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Marcella only stares at me, one eyebrow raised.

“That’s my friend,” I whine, my throat sticking with sudden tears. “She—she didn’t answer me, and then—”

My brain stops making sense, thoughts crashing and tumbling together. Laurel, sitting in on my seminars. Catching a picnic lunch on Craven Quad. Late-night texts during exam season. And then nothing, nothing, nothing.

Only this: blood and death and she’s gone forever.

I bury my face in my hands, shaking with sobs that wring my bones so hard they feel like they may crack.

Marcella places a hand on my back, cool and soft. She eases me to standing, then presses an icy palm to my cheek, swiping a tear away with her thumb. “You are in shock. Grieving. I am sorry.” Both of her hands settle on either side of my face and she holds mine close to hers, her eyes blazing. “But I need you to think now. Not react.”

Swallowing hard, tears leaking down my face, I nod. My knees shudder beneath me. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Marcella nods, still holding my face in her hands. “I’m going to ask you what you saw.”

I nod. “She—her neck. It’s—mangled. But it isn’t bloody. The blood is coming—was—from her head. Someone hit her head. C-clobbered it.”

Marcella nods. “You are an expert in Nordic studies. Does this remind you of anything?”

My brain is full of a strange screeching, ears ringing high and fine. Sweat pours down the column of my throat, trickles down my spine. “Why are you asking me that? What does that have to do with anything?”

Her nails sharpen against my skin and I close my eyes to avoid her searching gaze. “Just answer me.”

“I— In legends, there were—” I pause, my eyes opening again. Marcella is still staring directly at me, and my heart shudders. We’re close enough to kiss. She looks perfect here, against the backdrop of blood and torn flesh. Like she belongs in this strange tableau of violence.

Marcella prods, “Go on, Lacie.”

I take a shattered breath, recalling my many years of study. “In legends, there are … things. Literally just translated as ‘things,’ but the word was almost always used in reference to the spirit world.” I take a sip of air into my lungs. It’s not enough. My brain is still nettled, synapses firing at triple speed. “Wights. They were, well, they were monsters. Like ghosts, but physical. Sometimes, they were deadly. Some would—drag the living into their barrows. Eat them. Suck their blood, break their bones to dust, and—” My words stick hard inside me, sharp as a fishbone. “C-can I look at her again?”

“Are you sure you want to?” It isn’t unkind, the way she asks.

I nod. Good, yes, this gives me something to do. This is a task; I can handle a task. “There’ll be marks if it’s a wight—” Killing. But I can’t say the word. I can’t.

Marcella slowly releases me, trailing her fingers down my arm and taking my hand. I squeeze her palm against mine as I kneel next to Laurel’s body, tentatively brushing her matted hair away. It’s clotted with drying blood. I can’t—won’t—touch her, not her body, the rest of her, whatever is left. She’s giving off a feral, rotting scent, and I force myself to stay calm as I whip a hand across my face to cover my nose. If I can just focus, I can drown my rising nausea.

After all, I have practice.

I sharpen my gaze to Laurel’s neck. Those are bites. But the teeth that harmed her are in no way human. It’s as if minute daggers carved the flesh from her neck, pulled the sinew away from her spine. Her jugular is torn ragged, a sucked-on straw.

Her femurs are broken; one tents her flesh, a mess of burst veins and blackening capillaries; the other has torn entirely through her thigh. It’s like—whatever got her, they struck her, crumpled her poor body into a ball, and then sucked her dry with those needle teeth.

“There’s no way a person did this.”

I cannot believe what I’m saying. But this is something else. Something I have only read about, studied into the wee hours when the content of the stories would ice me through to the bone. Things I could move on from when the sun rose. They weren’t real. They were myths, folklore.

“Good. I did not think so, either.” Marcella nods and turns to the wall, fingers strumming her chin. “I took her spot in the program. I even took her room.”

I stare at Marcella, rising shakily to my feet again. I can’t bring myself to look at Laurel. Besides, that mess on the floor isn’t her any longer. That’s a hunk of used-up flesh, a destroyed body.

“What—what are you saying?”

“I am impressed with your assessment so far.” Marcella turns the high beam of her gaze on me, and I fall back against the wall. “Think harder. Go further.”

Something inside me snaps. Why is she talking to me like this? As though she’s an instructor and I’m her pupil? “Just say what the fuck you mean to!”

Marcella only smiles at me, all teeth. “In my experience, men in power love to point the finger at intimidating women.”

“But—there’s no way this is human. You heard me, didn’t you?”