Page 119
Hey it’s been a while and I’m getting worried
I’m going to go check out what Shea’s hiding
Pls don’t hate me
Taking a steadying breath, I start to walk toward the stairwell. Downstairs is preternaturally quiet: the remaining undergrads have either been called home by their parents or are huddling together, terrified of all the death on campus.
My phone buzzes as I hit the bottom floor.
Marcella: Meet you there in a bit.
Oh, thank god. I sag against the doorframe, snow swirling around me. Hopefully she’s learned what’s going on with Lyle—hopefully he hasn’t been picked off by one of the vættir on campus—and we can get a game plan together.
What a fucking disaster this all is. The only good news is that Dean Shea isn’t around to catch me. And, I think with macabre humor, neither Arjun nor Lyle can stop me. The only Classics assistant professor left is Evan, and I’m pretty sure I could take him.
Falling snow glitters in the old-style lamplight as I hurry toward the Classics building. The bluestone is slippery, a danger, really, and the entire campus is chilled to the bone: empty, skeletal trees rattling in rushes of wind. In the turnaround circle in front of the chapel, a lone custodian leans over a bag of rock salt and spreads it around by hand. I duck my head as I pass him, embarrassed that I can’t stop to help.
By the time I reach the building my fingertips are numb, my nose twinging. Sniffing hard, I unlock the door with my key card and hurry up the stairs. The brass key taps against my hip as I run, my breath coming fast. The building is so, so dark. Empty but full, the air swirling with secrets and lies and so many deaths. All I can think about is Laurel’s broken body.
How could that only have happened a week and a half ago?
Choking back a sob, I reach the landing. Dean Shea’s office door is slightly ajar—not too odd in a building that’s nearly two hundred years old. The jambs get messed up, doors swell, whatever. I’m going to take this as a blessing.
Steadying myself, I step into the darkness.
My heart is beating out of my chest, galloping in my ears as I close the door behind me with a hard click. The key is cold in my grasp despite being having been right next to my skin the entire time. In a world where vættir and draugur exist, I can’t rule out that it’s been magicked in some way. Warded. I think back to Dr. Quiggley’s email and shudder. There’s so much I don’t know, and in some ways that scares me more. My hands start to shake and I grip Dean Shea’s desk to still them.
I think of the first time I was caught with another girl. How I told her, in a fit of Catholic repression, that I loved her. How she got scared, ran to the headmaster of our all-girls school. How I became a shell of myself after and tucked all my sinfulness into a locked box within myself.
No more.
There’s no time to turn back. I can only do what I came here to do.
Leaning my whole weight into it, I start to shift the desk. It’s a heavy oak piece, and it scrapes along well-worn grooves under the standard-issue university carpet. Someone has been doing this for a long, long time.
The cut edges of the carpet appear beneath me and I drop down, swiping a hand across my face. The coolness of the key bites into me, but for an instant I’m grateful. Then, carefully, I peel back the beige scrim.
Just like before, a hatch in the wood. Unassuming. If I’ve gone through all of this for a pile of tax documents or money I’m going to be so pissed. I slot the key inside, breath held, and turn.
It’s not fucking money, that’s for sure.
I gasp as I draw out the diary. It’s been carefully wrapped in plastic, but it’s hazy from condensation. Vellum still contains moisture, and these pages will be ruined by mildew if I don’t do something. Beneath it: Laurel’s phone. I would know it anywhere: its Hello Kitty case, the white cat ears speckled by drying blood. My finger taps the screen, and I’m staring at my dozen texts to her. My stomach roils and I drop it; the screen shatters. Another phone blinks on, the screen a photo of Therese kissing Lyle in front of the Classics building.
They killed them.
My breath comes hot and ripping, nausea sharpening to anger. They fucking killed them and hid the evidence. And so interesting, then, that they would keep the diary here, away from my eyes.
It’s time to see what everyone has been so frantic to hide.
With shaking hands, I back away, clutching the diary. I slam into Dean Shea’s cracked burgundy leather chair and gently fish the artifact out. Forcing away the heat of my anger, I try to focus. I need a clear head to understand how all the dots connect.
When I finally open the journal, the acid-free paper I left to mark my place is still there.
The lord and protector of the realm set a party to root out the beasts. He and his mighty warriors visited a monastery abandoned in Dyrhólaey.
Such were the many things they must have seen inside this place: a turned-over grave, heavy footsteps pressed into the soil. Bodies littered the ground, and even the strongest warrior had tears in his eyes. Some were in states of advanced decomposition. All had torn throats, their bones cracked and shattered.
I waited.
