In early spring, Alex Stern tried to clean blood from her good wool coat and holed up in the hidden rooms above 268 York Street, the Lethe House space called the Hutch. She abandoned classes and communication, letting her phone and obligations die while she listened to the shop noises below and the clock in the room. She spent her days in the window seat reading a Lethe House pamphlet titled Suggested Requirements for Lethe Candidates.

Alex recalled the Hutch’s history and the enchantments that kept it smelling of fabric softener and clove, then focused on the guidelines last updated in 1962. The requirements emphasized academic excellence, languages, fitness, discretion, and lack of arcane interest, ending with the motto “MORS VINCIT OMNIA.” In the margins, earlier members had defaced the Latin and noted two past exceptions to candidate standards—Lowell Scott and Sinclair Bell Braverman—with mixed results.

In Darlington’s distinctive handwriting, Alex found her own name added as another exception. This annotation triggered memories of the recent incident at the Anderson mansion: blood blackening the carpet, Dean Sandow with a shattered thigh exposing white bone, and the stench of wild dogs. Alex had been avoiding Sandow’s emails and living off Lethe provisions, eventually charging copious takeout to Darlington’s still-active account while remaining unseen and unchecked by anyone.

Worn down and limping, Alex took zolpidem and examined herself in the bathroom mirror. She revealed a severe bite wound on her side—curved, crusted, and badly infected—that had altered the “map” of her body. She mused grimly on the Lethe motto and its vulgar marginal correction, translating it in her mind to “Death fucks us all,” and recognized herself as the “third circumstance” of relaxed standards with “decidedly mixed” results.

Despite recognizing the infection and the need for medical help, Alex felt overwhelmed by the actions required to seek care. She drifted between gallows humor and resignation, noticing her bruises, weight loss, and chapped lips. The solitude and pain became familiar, and she contemplated fever and hallucinations as an escape.

Under harsh bathroom lights, Alex deliberately provoked pain by pinching the wound around her stitches until she blacked out. The narrative then widened its frame, noting that these spring events followed a darker beginning: the winter night when Tara Hutchins died, at a time when Alex still believed she could avoid consequences.