Maybe because Mercy was so sweet, so smart, so kind—Alex forgot how much fight she had in her. She couldn’t help but think of Hellie, what it had cost her to fall into Alex’s orbit. What might it cost Mercy to be Alex’s friend? But it was too late for that calculation. She needed Mercy in this courtyard tonight.
“The phone is on,” she said, handing over her cell. “Leave it that way.”
Mercy gave a rapid nod. “Got it.”
“Stay close to the basin. Don’t forget the balm. And if this turns ugly, you run. Find a room in the library to lock yourself in and stay there until daylight.”
“Understood.” Now Mercy hesitated. “You’re coming back, right?” Alex made herself smile. “One way or another.”
Once the metronome had been set ticking in the courtyard, they waited for quiet on Cross Campus. Then, in front of the library’s main entrance, they made their cuts, each to the left arm. Alex looked at Darlington in his dark coat, at Dawes in her sweats, at Turner standing at attention, ready for battle, even if he wasn’t quite sure the war could be won.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go to hell.”
One by one they daubed their blood on the entry columns. Alex felt a sudden nausea, like a hook had lodged in her gut and was pulling her forward, like the force that had drawn her across the city on bare feet to Black Elm.
They entered, passing beneath the Egyptian scribe, and through that cold darkness, the door that was no longer a door.
All of them had taken on the same titles, in the same order. All but Tripp.
Alex entered first as the soldier, followed by Dawes as the scholar, then Turner as the priest, and finally Darlington—the prince. Alex couldn’t help thinking the title took on a different meaning with him in the role instead of Tripp, and that made her feel guilty. She wondered which part Lionel Reiter had taken when he’d made the descent nearly a century ago.
They continued in single file to Alma Mater, then on to the arches beneath the Tree of Knowledge that they once again marked with blood. Down the corridor, past the soldier’s door, past the stone student unaware of Death at his shoulder, and into the vestibule full of those odd windows that looked like they belonged in a country pub.
“Just a man,” Darlington murmured, and Alex knew he was remembering his fight to give them clues to the Gauntlet, his demon wiles at war with his human hope. But she saw delight in his face as they made their way through Sterling, wonder and bemusement. Despite all that had happened, he couldn’t help but thrill at the secrets lurking beneath the stone, left behind for them to discover. There was something reassuring in the way his eyes shone, the eager muttering over quotations and symbols. It’s still him. Lethe’s golden boy might not look quite the same to her, might have seen and done things no man should, but he was still Darlington. “Here,” Dawes said softly. “Your doorway.” Darlington nodded, then frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.
He bobbed his head toward the stonework. “Lux et Veritas? Did they run out of ideas?”
Leave it to Darlington to be a snob about a hidden gateway to hell.
They anointed the stone with their blood and that black pit appeared. An icy wind ruffled Darlington’s dark hair. Alex wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to do this, that everything would be okay. But there were some lies even she couldn’t sell.
“I…” Dawes began. But sputtered out, a candle guttering.
“Do you know the story of the Phantom Ship?” Darlington asked in the quiet. “Back when the New Haven colony was struggling, the townspeople got together and packed a ship with their best wares, samples of all this brave new world had to offer, and their leading citizens set off to try to convince people back in England that it was worth investing in the colony and maybe coming over themselves.”
“Why do I think this story doesn’t have a happy ending?” Turner asked.
“I don’t think they manufacture those in New Haven. The honorable Reverend John Davenport—”
“Hide the outcasts John Davenport?” Alex asked.
“One and the same. He says, ‘Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these our Friends in the bottom of the Sea, they are thine, save them!’”
“Go ahead and drown them?” Turner said. “Quite the pep talk.”
“The ship never made it to England,” Darlington continued. “The whole colony was left in limbo, with no idea of what had happened to their loved ones and all the wealth they’d stuffed into the hold. Then, a year to the day after the ship set out, a strange fog rolls in off the sea and the good citizens of New Haven all walk down to the harbor, where they see a ship emerging from the mist.”
He sounded like Anselm that day by the water, telling the tale of the three judges. Had Anselm been imitating Darlington? Or had it simply come naturally, Darlington’s demon, fed on his suffering, speaking with his voice?
“They made it back?” asked Dawes.
Darlington shook his head. “It was an illusion, a shared hallucination.
Everyone on the docks saw the phantom ship wreck before their very eyes.
The masts broke, men went overboard.” “Bullshit,”
said Turner.
“It’s well documented,” said Darlington, unfazed. “And the town took it as gospel. Wives who had been waiting for their husbands were now widows free to marry. Wills were read and property disbursed. There’s still no explanation for it, but the meaning has always been clear to me.” “Oh yeah?”
said Turner.
“Yeah,” said Alex. “This town has been fucked from the start.”
Darlington actually smiled. “I’ll be listening for the signal.”
They moved on to the next door and the librarian’s office. When Alex looked back, Darlington stood framed by darkness, his head bowed, as if in prayer.
Turner took up his post by the sundial door. “Keep your head straight,”
he said, the same words he’d used on their first descent. “And don’t drown.”
Alex thought of Tripp clinging to the railing of the boat, of the phantom ship sinking to the bottom of the sea. She met Turner’s gaze. “Don’t drown.”
She followed Dawes through the secret door to the Linonia and Brothers reading room.
