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I think of my conversation with Shea and Arjun. “Unfortunately, I … uh, yelled at him. The dean, I mean.” My thoughts curdle. Keep an eye on her, won’t you? “And he asked Arjun to look in on me.”

Marcella closes her eyes briefly, her lips tightening, lashes flickering. When she opens them again, her words are honed and brittle. “First, you must apologize.”

“What? No.”

“Absolutely. Say it was a lapse in judgment. You’re sad about your friend’s suicide. You didn’t mean it.”

“I won’t simper!”

“And why not? You’ve simpered before. Why is this different?”

She’s right, but now the heat of real anger runs through me. “Fuck you.”

Marcella’s lips twist into a foxlike smile. “Now, now.”

“You sound just like him.”

“I am trying to protect you. You want to know who did this? You want justice? You have to play along. Let’s not have them suspect you right out of the gate.”

Gritting my teeth, I swallow the rest of my coffee and pull my laptop from my bag. “Fine.” I tap out an email.

DEAR DEAN SHEA,

PLEASE FORGIVE MY OUTBURST THIS MORNING. LAUREL AND I WERE CLOSE AND THAT WAS A VERY TOUGH MOMENT FOR ME. LET ME KNOW IF THERE’S SOMETHING I CAN DO TO HELP IN THE WAKE OF THIS TRAGEDY.

WITH CONTRITION,

LACIE

I spin the laptop to Marcella. She gives the email a once-over, then nods. “Good. Now, go act like Laurel never existed. Let’s meet after classes are done for the day.” She grabs my phone off the table and taps at it. “That’s my number. Text me if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

Even though I remind myself that this is purely because we’re stuck unraveling this mystery together—and she has said she doesn’t know me at all, doesn’t trust me a whit—seeing her name in my contacts still brings a flush to my face.

“Wow,” I say, breath hitching. “That was the easiest number I’ve ever scored from a beautiful woman.”

She flashes me a more genuine smile, though her eyes tighten. “Funny girl. Run along.”

I send the email, slip the laptop in my bag, and hurry away from her. As I do, I feel her eyes burning on my legs.

The back seams.

A laugh burbles deep in my chest as I sway away, pleased that I’ve done something to warrant her attentions. If I don’t think about Laurel, this could be a quick coffee date before class. If I pretend, Marcella could simply have given me her number after a fun night of drinking.

But when the spinning blue-and-red lights of the ambulance skim past me, the siren silent as the body inside, my laughter sticks hard as a fish bone in my throat.

Ducking my head, cheeks burning with shame that I could actually be enjoying something right now, I hurry toward the Classics department. The whole Catholic guilt of it all gets me. Who am I to enjoy anything? Errant sheep who knows too much; Eve who ate of the apple. Enjoying something?

There’s a twisting moment where I think the best thing I could do would be to fall on my knees on the chapel’s flagstones, to bow my head in reconciliation and receive absolution for the simple sin of being alive.

The crackle of a radio slices through the choking need to confess. Some police officers have stayed to disperse students, and the browning, wet grass is torn up by pitted tire marks, but it looks relatively normal.

Steadying myself, I walk past the central stairs, soles sliding on the morning damp and dead grass rime. As I pass, I crane my neck, but I can’t see any police tape cordoning off the fifth floor. I’ll have to take a look later, though how would I do that without drawing attention?

I press on for the time being, and sigh as I walk into my sleek, refurbished seminar room, the door all glass. Preston has outfitted the space with all the modern bells and whistles—brand-new smart board, a state-of-the-art projector and sound system—but if you ask me, the best is simply a chalkboard.

Settling at the top of the room, I put my bag down, grab my notes, and start to write on the board. Students were supposed to read Grettis saga and note the instances of the undead. And while my course isn’t specifically about the undead—it’s about works of Norse antiquity, a 101—I sneak in cool information when I can, try to bring it to meet pop culture.

It’s soothing to sink into a piece of knowledge I know so well. Something that won’t change, can’t, has been the same for thousands of years.