain that the sin had to be murder, which leaves the impression that Darlington has committed murder, which Alex seems to believe a possibility and Michelle and Dawes don’t. Alex and Dawes declare they’re going to go get him, and it’s implied they’re asking Michelle if she wants to join them as the chapter closes on Alex asked, ” ‘Who’s ready to go to hell?’ “

Notes about the Societies:
Skull & Bones
~ the first of the eight Houses of the Veil, founded in 1832
~ boasts more presidents, publishers, captains of industry, and cabinet members than any other society
~ Only really excels at prognostication
~ tomb is described as having flat neo-Egyptian plinths
~ “Rich or poor, all are equal in death.”
~ “Teachings: Extispicy and splanchomancy. Divination using human and animal entrails.”
~ “Notable Alumni: William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush, George W Bush, John Kerry.”

Scroll & Key
~ their tomb is described with, “Moorish screens and scrollwork”
~ they learned/stole their magic from Middle Eastern sorcerers during the Crusades
~ their exterior pays homage to those origins, but the interior is “nonsensically” devoted to Arthurian legend [complete with a round table at its heart]
~ “Have power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on this dead world to make it alive.”
~ “Teachings: Duru dweomer, portal magic. Astral and etheric projection.”
~ “Notable Alumni: Dean Acheson, Gary Trudeau, Cole Porter, Stone Phillips.”

Book & Snake
~ their tomb was, “towering” and, “white” and, “Of all the society buildings, it was the most like a crypt.” [” ‘Greek pediment, Ionic columns. Pedestrian stuff,’ Darlington had said.”] Alex was drawn to their fence – “black iron crawling with snakes.” And later described with soaring columns.
~ practices necromancy, though sparingly – they gather intelligence through a network of dead informants
~ their motto is, “Everything changes; nothing perishes.”
~ “massive mausoleum”; “a gloomy block of white marble surrounded by black wrought iron”
~ “Everything changes, nothing perishes.”
~ “Teachings: Nekyia or nekromateía, necromancy and bone conjuring.
~”Notable Alumni: Bob Woodward, Porter Goss, Kathleen Cleaver, Charles Rivkin.”

Wolf’s Head
~ transformations are mentioned?
~ their tomb is described as, “an English country estate in miniature.”
~ the fourth House of the Veil
~ they, “practice therianthropy and consider shapeshifting to be base magic.” They, “focus instead on the ability to retain human consciousness and characteristics while in animal form.”
~ primarily used for, “intelligence gathering, corporate espionage, and political sabotage.”
~ was a major recruitment ground for the CIA in the ’50s and ’60s
~ it can take days for someone to shake off the traits of an animal after a shifting ritual
~ “Keep discussions of an important or sensitive nature around animals to a minimum.”
~ “The strength of the pack is the wolf. The strength of the wolf is the pack.”
~ “Teachings: Therianthropy.”
~ “Notable Alumni: Stephen Vincent Benét, Benjamin Spock, Charles Ives, Sam Wagstaff.”

Manuscript
~ Specializes in glamours, mirror magic, and persuasion
~ their tomb is described as having, “severe mid-century lines”
~ “the young upstart among the Houses of the Veil, but arguably the society that has weathered modernity the best”
~ “… we would do well to remember that all of their workings derive from the manipulation of our own perception.”
~ “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.”
~ “Teachings: Mirror magic and glamours.”
~ “Notable Alumni: Jodie Foster, Anderson Cooper, David Gergen, Zoe Kazan.”

Aurelian
~ “home to the would-be philosopher kings, the great uniters”
~ “was founded to embrace the ideals of leadership and, supposedly, to bring together the best of the societies”
~ “modeled themselves a kind of New Lethe, tapping members from every society to form a leadership counsel” – “it didn’t last long”
~ “their magic has a fundamental practicality best suited to the working professional, less a calling than a trade”
~ lost their tomb
~ “lesser house”
~ “Teachings: Logomancy – word binding and divination through language.”
~ “Notable Alumni: Admiral Richard Lyon, Samantha Power, John B. Goodenough.”

St. Elmo’s
~ known for weather magic
~ lost their tomb
~ “lesser house”
~ Teachings: Tempestate Arium, elemental magic, storm calling.”
~ “Notable Alumni: Calvin Hill, John Ashcroft, Allison Williams.”

Berzelius
~ “… no one cares about Berzelius.”
~ claims the other Houses were charlatans and superstitious dilettantes, dedicating themselves to investments in new technology and the philosophy that the only true magic is science
~ “Teachings: None. Founded in the tradition of its namesake, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, the Swedish chemist who created a new system of chemical notation that left the secrecy of alchemists in the past.”
~ “Notable Alumni: None.”

Random notes:
~ Darlington can play cello, upright bass, guitar, piano, and oud.
~ We learn that the oldest building on campus has survived because Lethe discovered it was spiritually lode-bearing, part of an old binding ritual to keep the campus safe [the cover-up story is a preservation campaign]
~ “I like loud” Mercy is Chinese
~ Contact with the uncanny takes a toll. The older you get, the harder it is to endure that contact.
~ If magic is a river, a nexus is where the power eddies which allows the societies’ rituals to function successfully
~ Tombs have been built on 8 of the 12 Nexuses [the other 3 have structures that already exist, including a train station
~ “On this night, with the wind clawing to get into her winter coat, Alex thought of that girl, illuminated in gold, sitting in that sacred circle. It was the last moment of peace she could remember.”
~ Darlington knows seven languages, can fence, knew Brazilian jujitsu, how to rewire an electrical box, could quote poetry and plays by people Alex has never heard of, but, “always asked the wrong questions.”
~ Alex has seen the captain of the lacrosse team turn himself into a vole [during which he’d squealed and pumped his tiny pink fist].
~ Lethe history technically goes back to 1824, but was established in 1898 as the League of Lethe, and each of the societies contribute to a storehouse of arcane magic for the purpose of arming the deputies of Lethe
~ Cabot Collins is known as the Poet of Lethe, who lost both of his hands when an interdimensional portal closed on them
~ Alex’s tattoos consist of: the curling tail of a rattle snake, the sunburst bloom of a peony, The Wheel from tarot, and two black snakes whose heads curled near her collarbones, their tongues nearly meeting at the hollows of her throat
~ Lethe House has a soaring entry, warm wood, stained glass, smells of pine and cassis [giving the feel of Christmas], and is the storehouse of hundreds of years of the knowledge on the occult; it has a grand parlor with an old map of New Haven over the fireplace, a kitchen and pantry, downstairs training rooms, a second floor armory with a wall of apothecary drawers, all full with herbs and sacred objects,
~ the societies tap 16 members, 8 male and 8 female, to create the next delegation every year, and a freshman to be Dante every three years
~ Hiram Bingham the third is the patron saint of Lethe [his boyish features and downturn mouth made his marble bust look like a perturbed department store mannequin
~ Oculus is in charge of keeping Lethe House well stocked, including freshening perishable items and maintain any artifacts that required it
~ Lethe House contains the Revolutionary Clock, which showed an accurate-to-the-minute countdown to armed revolt in countries around the globe; it has 22 faces and 66 hands, and had to be wound regularly or it would simply begin screaming; storage and research rooms in the upper stories, the library [which requires instruction on how to use it and requires the house to get to know you], as well as Dante and Virgil suites, which include a bedroom and attached bath for their use. [Virgil’s vanity belonged to Eleazar Wheelock which stands across from a wall taken up by a stained glass window depicting a hemlock wood, positioned so that as the sun rose and set throughout the day, the colors of the glass trees and the sky above it seemed to change as well.]
~ Hiram’s Crucible, also known as, “The Golden Bowl”, is the circumference of a tractor wheel and made of beaten 24-karat gold, originating from Machu Picchu in Peru.
~ When Darlington moved into the Virgil suite, he found a bottle of brandy and a note from Michelle on her last visit. The brandy is the last bottle made by a monastery that produced such fine Armagnac so refined that its monks were forced to flee to Italy when Louis XIV joked about killing them to protect their secrets. [She also advises not to drink it on an empty stomach, and not to call unless he’s dead. And wishes him luck.]
~ Human saliva reverses the magic of address moths
~ Address moths get “ink drunk” after being used, becoming essentially immobile and seeming dead
~ Address moths are used to recreate/move documents without stealing them by having the moths absorb the ink and then placing them on a blank paper(s) later to recreate the original document, word-for-word, so long as the user knows the right incantation. [They can also recreate Alex’s tattoos on Darlington, though they would be distorted/”not fit quite right” because of their body differences.]
~ Only showering with verbena soap beneath a hanging censer filled with cedar and palo santo are the only things that can counter the stink of the Veil
~ When Alex drinks alcohol or does oxy, it helps keeps the Grays away. [Valium is the best.] But Speed, Adderall, Molly [which is the worst one], she can feel the Grays [their sadness and hunger].
~ Tara Hutchins’s knees looked brownish gray, there was stubble near her bikini area, red razor burn like a rash, a tattoo of a parrot at her hip with “Key West” written below it in looping scrawl and another on her right arm, this one an ugly realistic portait of a young girl, then a pirate flag and a ship on cresting waves, a Bettie Page zombie girl in heels and black lingerie; the cameo on Tara’s inner arm looked newer, with older Gothic font reading, “Rather die than doubt”. [Alex originally thought they were song lyrics, but they’re actually from Idylls of the King, tying her to Scroll & Key on top of Skull & Bones and Book & Snake.]
~ There’s a tunnel beneath Grove Street that leads directly from Book and Snake to the heart of the cemetery, and there are enchanted orange trees taken from Alhambra that bore fruit year-round in the Scroll and Key courtyard.
~ There was an incident at a Manuscript party in 1982 where a girl ate something and decided she was a tiger. And she never stopped, living in a cage with room to run and a raw food diet. Attacked a mailman.
~ Anderson Cooper is 5′ 4″, 200 lbs, and talks with, “a knee-deep Long Island accent”
~ St. Erasmus had supposedly survived electrocution and drowning, and become the namesake for St. Elmo’s fire and the society that had used Rosenfeld Hall as their tomb.
~ It’s hinted that the Gray we see in North’s memory that killed him and Daisy was the “vagrant” that was used in the hasty prognostication when the stock market crashed in 1929.
~ Tara is now tied to four societies: Skull & Bones [Tripp], Scroll & Key[Colin & her ink], Manuscript [Kate & Merity], and Book & Snake [the glumae].
Random notes:
~ Darlington can play cello, upright bass, guitar, piano, and oud.
~ We learn that the oldest building on campus has survived because Lethe discovered it was spiritually lode-bearing, part of an old binding ritual to keep the campus safe [the cover-up story is a preservation campaign]
~ “I like loud” Mercy is Chinese
~ Contact with the uncanny takes a toll. The older you get, the harder it is to endure that contact.
~ If magic is a river, a nexus is where the power eddies which allows the societies’ rituals to function successfully
~ Tombs have been built on 8 of the 12 Nexuses [the other 3 have structures that already exist, including a train station
~ “On this night, with the wind clawing to get into her winter coat, Alex thought of that girl, illuminated in gold, sitting in that sacred circle. It was the last moment of peace she could remember.”
~ Darlington knows seven languages, can fence, knew Brazilian jujitsu, how to rewire an electrical box, could quote poetry and plays by people Alex has never heard of, but, “always asked the wrong questions.”
~ Alex has seen the captain of the lacrosse team turn himself into a vole [during which he’d squealed and pumped his tiny pink fist].
~ Lethe history technically goes back to 1824, but was established in 1898 as the League of Lethe, and each of the societies contribute to a storehouse of arcane magic for the purpose of arming the deputies of Lethe
~ Cabot Collins is known as the Poet of Lethe, who lost both of his hands when an interdimensional portal closed on them
~ Alex’s tattoos consist of: the curling tail of a rattle snake, the sunburst bloom of a peony, The Wheel from tarot, and two black snakes whose heads curled near her collarbones, their tongues nearly meeting at the hollows of her throat
~ Lethe House has a soaring entry, warm wood, stained glass, smells of pine and cassis [giving the feel of Christmas], and is the storehouse of hundreds of years of the knowledge on the occult; it has a grand parlor with an old map of New Haven over the fireplace, a kitchen and pantry, downstairs training rooms, a second floor armory with a wall of apothecary drawers, all full with herbs and sacred objects,
~ the societies tap 16 members, 8 male and 8 female, to create the next delegation every year, and a freshman to be Dante every three years
~ Hiram Bingham the third is the patron saint of Lethe [his boyish features and downturn mouth made his marble bust look like a perturbed department store mannequin
~ Oculus is in charge of keeping Lethe House well stocked, including freshening perishable items and maintain any artifacts that required it
~ Lethe House contains the Revolutionary Clock, which showed an accurate-to-the-minute countdown to armed revolt in countries around the globe; it has 22 faces and 66 hands, and had to be wound regularly or it would simply begin screaming; storage and research rooms in the upper stories, the library [which requires instruction on how to use it and requires the house to get to know you], as well as Dante and Virgil suites, which include a bedroom and attached bath for their use. [Virgil’s vanity belonged to Eleazar Wheelock which stands across from a wall taken up by a stained glass window depicting a hemlock wood, positioned so that as the sun rose and set throughout the day, the colors of the glass trees and the sky above it seemed to change as well.]
~ Hiram’s Crucible, also known as, “The Golden Bowl”, is the circumference of a tractor wheel and made of beaten 24-karat gold, originating from Machu Picchu in Peru.
~ “Every time a member of Lethe drinks it, every time the crucible is used, he takes his life in his hands. The mixture is toxic and the process incredibly painful.”
~ When Darlington moved into the Virgil suite, he found a bottle of brandy and a note from Michelle on her last visit. The brandy is the last bottle made by a monastery that produced such fine Armagnac so refined that its monks were forced to flee to Italy when Louis XIV joked about killing them to protect their secrets. [She also advises not to drink it on an empty stomach, and not to call unless he’s dead. And wishes him luck.]
~ Human saliva reverses the magic of address moths
~ Address moths get “ink drunk” after being used, becoming essentially immobile and seeming dead
~ Address moths are used to recreate/move documents without stealing them by having the moths absorb the ink and then placing them on a blank paper(s) later to recreate the original document, word-for-word, so long as the user knows the right incantation. [They can also recreate Alex’s tattoos on Darlington, though they would be distorted/”not fit quite right” because of their body differences.]
~ Only showering with verbena soap beneath a hanging censer filled with cedar and palo santo are the only things that can counter the stink of the Veil
~ When Alex drinks alcohol or does oxy, it helps keeps the Grays away. [Valium is the best.] But Speed, Adderall, Molly [which is the worst one], she can feel the Grays [their sadness and hunger].
~ Tara Hutchins’s knees looked brownish gray, there was stubble near her bikini area, red razor burn like a rash, a tattoo of a parrot at her hip with “Key West” written below it in looping scrawl and another on her right arm, this one an ugly realistic portait of a young girl, then a pirate flag and a ship on cresting waves, a Bettie Page zombie girl in heels and black lingerie; the cameo on Tara’s inner arm looked newer, with older Gothic font reading, “Rather die than doubt”. [Alex originally thought they were song lyrics, but they’re actually from Idylls of the King, tying her to Scroll & Key on top of Skull & Bones and Book & Snake.]
~ There’s a tunnel beneath Grove Street that leads directly from Book and Snake to the heart of the cemetery, and there are enchanted orange trees taken from Alhambra that bore fruit year-round in the Scroll and Key courtyard.
~ There was an incident at a Manuscript party in 1982 where a girl ate something and decided she was a tiger. And she never stopped, living in a cage with room to run and a raw food diet. Attacked a mailman.
~ Anderson Cooper is 5′ 4″, 200 lbs, and talks with, “a knee-deep Long Island accent”
~ St. Erasmus had supposedly survived electrocution and drowning, and become the namesake for St. Elmo’s fire and the society that had used Rosenfeld Hall as their tomb.
~ Darlington’s last words to Alex before he disappears are: ” ‘It’s not a portal, it’s a muh-” Alex assumes later he meant, “It’s not a portal, it’s a mouth.”
~ It’s hinted that the Gray we see in North’s memory that killed him and Daisy was the “vagrant” that was used in the hasty prognostication when the stock market crashed in 1929.
~ Tara is now tied to four societies: Skull & Bones [Tripp], Scroll & Key[Colin & her ink], Manuscript [Kate & Merity], and Book & Snake [the glumae].
~ Right before the last chapter of the book, the section of the The Life of Lethe: Procedures and Protocols of the Ninth House that’s shared establishes that the current knowledge that there are many borderlands with the dead, the suspicions that there are multiple afterlives, that it all implies there are multiple hells, but that, if that’s true, they remain, “opaque” to them because no one has ever dared to walk the road to hell, “no matter how it may be paved.” It’s foreshadowing that Alex is going to hell to get Darlington back.