Outside, they found Darlington’s Mercedes smashed into Amelia’s Land Rover. That was the crash Alex had heard, Darlington’s car possessed by whatever echo they’d drawn
into this world.
Sandow sighed. “I’ll call a tow truck and wait with you, Amelia. Michelle—”
“I can take a car to the station.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s fine,” she said. She seemed distracted, confused, as if she couldn’t quite make the
numbers tally, as if she’d only now realized that in all her years at Lethe she’d been walking side by side with death.
“Alex, can you see Dawes home?” Sandow asked.
Dawes wiped her sleeve across her tearstained face. “I don’t want to go home.”
“To Il Bastone, then. I’ll join you as soon as I can. We’ll …” He trailed off. “I don’t know exactly what we’ll do.”
“Sure,” said Alex. She used her phone to request a ride, then put her arm around Dawes
and herded her down the driveway after Michelle.
They stood in silence by the stone columns, Black Elm behind them, the snow
gathering around them.
Michelle’s car came first. She didn’t offer to share it, but she turned to Alex as she got
in.
“I work in gifts and acquisitions in the Butler Library at Columbia,” she said. “If you
need me.”
Before Alex could reply, she ducked inside. The car vanished slowly down the street,
cautious in the snow, its red taillights dwindling to sparks.
Alex kept her arm around Dawes, afraid that she might pull away. Until this moment,
until this night, anything had been possible and Alex had really believed that somehow, inevitably, maybe not on this new moon but on the next, Darlington would return. Now the spell of hope was broken and no amount of magic could make it whole.
The golden boy of Lethe was gone.
26
Winter
“You’ll stay, won’t you?” Dawes asked as they entered the foyer at Il Bastone. The house
sighed around them as if sensing their sadness. Did it know? Had it known from the start
that Darlington would never come back?
“Of course.” She was grateful Dawes wanted her there. She didn’t want to be alone or
to try to put on a cheerful face for her roommates. She couldn’t pretend right now. And yet
she couldn’t stop reaching for some scrap of hope. “Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe Sandow screwed up.”
Dawes switched on the lights. “He’s had almost three months to plan. It was a good ritual.”
“Well, maybe he got it wrong on purpose. Maybe he doesn’t want Darlington back.”
She knew she was grasping at smoke, but it was all she had. “If he’s involved in covering
up Tara’s murder, you think he really wants a crusader like Darlington around instead of
me?”
“But you are a crusader, Alex.”
“A more competent crusader. What did Sandow say to stop the ritual?”
“Your tongues are made stone—he used that to silence the bells.” “And the rest?”
Dawes shucked off her scarf and hung her parka on the hook. She kept her back to Alex
when she said, “Hear the silence of an empty home. No one will be made welcome.”
The thought of Darlington being forever banned from Black Elm was horrible. Alex
rubbed her tired eyes. “The night of the Skull and Bones prognostication, I heard someone
—some thing—pounding on the door to get in right at the moment Tara was murdered. It
sounded just like tonight. Maybe it was Darlington. Maybe he saw what was happening to
Tara and he tried to warn me. If he—”
Dawes was already shaking her head, her loose bun unwinding at her neck. “You heard
what they said. It … that thing ate him.” Her shoulders shook and Alex realized she was
crying again, clutching her hanging coat as if without its support she might topple. “He’s
gone.” The words like a refrain, a song they’d be singing until the grief had passed.
Alex touched a hand to Dawes’s arm. “Dawes—”
But Dawes stood up straight, sniffled deeply, wiped the tears from her eyes. “Sandow was wrong, though. Technically. Someone could survive being consumed by a hellbeast.