Alex woke on the Hutch’s couch, throat raw from strangulation. Dawes administered a thick, foul mixture that soothed Alex’s injuries after using brimstone to burn beetles from Alex’s body, explaining the parasites’ use in ancient corpse preparation. Dawes reported the wards had been intermittently disturbed and confirmed the Bridegroom’s Gray was waiting outside; Alex believed he had saved her from the gluma.

Dean Sandow arrived. A flashback recounted his initial response the night Darlington disappeared: he framed it as portal magic likely depositing Darlington in a minor pocket realm and promised a new-moon retrieval. In the present, Sandow outlined logistics for the imminent rite with alumna Michelle Alameddine and, for the first time, raised the possibility of failure, proposing Michelle might continue Alex’s training if Darlington did not return.

Alex asserted that a society—possibly Book and Snake—had sent the gluma because of her investigation into Tara Hutchins’s murder and Tara’s link to Tripp Helmuth (Bones). Sandow cautioned against this conclusion, suggesting Alex’s rare abilities might have disrupted unseen systems. Dawes challenged Sandow’s implication as victim-blaming, briefly siding firmly with Alex.

Sandow had Dawes pull street camera footage. The mirror display showed Alex fleeing the Good Nature Market and convulsing in traffic, with no visible attacker, undermining her claim from a proof perspective. Sandow argued the alumni must see Alex as stable and insisted she stand down; he stressed Lethe’s need for goodwill and funding amidst multiple disruptions: the prognostication anomaly, Darlington’s disappearance, Tara’s murder, and now the gluma.

While Sandow spoke, Alex studied an old New Haven map and recognized that Tara’s body had been placed to mirror the colony’s nine-square plan between two “rivers,” implying deliberate ritual staging. She concluded someone connected to the societies tried to kill or discredit her after her morgue visit. Sandow closed by prioritizing the new-moon rite, warning against further amateur sleuthing, and praising Michelle’s imminent role.

After Sandow left, Alex asked Dawes about contacting the dead without Book and Snake; Dawes suggested Wolf’s Head, warning against calling them shapeshifters. Alex looked to the alley, acknowledged the Bridegroom, and, needing allies beyond Lethe’s rules, knocked on the window to draw him in, tacitly accepting his attention despite the risks.