bildungsroman fare, all set against the background of Zeb working at his uncle’s failing dairy. But the prose did impress.”
“So he’s here to mentor someone?”
“He’s here because The King of Small Places was published almost eight years ago and
Zeb Yarrowman hasn’t written a word since.” Darlington saw Zelinski signal to the Emperor. “It’s time to start.”
The Aurelians had assembled in two even lines, facing each other on either side of the
long table. They wore white cloaks almost like choir robes, with pointed sleeves so long
they brushed the tabletop. Josh Zelinski stood at one end, the Emperor at the other. They
put on white gloves of the type used to handle archival manuscripts and unfurled a scroll
down the table’s length.
“Parchment,” said Darlington. “Made from goatskin and soaked in elderflower. A gift
for the muse. But that’s not all she requires. Come on.” He led Alex back to the first marks
they’d made. “You’ll watch the southern and eastern gates. Don’t stand between the markings unless you absolutely have to. If you see a Gray approaching, just step into his
path and use your graveyard dirt or speak the death words. I’ll be monitoring the north and
west.”
“How?” Her voice held a nervous, truculent edge. “You can’t even see them.”
Darlington reached into his pocket and removed the vial of elixir. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He broke the wax covering, unstopped the cork, and, before thoughts of self-preservation could intrude, downed the contents.
Darlington had never gotten used to it. He doubted he ever would—the urge to gag, the
bitter spike that drove through his soft palate and up into the back of his skull.
“Fuck,” he gasped.
Alex blinked. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you swear.”
Chills shook him and he tried to control the tremors that quaked through his body. “I c-
c-class p-p-profanity with declarations of love. Best used sparingly and only when wholeheartedly m-m-meant.”
“Darlington … are your teeth supposed to chatter?”
He tried to nod, but of course he was already nodding—spasming, really.
The elixir was like dunking your head into the Great Cold, like stepping into a long, dark winter. Or as Michelle had once said, “It’s like getting an icicle shoved up your ass.”
“Less localized,” Darlington had managed to joke at the time. But he’d wanted to pass
out from the shuddering awful of it. It wasn’t just the taste or the cold or the tremors. It
was the feeling of having brushed up against something horrible. He hadn’t been able to
identify the sensation then, but months later he’d been driving on I-95 when a tractor trailer swayed into his lane, missing his car by the barest breath. His body had flooded with adrenaline, and the bitter tang of crushed aspirin had filled his mouth as he remembered the taste of Hiram’s Bullet.
That was what it was like every time—and would be until the dose finally tried to kill
him and his liver tipped into toxicity. You couldn’t keep sidling up to death and dipping
your toe in. Eventually it grabbed your ankle and tried to pull you under.
Well. If it happened, Lethe would find him a liver donor. He wouldn’t be the first. And
not everyone could be born gifted like Galaxy Stern.
Now the shaking passed, and for a brief moment the world went milky, as if he were
seeing Beinecke’s golden glow through a thick cataract of cobwebs. These were the layers
of the Veil.
When they parted for him, the haze cleared. Beinecke’s familiar columns, the cloaked
members of Aurelian, and Alex’s wary face came into ordinary focus once more—except
he saw an old man in a houndstooth jacket hovering by the case that housed the Gutenberg
Bible, then strolling past to examine the collection of James Baldwin memorabilia.
“I think … I think that’s—” He caught himself before he spoke Frederic Prokosch’s name. Names were intimate and risked forming a connection with the dead. “He wrote a
novel that used to be famous, called The Asiatics, from a desk at Sterling Library. I wonder if Zeb’s a fan.” Prokosch had claimed to be unknowable, a mystery even to his closest friends. And yet here he was, moping around a college library in the afterlife.