Page 37 of Hell Bent

“Let’s go to the sculpture garden,” Michelle suggested, pushing through the doors. Alex sometimes forgot it was here, an empty sprawl of gravel and the occasional art installation that sat just outside the reading room. It wasn’t much to look at, a pocket of quiet and trees sandwiched between buildings.

“So you fucked that up,” Michelle said. She sat down on a bench and crossed her arms. “I told you not to try it.”

“People tell me that a lot. Anselm called you?”

“He wanted to know if you and Dawes had reached out to me, if you were still trying to get Darlington back.”

“How did he—”

“We were spotted together at the funeral. And I was Darlington’s Virgil.”

“And?” Alex asked.

“I didn’t … rat you out.”

She sounded like she was quoting an episode of Law & Order.

“But you’re not going to help us.”

“Help you with what?” Michelle asked.

Alex hesitated. Anything she said to Michelle might make it straight back to Michael Anselm. But Darlington had considered Michelle one of Lethe’s best. She might still be able to help them, even if she wasn’t willing to get down in the dirt.

“We found the Gauntlet.”

Michelle sat up straighter. “Darlington was right?”

Alex couldn’t help smiling. “Of course he was. The Gauntlet is real and it’s here on campus. We can—”

But Michelle held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“But—”

“Alex, I came to Yale on a scholarship. Lethe knew that. It’s part of what made me appealing to them. I needed their money and I was happy to do what they asked. My Virgil was Jason Barclay Cartwright, and he was lazy because he could afford to be. I couldn’t. You can’t either. I want you to think about what this could cost you.”

Alex had. But that didn’t change the math. “I owe him.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Simple enough. “I thought you liked Darlington.”

“I did. He was a good kid.” She was only three years older, but that was how Michelle saw him, the little boy playing knight. “He wanted to believe.”

“In what?”

“In everything. Has Dawes told you what you’re in for? What this kind of ritual entails?”

“She mentioned we’re going to need four murderers.” Well, two more murderers, since she and Dawes had half of that particular equation covered.

“That’s only the beginning. The Gauntlet isn’t some magic portal. You don’t just walk through it. You’re going to have to die to make it to the underworld.”

“I’ve died before,” said Alex. “I made it to the borderlands. I’ll make it back from this too.”

Michelle shook her head. “You don’t care, do you? You’re just going to rush right at it.”

I’m the Wheelwalker, Alex wanted to say. It has to be me. Except not even she knew what that meant. It sounded foolish, childish—I’m special, I have a quest—when the truth was much closer to what Michelle had said. Of course Alex was going to just rush right at it. She was a cannonball. She wasn’t good for much at rest, but give her a hard enough shove, let her build up enough momentum, and she’d punch a hole through anything.

“It’s not that bad,” Alex said. “Dying.”