Page 74 of The Serpent’s Shadow

She blinked rapidly, mouth opening and closing. “Grim was arrested and accused of the murders, first.”

I paused, thinking that over.Okay. That makes sense. Berserker goes on a rampage after I’m ambushed and wounded? Checks out.

“He was released for lack of evidence, I think,” Dag added.

“What the hell does that mean—a ‘lack of evidence’?”

Her bony shoulders jumped. “It means we have no idea why he was released, Rav. It’s the boilerplate announcement the students got from Gothi Sigmund and Hersir Jorthyr.”

Ingvus Jorthyr. The Warden, who first threatened me with exile when I came here. And Sigmund, of course, the head honcho.

Someone was hiding something. I didn’t know who, and I didn’t know what, but I knew it sure as shit.

“Wait,” Dagny said, slapping her pen down on the counter. “Did you say you traveled with Magnus Feldraug?”

Lines creased my forehead. “What of it?”

Her cheeks drained and she looked away. “You’ll want to talk to him, Rav.”

“I—what?This is getting more and more confusing!”

“Just go, Ravinica!” She shooed me away, close to hysterics.

So, I went. Barreled out of Nottdeen, beelining west across the southern quadrant line straight toward Nottdan Quarter, the male initiate dormitory.

The two-story longhouse was the mirror image of Nottdeen, with a flat grassy roof on a peaked gable that had the Vikingrune emblem across its front.

I burst into the building, dramatically flinging the door on its hinges.

The RA at the front, a squat man I’d never met with a bright orange beard, lurched. “Thor’s balls, woman, do you blow in everywhere like a battering ram?”

“Where is Magnus Feldraug?” I demanded.

“Um, sleeping in his room, I think? Less he snuck out while I was taking a piss—”

“Which room?”

His face scrunched with embarrassment. “We can’t give out—”

“Which room,sir?!”

“Two-twelve! Fuckin’ bog-blood, if I lose my job over this . . .”

I was already sweeping past him, headed for the stairs. I stormed up to the landing and slammed my fist on the door once I got to the room.

“It’s open,” croaked a voice on the other side.

I breached the door with all the energy of Grim in one of his berserk rages. Standing in the frame, I readied to raise my voice at Magnus and demand to know what happened—why he and the others hadn’t told me about Astrid during our hours-long travels—

But I was stunned silent, shocked at his appearance.

The bloodrender was in bed, sheets pulled up to his neck. His face was drenched in sweat, a sickly pallor to his gaunt cheeks. He looked unbelievably unhealthy, like he was dying, with a slight tremor in his cheeks and beneath his half-lidded eyes.

With my stomach dropping, I hissed, “Valkyries take me, Magnus, what the fuck happened to you?”

I hurried into the room, closing the door behind me—throwing aside the nagging thought he might be contagious, whatever this was.

I didn’t care. My stun was too great, my fear too worrisome, to care if he got me sick.

---