She crossed out of the sunlight as she moved into the stairwell. She still wasn’t used to the instant relief, like laying a cold washcloth on a headache. Of course, she hoped she wouldn’t have a chance to get used to it at all. She’d envisioned so many sunny walks across campus during her orientation tour. So many hikes to nearby caves and waterfalls. Now it felt as if she belonged down here, in the dark, with the worms.
Her grandmother used to tell her nothing was permanent: no circumstance, no feeling, no bad day. It was something Lucy had repeated to herself over and over since she was young. But that was far more comforting when the worst that could happen to her was living out a long, cramped life in Jacksonville, Florida. There was a whole different kind of powerlessness in her potential future now.
She rubbed at her temples with a wince. The relief of the shade hadn’t lasted long. There was a different pressure taking its place now. Not the feeling of eyes on her, like she’d felt in Goldwell. Not the intrusive creep of sounds and sensations, like she’d felt in the classroom. This pressure didn’t quite have direction. It was a wall over her head, steadily pressing downward. Like the pressure shift of a summer storm.
Lucy realized then that her hand was quivering over the banister. She was shaking. She was shaking like a Chihuahua, actually—she could feel it in her whole body. Was there actually a storm brewing outside? Her childhood cat used to crouch low to the ground when she felt them coming. Maybe her own heightened senses could feel some of it, too?
She rounded the stairwell, past theB1sign, and pressed on toB2. And the wall, steadily and gradually, pressed harder.
“What the hell,” she whispered. She could feel sweat springing up across the back of her neck. Her scalp prickled, tickling the crown of her head. This wasn’t fear. This wasn’t a feeling so much as an instinct. Lucy had enough trouble reading her own human instincts, sometimes. To read the instincts of the infection felt like a world beyond.
She took a breath and got a grip. There were no steam tunnels in the library. She wouldn’t be here unless Mila was completely sure of that. Which meant she was almost certainly alone in that stairwell, psyching herself out.
She wasn’t alone for long, though. There were a few bare signs of life as she stepped into floor B2. There was definitely a small crowd in the first reading room she passed: No one was talking, but she could hear the faint scratches of their heartbeats through the door. There was a set of stacks ahead in the main room, and at the very back, a horseshoe-shaped desk. Lucy could make out a blond figure behind it, leaning over a book.
She’d made it. It should have been a relief. But as she approached, her legs gradually shook harder. Until it was almost too difficult to move.
He heard her coming. And he lifted his head.
His eyes, a pale and indifferent blue, met hers. And like lightning passing over her head, every nerve in her body rippled with electricity. The feeling of his attention was beyond weight. It was its own force of gravity. Even as she reeled under the force of it, she couldn’t help but come closer.
Vanya, she thought, at first. But even without knowing what Vanya looked like, the person at the desk could never be mistaken for the hazy impression of him in her mind. He was tall and long-limbed, his hair more yellow-gold than sandy, handsome but etched with lines around his mouth and forehead. When he looked at her, it wasn’t appraising. It radiated sourness. It was like the atmosphere itself curling a lip in disgust.
And unlike Vanya, he was not young.Youngwas not a word Lucy had associated with Vanya until this moment. But as this man looked at her, Lucy felt sure that she’d never met anything older. Not even the mountains around them.
He closed his book. And a single lifeless blue vein jumped against his delicate jaw.
“Oh, no,” said the ancient creature at the Johnson Library reference desk. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re—” Lucy blurted out.
“Be quiet,” he snapped. “Unless you’d like to announce to the whole of the floor what we are.”
“We,” Lucy echoed. Her thoughts were firing nearly as fast as the patter of her heart—her words couldn’t keep up. “So you’re—”
“Yes, dear,” said the ancient creature—the vampire—with an elegant wave of his hand. “We’re in the same club. Though”—his eyes swept the length of her body once, cursorily—“you don’t appear to be a full member of that clubjustyet.”
Lucy’s throat closed, even as her mouth hung open. The vampire regarded her with impatience—if she couldn’t see it in his face, she would have felt it in the weight of his presence. But before Lucy had been a not-human not-vampire, she had been a cashier. She knew how to gauge whether or not someone would cause trouble. And while the reference librarian wasn’t happy, he wasn’t tensed to strike. He was angry, but it wasn’t an anger with heat. It felt more like jaw-clenched resignation.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” she said slowly. It felt like wishful thinking to say out loud. But she knew as soon as she said it that it was also true. She’d been surrounded by hunters, of one kind or another, all week. His was a completely different energy.
The vampire huffed. Since he didn’t need to breathe, she assumed it was for emphasis. “Obviously I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t eat from others’ plates. Please do give the little prince my very best. Or better yet, don’t tell him that you saw me at all.”
Her heart rate picked up, fast enough to make her nauseous. “You know him.”
“Every farmer knows the local wolf,” the vampire said, regarding her again. “And its pups, I suppose.”
“I’m not his pup,” Lucy said.
“You’re worse,” the vampire said. “You’re his thrall.”
“And what’s that?”
“Tomorrow’s meal,” he said darkly. “Listen, girl. I sympathize. But you should go enjoy what’s left of your mortal life. All that brat wants is attention. You don’t have to give it to him while you’re still alive.”
He moved to turn his back to her. That strange pressure gave her a little push as he moved away. As if the air itself were gently trying to turn her around and walk her back where she came from.
Lucy was not going to be walked back where she came from, though. Not yet. She lunged forward and locked both hands around one of his wrists.
