back from wherever he’d gone. “We’ll need a new-moon night,” Sandow had said. “And then we’ll just call our boy home.”
Dawes burst out crying.
“Is he … where is he?” Alex had asked. Is he suffering? Is he scared?
“I don’t know,” said the dean. “That will be part of the challenge for us.” He’d sounded almost eager, as if presented with a delicious problem. “A portal of the size and shape you described, stable enough to be maintained without practitioners present, can’t have gone anywhere interesting. Darlington was probably transported to a pocket realm. It’s like dropping a coin between the cushions of a couch.”
“But he’s trapped there—”
“He probably isn’t even aware he’s gone. Darlington will come back to us thinking he was just in Rosenfeld and furious that he’ll have to repeat the semester.”
There had been emails and text chains since then—Sandow’s updates on who and what would be needed for the rite, the creation of the Spain cover story, a flurry of apologetic and frustrated messages when the January new moon had to be scrapped due to Michelle Alameddine’s schedule, followed by profound silence from Dawes. But that night, the night when Darlington had gone from the world, was the last time they’d all been in a room together. Sandow was the fire alarm they weren’t supposed to pull without good cause. Alex was tempted to think of him as the nuclear option, but really, he was just a parent. A proper adult.
Now the dean stirred sugar into his cup. “I appreciate your quick thinking, Pamela. We can’t afford another …” He trailed off. “We just need to see the year out and …” Again he let his sentence dissolve as if he’d dunked it into his tea.
“And what?” Alex nudged. Because she really did wonder what was supposed to come next. Dawes was standing with her hands clasped as if about to sing a choir solo, waiting, waiting.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Sandow at last. He sank down into a wing-backed chair. “We’re ready for the new moon. I’ll pick up Michelle Alameddine from the train station Wednesday night and bring her directly to Black Elm. I have every hope that the rite will work and that Darlington will be back with us soon. But we also need to be prepared for the alternative.”
“The alternative?” said Dawes. She sat down abruptly. Her face was tight, angry even.
Alex couldn’t pretend to understand the mechanics of what Dean Sandow had planned, but she would have bet Dawes did. It’s my job. She was there to clean up the messes that invariably got made, and this was a big one.
“Michelle is at Columbia, working on her master’s. She’ll be with us for the new-moon rite. Alex, I think she could be persuaded to come up on the weekends and continue your education and training. That will reassure the alumni if we have to”—he brushed his finger over his graying mustache—“bring them up-to-date.”
“What about his parents? His family?”
“The Arlingtons are estranged from their son. As far as anyone knows, Daniel Arlington is studying the nexus beneath San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. If the rite fails—”
“If the rite fails, we try again,” said Dawes.
“Well, of course,” said Sandow, and he seemed genuinely distressed. “Of course. We try every avenue. We exhaust every possibility. Pamela, I’m not trying to be callous.” He held out a hand to her. “Darlington would do everything he could to bring one of us home. We’ll do the same.”
But if the rite failed, if Darlington couldn’t be brought back, then what? Would Sandow tell the alumni the truth? Or would he and the board invent a tale that didn’t sound like We sent two college kids into situations we knew they couldn’t handle and one died.
Either way, Alex didn’t like that it would be so easy for Lethe to close Darlington’s chapter. He had been a lot of things, most of them annoying, but he had loved his job and Lethe House. It was cruel that Lethe couldn’t love him back. This was the first time Sandow had even broached the possibility that Darlington wouldn’t return, that he couldn’t just be yanked from between the interdimensional cushions of a cosmic couch. Was it because they were only days away from trying?
Sandow picked up the empty glass coated in film from the vile green milk drink.
“Axtapta? You were attacked by a gluma?”
His voice had been smooth, diplomatic, pensive, while he discussed Darlington—his dean voice. But at the thought of a