Chapter 23 – — Headmaster Ashmoor, Private Notes #4
I notice the clean chemical smell of a place that has been scrubbed.
“Okay,” Lux whispers, “I’ll keep watch and signal you if anyone’s coming.”
“What signal?”
“I’ll tap the door twice.”
“Got it.”
Ellavee and I slip inside.
The morgue is small for a clinic this size. Stone walls, stone floor, a central examination table with a drain beneath it, and a bank of drawers set into the far wall. Twelve of them, each with a small card in a brass holder at the end.
We start reading the cards.
“Vaturi, S.” Ellavee has already found it. Middle row, third from the left.
She pulls the drawer, and it slides out on smooth runners. Senna comes with it.
She’s under a sheet pulled to her collarbones. Her hair has been arranged flat against her scalp, the lavender streak still visible. Her face is… I’m not ready. I thought I was ready.
“Maelis,” Ellavee says.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
I recall months of Professor Rowan’s voice in my head and Professor Cane’s lectures about vampiric physiology. Senna is a blood year, a vampire, and I am a healer. I am a bone year who is not supposed to be in this room, but I am a healer.
“Pallor’s consistent with exsanguination,” I say quietly. “No signs of livor mortis, consistent with extreme blood loss before death.”
“Her fangs are retracted,” Ellavee murmurs. “That fits too. Vampires retract on death. The body knew it was dying.”
“Good.”
“Not good.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.”
We work our way down. Neck first, because that’s the obvious place. There’s nothing. Not a mark. Her throat is clean.
“That’s strange,” I say.
“I know.”
“You’d expect the neck.”
I move down her collarbones. Shoulders. Chest under the sheet, which Ellavee lifts only enough for me to look and not enough for me to feel like I’m violating her. Nothing. We check the inside of her elbows, the soft skin there where a careless drinker would go. Clean.
“Wrists,” Ellavee says.
We turn her left hand.
Nothing.
We turn her right.
There are two puncture marks on the underside of her right wrist. They are almost too clean, perfectly spaced, perfectly round, the kind of wound I have seen in a textbook diagram. There is no tearing, no bruising pattern suggesting a struggle. The skin around the punctures is smooth and unmarked.
I stand and look at them for a long moment.
“Maelis.”
“Hold on.”
Ellavee waits.
“Two things,” I say finally. “Those are fang marks. They’re the right spacing, the right depth, and the angle’s consistent with a downward bite. That’s a vampire.”
“Okay.”
“Two. They are too clean.”
“What do you mean?”
“Malric bit me.” I swallow. “It was not like that. It was messy. The marks on my throat look like I was in a fight or something.” I gesture at Senna’s wrist. “This is careful and clean, like it was done with a tool or whoever did this took their time.”
“So?”
“I don’t know what it means. Malric could have been careful. Vampires can be careful. He doesn’t strike me as careful when he drinks, but he could have been.”
“Or it wasn’t him.”
“Or it wasn’t him.”
“Or he wanted us to think it wasn’t him.”
“Or that.”
Two taps on the door.
Both of us freeze.
One pair of footsteps in the corridor fade away.
I look back at the wrist.
“Ellavee, do we tell someone?”
She thinks for a long moment. “No.”
“No?”
“The headmaster’s investigating. Bale, probably.
Cane. Whoever else. If we tell a professor we were in here, we’re dead.
If we tell a professor someone else’s theory, they’ll ask where we got it.
And if whoever did this is paying attention to who’s paying attention to them, we made ourselves into targets. ”
“Lux will ask her dad.”
“Lux asking her dad is different. That’s a girl asking her father a question about school safety. Anyone can do that.”
“Right.”
“But we keep an eye on Malric.”
“Oh, I’m keeping an eye on Malric.”
“We both are.”
We slide the drawer closed. I place my hand on the front of it for a second longer than I need to.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her quietly. “I’m going to find out.”
Ellavee waits, and when I turn away from the drawer, she is already moving toward the door.
Lux is in the corridor with her back pressed against the wall and the keyring tucked against her stomach. Her eyes go wide when we come out.
“Well?”
“Vampire,” Ellavee says.
“Shit,” Lux murmurs.
“But the marks are weird. Too clean. Could be him, might not be him.” I say.
“Brilliant. That is so helpful. I love when we find out nothing,” Lux sighs.
“We found out it was most likely a vampire.” Ellavee says.
“Most likely and confirming are different. Sounds like we know exactly what we knew before coming down here.”
We lock the door behind us. Lux drops the ring back in the drawer where she found it.
Ellavee closes the cabinet. None of us speaks as we climb the stairs back up and slip out through the side door we came in, and by the time we’re outside again, the snow is coming down in large flakes, fat and slow.
The cold has gone past hurting into something else.
“Bed,” Lux says eventually.
“Bed,” Ellavee agrees.
“Bed,” I say.