“Sometime around eleven. Hard to pinpoint because of the cold.”

She paused with her hand on the lever of the van doors. Sometime around eleven. Right around the time two docile Grays who had never given anyone any trouble had opened their jaws like they were trying to swallow the world and something had tried to slam its way into a chalk circle. What if that something had found its way to Tara instead?

Or what if her boyfriend got fucked up enough to think he could stab straight through to her heart? There were plenty of human monsters out there. Alex had met a few. For now she’d “done her part.” More than done it.

Alex cracked the door to the van, scanned the street, then hopped down. “Forget you met me,” she told the coroner.

A vague, confused expression crossed his face. Alex left him standing, dazed, beside Tara’s body and strolled away, crossing the street and keeping to the dark sidewalk, away from the police lights. In a short while, the compulsion would wear off and he’d wonder how he’d ended up with a gold coin in his hand. He would put it in his pocket and forget about it or toss it in the trash without ever realizing the metal was real.

She glanced back at the Grays gathered around Payne Whitney. Was it her imagination or was there something in the bent of their shoulders, the way they huddled together by the gymnasium doors? Alex knew better than to look too closely, but in that fleeting moment she could have sworn they looked frightened. What did the dead have to fear?

She could hear Darlington’s voice in her head: When was the first time you saw them? Low and halting, as if he wasn’t sure whether the question was taboo. But the real question, the right question, was: When was the first time you knew to be afraid?

Alex was glad he’d never had the sense to ask.

Where do we begin to tell the story of Lethe? Does it begin in 1824 with Bathsheba Smith? Perhaps it should. But it would take another seventy years and many more disasters before Lethe would come to be. So instead we point to 1898, when Charlie Baxter, a man with no home and of no consequence, turned up dead with burns to his hands, feet, and scrotum, and a black scarab where his tongue should be. Accusations flew and the societies found themselves under threat from the university. To heal the rift and—let us speak frankly—to save themselves, Edward Harkness, a member of Wolf’s Head, joined with William Payne Whitney of Skull and Bones, and Hiram Bingham III of the now-defunct Acacia Fraternity, to form the League of Lethe as an oversight body for the societies’ occult activities.

From these earliest meetings rose our mission statement: We are charged with monitoring the rites and practices of any senior societies trafficking in magic, divination, or otherworldly discourse, with the express intent of keeping citizens and students safe from mental, physical, and spiritual harm and of fostering amicable relations between the societies and school administration.

Lethe was funded by an infusion of capital from Harkness and a mandatory contribution from the trusts of each of the Ancient Eight. When Harkness tapped James Gamble Rogers (Scroll and Key, 1889) to create a plan for Yale and design many of its structures, he ensured that safe houses and tunnels for Lethe would be built throughout the campus.

Harkness, Whitney, and Bingham drew on knowledge from each of the societies to create a storehouse of arcane magic for use by the deputies of Lethe. This was added to significantly in 1911, when Bingham traveled to Peru.

—from The Life of Lethe: Procedures and Protocols of the Ninth House

4

Last Fall

“Come on,” Darlington said, helping her to her feet. “The illusion will break any minute and you’ll be lying in the front yard like a noon drinker.” He half-dragged her up the stairs to the porch. She’d handled the jackals well enough, but her color wasn’t good and she was breathing hard. “You’re in terrible shape.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

“Then we both have hardships to overcome. You asked me to tell you what you were getting into. Now you know.”

She yanked her arm away. “Tell me. Not try to kill me.”

He looked at her steadily. It was important she understand. “You were never in any danger. But I can’t promise that will always be the case. If you don’t take this seriously, you could get yourself or someone else hurt.”

“Someone like you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Most of the time nothing too bad happens at the Houses. You’ll see things you’d like to forget. Miracles too. But no one completely understands what lies beyond the Veil or what might happen if it crosses over. Death waits on black wings and we stand hoplite, hussar, dragoon.”

She placed her hands on her thighs and peered up at him. “You make that up?”

“Cabot Collins. They called him the Poet of Lethe.” Darlington reached for the door. “He lost both his hands when an interdimensional portal closed on them. He was reciting his latest work at the time.”

Alex shuddered. “Okay, I get it. Bad poetry, serious business. Are those dogs real?”

“Real enough. They’re spirit hounds, bound to serve the sons and daughters of Lethe. Why the long sleeves, Stern?”

“Track marks.”

“Really?” He’d suspected that might be the issue, but he didn’t quite believe her.

She straightened and cracked her back. “Sure. Are we going in or not?”

He bobbed his chin toward her wrist. “Show me.”

Alex lifted her arm, but she didn’t shove her sleeve back. She just held it out to him, like he was going to tap a vein for a blood drive.

A challenge. One that he suddenly didn’t want to accept. It was none of his business. He should say that. Let it go.

Instead, he took hold of her wrist. The bones were narrow, sharp in his hand. With his other hand he pushed the fabric of her shirt up the slope of her forearm. It felt like a prelude.

No needle punctures. Her skin was covered in tattoos: the curling tail of a rattlesnake, the sunburst bloom of a peony, and …

“The Wheel.” He resisted the urge to touch his thumb to the image below the crook of her elbow. Dawes would be interested in that bit of tarot. Maybe it would give them something to talk about. “Why hide tattoos? No one cares about that here.” Half the student body had them. Not many had full sleeves, but they weren’t unheard of.

Alex yanked her cuff back down. “Any other hoops to jump through?”

“Plenty.” He pulled open the door and led her inside.

The entry was dark and cool, the stained glass throwing bright patterns onto the carpeted floor. Before them, the great staircase wound along the wall to the second story, dark wood carved in a thick sunflower motif. Michelle had told him the staircase alone was worth more than the rest of the house and the land it was built on.

Alex released a small sigh.

“Glad to be out of the sun?”

She made a soft humming noise. “It’s quiet here.”

It took him a moment to understand what she meant. “Il Bastone is warded. As are the rooms at the Hutch…. It’s that bad?”

Alex shrugged.

“Well … they can’t get to you here.”

Alex looked around, her face impassive. Was she unimpressed by the soaring entry, the warm wood and stained glass, the scent of pine and cassis that always made stepping into the house feel a bit like Christmas? Or was she just trying to seem that way?

“Nice clubhouse,” she said. “Not very tomblike.”

“We’re not a society and we don’t run like one. This isn’t a clubhouse; it’s our headquarters, the heart of Lethe, and the storehouse of hundreds of years of knowledge on the occult.” He knew he sounded like a horrible prig but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “The societies tap a new delegation of seniors every year, sixteen members—eight women, eight men. We tap a single new Dante—one freshman every three years.”

“Guess that makes me pretty special.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Alex frowned at that, then nodded at the marble bust propped on a table beneath the coat rack. “Who’s that?”

“The patron saint of Lethe, Hiram Bingham the Third.” Unfortunately, Bingham’s boyish features and downturned mouth didn’t lend themselves to immortalization in stone. He looked like a perturbed department store mannequin.

Dawes shuffled out of the parlor, her hands curled into the sleeves of her voluminous sweatshirt, her headphones snug around her neck, a vision in beige. Darlington could feel the discomfort radiating off her. Pammie hated new people. It had taken him the better part of his freshman year to win her over, and he still always had the sense that she might be one loud noise away from bolting into the library, never to be seen again.

“Pamela Dawes, meet our new Dante, Alex Stern.”

With all the enthusiasm of someone greeting a cholera outbreak, Dawes offered her hand and said, “Welcome to Lethe.”

“Dawes keeps everything running and ensures I don’t make too big a fool of myself.”