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“That was quite nice of you, Marcie,” Evan replies, his voice just a smidgen beyond goading. “Did you take her temperature, too? Bring her some pads and tampons?”

I can’t help it. “You would like to know, wouldn’t you?” The thought of Lacie’s lips against mine flashes through me and I push it away. I simply shrug again. “I left her at her door, if you’re so keen to know my whereabouts. But no, I didn’t see Dr. Sims after we said hello.”

“Bah, old fool. Probably hungover somewhere with another young thing.” Madame Kehane waves a hand. “John, be sure he hasn’t gotten into another situation, would you?”

“How the board acted was rank-and-file cowardice,” Dean Shea blusters. “You deny a man his appetites, and what else is left?”

Madame Kehane blows air through her nose, a little disgusted but mainly annoyed. “Really, John, a lawsuit for sleeping with an undergraduate is not an appetite.”

Relieved to no longer be under direct scrutiny, I mull this new information: if they’re all vættir, or even if a scant few are, they must have not returned to their graves in the day since the dance. Perhaps they were sated, went home to their unsuspecting wives and husbands? Lyle himself seemed quite disoriented. I think back to how poisoned I felt after draining Arjun. Maybe that’s something, too? If they knew about Sims, they would feel his death on their skin, in their bones. They must let on if that’s the case.

I can’t remember the last time I felt anxious, but here it is, bubbling up inside of me like a loosened wellspring. It’s not for me—not really. It’s because I’ve endangered Lacie. Even mentioning her name in this context as an out was a small but meaningful miscalculation, I realize—because now they’ll have reason to talk to her, too. And the more they hear our names connected, the likelier it is they’ll suspect her, too.

Shit.

Dr. Davies clears his throat, rubbing a hand over his stubble. He looks like he got beat up by a vodka tonic and has one foot in the grave, which is possibly true. “I didn’t see Sims at the after-party either,” he muses. “John, we should check his house. Make sure he’s okay.”

I cannot believe this university is giving wights housing. Does the depravity know no end? It’s likelier that they don’t know they’re hosting the undead, I remind myself. It just feels obvious. Don’t they use that church to sleep?

“I think we should give the man his privacy, Gerald.”

Davies isn’t done, though. “With Arjun’s death being so … lurid,” he begins, his voice a rough grumble, “we should be concerned about missing professors, don’t you think? Lyle is so new, I worry that bad actors”—he looks directly at me, and I can damn well see he’s thinking about how I ran off with Lacie—“might be taking things into their own hands.”

My eyes flick to Davies, then Dean Shea, fingertips running over the ruby amulet at my throat. I’ve never been so close to feeling accused. Usually it’s in and out, a quick feeding and perhaps a draining if I’m truly hungry. It wasn’t until I came to Preston that people started asking real questions, connecting murder to missing persons.

Madame Kehane nods. “If nothing else, John, we should do it for our own personal edification. The police needn’t get involved yet, but it’d be worth your time.”

“Alright, alright. Bunch of silly worried ninnies.” Dean Shea grumbles as he writes himself a note on his calendar. “I’ll pay him a visit after the meeting is over, but I warn you: I’m sure I’ll find him in a state of undress with a young lady half his age.” He belly laughs along with the other men in the room before he quiets them with a hand. Madame Kehane’s lips merely purse with annoyance, but I want to strangle them all. Here. Now.

Vættir or not, these men are disgusting.

Dean Shea positively glows. “Now, these fine master’s students under Madame Kehane’s wing were going to give us a rousing argument for their independent study on the overlap between Marie de France’s Lais and Chrétien de Troyes’s Le Chevalier de la Charette…”

As the actual academic meeting gets going, I let my mind glaze over. By the looks of those poor scared students, we’re going to be here for quite some time while the department deliberates.

Bunch of academic codgers.

Faculty hours make me twitchy with boredom, and the only antidote typically is feeding. But I’ve fed recently and I’m here strictly to learn whatever I can, so it’s simply a fresh hell to be mixing with these people post conversation about medieval French manuscripts, and I only have suspicions about which of these people are vættir.

I do wonder, however, where Lyle has gotten off to. Shouldn’t he have contacted me with information by now? There’s got to be something incriminating, or at least bizarre.

Goddess, do I have to do all the work myself?

Before I step outside into the pursuant faculty mixer, I shoot him a quick text.

Where are you? Any success getting into RBR?

When he doesn’t immediately answer, I slip out into the hall and nestle myself into a comfortable corner near a bust of Pythagoras. As I listen to Evan wax poetic about Sappho, I watch for telltale mannerisms. I have to say, they’re annoyingly smooth if they’re vættir. How terribly frustrating. Dean Shea’s off to check on Sims, so my timeline is running short. If I can’t make a start on identifying the problem, I’m actively endangering myself.

I put a pretty smile on my painted lips and flounce over to Evan and Quiggley, now going toe-to-toe about the literary veracity of Ezra Pound’s translation of Fragment 96.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. Evan, may I borrow you a moment?”

Quiggley looks at me shrewdly, his good humor run dry by his argument with a lowly adjunct. “I suppose, Mr. Miller, that the good women of this department are falling all over you. He’s a sensitive chap,” he says to me, squeezing Evan’s shoulder, “erotics and Sappho and all that.”

I offer them my teeth. “Evan is … well, there’s no one quite like him.”

Evan’s gaze is calculating, but then, so is mine. “Excuse me a moment, Dr. Quiggley.” He pulls me away, a hand notched around my left bicep. “What’s this about,” he says, his voice a whisper. The hall is starting to thin; people are heading into the night. Sleet’s begun to fall in the last hour and a half, and I have a missed call from Lacie, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to smooth things over with Evan—for now. He’s certainly not one of my favorite people, but on the level it’s better to be his friend, especially in the wake of Arjun’s untimely demise. If nothing else, he’s been gunning for Arjun’s spot and knows Dean Shea better than anyone.