She sounded like she was quoting an episode of Law & Order.

“But you’re not going to help us.” “Help

you with what?” Michelle asked.

Alex hesitated. Anything she said to Michelle might make it straight back to Michael Anselm. But Darlington had considered Michelle one of Lethe’s best. She might still be able to help them, even if she wasn’t willing to get down in the dirt.

“We found the Gauntlet.”

Michelle sat up straighter. “Darlington was right?”

Alex couldn’t help smiling. “Of course he was. The Gauntlet is real and it’s here on campus. We can—”

But Michelle held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“But—”

“Alex, I came to Yale on a scholarship. Lethe knew that. It’s part of what made me appealing to them. I needed their money and I was happy to do what they asked. My Virgil was Jason Barclay Cartwright, and he was lazy because he could afford to be. I couldn’t. You can’t either. I want you to think about what this could cost you.”

Alex had. But that didn’t change the math. “I owe him.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Simple enough. “I thought you liked Darlington.”

“I did. He was a good kid.” She was only three years older, but that was how Michelle saw him, the little boy playing knight. “He wanted to believe.”

“In what?”

“In everything. Has Dawes told you what you’re in for? What this kind of ritual entails?”

“She mentioned we’re going to need four murderers.” Well, two more murderers, since she and Dawes had half of that particular equation covered.

“That’s only the beginning. The Gauntlet isn’t some magic portal. You don’t just walk through it. You’re going to have to die to make it to the underworld.”

“I’ve died before,” said Alex. “I made it to the borderlands. I’ll make it back from this too.”

Michelle shook her head. “You don’t care, do you? You’re just going to rush right at it.”

I’m the Wheelwalker, Alex wanted to say. It has to be me. Except not even she knew what that meant. It sounded foolish, childish— I’m special, I have a quest—when the truth was much closer to what Michelle had said. Of course Alex was going to just rush right at it. She was a cannonball. She wasn’t good for much at rest, but give her a hard enough shove, let her build up enough momentum, and she’d punch a hole through anything.

“It’s not that bad,” Alex said. “Dying.”

“I know.” Michelle hesitated, then pulled up her sleeve, and Alex saw her tattoo for the first time. A semicolon. She knew that symbol.

“You tried to kill yourself.”

Michelle nodded. “In high school. Lethe didn’t know. Otherwise they never would have tapped me. Too much of a risk. I’ve been to the other side.

I don’t remember it, but I know this isn’t hopping a bus, and I am never going back. Alex … I didn’t come here to play Anselm’s stooge. I came to warn you. Whatever is out there, on the other side of the Veil, it isn’t just Grays.”

Alex remembered the waters of the borderlands, the strange shapes she’d seen on the far shore, the way the current had yanked her off her feet. She thought of the force that had drawn her to Black Elm, that had wanted her in that room, maybe inside of that circle. “They tried to keep me there.”

Michelle nodded. “Because they’re hungry. Have you ever read Kittscher’s Daemonologie?”

Of course she hadn’t. “No, but I hear it’s a real page-turner.”

Michelle cast her eyes heavenward. “What Darlington must have made of you. Lethe has a copy. Before you do anything crazy, read it. Death isn’t

just a place you visit. I fought my way back once. I’m not going to risk it again.”

Alex couldn’t argue with that. Even Dawes had hesitations about what they were about to attempt, and Michelle had the right to live and be done with Lethe. It still made Alex angry, little-kid angry, don’t-leave-me-here angry. She and Dawes weren’t enough to take this on.

“I understand,” she said, embarrassed by how sullen she sounded.

“I hope you do.” Michelle sighed deeply, glad to be rid of whatever burden she’d been carrying. She closed her eyes and breathed in, scenting that first hint of fall. “This was one of Darlington’s favorite spots.” “Is,” Alex corrected.

Michelle’s smile was soft and sad. It terrified Alex. She thinks we’re going to fail. She knows it.

“Have you seen the plaque?” she asked.

Alex shook her head.

Michelle led her over to one of the window casements. “George Douglas Miller was a Bonesman. He had a whole plan for expanding the Skull and Bones tomb, building a dormitory.” She pointed to the towers that loomed over the stairs that led to the sculpture garden. Crenellated, Alex could hear Darlington whisper. Cod-medieval. Alex had never noticed them before. “Those towers were from the old alumni hall. Miller had them moved here when Yale knocked it down in 1911, the first step in his grand vision.

But he ran out of money. Or maybe he ran out of will.”

She tapped a plaque at the base of the casement. It read: The original part of Weir Hall, purchased by Yale University in 1917, was begun in 1911 by George Douglas Miller, B.A. 1870, in partial fulfillment of his vision “to build, in the heart of New Haven, a replica of an Oxford quadrangle.” But it was the second sentence that surprised Alex. In accordance with his wishes, this tablet has been erected to commemorate his only son, Samuel Miller 1881–1883, who was born and died on these premises.

“I never noticed it,” Michelle continued. “I never knew about any of this until Darlington. I hope you bring him back, Alex. But just remember Lethe doesn’t care about people like you and me. No one is looking out for us but us.”

Alex traced her fingers over the letters. “Darlington was. He’d go to hell for me, for you, for anyone who needed saving.”

“Alex,” Michelle said, dusting off her skirt, “he’d go to hell just to take notes on the climate.”

Alex hated the condescension in her voice, but Michelle wasn’t wrong.

Darlington had wanted to know everything, no matter the cost. She wondered if the creature he’d become felt the same.

“You came up on the train?” Alex asked.

“Yes, and I need to get back for dinner with my boyfriend’s parents.”

Perfectly sensible. But Alex had the feeling Michelle was holding something back. She waved as Michelle descended the stairs beneath the arch that would take her to High Street, where she’d catch a cab to the train station.

“That’s me,” said a voice beside Alex, and she had to fight not to react.