Tuesday and Thursday mornings began in Forensic Accounting, staring at dusty chalkboards filled with meticulous tables of figures. As we gazed at them, searching for signs of fraud and embezzlement, Ms. Delicato drifted behind us, whistling aimless tunes.
The ordinary students in the class had a mantra: Follow the money. We legacies had several: Squeeze the system. Hide the outcomes. Know the rules better than the rulers.
One in six FBI agents is an accountant.
Of us Mortons, one in five.
Garrett hadn’t told me the results of my audition yet. All I could do was prepare for adventures in the art world. I started researching freeports.
A freeport is a warehouse, legally outside the borders of any country, crammed with gold bullion, vintage wines, security guards, and art. Any object stored there can change hands anonymously, without duties or taxation—just do the paperwork—but artworks have the benefit of arbitrary value. A broken teacup can be worth a million euros, an old bicycle wheel, vastly more. Huge sums move without anyone knowing.
Like having a bank account in fairyland.
I wondered about Hiromi’s place in all this. I’d looked her up. A few sales, not much press. How was she the key to my summer in New York?
The quote I’d given her wasn’t from Martin Luther King, but one of those free-floating sayings credited to Albert Einstein or Dolly Parton.Hiromi must have been amused. Maybe my ignorance would wind up on some mocking piece of granite, stored in tax-haven limbo.
The rest of my classes were going well. My archery remained superb, Abnormal Psych was an easy A, and Behavioral Economics began to explain my hallmates’ fashion choices. I sat in on Art History 101, memorizing slides and styles and eras. Impressionism and Expressionism. Ionic and Corinthian. Egg and dart.
In Disruptive Anatomy, Divya Seth finally shattered the old plastic skeleton, trapping its arm between a steam pipe and the wall and giving the torso a violent twist. We spent the rest of the hour gathering sharp slivers from underneath the desks.
“A bold improvisation,” Uncle William said. “But few buildings have heating of this type.”
In those weeksafter the midterms, I gained a new little shadow.
He lurked outside the language labs, along my morning runs, at the Hellion Café before Accounting. Constantly in my peripheral vision, waiting to be noticed.
I arranged a meeting.
Deep in the library stacks were a few dusty sections my family used as dead drops. Mortons exchanged messages among the forgotten books in 598.418 (swans), and left spare weapons on the shelves of 001.944 (monsters and related phenomena). Encrypted phones had made passing notes obsolete, but we still taught our incoming freshmen the twists and turns of those stacks. The antique books smelled like secrets—the perfect place to meet my stalker.
I left for Behavioral Econ at the usual time, but veered into the library. He followed.
I led him down to the subbasement, into a maze of shelves that dead-ends in section 594.58 (krakens). It was easy to slip behind him and block his exit.
“Ashton Peabody Hale,” I said.
He spun around. “Jesus! Don’t sneak up on people!”
“Don’t follow people.”
He looked paralyzed. He’d actually thought I couldn’t see him.
Ashton was a forgettable presence on campus. If he hadn’t been Peter’s roommate, I never would have noticed him.
“You weren’t at the funeral,” I realized.
“My brother told me not to go.”
I wasn’t sure who this brother was. The Hales had sent their children to Helshire for generations, but we’d never managed to incorporate them. Peter had been assigned to Ashton as a chaos strategy, after sensible plans had failed.
“I sent flowers,” Ashton said.
“Thanks. Why are you following me?”
He sighed. “I was trying to figure out where Peter hid his stuff.”
I stared at him.
