"Never took you for a cynic, Michaels," he says, though the comparison is--obviously--more than apt. "Each society has their own particular traditions in naming given offices. It happens that, at least for the Dante and Virgil roles, Lethe's happens to be Inferno, and fairly tame, considering. You should hear some of the ones Skull and Bones came up with." Darlington shrugs. "Frankly, I've always enjoyed the irony in the fact that we're the ones who force the rest of them to remember, while being named for a river of forgetfulness."

The rest of what Caleb's asked takes a little more thought, finding the best place to begin and the right balance of how much to say. That he already knows about the Grays, though, comes as no small relief. "It is, and she can," he says after a moment. "The only person I've ever met who can see them in full color. I envied her so much, when I first heard." Even now, there's still a faint tendril of that envy present, a lingering wish to be just as extraordinary, despite the cost that's become all too clear to him. "There was an opportunity there, and Lethe took it."

There's more to the story, far more, but much of that is Alex's to tell.