They walked to the end of the corridor. There was an odd vestibule with a high ceiling. Ironwork mermen with split tails gazed down at them from the windows. Were they chasing phantoms? If demons loved games, maybe Darlington had given them just enough clues to get them stuck wandering Sterling, hunting secret messages in the stone.

There was another archway ahead, but it was strangely bare of decoration.

To their right there were two doors and a panel of small square windows that looked they belonged in a pub. Some of them were decorated with illustrations on the glass—the Barrel Maker, the Baker, the Organ Player.

“What are these?” she asked.

Dawes was flipping through the Gazette. “Whoever wrote this made it impossible to find anything. If it isn’t deliberate, it’s a crime.” She blew a stray strand of red hair off her forehead. “Okay, they’re woodcuts by someone called Jost Amman.”

As soon as the words were out of Dawes’s mouth they both went still.

“Let me see that.” Dawes handed over the Gazette. Dawes had pronounced Jost as Yost, but seeing it spelled out on the page, there was no mistaking it.

She remembered begging Darlington to tell her if he knew where to find the Gauntlet—and the odd desperation in his voice when he’d answered: Would that I did. But I am just a man, heir to nothing. He’d wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. He’d had to play the demon’s game and hope that they would solve his puzzle.

Just a man. Jost Amman. They were in the right place.

So show me the next step, Darlington. To their left was a little stone mouse nibbling at the wall. To their right, a tiny stone spider. Was that a nod to fire-and-brimstone Jonathan Edwards? Alex only knew the sermon because it was a joke in her residential college. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. It was why their intramural teams were called the JE Spiders. How’s that for Sunday school, Turner?

“Where do these doors go?” Alex asked. There were two of them, awkwardly wedged into a corner.

“This one goes to the courtyard,” Dawes said, pointing to a door with Lux et Veritas engraved in stone above it. Light and Truth, Yale’s motto, just like the figures embodied in the mural that had led them here. “That one goes to a bunch of offices.”

“What are we missing?”

Dawes said nothing, gnawing on her lip.

“Dawes?”

“I … well, it’s just a theory.”

“We can’t spend years hammering this one out like a thesis. Give me anything.”

She tugged on a strand of her hair, and Alex could see Dawes fighting herself, always seeking perfection. “In the records of the Gauntlets I could find, four pilgrims enter together—the soldier, the scholar, the priest, and the prince. They make a circuit, each locating a doorway and taking up their posts. The soldier is the last and completes the circuit on his—or her— own.”

“Okay,” said Alex, though she was struggling to see what that had to do with anything.

“At first I thought … well, there are four doors that lead out into the Selin Courtyard. One at each corner. I thought maybe the clues were leading us around the courtyard. But…”

“But there’s no way to complete the circuit.”

“Not without leaving the building,” Dawes said. She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what comes next. Darlington would. But even if we figure it out … Four murderers, four pilgrims. We’re running out of time to find them.”

“You think the circle of protection won’t hold?”

“I’m not sure, but I … I think our best chance is to perform the ritual on Halloween.”

Alex rubbed her eyes. “So we’re breaking all of the rules at once?” No rituals were allowed on Halloween, particularly anything involving blood magic. There were too many Grays drawn by the excitement of the night. It was just too risky. Not to mention Halloween was only two weeks away.

“I think we have to,” said Dawes. “Rituals work better at times of portent, and Samhain is supposed to be the night the door opens to the underworld.

There are theories that the first Gauntlet was built at Rathcroghan, in the Cave of Cats. That’s where Samhain originated.”

Alex didn’t like any of it. She knew what Grays were capable of when drawn by blood or powerful emotion. “That barely gives us any time to find two more killers, Dawes. And the new Praetor will be installed by then.”

“I’m not a killer.”

“Okay, two more reluctant but efficient problem solvers.”

Dawes pursed her lips but went on. “We’ll need someone to watch over us too, to keep our bodies safe in case anything goes wrong.”

Again Alex had the sense that this was all beyond them. They needed more people, more expertise, more time. “I doubt Michelle is going to volunteer.”

Her phone rang and she swore when she saw the name. Once again she’d fucked up.

“I’m sorry,” she said before Turner could lay into her. “I meant to get to the Bible quote, but—”

“We have another body.”

Alex was tempted to ask if he was kidding, but Turner didn’t kid.

“Who?” she asked instead. “Where?”

“Meet me at Morse College.”

“Just Morse, Turner. You don’t say Morse College.”

“Get your ass here, Stern.”

“Turner thinks there’s been a murder,” Alex said as she hung up.

“Another one?”

No one had confirmed that Marjorie Stephen was a homicide, so Alex wasn’t anxious to jump to any conclusions. And even if there had been two murders, that didn’t mean they were connected. Except Turner wouldn’t be calling her unless he thought they were and that the societies were involved.

“Go on,” Dawes said. “I’ll keep looking around here.”

But there was something bothering Alex. “I don’t get it,” she said, turning in a slow circle, taking in the vastness of the place. She and Mercy usually studied in one of the reading rooms. She’d never been up to the stacks. Even the scope of a building this big was tough to get her head around. “Johnny and Punter’s friends built a Gauntlet. That’s what our buddy Bunchy said.

You really want me to believe it stayed a secret this long?”

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Dawes said. “But what if … what if Bunchy got it wrong? What if Lethe built the Gauntlet into Sterling?”

“What?”

“Think about it. People from Bones and Keys working together? The societies don’t share secrets. They hoard their power. The only time they worked together was to form Lethe and that was only to—”

“Save their own asses.”