Chapter 25

Campus Halloween is muted after Dean Beekman’s murder, but the charged mood agitates the Grays. Alex and Mercy host a tame Liquor Treat event, while Alex avoids food and alcohol per Dawes’s preparation, growing hungry and irritable.

That morning, Alex visits Black Elm to collect the porcelain box chosen as Darlington’s vessel. In the old man’s office, she reflects on the house’s rot and the elixir stains linking Darlington’s past to Lethe. The ghost of Daniel Tabor Arlington III presses close, claiming the demon upstairs is not Danny. Alex rejects him, asserting the house is no longer his.

Drawn upstairs despite her plans, Alex enters the ballroom where horned, demonlike Darlington stands near the weakening circle. He warns he cannot hold on much longer. Alex promises they will attempt the Gauntlet that night, citing Dawes’s timing and the difficulty of assembling killers for the passage.

Pressed on her motives, Alex recalls Darlington’s creed about Lethe’s duty to see what others will not. When Darlington suggests he recognized a fellow monster in her, Alex takes it as both warning and kinship. She chooses resolve over fear, leaving Black Elm determined not to abandon him and to run the Gauntlet that night.