18 Works in Mercy Zhao
Listing Works
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"You’re taking all of this surprisingly well, by the way,” you say.
Alex shrugs, then pulls out her phone. “I’ve been to hell three times. I can consume souls and I’m bound to an extremely annoying half-demon with a hero complex. Time travel’s a little boring in comparison.”
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Darlington and Alex go on a multidimensional wild ride.
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Galaxy the Ninth by waxscoralpants
Fandoms: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo, The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
25 Jan 2026
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The cavalier from the Ninth House is more than she seems. The necromancer from the Ninth House finds he doesn't mind that at all.
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Tripp isn't high on the list of people Mercy wants to hang around with. Unfortunately, she doesn't have many options in the middle of the night.
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The Lethe Museum is a prestigious post for one lucky Yale graduate every four years. The Museum holds a collection of oddities and offers special exhibitions from its own warehouses and the collections of the Ancient Eight. Darlington's tenure as curator is nearly at an end, which means its time to train the next curator, Galaxy "Alex" Stern. It's a task he was always prepared for, but Alex is not what he was expecting. She is the exact opposite of every other Yale graduate he's ever met. Perhaps it's the breath of fresh air that Lethe needed. Perhaps she's just what he needed... Too bad there are the little matters of his honor and the Lethe code of conduct standing in his way.
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What if Darlington actually was in a band? Aka Alex finds him playing in a bar and she is delighted and mischievous about it.
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"You can take turns behind the wheel, you know."
"I don't know that there's two of us in that sense. I find it difficult to draw a clear line between where I end and something else begins. It's all me now.", he explains grimly and pointedly ignores the proximity, "To make use of your metaphor, I am afraid he won't be satisfied with taking turns."
Alex rolls her eyes.
"You love being vague about it like it's somehow embarrassing to be part demon, but to make use of my metaphor, what does he actually want?", she cuts him short, sharp as a blade, "And what do you want? Is it different things or is it just that you only want, and he takes?"
Or: Darlington feeds off Alex's emotions and is confronted, not for the first time, with the reality of himself - the man and the monster. Alex doesn't fear anything after what she's been through.
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Darlington gave a tart grin. “In-N-Out wouldn’t exist if not for this place here in New Haven. Where’s your respect for tradition?”
”Tradition, as they say, is just peer pressure from dead people,” Alex concluded with a crunch of potato chips.
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"Darlington, you of all people should understand that I couldn't mess this up even if I wanted to."
She was right. Without Lethe, neither of them would be here. It would be foolish to jeopardize their positions in any way. They were student and mentor, Dante and Virgil. He should've stepped down after Halloween in the first place, not put himself alone in a room with her.
But maybe he wanted to make this kind of mistake. It would be worth it.AKA
the most DIABOLICAL situationship that would’ve started if darlington didn’t go to hell -
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"(...) She might’ve been relieved she didn’t have to sort through hundreds of candidate CVs but I suspect she too must’ve been upset she didn’t get to choose her Dante-"
"They used you. Found you at your most vulnerable, offered you everything you could've ever wanted, gave you a way out of your misery.", she scoffs, her fists clenching. Empathizing with him now helps her empathize with herself.
"Just like you, except you wanted a normal life and I wanted the opposite."
Or: Alex has seen Darlington's memories, held his soul in her hands and carried it out of hell. Darlington has seen Alex's memories, become tethered to her and chosen to serve her. But they've never sat down to talk about it, or about those very long months he was "in Spain" - the 's' is silent. They go out on a date in a fancy restaurant and say what's on their minds.
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Lethe and Team Murder have a little party to celebrate the winter holidays.
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Pamela Dawes is trying to figure out how to keep Tripp fed. She ends up spending more time working on how to keep her own developing feelings from getting in the way... and when there is a way to keep Tripp fed sustainably, will she be willing to be there for him indefinitely? What other options do they have? And can her heart take all this attention?
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An Eclipse of the Soul by ACHampshire for marginally_diligent
Fandoms: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo, leigh bardugo - Fandom
25 Jan 2024
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A continuation of something-of-an-innovation (marginally_diligent)'s story Starlit Soul. This story follows where theirs left off and goes through the events of Ninth House following their setup. This will be blending events from both Ninth House and Hell Bent, but taking place over the time period of Ninth House.
Please read something-of-an-innovation (marginally_diligent)'s story here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47983636/chapters/120983254 -
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It's been 10 years since Alex and Darlington shared a home. It has been over 20 since they started their excuse for a relationship. Yet Alex could still feel the threads of Darlington's service to her. But she has learned that service is different than love.
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Alex saves herself in the bathroom of the Goleta butterfly reserve. It changes everything, and nothing.
Series
- Part 1 of Turning Points
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in which daniel arlington is an ordinary yale student and alex stern is the manic pixie nightmare girl that throws everything off track
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Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Alex and Darlington work through their shit, and change the world in the process.
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i will serve you ‘til the end of days by lilypottersghost
Fandoms: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo
17 Jan 2023
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in the aftermath of darlington's return from hell, both he and alex are plagued by fear and guilt as they attempt to salvage the remains of their friendship.
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Last night, Alex slept in the Dante bedroom, staring at the blue ceiling and trying not to have a panic attack. Finally, she fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of Darlington’s hellish voice yelling, "Murder!" and hearing it reverberate through the halls of Black Elm. When she slowly woke, it was with the corrupted memory of his body curled behind hers and one clawed hand digging into her breast, drawing blood.
*It starts with a trip to hell to rescue Darlington, who is traumatized and transformed by his months in the realm of the dead. As tensions rise between the houses on campus, with a suspicious interim dean calling the shots, Alex and Darlington have to try to keep everything from crumbling down around them. On top of it all, or perhaps underlying it, new tensions rise between the two of them: tensions that could burn them alive if not resolved.