Alex was unpleasantly reminded of Linus Reiter, sprawled on his cream-colored couch, daring her to hurt him.

“Tonight,” she repeated.

“Why wait?”

“It isn’t easy to figure out a Gauntlet and assemble a search party of killers willing to go to hell. And Dawes says our chances are better on a night of portent.”

“As you like, Wheelwalker. You choose the steps in this dance.”

Alex wished that were true. She had the powerful urge to draw closer, but the fear inside her was just as strong.

“Was it you in the dream? Was it real? Is this?”

His smile was the same as it had been in the dream when he said, “This isn’t the time for philosophy, Stern.”

The hair rose on her arms. But was that confirmation or just another riddle for the demon to taunt her with?

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. The demon’s cool voice wavered, and he was only Darlington now, scared, desperate to find his way home.

“Why risk your life and your soul?”

Alex didn’t know how to answer. She was putting her future at stake, her mother’s safety, her own. She was asking other people to put their lives on the line. Turner thought this was a holy war. Mercy wanted to wield the weapon that had been used against her. Tripp needed spending cash. And Dawes loved Darlington. He’d been her friend, one of the few who had bothered to take the time to know her and too dear to lose because of that.

But what was Darlington to Alex? A mentor? A protector? An ally? None of those words seemed sufficient. Had some soft-boiled part of her fallen for the golden boy of Lethe? Or was this something less easily named than love or desire?

“Do you remember when you walked me through the ingredients for Hiram’s elixir?” she asked.

She could still see him standing over the golden crucible in the armory, his graceful hands moving in clean precision. He’d been lecturing her on the duties of Lethe, but she’d barely been listening. His sleeves were rolled up, and she’d been uncomfortably distracted by the shift of muscles in his forearms. She’d done her best to inoculate herself against Darlington’s beauty, but sometimes she still got caught off guard.

“We stand between the living and the dead, Stern. We wield the sword no one else dares lift. And this is the reward.”

“A chance at a painful death?” she’d asked.

“Heathen,” he’d said with a shake of his head. “It’s our duty to fight, but more than that, it’s our duty to see what others won’t and never avert our eyes.”

Now, standing in the ballroom, she said, “You didn’t turn away. Even when you didn’t like what you saw in me. You kept looking.”

Darlington’s gaze shifted and flickered like firelight. Gold and then amber. Bright and then shadowed. “Maybe I know a fellow monster when I see one.”

It felt like a cold hand shoving her away. Like a warning. She wasn’t stupid enough to ignore it.

“Maybe,” Alex whispered.

She made herself turn, leave the ballroom, walk down that dark hall. She forced herself not to run.

Maybe they were just two killers, cursed to endure each other’s company, two doomed spirits trying to find their way home. Maybe they were monsters who liked the feeling of another monster looking back at them. But enough people had abandoned them both. She wasn’t going to be the next.

Matching luminaries

Provenance: Aquitaine, France; 11th century

Donor: Manuscript, 1959

Believed to have been invented by heretical monks to hide forbiddentexts. The glamour will remain strong for as long as the lanterns are lit.

Those outside of the light’s reach will find their fear increasing as theydraw closer. Ordinary candles may be used and refreshed accordingly.

Donation made after storage above the Manuscript nexus created somekind of disturbance in the enchantment and two members of the 1957

delegation were lost for over a week in shadow.

—from the Lethe Armory Catalogue as revised and edited by Pamela Dawes,

Oculus

Halloween is an evangelical holiday. If you don’t celebrate, you’re forcedto hide from those who do lest they slap a mask on your face and demandyou caper about in the name of fun.

—Lethe Days Diary of Raymond Walsh-Whiteley(Silliman

College ’78)

26

They met at the library at eleven o’clock and holed up in one of the niches in the Linonia and Brothers reading room. Dawes had somehow chosen the exact spot where Alex loved to sit and read and fall asleep with her boots on the grate of the heater. How many times had she looked out at the courtyard through the wavy glass of the windows without knowing she was looking at the gateway to hell?

They set the pair of luminaries they’d procured from the armory at opposing corners of the entry to the reading nook. What they created when lit wasn’t precisely a glamour, but a swarm of thick shadow that repelled any curious gaze.

Fifteen minutes before midnight, a voice came over the loudspeaker reminding students that the library was closing. People laden with backpacks and satchels trudged out to make the walk home to dorms or apartments in a forced march past Halloween partiers. Security guards came through next, passing their flashlights over the shelves and reading tables.

Alex and the others waited, watching the flicker of the luminaries in the corners, pressed against the walls for no good reason, trying to be as quiet as possible. Tripp had worn the same polo, blazer, and backward cap he’d had on at their planning dinner. Turner was in what looked like expensive gym clothes and a puffer jacket. Dawes was in her sweats. Mercy had chosen fatigues paired with a black sweater and looked like the chicest member of a special forces unit. Alex was in Lethe sweats. She didn’t know what this night would bring, but she was tired of losing perfectly good clothing to the arcane.

Shortly after midnight and without warning, the lights clicked off. All that remained were dim security lights along the floors. The library had gone silent. Dawes took out a thermos. To disrupt the alarm systems, she had brewed the same tempest in a teapot they’d used to break into the Peabody, but she’d steeped the tea longer and acquired a better-insulated container.

“Hurry,” she said. “I don’t know how long it will last.”

They got Mercy settled in the courtyard, and Alex and Dawes helped her into the salt armor—gauntlets, bracers, a helm that was far too big for her head. She even had a salt sword. It was all very impressive, but Alex had to wonder if it would stop a monster like Linus Reiter. When Mercy pulled a vial of Hiram’s elixir from her pocket, Alex wanted to swat it out of her hand.

But the time for warnings and worry had past. Mercy had made her choice and they needed her here, their sentinel. Alex watched her pop the cork and down the contents, her eyes squeezed shut as if she were swallowing medicine. She shuddered and coughed, then blinked and laughed.

At least the first dose hadn’t killed her.

When Mercy was positioned by the basin with the ticking metronome set on the ground beside her, they crowded around the security desk at the front of the library, checked the Rose Walk for students passing by, then slipped outside.

“Quick,” said Dawes as one by one they made incisions on their arms.

“We should have done it across our palms,” said Tripp. “The way they do in movies.”

“No one gets infections in movies,” Turner shot back. “And I actually need the use of my hands.”