The devil, my friends, is in the details.

—Kittscher’s Daemonologie, 1933

Knuckles of Shimshon, believed to be one of a set; gold, lead, andtungsten

Provenance: Unknown; date of origin unknown

Donor: Wolf’s Head, 1998

These “brass knuckles” endow the wearer with the strength of twentymen. They were acquired during one of the many Middle Eastern digssponsored by Wolf’s Head and its foundation. But whether they werediscovered at an architectural site or in a shop in some tourist quarter isunknown. Whether the hair forever trapped in gold belonged to thelegendary hero or was simply a part of the enchantment placed upon theobject is also unknown. But while the knuckles’ provenance is shaky, themagic is not, and this most useful gift was added to the armory in 1998,in celebration of Lethe’s centennial.

—from the Lethe Armory Catalogue as revised and edited by

Pamela Dawes, Oculus

20

Does it ever feel like none of this is real?” Mercy whispered. They were sitting in the common room with Lauren and another member of the field hockey team, making construction-paper flowers for Liquor Treat. They’d set the room up as a gloomy garden with chocolate soil pots they’d fill with gummy worms. “All I can think about is Friday night.”

They had a lot to accomplish before Halloween and only a few days to get it done. Alex had brought home recommended reading that Dawes had curated for her and Mercy, and they studied it in their room between classes and meals, then stashed it under their beds. She still didn’t know how to feel about Mercy putting herself in danger, but she was also grateful to not feel so alone, and Mercy’s excitement was a tonic to Dawes’s constant worrying.

“This is real life,” Alex reminded her, holding up a glue stick. “The stuff with Lethe … that’s the distraction.”

She was reminding herself as much as Mercy. The cool weather had shifted the feel of campus. There was something impermanent in the first months of the new semester, a warm softness that left it malleable in the waning days of what was no longer summer, but didn’t yet feel like fall. Now hats and scarves emerged, boots replaced sandals, a kind of seriousness took hold. Alex and Mercy still cracked their windows or sometimes opened them wide—the dorm heaters had embraced the new season with too much zeal.

But tucked away in the JE reading room or meeting with her philosophy TA at Bass, Alex felt a strange sensation creep over her, a dangerous comfort in routine. She wasn’t sailing through her classes, but she was passing, a steady stream of Cs and Bs, a cascade of hard-won mediocrity. All of this can be lost, she told herself as she bent her lips to another cup of tea, feeling the steam on her skin. This ease, this quiet. It was precious. It was impossible.

She was sticking googly eyes on a sunflower when her phone pinged.

Alex had almost forgotten about Eitan, or maybe hoped he’d forgotten about her now that Oddman had paid his nut, and the novelty of her as muscle had

worn off. The text was an address Alex didn’t recognize, and when she looked it up, she saw it was in Old Greenwich. How the hell was she supposed to get there?

“Do you want to take a theater class next semester?” Mercy asked.

“Sure.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just my mom.” In a way it was true.

“My parents won’t like it,” Mercy went on. “But I can tell them it will help with public speaking. Shakespeare Acted is the only one open to non–

theater majors.”

“Shakespeare again?” Lauren asked, repulsed. She was an econ major and constantly complaining about anything that involved more reading.

Mercy laughed. “Yeah.”

I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands. Alex couldn’t remember what it was from, but she was tempted to text it to Eitan. Instead she texted Dawes and asked if the Mercedes was at Il Bastone.

Why? came the reply.

But Alex wasn’t in the mood for the mother hen protecting her boy’s precious car. She was putting everything on the line for dear Darlington and she needed transportation. She waited Dawes out and eventually her phone pinged again.

Yes. Don’t leave the tank empty.

Alex liked driving the Mercedes. She felt like a different person in it, more beautiful, more interesting, the kind of woman people wondered about, who wore ladylike little flats and spoke in a soft, bored drawl. Of course she’d bought the car for herself. It had just called to her from the lot—a sweet old thing. It wasn’t practical, but neither was she.

Alex put on the radio. There wasn’t much traffic on 95, and she thought about skirting the main roads to drive along the coast for a while, or looping up to get a peek at the Thimble Islands. Darlington had told her that some held famous mansions, while others were too small for much more than a hammock, and that Captain Kidd had supposedly buried his treasure on one

of them. But she didn’t have time to indulge her rich-girl road trip fantasies.

She needed to finish this errand with Eitan and get back to prepare for the Manuscript ritual tomorrow. Alex wanted to reassure the Praetor that she was ready and did not require additional supervision.

By the time she reached Old Greenwich, dusk was falling, the sky softening to a deep, undiluted blue. Most towns didn’t look nice right off the highway, but this place didn’t seem to have a wrong side of the tracks. It was all pretty shop windows and rambling stone walls, lacy trees spreading black branches against the gathering dark. She followed the navigation down a gently curved road, past rolling lawns and sprawling old homes. Now Eitan’s messages made more sense.

She’d had to look twice when he’d given her the name and the vig: Linus Reiter, 50.

50 large? she’d asked.

Eitan hadn’t bothered to reply.

The name sounded like it could be a tech guy, and she knew Eitan had high-profile clients in Los Angeles, women who snorted Adderall to stay thin, TV execs who liked to party with poppers. None of that felt right for a place like this—tasteful, monied—but at least she understood how Eitan had let this guy get so far in. He must have known the dupe was good for it, and he was happy to gobble up the interest.

She slowed the car and then just sat, letting it idle as she stared at the address emblazoned on one of two big river-rock columns, each topped by a stone eagle.

“Fuck.”

She was looking at a huge wrought iron gate set into a high wall covered in ivy. She couldn’t see much beyond it except for the slope of a hill dense with trees and a gravel driveway disappearing into the evening gloom.

She scanned the wall and the gate for cameras. Nothing obvious, but that didn’t mean much. Maybe people in Old Greenwich didn’t think they needed protection. Or maybe they were just more discreet about it. If Alex got caught here, she was definitely getting arrested, and then Anselm and the board wouldn’t bother with talk of second chances. They’d just toss her out of Lethe. Professor Walsh-Whiteley would probably throw a party. Or at least

host a wine-and-cheese hour. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t just say, Oops! I rang the bell, but no one was home.

Alex sat, undecided behind the wheel. She didn’t see any Grays lurking around, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to head up the hill without knowing she had backup. This guy could have a whole staff of goons on call like Eitan.

But she also wasn’t sure she was ready to let another Gray in, not after what had happened with the old man at Black Elm and that kid she’d used for the Oddman job. The connections were too powerful, too intimate. And there was always the chance one of them would get inside her and refuse to leave.

She reached into her coat pockets and felt the comforting weight of the brass knuckles she’d stolen from the Lethe House armory. “It’s not really stealing,” she murmured. “I’m Dante after all.” Virgil.

Except she wasn’t either right now. She was just Alex Stern and she had a job to do. She parked the Mercedes a few blocks away and looked up the satellite view of the property while she waited for full dark. The house was enormous, and it had to be at least a quarter of a mile up the long driveway.

Behind it, she saw the blue lozenge of a swimming pool and some kind of guesthouse or pavilion.

At least beating up a rich guy would be a novelty.