Lennon and Dante emerged from the hearing to find that the mild showers from earlier had given way to a punishing deluge. They waited for the worst of the storm to pass in a dark and empty breezeway off of Irvine Hall. Dante fished a tin of what appeared to be hand-rolled cigarettes from the pocket of his trousers. The wrappers were black, and they smelled strongly of clove. He offered one to Lennon, and the two of them smoked and watched the rain come down. It was a particularly good cigarette—wrapped tight and thin with a milky clove smoke that, when exhaled, made pale whorls on the air.

“Did you speak to the chancellor on my behalf?” Lennon asked. “Is that why he called when he did?”

“I might’ve put a good word in for you,” said Dante.

“I owe you one.”

He waved her off. “You owe me nothing. I’m your advisor. It’s my responsibility to look out for you.”

That responsibility seemed starkly at odds with what Eileen had asked him to do during the hearing. “I don’t think Eileen shares your concern.”

“She’s just afraid.”

“Of what?”

“You, of course.” He paused to examine the tip of his cigarette. Flicked away the ashes. “Here at Drayton, we like to think of persuasion as a science. Our founder, John Drayton, believed in developing skill through practice and firmly asserted that mastery could only be ascertained through complete and total control of your own mind and, with practice, the minds of others. But there are some among us whose abilities are more…compulsive. Emotional, you could say. John found them threatening because a power like that can’t be entirely controlled. It’s instinctual and, by proxy, volatile.”

“And you think that was what happened when I opened that elevator? My emotion was the trigger?”

“Yes. But you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. There are quite a few of us, actually. And we can do great things if we devote ourselves to understanding the particulars of our own process. Your elevator gate may have appeared compulsively—may still appear that way—but you have a responsibility to learn your triggers and master this power as best you can. Because if you fail to do that…there will be repercussions.”

“Like you taking my memories?”

He didn’t respond.

“Would you have really done that? If Eileen had asked you to?”

“That’s the school policy, so yes.”

“And if you did that, I wouldn’t remember Drayton or the people I’ve met…or you?”

Dante—still staring at the rain—traced the filter of his cigarette back and forth along the line of his lower lip. “If I’d done my job right, yes. I would’ve taken it all.”

“How?”

“That’s a lesson for later in the semester,” said Dante. “It involves an application of persuasion that’s near surgical in its precision and as a result it’s incredibly dangerous. If done wrong, you can make a person’s mind forget how to execute basic functions like breathing and swallowing. That’s why it’s considered combative persuasion, the first stage of it anyway. It’s one of the ways we kill with the power we wield.”

Lennon wanted to ask if that was something Dante had done before—if he or anyone else at the university had killed with persuasion—but she bit the question back. “That sounds…a little sick.”

“It can be,” he said. “But I’ve seen it used in more merciful ways. There was a professor who taught here a few years ago, Dr. Gordon Meyers. He was dying of spinal cancer, one of the most painful ways a person can go. I and the other professors here took it upon ourselves to induce a state of memory loss, moment by moment—”

“Like laughing gas? Making him forget the pain?”

“Just like that,” said Dante. “But more efficient. It allowed him some lucidity in his final days, while also shielding his mind from the worst of the pain he endured. He died with a smile on his face. Imagine that: a man at the end stages of one of the most painful cancers known to man dies grinning. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You’re still trying to talk me out of my moral qualms?”

“It’ll make the rest easier,” said Dante. “You’ll deal with so much during your studies—neurosis, exhaustion, frustration, burnout, despair—why add guilt to the mix?”

“I can’t help it,” said Lennon with a shrug. “Symptom of a functioning conscience.”

Dante gave her a wry smile.

“There is something I wanted to talk to you about…but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“Go on,” said Dante, watching the rain.

“I saw you a few weeks ago and…you weren’t yourself.”

She had half expected this statement to trigger some reflexive response from Dante—a stiffening or a look of shock—but he remained placid. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you were different.”

“How so?”

“You looked at me differently.”

Here Dante met her eyes, and it was everything Lennon could do not to cower under his gaze. “And how did I look at you?”

“In a way you shouldn’t have,” said Lennon, a little frustrated now, and embarrassed to even say this out loud though she knew she wasn’t the one who should’ve felt ashamed. “Or at least…in a way you wouldn’t have if you’d known what you were doing. And then you just smiled at me, so strangely, and the next day, during class, it was as if nothing happened. I realized then that you didn’t remember. That whoever it was I’d encountered wasn’t the same you who’s here with me now.”

Dante hung his head, looking for a moment conflicted. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I knew it wasn’t you. But I do want to know who he was.”

“I don’t know if I can answer that question in a way that will satisfy your curiosity.”

“Try,” said Lennon.

Dante seemed, for a moment, to search the rain for an answer. “There’s a cost for what we do here. That night, you saw that in the form of whatever—or whoever—it was you encountered. I try to keep him leashed, but it’s hard at night, when I’m tired. I wasn’t able to make it back to Irvine before he broke free of his tether and surfaced.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s as much me as the man you’re talking to now. I just like him less.”

“How long has he been with you?”

“Quite some time. But he doesn’t mean you any harm.” Dante said this in a way that indicated he meant someone harm, but that someone was not Lennon. “Can I ask you to keep this between us?”

Lennon was reluctant to agree to that. “Will he appear again? I mean, surely you can’t keep him chained up forever. Can you?”

“I can certainly try,” said Dante. “Like I said, I’d had a hard night. I lost composure, but I won’t allow that to happen again, which is why I’d appreciate your discretion.”

“You have it.”

“Good,” he said, and looked relieved. “On that same note, I wouldn’t speak to anyone about what you saw through the elevator gate. Not even Benedict, if you can avoid it. You’ll have to be careful with him, and with everyone from here on out. Your future at Drayton depends on it.” The rain abated some. Dante dropped his cigarette and crushed it underfoot.

“Why?”

Dante made as though he hadn’t heard her. “You should head back to Ethos. Before the next band of the storm sweeps through. Remember what I said about Benedict and the rest, especially if you want to keep your memories of this place.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Yes,” said Dante. “But not one from me.”