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She stomps away, ramming two fists against the wall. The plaster splinters and cracks. “No! Of course not!”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like you just were hungry and lied to me and didn’t want to have to face the consequences. Again.”

She spins to me, her face a terrible mask of anger, her teeth bared and lengthened, her eyes an immolation.

“Do you know what it’s like to be alive for hundreds of years and have to always cover your tracks? Keep moving on, all the time? Never being sure of who you are and what you’re worth? I worked a glamour on Arjun and he tried to move in too fast. It was an accident, but it worked to throw the rest of the vættir off our scent. I’ve deliberately made tonight’s and Sims’s killing different because I am worried about you.”

I snort something like a laugh. “Do you know how dangerous this is, Marcella? You killed Dean Shea’s star. The man—the thing—whatever, he’s too smart to be misled! He’s been doing this for too long, and if he’s a vættr, too, and whether he’s in charge or not, he’s not going to take it lying down. God! It’ll be linked to me. To you.”

It isn’t so much that the draugr thing bothers me about her. It isn’t even, necessarily, that bodies are piling up at Preston and we still don’t truly know how everything is connected. And really, a little voice whispers, it’s not the lying, either.

It’s that, goddamn it, I don’t understand what I want from her: I’m drawn to her and I’m repulsed by her.

“If they haven’t figured it out yet, they won’t.” Marcella waves a hand, pretending to be unconcerned. But there’s a twitch in her features, a subtle vibration in her words belying her confidence. “Again, I cover my tracks well.”

I scoff, tugging at the edge of my plaid skirt to hide the shaking of my hands. “Marcella, whether or not you covered your tracks, you only confused the situation, and probably not for long. They’ll be looking for anyone—anything—that could lead them to the answers.” Rubbing my temples, I collapse onto her couch, knees jellied. “Why did you do this? Why would you incite more violence? They’ll try to kill you! Or me! Or Evan!”

“Oh, no, not Evan,” Marcella drawls.

“Stop. Think about what they just did to Lyle! How long do you think it’ll take for them to realize—” I swallow my words. “Marcella,” I say carefully, “how did you find out that they have suspicions?”

Marcella only looks at me, her icy gaze piercing. I do some quick calendar math. It’s a Tuesday. Tuesday means … faculty hours. I groan. “Fuck.”

“Lacie, I’m just taking advantage of the normal routes of—”

“You found out that they were missing us and immediately killed one of the visiting professors?” I wish this transparency meant I could get the hell out of this situation, never speak to Marcella again. My insides are rioting, my stomach twisted back on itself. I can’t simply walk away from this. I care about her too much.

Goddamn it.

Marcella’s teeth catch her lower lip. “I … Look, I’ve never been in this position before. I’m not used to this many … shenanigans. When I died, there were no emails. There weren’t even many draugur at all,” she admits, her gaze skimming to her window. Her lips are tight, her eyes pained and pinched. Wind blows thick flakes past the panes, rattling them in their loose, rotting wood. “I took care of myself and kept on living. I did what I always had to do to survive. If it was just me, I would have realized there were vættir and left. I don’t know, gone to Harvard. Whatever.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Marcella stalks to the couch. “Are you going to make me say it?”

I roll my eyes at her, enjoying this coy role reversal as I soften—though admittedly only slightly. “Frankly, I think I deserve it after everything.”

Her lips press into a hard line. “I met you, and everything changed,” she whispers, her voice a chartreuse coil of smoke. “I didn’t want to leave. You fascinated me from the moment I met you, lamb. Can you blame me for scrabbling to stay?”

My cheeks warm. For a moment, the lives we lost go into foggy focus. For a single second, I can believe this is just an argument between two mortal people as they navigate impossible academic careers while trying desperately to find love. “I can. Because it’s stupid, Marcella. Because I’m a human being, and I have a single life to live. I can blame you for doing something so rash that it might risk that single chance I have. I wanted to fly under the radar, get my degree, and become … something else. Better than what I am, than the baggage I carry around with me all the time.”

Her hand curls into my hair and I lean into her touch. I can’t tell if it’s the glamour, but at this moment, I’m clamoring for comfort.

“Do you want to know what I think?” she murmurs.

“What?”

“I think you secretly don’t want to fly under the radar. I think you want to fly. I think you want to be better than those fucking men steeped in the rot of their own nepotism. I think you’re angry and that deep down you have a banked fire burning inside of you. All you have to do is let it out. Who cares if I killed another of their ilk, really? What if we just killed them all?” Her smile turns gleaming and toothsome, crazed again. “What if we just took this all the way? Decimated the department. You told me that you were okay with going on the offensive—so let’s do it.”

I pull from her touch, the warmth in me going frigid again. “I wanted to play by the rules.”

“Come now, Lacie. The rules don’t exist. These men made them up.”

I stand and we’re eye to eye across the back of the couch, neither giving an inch. She’s right. I am angry. “That’s life.”

Her head flies back with a humorless laugh. “I’ve lived long enough to know it doesn’t have to be.”

Growling, I turn from her. I fling my hands wide. “So, what, what do you want to do now? You’ve poked the bear, you’ve made another kill, and you’re going to dump the body in the church or whatever—now what? And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you lied to me about Arjun, that you let me believe a vaettr killed him, too.” Shaking my head, I look back to her, taking in the tugged-down corners of her lips. “Marcella, what makes you better than them?”