Page 134 of Plug and Drain

“Of course you do.” He gave her a fond smile.

“I’m surprised you read philosophy by a human author.” She looked at him quizzically.

“Well…what can I say? I read everything.”

She blinked and gave a surprised smile.

It warmed his heart, but only for a moment before shadows of regret crept back in. He sighed. “No, Susie… I’m afraid I do not have the excuse of pleasing Henrikk for why I killed Professor Atholomew. Henrikk was not even present when it happened. But he had spies to watch me, of course. I believe he was very curious with what I would do with my tenure. I chose to impale Professor Atholomew. I was not thinking of Henrikk when I did it. I killed him for my own reasons.”

“Which were?” she pressed.

His vision glazed as he remembered back to the first time he’d arrived at Volmasque Academy. The tall buildings stretching high above him, the bright full moon sliced into wedges by the sharp pointed turrets.

“Henrikk founded the academy, as I’m sure you know,” he began. “This institution was only ever intended to accommodate students who were at least eighteen years of age. This was partly because wolves are notoriously uncooperative in their adolescent years.”

The females were just as prone to misbehaviour and aggression as their male counterparts, but he didn’t bring that up. Susie would already know that, although he was hard-pressed to imagine her misbehaving and being aggressive.

He rather thought he would like to see it, though.

“The other reason for the academy accepting only adult students is because as terrible as Henrikk is, he has no interest in children. He is not that kind of monster.”

But Atholomew was.

He fell silent, weighing up his words, but there was no way he could sugarcoat them. There was no way to say them without it leaving a bitter taste in his mouth “I discovered early on that Professor Atholomew took it upon himself to sneak underage children into the academy.”

“Children?” whispered Susie, looking horrified.

He gave Susie a grim look. “Yes. Children. Male and female. Wolves. Vampires. Even humans. He was not picky. And he was not kind. Nor was he discreet. I discovered him within the first week of my tenure and put a stop to it immediately. I had the foresight to interrogate him to learn the name of each child and who their parents were. It was part of the reason the torture was such a lengthy process.”

But only part of the reason. There came a point where Atholomew ceased to be a useful source of information, and Arken could not reason why he carved into the man’s flesh.

Nor did he understand why the bloodied words that stared back at him spelled Forgive Me.

Who were the words for?

He cleared his throat. “I…did not let him die until each child had been safely returned, which was not an easy task given some were too young to know their own surname, let alone their place of residence. Most had been taken from villages just outside the Capital. There was a pattern in how he’d lured them…” He paused, stopping himself from delving too deep into the dreadful details.

Susie listened intently, looking aghast. When he paused, she cried, “Those poor children! What an evil, despicable man.”

“Words are insufficient for the evil that took place before my arrival, and the harm that was inflicted upon the children. They were robbed of their childhood. They…”

His voice shook. Words failed him. He’d never spoken to anyone about the horrors he’d uncovered, not even Nathaniel who’d tried to pry the exact details from him on multiple occasions before Arken finally snapped and yelled at him.

Finally, the words that had seared him like acid were free. It became a little easier to breathe.

Before he knew it, Susie was gripping his arm tight.

“You did the right thing,” she said vehemently, her eyes blazing. “He deserved it—Atholomew.”

The fervour of her words took him aback. “Deserved death? Or torture?”

“Both,” she answered immediately. “He deserved both.”

Arken made a noncommittal sound. He’d stopped trying to justify his past actions a long time ago. It was too late to change the past. Susie hadn’t been there. She hadn’t heard Atholomew beg for hours on end. “I wasn’t entirely truthful before. I didn’t let Atholomew die straight away, not even once the children were returned home. I drew it out…for as long as I could.”

It was important for Susie to know that about him. She was rubbing his arm as if to comfort him. As if he deserved compassion.

And it was a comfort, at least.