Chapter Eleven

That night, a light thud reached through the edges of my dreams. Wisps of my dorm room blinked into focus, but sleep clung to me and dragged me back down. Then it came again. Thud.

And a whispered voice.

"He's here."

My eyes snapped open. Torchlight danced crazy shadows over the ceiling and walls, making the room come alive with movement when there shouldn't be any. A smell like burning wood stung my nose. I turned toward Seph's bed. Empty except for Nebbles, her reflective green eyes aimed at the door. Seph stood facing it, her head jerking this way and that as if trying to catch sight of a firefly. She held her arms up in front of her, bent at the elbow, and kept walking into the door.

Thud. Thud.

I untangled myself from my blankets and placed my bare feet on the ground. Pain sliced up through flesh and bone, and I jerked back with a loud hiss. The floor was freezing cold, so cold it burned. Cramps twisted through my foot muscles and brought tears to my eyes with how much they hurt. Like the insides of my feet were coiling over every single nerve. I grabbed them tightly, pulling them closer to me on the bed to warm and massage the cramps from them.

"Hush now,” she whispered. “It will all be over soon."

Alarms blared inside my skull. What was she talking about? "Seph. No."

It was then that I realized what she was doing. Not just walking into the door but…melting it. That was what I smelled. A hole the size of a fist had been singed through it, right where I’d drawn another protection symbol earlier in the week. She was burning the door somehow while the rest of the room froze into a chunk of ice. She wasn't wearing shoes, just a thin red nightgown that fluttered around her ankles. Her breath caught in the air in front of her, and she shivered uncontrollably despite the melting door.

"He's here. I have to go get it to give it to him. He'll be so proud of me." With the protection symbol now missing a large chunk, she opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

"No, come back here," I called after her. "Seph!"

Nebbles crouched down on the bed, the hair on her back bristling.

I massaged my feet harder, but it still felt like my toes had corkscrewed together. There was no more time to deal with them. My boots lay on top of my trunk, which sat impossibly far away from the foot of my bed. Too far. Like someone had moved it.

The thought sucked the air from my lungs. Had Seph done that too? Or had someone been in here with us to rouse Seph from her tea-induced sleep? I spotted the elixir on top of my desk. Had someone used it on her? From this distance, I couldn't be sure.

Ignoring the shooting pains in my feet, I stretched from the safety of my bed to the trunk for my boots. It was just out of reach, set there on purpose. Gritting my teeth, I stretched farther, finally setting one cramped foot down on the floor, which was now blanketed in frost. Invisible icicles shoved up through my flesh. I cried out, the pain so bad that inky blotches crowded into my vision.

No, I couldn't pass out. I had to get to Seph before she went too far.

I grabbed for my boots and yanked myself back onto my bed, gasping and shivering. The tears on my cheeks turned hard and cracked, the sharp edges stabbing into my skin. Everything was freezing. I had to get out of here, find Seph, and go to the headmistress.

Wincing, I pushed my hurt feet into my boots and stood. That was better. No pain other than what I already felt. But when I lifted my foot to take a step, I couldn't. My boots had already frozen to the floor. Damn it, this was a brilliant spell, meant to slow me down so Seph would have a massive head start. I had no idea what a counter-spell would even look like.

Wait, though. Maybe I did. A healing spell could work. A spell meant for people, not floors, but I'd try anything.

I knelt where I stood and hovered my fingertips over the floor. “Bind thee in health, Protect mind and soul too, Boost vigor and happiness, Make it all renew.”

Gray sparks zipped from my fingers and floated over the frost toward the door. I just needed a pathway out, but the sparks hung there, neither melting nor moving much like they were unsure what to do.

Great plan.

“Bind thee in health, Protect mind and soul too, Boost vigor and happiness, Make it all renew.” This time, I touched my boots, refusing to give up yet. The sparks clung to my boots like a dusting of gray stars, and then a powerful burst of warmth seeped into my bones. When I found I could take a step, and then another, I shot out of the room after Seph, grabbing my cloak from the bedpost along the way.

“Stay right there, Nebbles,” I called.

As I suspected, the hallway was deserted, so I poured on speed toward the stairway door. Complete silence met me outside of it, not even the slightest slap of bare feet. She'd raced out the door and likely had a huge lead on me by now.

I started down the steps, my ears burning for any sound. Seph had said, "He's here." Ryze? Where? Given the rising prickle up my back, the dark sense of dread sliding into my awareness, my imagination placed him right behind me. But he wasn't. No one was.

When I got to the front doors of the school, I found them closed and still locked. Last time this had happened, she'd left them wide open, and I'd closed them. I turned to the double doors opposite me and the classrooms that lay beyond. The floor and walls crawled with shadows, and the prickling sensation at my nape grew more intense by the second.

He's here.

I'd never been afraid of the dark, had never really thought much about it. But now, facing the unknown while searching alone through a creepy school, I was terrified. My jaw ached at how tightly I clenched it. My muscles pinched together so much it took every effort to peel myself away from the door and cross the entryway.

Grasping the handle of the classroom hallway door, I swallowed down my heart and then pulled the door open. A sliver of moonlight shined through the stained-glass dome above. It was better than being completely blind, and soon, I found the gym—with the door opened wide.

"Seph," I whispered, hardly an exhale.

A faint scratching sounded from inside the darkness. And voices. Two of them, echoing from the far wall. 

I stopped to listen and bent to pull my dagger from my boot, just in case.

"A little farther, a little more." That was Seph, her voice trembling. "I know I can do it."

"Patience," another voice said, deeper, that swept goose bumps all over me.

That wasn’t Ramsey. That wasn't anyone I knew. Ryze? If so, I was in way over my head.

Panic squeezed through the darkness, pressed between my ribs, and shallowed my breaths. But I had to put a stop to this. There was no time to call for help, and besides, I couldn’t leave Seph.

I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood. Gathering up every ounce of courage, I held up my hand to bring light—when a circle of fire suddenly engulfed the far wall of the gym. And in the middle of it stood a red door that had never been there before. 

Seph stood silhouetted in front of it. Seph and no one else.

She glowed in the firelight, her red nightgown billowing behind her. She was already crossing toward the door and reaching toward the knob as flames licked all around her, beckoning her closer. 

"Seph, stop!" I sprinted toward her, panic slamming a hole through my chest.

She was going to burn herself if she got any closer, and she might not even care.

As I ran, I flicked my gaze to the dark corners of the gym, but my main focus was her.

She stepped closer, reaching, reaching. The smell of burning skin tainted the air, and I wretched but didn't slow. The flames pulled her closer like fingers, scalding the top of her bald head and burning her nightgown so it hung from one shoulder.

“No!” I was almost there, also reaching, the fiery heat blasting over my cheeks to the tips of my ears. Too much closer, and it would be my flesh burning to a crisp along with hers.

I caught her by the back of her nightgown and yanked.

She fought like a rabid dog against me, but I dug in my heels and kept pulling with all my might. With another heave, I hauled her out of the fire's reach. Instantly, it blinked out without so much as a puff of smoke, crowding the room with inky darkness and roaring silence yet again.

Then Seph let out an agonized wail, so loud and piercing and haunted that it split open my heart. On instinct, I put my hand to her shoulder to soothe her, and melted, sticky flesh oozed between my fingers.

Oh. Gods.

My stomach revolted, but before I could focus on throwing up, she fainted in my arms. Gods, please only a faint. I couldn’t handle anything beyond that. Not now. Not ever. Not with anyone else I cared about, or it would break me even more.

Balancing her weight carefully, I laid her down on the floor. "Bind thee in health. Protect mind and soul too. Boost vigor and happiness. Make it all renew."

A web of gray light formed over her skin, and I had to look away from the damage. A sob crawled up my throat, bringing the threat of bile, but I forced both back down. She hardly looked like the same Seph I knew in the faint light of my magic, and I honestly had no idea if I could heal her.

A sound came from the hallway behind me—a footstep followed by the click of the door closing on us. Sealing us in.

I whipped my head around, sealing my lips tight to silence my breaths. My heartbeat echoed to every corner of my body. Had someone come in? Or had someone gone out? The healing glow around Seph was fading, so I snapped my fingers to spark a light. Hardly enough to see a foot in front of me, but plenty to guide someone toward us.

We had to get out of here.

I turned back to Seph to see that my healing had worked pretty well, but patches of shiny, angry flesh still blotted her otherwise flawless ebony skin. As gently as I could, I grabbed the back of her nightgown at her neck and dragged her across the floor, my other arm outstretched to light the darkness. My muscles shook with the effort. This would take forever, but I didn't exactly have a choice.

The darkness beyond the faint glow in my palm swarmed with movement all around us. I tried fueling more magic into it, but after the big healing spell I'd just done, I was spent.

A puff of air gusted past the side of my cheek like an exhale. I whipped around but saw no one there.

"Who's there?" I demanded, my voice much harder than I felt. The rest of me trembled violently.

I had very little magic left in my reserves, and we were not alone. I could feel the presence as real as the darkness itself, creeping closer, just out of reach of the light. Every one of my steps plucked at my nerves relentlessly, but I had no idea if I was headed in the right direction toward the door. The radius I could see through all looked the same, and I had the sudden terrifying thought of wandering the gym all night looking for the exit.

Because my light was shrinking. The dying flame brought the darkness closer and choked it down my throat. I suddenly couldn't breathe and had to stop, readjust my grip on Seph, and center myself enough to focus. Focus on getting us out.

I started up again, seeming to move even slower than I had been. My muscles ached with the effort to drag Seph along, and my boots kept catching on the hem of my cloak, which dragged on the ground from the extra weight. 

Seph jerked.

Or something jerked her.

My grip slipped, but I caught her again, barely. Alarm spiked the hairs on my neck. I swung my light around her to search the darkness again, my eyes feeling so wide they could eclipse my head. My heart drummed between my ears, a sharp, uneven sound like the slice of my breaths. 

My light died even more.

"You don’t get to have her," I said, my voice warbling. "I won't let you. Do you hear me?"

I gritted my teeth against the silence and kept going. Soon, I found a wall but no door, so I followed the length of it until there, finally, stood the door. Pushing with my back, I opened it and dragged Seph out into the hallway. Since it was lit faintly by moonlight through the glass ceiling, I huffed out the spark in my palm—and then froze.

Every door in the hallway stood open. On the second floor too. They hadn't before. I was sure of it. As the gym door swung shut, so did they with loud slams that reverberated down the hallway and rattled my teeth together. 

I yelped, every muscle inside me locked tight. 

Seph laughed, so dark and terrifying and wrong. The noise skittered a thousand little legs up and down my back. She'd never laughed like that before, and oh gods, I dropped her. Right there on the floor because everything inside me begged to get away from that sound. She was still unconscious, though, and lay there perfectly still. 

How had that happened? Possession? Or was she still sleepwalking? I dropped to my knees next to her and pulled down her eyelids. Her eyes had rolled up to the back of her head, but from what I could see, there was no red ring around them. Not possession, then.

Screw this. I needed to get her awake. I pulled her farther away from the gym door and then slapped her face gently enough not to hurt the sensitive-looking flesh I hadn't healed. Some of her tattoos had warped and curled, giving her face a monstrous appearance when it had no right to be. I would fix her. I would fix all of this. Somehow.

"Seph, hey. I need you to wake up. Hey, talk to me. You in there?"

The moonlit glass ceiling threw shimmering red and black diamonds and swirls all over her burned nightgown, and gradually, they began to move as she drew in breath after ragged breath. Her eyelids fluttered. She was starting to come around.

"Hey, it's me,” I said. “Dawn. Your roomie?"

Her eyes snapped open. No red. Just raw, unbridled panic.

She shot to her feet and backed away from me, searching her surroundings and clutching her hands over her chest. Then her focus settled on the door of the gym, and a full-body tremor wracked through her.

"It wasn't…" She nearly tripped over her feet to fling herself away from me. "It wasn't a dream…was it?"

She must've seen the truth clearly written all over my face because the front of her nightgown was soaked, and trickles ran down her legs to collect in a puddle at her feet. She hung her head and sobbed.

Oh gods. My heart ripped up the middle for her and clogged my throat with too many emotions. I ignored the pungent odor of urine, sidestepping it as I crossed toward her, and wrapped her up in a hug.

Was this what Leo had gone through before his death? What he felt like? He must've remembered he was sleepwalking, or otherwise he wouldn't have come here to get help. If he'd been this terrified, why hadn't he told me? I hated to think he'd suffered at all before his murder. Just as I hated that Seph was suffering too.

Since I knew how cleansing tears could be for the soul, I let her cry for as long as she needed to and then led her out of the hallway and into the entryway. Still quiet. Still empty as far as I could tell, which was strange. Had none of the staff heard Seph's screams or all the doors slamming? Any students secretly wandering after the dark hour? Apparently not, or they did but didn't care, especially about the two freshmen who'd earned the hatred of almost half the school.

Useless cowards, every last one.

"I was so scared, I peed myself, Dawn," Seph muttered, her head hung in shame.

"It's fine." I gripped her hand and squeezed. "Really, it is. You’ll get no judgement from me. We'll stop at our dorm and then go find the headmistress, okay?"

"I haven't done that since I was five.” She released a long, shuddering breath as we began up the stairs. “I don't belong here. I'm not cut out for necromancy if my own body can't even act like an adult. I should just go, start a new life, pretend I'm someone else."

"None of this is your fault. You were sleepwalking. That's hardly enough reason to quit school," I assured her.

The freshmen door burst open, making us both jump, and there stood Vickie, her ice-blue eyes narrowing with accusation as soon as she saw us. "Going somewhere?"

I growled under my breath. Just what we needed. "To the headmistress. Have you seen her?"

"You’re sneaking around after the dark hour." She took a step closer. The torchlight in the wall sconce next to her danced brilliantly over her red hair, and I had the sudden urge to slam my eyes closed. I was done with fire.

“So are you,” I said.

“Careful, Dawn,” Seph whispered behind me, still trembling from the first part of this horrific night.

“Oh.” Vickie covered her nose. "What is that godawful smell?"

We stopped, and I angled my body in front of Seph’s so Vickie couldn't see the wetness staining her nightgown. "The headmistress, Vickie. Where is she?"

"How would I know?" She held the door and nodded for us to go through. "Now, be good little sheeple and go back to your room." 

"Were you spying on us? Is that why you were down our hall?” I asked, climbing toward her. Did she have something to do with Seph sleepwalking?

Smirking, she shook her head. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Answer the question.” I shouted so loud the walls shook and the door Vickie held slammed shut, pushing her to the side.

Her eyes flashed as she drew closer. I stood my ground, staring her down, even when her lips peeled back in an angry grimace. Magic crackled the air between us, thick and slimy and with a smell like curdled milk.

"I don’t have to do anything you say." She shot her hand out and grasped my neck. The ground disappeared from under my feet as she lifted me higher, squeezing, squeezing so tight I couldn’t even drag in a sliver of air.

"Put her down." Seph charged, but before she'd even made it half a step, Vickie shoved her free hand toward her. She didn't make contact with Seph. She didn’t have to.

“Obrigesunt.” A burst of red petrification magic surged from her palm and tumbled Seph down the stone staircase.

All the way down.

Then dead silence.

Oh, gods no.

I wanted to call her name but couldn't. I wanted to turn my head and look but couldn't.

I kicked out at the banister behind me, seeking purchase, but my boots found it in front of me. Vickie had lifted me over the banister, and now, there was no longer anything between me and the flickering void below. And she held me above it, my life very literally in her hand.

I swung my legs out farther, clawed at her hand, lashed out at her fiery red hair. My fingers grabbed hold and plucked several curls out.

“Damn you, freshman,” she hissed.

My lungs burned and heaved. Darkness edged into my vision, narrowing my whole world onto Vickie's twisted grin. Panic ripped up my throat and held there, ticking with my last futile attempts at breathing.

"The headmistress and most of the professors think they found Professor Wadluck far away from here,” she said. “So, I really don't think anyone will care if there are two fewer freshmen on Monday morning. Do you?" 

She loosened her grip slightly. Enough to jolt me with the terror of being dropped. Enough to drag in a sharp breath so her words and their meaning would stick.

She was going to kill me.