Dawnkeepers by Jessica Andersen

with her: He’d have Red-Boar reverse the makol spell if Anna agreed to rejoin the Nightkeepers, at least during the ceremonial days.

    Now, she knew, he regretted having made the deal, and considered Lucius a liability. The younger man had undergone the transition spell once already, and his natural inclinations had called upon the Banol Kax rather than the gods—which perplexed the hell out of Anna, because Lucius didn’t have much in the way of a dark side, but still, it’d happened. And because it had happened once, she knew Strike was worried that it would happen again.

    Basically, Lucius was living on her good graces, and the knowledge weighed, especially given the political crap going on in the art history department these days. The department head, Desiree Soo, had never been warm or fuzzy, but she’d grown increasingly critical over the past half year, particularly when it came to the Mayan studies department. Anna couldn’t prove it, but she was pretty sure Desiree had chased off her last intern, Neenee, who’d taken off around Christmas, leaving only a terse e-mail of nonexplanation. Since then, Anna’s lab had had reimbursement requests kicked back from admin over tiny quibbles, room assignments were constantly getting screwed up, and Anna had found herself loaded down with intro-level lectures that were usually handed straight to the TAs. And then there was Lucius’s thesis defense.

    Desiree had been acting professionally enough back when Lucius had asked her to chair his thesis committee. Given the way she’d been behaving lately, though, Anna could pretty much guarantee there was going to be a problem.

    Sighing, feeling a hundred years old rather than her own thirty-nine, Anna said, “Seriously. I’ve gotta go.”

    “I’ll see you tomorrow. Call Jox with your flight info and he’ll meet you at the airport.”

    “Will do.” She hung up and headed for the dragon’s lair.

    Okay, so it wasn’t literally Desiree’s lair—they were meeting in the conference room across the hall from the department head’s office—but Anna had the distinct feeling she was headed into enemy territory as she stepped through the doors. She was the last one in, which meant the entire committee was arranged on one side of the conference table, all facing a slump-shouldered Lucius.

    Desiree was seated in the center of the long side of the conference table, flanked on either side by the lower-ranking committee members. She almost always wore long-sleeved, high-collared shirts in jewel tones that enhanced the red highlights in her hair, accessorizing the outfits with a heavy silver cuff on her right wrist. The cuff was embossed with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Anna didn’t remember ever seeing her without it. Desiree was long and lean and gorgeous, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and shoulder-length hair that fell pin-straight from an off-center widow’s peak. Her eyes were an unusually pale hazel that might’ve looked dreamy on another woman, but somehow managed to look vaguely reptilian in her face.

    Or maybe Anna was projecting on that one. As far as she was concerned, the woman was a bitch, pure and simple.

    The other committee members included a stout, bearded Greek mythology expert named—ironically—Thor; a cheerful, round-cheeked classics professor named Holly; and a gaunt, aged relic of an art historian whom everyone called Dr. Young. Anna was pretty sure that wasn’t his name, more of a joke that’d stuck. The committee members acknowledged Anna when she came through the door, with nods from the two men, a little wave from Holly. Desiree made a mean little moue.

    Lucius, on the other hand, whipped around in his chair and gave her a where the hell have you been? look liberally dosed with nerves.

    He was tall and skinny, and typically moved with an awkward sort of grace. Now, though, sitting folded into the conference room chair, he looked pointy and angular, like a praying mantis that