There were figures on the shore when Lennon emerged from her tent the following morning. Nine of them, standing along the beach behind the house. Dante had eyes on them already. He was sitting near the ashes of last night’s fire, staring at them with his elbows braced on his knees.

“It seems we have a few uninvited guests waiting for us back home,” said Dante, and Lennon considered that word, home. It was a strange way to refer to a place she’d only been for a few weeks. But it didn’t feel facetious. She couldn’t deny that here, on what seemed like the very edge of the world with Dante, she felt safe in a way that she didn’t anywhere else. Not even Drayton.

Lennon came to stand beside him. The sun glared so sharply off the water that it almost hurt to look at it. “Do you think they’re from Drayton?”

Dante nodded. “When we go back, I want you to say as little as possible. And stick close to me, if you can, unless I tell you otherwise.”

“You don’t think they’re going to try to take me back to Drayton, do you?”

“I don’t know,” said Dante, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

They packed up in a rush, loaded the boat, and made their way back to the house. Upon docking the boat, they were approached by the men at the shore. Lennon recognized Professor Alec, who led the pack, and none of the other eight, though she could tell, immediately, that they were graduates of Drayton—something about their demeanor, the way they stood. On instinct, she firmed the walls of her mind against any potential invasions. But if the men were projecting their will, Lennon couldn’t feel it.

“Send the others away or we don’t speak,” said Dante to Alec, tying up the boat. She noticed, though, that Dante kept his speargun close, which she found almost funny because the real weapon was, of course, his mind. He was the best of all of them. Lennon guessed that with half a thought he could bring all the men on the beach to heel, with the exception of Alec, perhaps, who might be able to hold his own against Dante. But even then, for how long? No one was Dante’s equal, as far as Lennon was concerned, and the men who had come here today were more of an intimidation tactic than any tangible threat. At least, that’s what she wanted to believe.

Alec nodded to the other men, and they dispersed, disappearing around the sides of the house and back, no doubt, to their vehicles. When the last of them was gone, Dante motioned for Alec to follow him into the house, and Lennon trailed after them both.

“How do you like your eggs?” he asked Alec, gesturing for him to sit at the same breakfast table where he and Lennon had taken most of their meals thus far.

“Scrambled hard,” said Alec, and he settled himself, rather too comfortably, in the chair that Lennon usually sat in. Lennon, not knowing what else to do, sat awkwardly beside him.

Dante nodded and began to crack a few eggs into a bowl one-handed, tossing the shells into the sink as he worked.

Alec appraised Lennon, giving her a small grin. “Well, you’ve done well for yourself. Haven’t you?”

Dante cut a glance behind him. “Alec.”

“What? She looks amazing. The ocean air must do her good.” Here, he shifted his attention to Dante. “Quite a stunt you pulled to get her here. Was it worth it?”

Dante didn’t deem that question worthy of an answer. He set two plates of breakfast on the table—one for Alec, his eggs scrambled hard like he’d requested, and one for Lennon, her eggs poached soft, the way she liked them. There was toast and fruit too.

“If I’d known you were coming, I could’ve prepared the guest room,” said Dante, sitting down.

“Oh, I won’t be long. I’m only here to impart two things, really. The first is for you.” He pointed at Lennon with his fork. “Ian’s been laid to rest. Or what remained of Ian anyway. I figured you’d want to know.”

Lennon had, actually. She’d thought about what had been done with his remains many times over the past few days, wondering how they’d spun the story of his gruesome death to inquiring students, or any family he had outside of Drayton. A part of her wanted to ask for more details, but she couldn’t think of a way to phrase the question without sounding mawkish or, worse yet, gloating.

“I’m truly sorry” was all Lennon could think to say in the moment. “I know you two were close—”

“I’ve had advisees before, and I’ll have advisees again,” said Alec, a dissonance between the coldness of the statement and the placid smile he wore as he said it. “You owe me no apologies for his death. He did, however, have a family. A mother back in Ohio. A younger sister who misses her older brother very much. She’s eight years old. Too young to even process such a loss.”

Lennon thought of her own sister, Carly, and found it hard to breathe around the lump in her throat. “I didn’t know. He never mentioned them. What did you tell them?”

“We worked with local law enforcement to communicate a story about Ian’s remains being discovered in an abandoned building.” Alec spoke through a mouthful of toast and eggs. He had a disturbing way of mashing together the contents of his entire plate, so that it was almost impossible to distinguish any one component. “You know the story: strung-out junkie stumbles down an elevator shaft, where he’s found rotting and crushed days later. Given the gruesome nature of his death, we strongly advised his mother against viewing his remains. She heeded that advice, and Ian was cremated in Savannah. Then his ashes were delivered to his family. I don’t think there was a funeral. They seem like private people.”

Lennon swiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

“I find it difficult to believe that you’d come all the way up the coast, with eight men accompanying you, just to antagonize Lennon about a man who’s already dead.” Dante cast a hard glance across the table at Alec. “Why are you really here?”

Alec turned now on Dante, flashed a dazzling smile. Lennon had never noticed before, but behind all of his tattoos, she saw what was an entirely classic, almost eerily symmetrical, face. Strong nose, full lips, straight white teeth. “You didn’t think I would miss your birthday, did you?”

Lennon looked to Dante, surprised that he hadn’t told her, but his gaze was set very firmly on Alec. Alec leaned out of his chair to reach for his briefcase and removed a gift, wrapped in plain brown paper, tied off with a bit of twine.

“What is this?” Dante asked.

“Open it for yourself and see.”

Dante was clearly reluctant, but he took the package and tore off the paper. Inside a small shadow-box frame was a pinned moth.

“A birthday gift,” said Alec, beaming. “From the vice-chancellor.”

Dante set the moth on the table. He’d spared it no more than a passing glance, and yet he seemed…shaken. Something in the set of his mouth, a small crack in his composure. “Lennon, can you give me a moment to speak with Alec alone?”

She nodded, retreated to the guest bedroom. But not before she heard Alec ask a question that froze her blood: “Does she know what you are?”

“Alec—”

“I’m just wondering,” he said. “I mean, honestly, I thought it was something you two could bond over. You know, given everything with Ian. Who better to support her through this than you?”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“Am I?” A harsh laugh from Alec. “You do know that you’re going to have to tell her eventually. One day, she’ll have to see you as you are. You worried about that?”

“Outside. Now,” said Dante, in a whisper so low Lennon barely heard it.

There was the groan of the patio door opening, followed by footsteps as they left the house. Lennon retreated back to the guest bedroom, shutting the door. Through the window she saw the two of them, pacing along the narrow strip of beach. Dante with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the sand, more listening and nodding than contributing. Alec, though, was animated. Eyes alight, talking so fast that Lennon couldn’t read his lips, even though she tried hard. Occasionally, he would fling out an arm and gesture back to the house, and Lennon—startled—would drag the curtains shut so she wouldn’t be caught spying.

This lasted for the better part of an hour, and then it was over. Alec leaving with the other men, in dark cars with tinted windows. Lennon emerged from the guest bedroom and raced to the front of the house to watch them all drive away. When she returned to the living room, she found Dante sitting on the couch, his back to her. On the coffee table in front of him was the pinned moth in the shadow box. Dante wasn’t looking at it, though, or much of anything, really. But from the deep crease that cut between his eyebrows, she could tell he was thinking hard.

“You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.”

When she spoke, Dante stirred, startled almost, as if she’d shaken him awake. He clapped his hands together, nodded, and stood up. “I’m going to talk to Eileen and see if I can make sense of all of this stuff with Alec.”

“Do you think she’ll even be willing to speak with you, given what happened?”

Dante had a way of simply stepping around questions he didn’t want to answer, and he did this now, as he walked to the foyer, took his keys off the hook where they hung. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t open the door for anyone,” he said, and was gone.

Startled by this abrupt departure, Lennon returned to the living room, sat down on the couch where Dante had been just moments before. She picked up the shadow box, squinted through the glass at the moth within. It was large and brownish with spots that looked like eyes on its wings. In most of the taxidermy that Lennon had seen, the pins were carefully placed, so as to appear invisible. But the brass nails that secured this moth were thick and conspicuous, as if the person who’d placed them had wanted them to be seen.

While Dante was gone, Lennon pulled together a birthday cake, more to distract herself than out of any real altruism. Alec’s visit haunted her as she assembled the cake, following the instructions written in one of Dante’s cookbooks. As she mixed the batter and whipped up a bowlful of buttercream, she kept replaying Alec’s words, wondering at what he’d been alluding to and if she could find a tactful way to ask Dante about it, without revealing that she’d been eavesdropping. Claude’s drunken accusations were easy to dismiss. But it was harder to brush off Alec, whose statements, while more lucid, were still so like Claude’s both in tone and conviction.

When the cake was baked and frosted, Lennon settled herself in the living room to watch TV, hoping to keep her mind occupied. The pinned moth was on the table in front of her, and she picked it up again, this time flipping it over to discover a small, open envelope affixed to the backing of the frame.

Lennon knew she shouldn’t pry but couldn’t resist.

Within the envelope was a small white card on Drayton letterhead, the paper faintly scented with the smell of what Lennon knew to be magnolias, just past the peak of their bloom.

The card read:

My Dearest Dante,

This moth reminded me of you. I know that this has not been an easy summer. But I so appreciate the work that you do.

I think of you often. Stay the course.

With love,

Eileen