Alex was on her back. At some point it had started to rain. She wiped the water from her eyes and spat the taste of sulfur from her mouth.
“Mercy!” she shouted, shoving to her feet and coughing. Her arm was whole and unbroken, but the world was spinning. Everything looked too rich, too saturated with color, the lights too yellow, the night lush as fresh ink.
“Are you okay?” Mercy was beside her, drenched from the rain, her salt armor somehow keeping its form.
“I’m fine,” Alex lied. “Is everyone here?”
“Here,” said Dawes, her face a white blur in the downpour. “Yeah,” said Turner.
Tripp was sitting in the mud, arms cradled over his head, sobbing.
Alex looked around, trying to get her bearings. “I saw someone up here.”
“Did you stop the metronome?” Dawes asked.
“I’m sorry,” Mercy said. “He told me to stop it. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s certainly not your fault, Miss Zhao.” “Shit,” Alex muttered.
She didn’t know what she’d expected—a vampire, a Gray, some other new and exciting ghoul. All of those seemed easier to manage than Michael Anselm. They’d taught Mercy how to deal with undead intruders, not a living bureaucrat.
He stood in the doorway beneath the stone carving of Dürer’s magic square, arms crossed, protected from the rain. Amber light from the hallway cast him in shadow.
“Everybody up,” he said, his voice thrumming with anger. “And out.”
They got to their feet, shivering, and shuffled out of the muddy courtyard.
Alex was struggling to make her mind work. The wolves. The blue fire. Had she saved them? Or had Anselm inadvertently come to their rescue by interrupting the ritual and pulling them out? And where had the wolves come from? Dawes had said there shouldn’t be obstacles like that. Could Alex blame Anselm for those too?
“I feel like someone dropped a house on me,” said Turner.
“Hell hangover,” said Tripp. He’d wiped his tears away and color was returning to his cheeks.
“Take off your shoes,” Anselm snapped. “You will not track mud over these floors.”
They wriggled out of their shoes and socks, then walked barefoot into the library behind Anselm, the stone floor like a slab of ice.
In the dim light from the generators, Anselm shepherded them to a back entrance that led to York Street, where he allowed them to sit on the low benches and pull their wet shoes back on.
“Detective Turner,” said Anselm, “I’ll ask you to remain.” He pointed at Mercy and Tripp. “You and you. I’ve called cabs.”
“I don’t have any cash,” Tripp said.
Anselm looked like he was going to throw a punch. He drew out his wallet and slapped a twenty into Tripp’s wet palm. “Go home.”
“I’m fine,” said Mercy. “JE is right next door.”
“The armor,” said Anselm, “does not belong to you.”
Mercy removed the breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves and stood there awkwardly.
“Miss Stern,” said Anselm, and Alex took the pile of armor.
“Go get warm,” she whispered. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.” She hoped. Maybe she was about to be driven past the New Haven city limits and dumped in a ditch.
Alex shoved the armor into the soaked canvas tote they’d brought with them. She saw the luminaries were in there too. Anselm must have retrieved them.
Tripp waved as he headed out the door. Mercy backed slowly away, as if waiting for some sign from Alex to stay, but all Alex could do was shrug. This was it. This was what she and Dawes had feared so much. But the knowledge of what they might lose hadn’t been enough to stop them. And now they’d literally gone through hell and returned with nothing to show for it.
At least she hadn’t lost the Arlington Rubber Boots box. She touched her fingers to it in her damp pocket. She had held Darlington’s soul in her hands. She had felt the force of his life, new-leaf green, morning bright. And she had failed.
She expected Anselm to escort them to the Hutch or maybe the Praetor’s office, for some kind of formal reprimand. But apparently he wasn’t interested in letting them get dry.
“I truly don’t know where to begin,” Anselm said, shaking his head like a disappointed dad on a sitcom. “You brought a stranger into Lethe’s dealings, multiple strangers.”
“Tripp Helmuth is a Bonesman,” said Turner, leaning against the wall. “He knows about Lethe.”
Anselm turned cold eyes on him. “I’m well aware of who Tripp Helmuth is, and who his father is, and his grandfather, for that matter. I’m also aware of just what would have happened if he’d been hurt tonight. Are you?”
Turner said nothing.
Alex tried to focus on what Anselm was saying, but she couldn’t think straight. One moment she was ravenous, as if she hadn’t eaten in days, and in the next breath, the world tilted and she wanted to vomit. She was still fighting the wolves. She was still in Hellie’s head, swinging that bat. She was feeling the terrible loss of leaving a world she hadn’t been sure she wanted to stay in. The sorrow was unbearable. It wasn’t supposed to go that way. It should have been Alex who never woke up, who died on that old mattress, lost to the tide, washed up on that apartment floor. It should be Alex buried beneath the rubble of Black Elm in hell.
Dawes had her fists balled at her sides. She looked like a melted candle. Her dark red hair plastered against her pale skin like a failed flame.
Turner’s face was impassive. He could have been waiting in line for coffee. “You somehow found a Gauntlet,” Anselm continued in that measured,
barely leashed voice, “on the Yale campus, and thought it was appropriate to keep it to yourself. You performed an unsanctioned ritual that put countless people and the very existence of Lethe at risk.”
“But we found him.” Dawes said the words softly, her eyes on the floor. “I beg your pardon?”
She looked up, chin jutting forward. “We found Darlington.”
“We would have gotten him back here,” Turner said. “If you hadn’t interrupted us.”
“Detective Turner, you are hereby relieved of your duties as Centurion.” “Oh no,” said Turner flatly. “Anything but that.”
Anselm’s face flushed. “If you—”
Turner held up a hand. “Save your breath. I’m going to miss the extra cash and that’s about it.” He paused at the door and turned back to them. “This is the first real thing I’ve seen Lethe or any of you wand-waving, cloak-wearing hacks try to do. Say what you want, but these two don’t back down from a fight.”
Alex watched him go. His parting words made her stand up straighter, but pride wasn’t going to do her any good now. For that matter, she’d never seen anyone in the societies wave a wand, though she suspected there were a few in the Lethe armory. Which she might never see again. Somehow that was the worst of it—not just to be exiled from Yale and all the possibilities that went with it, but to be barred from Il Bastone, a place she’d dared to think of as home.
She remembered Darlington, stone in his hand, forever trying to save something that couldn’t be saved. Was that why she couldn’t turn her back on the golden boy of Lethe? Because he couldn’t let go of a lost cause? Because he’d thought she was worth saving? But what good had she done either of them? What was going to happen to him if no one remained in Lethe to fight for his rescue? And what was going to happen to her mother now that she’d blown her chance at securing a sliver of Lethe’s money from Anselm?
A jolt of fury shook her helplessness loose. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Are you so eager to be cast out of Eden?” Anselm asked.
“I’m not sorry for what I did. I’m just sorry we failed. How did you find us anyway?”
“I went to Il Bastone. Your notes were everywhere.” Anselm brushed the rain from his brow, clearly fighting for calm. “How close were you?”
She could still feel the vibration of Darlington’s soul in her palms, the power of it moving through her. She could still hear that ringing, the sound of steel on steel. “Close.”
“I told you both there would be consequences. I didn’t want to be put in this position.”
“No?” Alex asked. Men like Anselm somehow always found themselves in this position. The keeper of the keys. The man with the gavel. “Then you should have listened to us.”
“You are both hereby barred from the use of Lethe’s properties and assets,” said Anselm. “After tonight, if you set foot inside any of our safe houses, it will be considered an act of criminal trespass. If you attempt to use any of the accounts, artifacts, or resources associated with Lethe, you will be charged with theft. Do you understand?”
That was why he hadn’t brought them to the Hutch, the place where Alex had once taken refuge, where she had bandaged herself up on more than one occasion, where Dawes had once defended her against Sandow. She could hear cars passing in the rain outside, the whoop of revelers headed home from some Halloween party.
“I need a verbal confirmation,” said Anselm.
“I understand,” whispered Dawes, tears spilling onto her cheeks.
“You should put her on probation,” said Alex. “Go ahead and banish me. We all know I’m the bad apple here. Dawes is an asset Lethe can’t afford to lose.”
“Unfortunately, Miss Stern, I don’t think Lethe can afford to keep either of you. The decision is made. Do you understand?”
There was an edge to his voice now, his red-tape, follow-the-rules calm fraying against his anger.
Alex met his gaze. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“I don’t deserve your contempt, Alex. I offered to help you, and you looked me in the eye and lied to me.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “You didn’t offer to help me until you knew I had something you wanted. You were using me and I was happy to whore for you for the right price, so let’s not pretend there was something noble in that transaction.”
Anselm’s lip curled. “You don’t belong here. You never have. Crass.
Uncouth. Uneducated. You are a blight on Lethe.” “She fought for him,” Dawes rasped.
“Excuse me?”
Dawes wiped her sleeve across her runny nose. Her shoulders were still slumped, but her tears were gone. Her eyes were clear. “When you and the board wanted to pretend Darlington couldn’t be saved, we found a way. Alex fought for him, we fought for him, when no one else would.”
“You put this organization and the lives of everyone on this campus at risk. You tampered with forces far beyond your understanding or control. Do not think to paint yourselves the heroes when you broke every rule intended to protect—”
Dawes gave a long sniffle. “Your rules are shit. Let’s go, Alex.”
Alex thought of the Hutch in all of its shabby glory, the old window seat, the painted scenes of shepherds and fox hunts on the walls. She thought of Il Bastone, its warm lamplight, the front parlor where she’d whiled away the summer, snoozing on the couch, reading paperbacks, feeling safe and easy for the first time in her life.
She saluted Anselm with both middle fingers, and followed Dawes out of Eden.
