Page 88

Lacie glances at me before heading to stairs leading down, down, down into some kind of basement. “No?”

I muscle through it. It’s possible it’s warded against draugur or any other monstrous incursions. If this is where Lacie feels safe, this is where we’ll go. “Lapsed Catholic seeking hiding spots beneath the church? Very Christian, actually.” My weak joke disperses into the dense air.

“Wow, you are anxious, aren’t you?” Lacie’s gaze softens. I like this new determination she has, but I can’t fathom how this place doesn’t make her queasy.

“Just tired.”

“It’s quiet down here, is all. Most people don’t even know these carrels exist. I came here to work on my dissertation.”

“Christ.” My fingertips grasp the black iron railing. “Feels like a dungeon.”

“I suppose it does.”

“Wouldn’t this put us in line with the crypts beneath the chapel? Is there a way in from here?”

Lacie reaches the bottom and flicks on the lights. “Hm.” She looks around, down the halls eaten by shadows. I keep my eyes on her. “I’ve only studied in the first carrel. I know you can enter the chapel somehow, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”

Down here, even our words are eaten. Ooh, I do not like this place. It makes me want to throw up. I smile instead. “If you insist. Though if I start frothing at the mouth and convulsing, you’re going to have to carry me out of here.”

Lacie turns on her heel, but I can see she’s hiding a smile.

Score.

“Just around here.”

We pass rows and rows of books on religion, each Dewey Decimal–coded aisle broken down by topic. There’s Demonology, Old Testament Studies, Angelology, The Arc. Frankly, it’s hellish. My skin has goose bumps from the damp cold.

Or at least I think that’s what’s happening.

Lacie stops at a pine table scrubbed clean of pencil and pen markings. “This is it.”

“This?”

She slides into a chair and I sit uneasily across from her, fingers picking at my coffee sleeve.

I clear my throat as she looks at her hands, unwilling to meet my gaze. “How unlikely do you think it is that Evan is a vættr, too?”

“What? Evan?” Lacie’s gaze snaps up. “I mean, he’s your garden-variety asshole, thinks he’s Albert Einstein reborn in the flesh, but I don’t think he’s … killing people.” The last part comes out strained.

“You didn’t think I was killing people, either,” I quip, which was the wrong thing to say, because Lacie sighs and kneads her forehead.

“I’ve known Evan since he started last year. He might be colluding for access—I mean, I saw him there last night—but I don’t think he’s one of them.”

She hums, and I press the subject. “Chew on this a moment: What if Evan has found Dr. Sims’s body? We know they know he’s missing. And I’m sure someone else is going to talk to me about leaving that after-party.”

“Why would they even invite you, though?”

I shrug. “Maybe to gauge my threat level? Maybe because they’re fools?”

Lacie rips her gaze from mine and stares into the too-quiet darkness of the basement library. “What are we going to do?”

I knit my fingers together and lean forward. “What would you say to a more … direct approach to reconnaissance? What if I … continued to move through Classics the way I’ve been doing, instead of you simply looking through materials in the RBR?”

“Marcella…” Lacie warns.

“I wouldn’t kill anyone, not necessarily. Or not always,” I say, shrugging an elegant shoulder. “I simply would … seduce. Get some information. I can’t make any promises, but typically I only kill people who have it coming anyway. There’s no such thing as a bloodless war.”

“That’s so unethical.”