The following day, Lennon found Kieran in the central dining hall, sitting alone at the table reserved for the members of Logos. On his tray: a plain, dry hamburger, fries, and a glass of milk. He ate with mechanic pragmatism, chewing slowly, his gaze scanning back and forth across the dining hall as if the scene was something he was reading rather than seeing. But when his gaze met Lennon’s, it affixed itself firmly and he smiled.

Kieran was one of the few famous students at the school, for all the wrong reasons. He was a chemistry prodigy who had appeared on the talk show circuit at just nine years old after entering a doctoral program at Stanford. But at age thirteen—four years into his PhD—he was busted for operating a meth kitchen out of the apartment he was supposed to be sharing with his mother (his mother was living with a boyfriend at the time, spending surplus scholarship funds that should’ve gone into Kieran’s trust). Worse yet, the drugs that Kieran cooked in his kitchen were tied to the fatal overdoses of several students on the campus. The media jumped on the story of the chemistry prodigy / media darling turned manslaughtering drug dealer, because if there’s anything a news network loves it’s a spectacular fall from grace.

But the story of how Kieran came to study at Drayton was far murkier than the well-publicized tale of his downfall. Allegedly, about three years—and several prison transfers—into his eight-year sentence, Kieran enrolled at Drayton, where he had now been a student for more than six years.

Lennon sat down opposite him, trying not to look as intimidated as she felt. “What did you give me at the party?”

“I don’t give anything to anyone,” said Kieran, his eyes vacant. “I offered you a sample of my product in the hopes that you’d want more. And clearly you do.”

Kieran paused to take a small bite of his hamburger, chewed, and swallowed. Lennon found his choice of meal particularly egregious given the selection at the buffet today—deep-fried soft-shell crab; oysters on the half shell, nestled in beds of ice; collard greens with smoked pork; and a large vat of Brunswick stew. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of psychopath would choose a dry hamburger and milk over all of that. “Unfortunately, you’re out of luck, because I’m all sold out.”

“Well, what do you have?” Lennon asked.

“Something stronger. But of course, that comes at a price.”

“I don’t have any money,” said Lennon. As far as she knew, no one on campus did. They were totally cut off from the currencies of the greater world. The cafes around Drayton were all free, the food unlimited. There was no rent or tuition, and the loans that did exist were largely tacit, everyone operating under the shared understanding that their great work—the contribution that paid their theoretical debt—was the mastery of persuasion.

“Luckily for you, I accept different currencies,” said Kieran.

“Like?”

“Favors.”

“What kind of favors?”

Here, Kieran leaned low against the tabletop. “There’s a professor who confiscated something that belongs to me.”

“What’s the item and where is it?”

“It’s a rat and his name is Antonio, though he doesn’t answer to that…or much of anything anymore. You’ll find him in Dante’s lab, in Wharton Hall.”

“Wait a minute, are you asking me to break into Dante’s lab to kidnap a rat?”

“Antonio isn’t just a rat. I mean, he was until I gave him a soul. Or at least, I think I gave him a soul. I’m not sure about the particulars.”

“How did you give a rat a soul?”

“Crack,” he said, and then frowned. “Well, it was sort of a distant cousin of crack that I alternated with DMT and then I laced his water with it at first, which didn’t work quite as well as you think it would—look, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I need you to kill him.”

Lennon’s eyes flashed wide with shock. “What?”

“A rat with a soul is a terrible burden. I mean, their little minds aren’t meant to comprehend the existential. They’re intelligent animals, but I pushed things too far, and now that rat exists in a state of complete psychological agony, and it’s driving me crazy. I mean, you make a monster and the very least you can do is put it down.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” Lennon demanded, suddenly very defensive over this sentient rat that she didn’t even know.

“I was failing Dante’s class first semester,” said Kieran. “I knew I had to do something…impressive, to bring my grades up. So I gave it a few drugs, opened its mind. It was like a kind of psychedelic therapy, or at least I intended it to be. Anyway, Dante was impressed. I mean, he didn’t actually say that, but I passed his class—which had to mean I made at least a ninety-nine on his final—and afterward, he confiscated Antonio and I never saw him again after that.”

“Then how do you even know he’s suffering?”

“Because I can feel it,” Kieran insisted. “There’s a tie between me and him. I mean, I can barely sleep. All night I can hear him, like, in my head, thinking these…thoughts. Philosophical bullshit about time and mortality and the great fallacy of our present reality. It’s nauseating, not to mention never-ending. I’m going fucking insane.” He slammed a hand down on the table, and his glass of milk leapt an inch or so into the air. “I need quiet. I need to not tranquilize myself to sleep every night. That’s where you come in. Dante’s your mentor; you can get into his lab on a lie if you’re smart enough. Go in, kill the rat, get your drugs. It’s that simple.”

“If it’s that simple, why haven’t you done it yourself?”

“Because I don’t want to take the fucking risk,” he said. “If you’re stupid enough to get caught, all you’re looking at is a couple demerits and a semester-long suspension if you catch Dante on a bad day. I get caught? I’m finished. Expelled. Dante hates my fucking guts and has for some time. He catches me in his lab killing one of his rats and it’s over.”

“Why don’t you just ask him to kill it, then?”

“He’d never agree. He keeps those rats as experiments. If I told him Antonio was sentient, he’d just have even more incentive to keep him alive and suffering for as long as he could. Thank god you’re willing to help.”

“I never said I was willing.”

“You didn’t have to,” said Kieran, chugging down his milk. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re desperate.”

She bristled. “No, I’m not.”

Kieran’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “Lennon, admitting you have a problem is the first step toward sobriety.”

“I’m not an addict.”

“Then what is it? Why do you want the drugs so badly? Trouble in class?”

Lennon started to stand up. “You know what? Forget it.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said, and he opened his arms. “You can trust me. I don’t expose the personal information of my customers. Your secrets are safe with me. And I already know all about the elevators, so there’s no point being coy.”

Lennon relented, not because she trusted him but because Kieran possessed a kind of exhausting charisma. He had a way of wearing you down that she found at once draining and highly amusing, and as much as she wanted to dislike him, she just…couldn’t. It was easier (not to mention more fun) to just play along, give him what he wanted. “That night the gate, or whatever it was, first appeared, it was after I took those mushrooms you gave me. And I haven’t been able to open a gate since.”

Kieran seemed unsurprised. “You shouldn’t feel too bad. Plenty of us need a little chemical boost to get us going. It’s why everyone around here smokes so much. And why I have a business.”

“Is that what you call it?”

Kieran smiled, choosing to ignore that insult. “The doors of Wharton are locked, but if you’re quiet and careful you should be able to tail Dante, or someone else, through the doors and duck behind one of the shelves without being seen. Antonio is the biggest rat in the lab. He’s all brown, and his eyes are human. You can’t miss him. Just go in, kill him, and be done with it. And don’t try to lie and say you’ve done it when you haven’t. I’ll know.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Lennon, and she got up from the table, feeling a little sick and unsteady on her own two feet. She realized that she had never killed anything before. Not really. Not on purpose anyway. Once, though, she’d had a particularly sadistic friend, a little white boy in her neighborhood, a few years older than she, who’d asked her to watch as he poured a pot of boiling water over an anthill. Halfway through the horrible act, overcome with guilt and disgust, she’d caught him by the wrist and tried to stop him, splashing boiling water all over her thighs in the process. The resulting burns had blistered so badly she’d had to go to urgent care, and she couldn’t wear anything but dresses for weeks after. She’d hated that, but what she hated even more was that the pot had been half-emptied, and all the ants and their precious eggs boiled alive, by the time she’d worked up the courage to intervene.