26. Alex

Alex discovers that his girlfriend Ophelia's stalker is actually Professor Bancroft, a lecturer at the university. Racing to find her after she goes missing from a study session, Alex tracks her AirPods to the forest by the tarn, where he finds her armed with a knife and Bancroft wounded. Together they confront and kill Bancroft, with Ophelia reciting Keats as he dies.

Alex is distracted during a poker game with his friends when he learns from Belladonna that Professor Bancroft—a lecturer known for his creepy behavior—is Ophelia's stalker. Bancroft had threatened Belladonna after she witnessed him with a gardener, and Belladonna reveals the gardener was ginger. Alex realizes "banned orifice" in Ophelia's cryptic text refers to Bancroft's office and panics. Racing to the castle with Vincenzo and Bella, he finds Bancroft's office covered in blood with Ophelia's belongings scattered. Using the Find My app, Alex tracks Ophelia's AirPods to the forest edge by the tarn. He finds her sprinting through the woods with a knife covered in blood—she has already stabbed Bancroft. Though terrified and bound at the wrists, Ophelia refuses to leave Alex's side. They locate Bancroft in a clearing where he's been bleeding out; a shovel nearby suggests he planned to bury her. Bancroft emerges with what appears to be a gun, but Alex recognizes it as fake. After a brief moment of dark desire, Alex subdues Bancroft and forces him to confess to murdering Sofia Ivanov and causing a helicopter crash. Rather than kill him quickly, Ophelia stands over his dying body and recites lines from Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," watching him die slowly. Vincenzo arrives with men for cleanup, and Alex observes that Ophelia has shown remarkable character development.