Page 62 of Thrall
She slipped into the station and made the usual turns down the hall, still faintly rehearsing what she would say. It occupied enough of her attention that she didn’t notice the sound of hushed conversation from Athena’s suite until she was at the door.
“Athena?” Lucy knocked first—then, thinking better of that, opened the door. “Are you…”
But as she entered the room, Athena wasn’t the first person she saw. That honor went to an older blond woman in a navy blazer-and-skirt set whose gaze was now firmly fixed on Lucy. It took Lucy a moment to remember her. Dr. Horne, the Vice Provost of Student Events and Activities.
“Good,” Dr. Horne said, in a high, clipped voice. “You’re here, too.”
“I’m…sorry,” Lucy said, glancing from Dr. Horne to Athena’s shuttered face. This was the woman who had come to ask Athena about her thesis, right? “I don’t think we’ve—”
“Let’s skip the formalities, I’ve got a very full schedule today,” Dr. Horne said. “And shut the door behind you. We need to have a serious talk about our friend with the cold hands.”
The name hit the room like a thunderclap. Lucy looked to Athena. The shock didn’t show on her face. But as always, her heartbeat betrayed her.
“Dr. Horne,” she said tightly. “Here I thought you didn’t listen to the show.”
“A tremendous waste of my time, by the way,” Dr. Horne said. “But Ivan insisted that I keep listening, just to keep an eye on you. I don’t know which of you is more obsessed with the other.”
Lucy stared, still not quite comprehending what was happening. Dr. Horne’s own heartbeat pattered irritably. Air whistled in and out of her mouth. She shifted her weight, and the sunlight through the blinds glinted through her bob. “You’re not a vampire,” Lucy said.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Dr. Horne snapped. “Of course I’m not a vampire, you idiot.”
It sank in, then. Laurentius did say the first time they met: that Vanya was being enabled to be at Rollins. Which meant that someone from the administration had to be involved.
Dr. Horne arranged her shoulders like an offended bird might ruffle its wings. “If we’re going to have a conversation, Ms. Barnes, I’m going to ask that you take a step back from your recording equipment.”
Athena’s heartbeat picked up, and her fists were faintly shaking at her sides. She didn’t look scared anymore—she looked deeply, profoundly furious. Lucy’s heightened senses felt it like a charge in the atmosphere.
“So that’s why you’ve always been so fixated on my show,” Athena said. “You don’t care whether I do a thesis. You’ve been trying to protect him this whole time.”
“I care about both, to be clear,” Dr. Horne said. “Your advisors think you have quite a bit of promise, you know. You’re going to reflect very well on Rollins one day. Why do you think I’ve asked Ivan to stay away from you?”
Lucy saw the moment that landed in Athena’s eyes. The answer to her burning question, the thing that scared her the most. It really wasn’t all her planning, or all her precautions that had been protecting her. It was someone who thought she would be useful to Rollins one day.
But it was beside the point. “Hehasn’tstayed away from her,” Lucy said. “He’s been tormenting her since the moment he saw her. He’s never stopped.”
Dr. Horne shifted her attention back to Lucy. And Lucy could see, in that moment, just how different they were in her eyes. Athena was a necessary annoyance. A bureaucratic hiccup. But Lucy was nothing.
“You must be aware by now how difficult it is to make a vampire do anything,” she said. “I’ve done my best, haven’t I? He has agreed to conditions to be here. He—limits his hunting on the Rollins campus. He likes to tease Ms. Barnes, that’s all. It’s his old-fashioned sense of humor. All she ever had to do was ignore him.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble,” Athena said, taking a carefully controlled breath. Lucy didn’t need Hiro’s gift for mind reading to guess that Athena had recognized an opportunity to gather information. “Surely your job would be easier if you didn’t have to cover for the disappearances of new students every year.”
Dr. Horne seemed to understand exactly what was happening. It didn’t stop her from answering. “Oh, sure,” she said. “There are a lot of things that would make my job easier. But do you have any idea of the state of our endowment? Do you know how difficult it to raise money when half of your student body is devoted to inventing new fields of study? No one’s going to fund a research project on the Eurocentric bias in the written history of the clarinet. It looks nice on the brochures, but it doesn’t keep the lights on. Our award-winning starving-artist alumni aren’t donating buildings. Our funds have to come from somewhere.”
Lucy’s stomach churned. Dr. Horne wasn’t there to hurt them. Lucy felt sure of that now. But she also didn’t seem to expect any consequences from telling them all of this. “He’sdonating to the school?”
“He’s got plenty to burn.” Dr. Horne flashed a queasy smile. “He’s old money, if you’ll pardon the joke.”
Athena clearly did not pardon the joke. “So he’s paying you. You’re literally taking bribes to look the other way while he hunts your students.”
Ms. Horne looked unmoved. “You pay tuition to be here. Is that a bribe? I gather he learns some philosophy, from time to time. It sounds as if you learned that yesterday evening as well.”
“If you know that we went to that party,” Lucy said, “then you know what happened there. He tried to murder our friend. Aren’t you supposed to be limiting his hunting?”
“As of now,” Dr. Horne said, “Mr. Volkov has not violated the rules I’ve set out for him. I suppose I never told him he couldn’t sample more than one student before making his choice.”
“Sample?” Athena spat out. “You’re disgusti—”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Dr. Horne continued. “Therewassomeone who may have violated a rule this week. And that was you, Ms. Barnes.”
