from? Dawes had said there shouldn’t be obstacles like that. Could Alex blame Anselm for those too?
“I feel like someone dropped a house on me,” said Turner.
“Hell hangover,” said Tripp. He’d wiped his tears away and color was returning to his cheeks.
“Take off your shoes,” Anselm snapped. “You will not track mud over these floors.”
They wriggled out of their shoes and socks, then walked barefoot into the library behind Anselm, the stone floor like a slab of ice.
In the dim light from the generators, Anselm shepherded them to a back entrance that led to York Street, where he allowed them to sit on the low benches and pull their wet shoes back on.
“Detective Turner,” said Anselm, “I’ll ask you to remain.” He pointed at Mercy and Tripp. “You and you. I’ve called cabs.” “I don’t have any cash,” Tripp said.
Anselm looked like he was going to throw a punch. He drew out his wallet and slapped a twenty into Tripp’s wet palm. “Go home.”
“I’m fine,” said Mercy. “JE is right next door.”
“The armor,” said Anselm, “does not belong to you.”
Mercy removed the breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves and stood there awkwardly.
“Miss Stern,” said Anselm, and Alex took the pile of armor.
“Go get warm,” she whispered. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.” She hoped. Maybe she was about to be driven past the New Haven city limits and dumped in a ditch.
Alex shoved the armor into the soaked canvas tote they’d brought with them. She saw the luminaries were in there too. Anselm must have retrieved them.
Tripp waved as he headed out the door. Mercy backed slowly away, as if waiting for some sign from Alex to stay, but all Alex could do was shrug.
This was it. This was what she and Dawes had feared so much. But the knowledge of what they might lose hadn’t been enough to stop them. And now they’d literally gone through hell and returned with nothing to show for it.
At least she hadn’t lost the Arlington Rubber Boots box. She touched her fingers to it in her damp pocket. She had held Darlington’s soul in her hands.
She had felt the force of his life, new-leaf green, morning bright. And she had failed.
She expected Anselm to escort them to the Hutch or maybe the Praetor’s office, for some kind of formal reprimand. But apparently he wasn’t interested in letting them get dry.
“I truly don’t know where to begin,” Anselm said, shaking his head like a disappointed dad on a sitcom. “You brought a stranger into Lethe’s dealings, multiple strangers.”
“Tripp Helmuth is a Bonesman,” said Turner, leaning against the wall.
“He knows about Lethe.”
Anselm turned cold eyes on him. “I’m well aware of who Tripp Helmuth is, and who his father is, and his grandfather, for that matter. I’m also aware of just what would have happened if he’d been hurt tonight. Are you?”
Turner said nothing.
Alex tried to focus on what Anselm was saying, but she couldn’t think straight. One moment she was ravenous, as if she hadn’t eaten in days, and in the next breath, the world tilted and she wanted to vomit. She was still fighting the wolves. She was still in Hellie’s head, swinging that bat. She was feeling the terrible loss of leaving a world she hadn’t been sure she wanted to stay in. The sorrow was unbearable. It wasn’t supposed to go that way. It should have been Alex who never woke up, who died on that old mattress, lost to the tide, washed up on that apartment floor. It should be Alex buried beneath the rubble of Black Elm in hell.
Dawes had her fists balled at her sides. She looked like a melted candle.
Her dark red hair plastered against her pale skin like a failed flame. Turner’s face was impassive. He could have been waiting in line for coffee.
“You somehow found a Gauntlet,” Anselm continued in that measured, barely leashed voice, “on the Yale campus, and thought it was appropriate to keep it to yourself. You performed an unsanctioned ritual that put countless people and the very existence of Lethe at risk.”
“But we found him.” Dawes said the words softly, her eyes on the floor.
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked up, chin jutting forward. “We found Darlington.”
“We would have gotten him back here,” Turner said. “If you hadn’t interrupted us.”
“Detective Turner, you are hereby relieved of your duties as Centurion.”
“Oh no,” said Turner flatly. “Anything but that.”
Anselm’s face flushed. “If you—”
Turner held up a hand. “Save your breath. I’m going to miss the extra cash and that’s about it.” He paused at the door and turned back to them.
“This is the first real thing I’ve seen Lethe or any of you wand-waving, cloak-wearing hacks try to do. Say what you want, but these two don’t back down from a fight.”
Alex watched him go. His parting words made her stand up straighter, but pride wasn’t going to do her any good now. For that matter, she’d never seen anyone in the societies wave a wand, though she suspected there were a few in the Lethe armory. Which she might never see again. Somehow that was the worst of it—not just to be exiled from Yale and all the possibilities that went with it, but to be barred from Il Bastone, a place she’d dared to think of as home.
She remembered Darlington, stone in his hand, forever trying to save something that couldn’t be saved. Was that why she couldn’t turn her back on the golden boy of Lethe? Because he couldn’t let go of a lost cause?
Because he’d thought she was worth saving? But what good had she done either of them? What was going to happen to him if no one remained in Lethe to fight for his rescue? And what was going to happen to her mother now that she’d blown her chance at securing a sliver of Lethe’s money from Anselm?
