Lennon fled down the hall of memories. The doors blurred on either side of her, and the hallway’s end seemed to shrink farther and farther into the distance the longer she ran until she collapsed, panting. And that was when she saw it, the only door on the hallway left ajar, a glimpse of stairs behind it. She drew it open, slowly, and immediately sensed that this passage wasn’t a gate. The energy on one side of the threshold and the other was the same. When she stepped up into the stairwell, she didn’t feel dizzy the way she did when crossing between places and times.

The stairs were steep and uneven. With every step, Lennon had to pause a moment, to shore up her footing and regain her balance before proceeding. She was grateful when she emerged from the passage into another wide hall on the upper floor of the house. She turned and faced a large wraparound balcony. Dante was standing there, leaning against its railing, a cigarette in his hand.

“How much do you know?” he asked, as Lennon approached.

Lennon, who could barely speak for the tears, just shook her head.

But he nodded, like she’d actually answered. “Who told you?”

“I figured it out myself.”

The ground gave another tremor. The glass panes of the windows shivered in their casing.

“You brought me here to replace him,” Lennon managed to say.

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Dante, and she waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. Perhaps he sensed, like Lennon, that there wasn’t much left to say.

“How is he still alive?” she asked.

Dante turned back to look across the campus. The house was so tall you could see above almost all of the trees on the square. There was Irvine Hall in the far distance; closer was the sharp spire of the chapel piercing above the oaks, and the glossy leaves of the magnolias looked slick and wet in the moonlight. She could see the small figures of the students mulling about the center of the square, bracing for the next series of quakes. Up high and from afar, the whole campus looked like something that could be crushed easily underfoot, and Lennon wondered why it had taken her so long to grasp the fragility of this place, the tenuous nature of its existence. Now, as the boards of the balcony trembled underfoot, as the only man that kept this school protected lay below, dying in his bed, she saw just how naïve she’d been to mistake Drayton for anything more than ephemeral.

“Like the school, this house exists within a pocket of time,” said Dante, carefully. “It’s extended William’s lifespan well beyond its natural length. But that also means that he’s lived to suffer longer than any man ever should. Gatekeeping on that level does horrific things to the body and the mind. William has weathered this burden better than anyone ever imagined he could—and he’s done it for decades—but he can’t go on any longer. He’s going to die soon, and without him the gates will fall.”

“Which is where I come in. Right?” It felt good to put words to that betrayal. “To replace him? That’s why you brought me here. Without telling me the truth, that if I do this I’m going to suffer just like William?”

“It’s not as simple as that. I promise you. I wouldn’t—”

Just then, clipped footsteps, someone turning the corner of the wraparound balcony.

Eileen stepped into view.

“We can’t find…” She stopped short at the sight of them. “Oh. There you are.” Her gaze bounced between Lennon and Dante. But when she spoke, it was to the latter. “We’re getting close, so you’ll need to hurry.”

Dread pooled like bile in the pit of Lennon’s stomach. Her hands went cold and clammy, began to shake, as she realized the reality of her situation. She was standing between two of the most powerful persuasionists alive. Any hope she’d had of running had disappeared the moment Dante had laid eyes on her, if not the moment she’d entered the house. Even if she called an elevator now, they’d have her knocked out cold before the doors opened. She was trapped.

Another tremor rocked the campus. Eileen sidestepped, almost falling out of her heels. A second, more violent quake struck before she could regain her footing. Dante lunged toward Lennon, dragging her back and crushing her against his chest, shielding her with his own body. A few feet from where they stood, just shy of Eileen, one of the beams on the porch collapsed and split through the floor.

There was a horrible moment in the aftermath of the shake when Eileen—eyes wide with astonishment—stared at Dante, at Lennon cradled in his arms. “Get her ready. Now.”

“Just give us some time,” Dante snapped, and for a moment she really thought she was safe. Thought that he would protect her from this, as he had protected her from everything else. But Dante, releasing her from the cage of his arms, took her by the shoulders and said, very quietly, “I’m going to try to make this painless.”

As he said this, a shade of black descended from her upper periphery.

“You should know that your sacrifice won’t go unnoticed,” said Eileen, flatly, like it was something she needed to say to keep her hands clean. “We’re all indebted to you for this.”

“Dante.” Lennon was crying now, trying and failing to struggle to her feet, her knees giving way beneath her each time she attempted to rise. Her vision contracted to little more than a pinpoint. She fought to stay conscious. “Please don’t do this.”

A fissure appeared in the stone mask of his expression. Behind it, she saw something, not regret but fear, or pity maybe, and then his will came down upon her in a wave of vertigo, smearing the night into a blurry spiral. She pitched forward, blacking out. As Lennon slumped to the floor, the last thing she saw, materializing behind Dante, were the golden doors of her elevator closing and opening helplessly.