Chapter Five

Searing hot rage boiled through me and clawed up my throat to choke me. My brother’s killer crowded out everything else with his sheer size and the intensity that radiated off of him in waves. I made a mad grab for the dagger in my boot—or tried to—but the weight of him pressing against my whole body severely limited my movements.

"Do it, then," I ground out, but my voice sounded like tea leaves spilling to the floor.

The mad grin on his face slid into a grimace. "You. Why are you here?" He backed off and dropped his knife to his side. His stormy gray eyes swept over my face, his face tight with distrust.

I blinked, unable to comprehend anything except my blistering fury for several precious seconds. Then the realization poured in—I was still alive. He hadn't killed me. He wasn't looking at me like he knew me even though we'd stared at each other before with Leo's life reaching bloody fingers toward my boots.

"You know who I am," I hissed.

"Yeah. A freshman." He took a scabbard from his pocket, secured his knife, and then stuck it back in his pocket, his gaze dismissive like I was no longer a threat. 

But I tracked all his movements, my gut clenched, waiting. Waiting for that killing slash. Waiting for my chance to grab my own knife. Yet while everything inside me was coiled to spring, he stood loose, relaxed, like this kind of thing happened every day.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Dawn Cleohold."

No sign of recognition crossed his face. Maybe he hadn't known my brother when he killed him though.

He folded his hands in front of him and regarded me coolly. "And what are you doing here, Dawn? The girls' dorms are on the other side."

Male voices sounded down below, as well as a herd of footsteps. I'd lost my chance since any minute they could be upon us. So, if I wasn't here to kill him, then…

"I'm here to ask for your help," I blurted. "I'm nervous about the semester exam in P.P.E. I'm not…athletic."

That was a lie. With Leo as my older brother, I'd had to be athletic to chase him all over the house after he'd swipe the bread off my plate, which he knew very well was a crime.

"It's the first day of school," Ramsey said, shrugging. "You have plenty of time."

No, I didn't. And if extra help got me alone with him…

The voices and footsteps were coming even closer.

"Maybe you could train me a few times a week. Teach me to throw punches like you, move as fast as you do." My voice came out normal enough, but inside I seethed. I’d never imagined asking him for help, of all things, and complimenting him on how he moved. Whatever it took, though.

Whatever it took.

The herd trampled up the steps toward us then, barreling between us with curious glances thrown my way and knowing chuckles and pats on Ramsey’s back.

When they'd finally gone through the door, Ramsey crossed his arms, a hard look on his face. "I train you in exchange for what?"

I had nothing, not even money for food. Well, it had been a good enough excuse to be here in this spot anyway. Who cared if it didn't work? I’d think of something el—

"Shadow-walking," he said.

"What?"

"I'll train you in exchange for you teaching me how to shadow-walk." He narrowed his eyes. “That’s dark magic.”

Oh really? I hadn’t noticed.

This was not the turn of events I'd expected. I was talking to my brother's killer about training me to fight in exchange for teaching him to shadow-walk? To sneak around and become an even better murderer?

No. No, because I wouldn’t let it get to that.

"Fine, then. We start tomorrow.” I stumbled away from him, my thoughts in a swarming fury.

“Tomorrow after dinner,” he called after me, and I felt his gaze probing my back with the precision of a sharpened blade.

Did he really believe me? It didn’t matter.

I hadn't thought it was possible, but I hated him even more now. How he put on a show for everyone else, all smiles and jokes and quick comebacks, until he was backed into a corner. But then he'd backed me into a corner. I couldn't let that happen again. It shouldn’t have happened the first time. What had that been that he’d thrown at me? I plucked at my sleeve, and little granules rubbed against my fingertips. Black salt, I realized, probably spelled to reveal hidden magic.

I realized I hadn't taken my shadow-walker form until a couple sophomore guys snickered as they passed me on the stairs toward their dorm.

"Not very subtle about it," one said.

The other took a more direct approach with, "How much?"

Yeah. Lovely.

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to lash out at them. Violently. Lately, I was balancing on the edge between darkness and light like my gray magic, and the more I walked in the shadows, the closer I tipped toward that dark, unfeeling vastness.

“Umbra deambulatio,” I said, taking the dead man’s open hand.

I took to the shadows, totally unseen, and swept down the rest of the stairs. 

In the entryway, professors spoke quietly within clusters, and they didn’t notice me stepping free from the dark. Or trying to. Shadowy fingers curled over my shoulders and dragged at the back of my cloak. I shook free of them, but I had no idea what would happen if I couldn't.

I took up the two plates of food I’d hidden, headed back to my room—and stopped with a jolt outside our door. Three marks sliced across the wood. Like claw marks, but much bigger than a cat. And my protection symbol was gone.

A shudder rippled across my shoulders as I threw open the door.

But Seph wasn't there.

I blinked around our room, noting the rumpled blankets on her bed and her boots still next to her desk.

“Nebbles?” I said, placing the plates on my desk.

I found the cat under the bed, and when she saw my face, she hissed and spat. Her ears lay flat, and her eyes were enormous.

“Where is she?” I asked.

That earned me a swipe, but she was too tucked into the back corner to land it.

“Look,” I said as calmly as I could, “I know you want to chew my face off, but I’ll find her, okay? And then maybe you’ll let me smoosh you with a cuddle?”

She let out a sound I had no idea cats could even make. No smooshing, then.

I stood. The bathroom. Of course, she was there.

“Be right back, Nebbles,” I called.

I hurried down the hallway to be sure, in my real form, not in shadow, dodging girls coming and going from the room at the end of the hall. Since she wasn’t wearing her boots, I checked underneath the stalls for bare feet and waited a bit in case she stepped out of one of the four bathtubs curtained off in the corner. 

She wasn't in there.

Dread gathered in a knot inside my gut and pulled tighter with every second I didn't spot her. After her fainting spell earlier…I didn't trust this. And I sure as hell didn’t trust Ramsey. If she were with someone else, I didn't trust them. Where else would she have—

There. Down the hall, she was coming out of a room that wasn't ours and strode toward the door to the stairs. Her thin, colorful dress fluttered around her bare feet. How she wasn’t freezing to death, I’d never know.

"Seph," I called, relief shaking my voice.

But the feeling was short-lived. She moved with singular focus, her steps hurried, her gaze straight ahead. A pang of familiarity hit me as I rushed after her, simultaneously clinging nervous sweat to me and drying out my mouth.

But it couldn't be like that. It couldn't be like what had happened to Leo before he died. That and his death were two separate events, and yet…

I zipped past the room she'd come out of, empty except the usual dorm furniture, half-emptied trunks…and a bunch of flickering black candles arranged in a circle cut through with zigzags of salt on the floor. I didn’t know that symbol or if Seph had made it.

She was nearly to the staircase door, and I was nearly to her. I whirled in front of her to block her path and then gasped at her glassy-eyed stare.

Oh no. My stomach flipped violently. She was sleepwalking, like Leo had started to do about a week before his death. I recognized the blank look, the emptiness. This was just a coincidence, though, right?

“Seph,” I whispered, in the same calm tone I’d used with him. “You’re sleepwalking.”

She pivoted as if to scoot around me, her movements automatic, but I sidestepped in front of her and took her gently by the elbows. 

"Seph, I'm going to put you back to bed, okay?”

Leo, I'm going to put you back to bed, okay? This was an exact replica of all those nights where instead of Leo taking care of me, I took care of him. Now, I was taking care of Seph. Or trying to. Without so much as a blink, she wriggled free from my grip and started for the door again.

What did this mean? Was Ramsey doing this? Was he planning on murdering Seph too? But why?

I dodged in front of Seph again, but she cut around me too fast and slipped out the door to the stairs. As helplessness squeezed my chest, I followed. Immediately after I'd fought Leo back into his bed where he'd passed out cold, I’d pulled every book I could think of about sleep for some kind of explanation of why this was happening to him. I hadn’t found any that applied to him, but I'd also read that sleepwalkers weren't supposed to be awakened if the cause was unknown.

So now, all I could really do was gently coax her back to bed.

"Seph," I whispered, but even that echoed in the silent staircase. I glanced over the banister at the torch-lit entryway below. It appeared empty from this angle except for the flames dancing across the stone floor. It wasn’t the dark hour yet, but I didn’t see a single soul wandering the school except us.

"Seph," I hissed and then sped past her down the steps so I could face her. I held my arms out to my sides to block her path. "Please—"

Someone was coming from a couple floors above, their footsteps not even close to quiet. A professor, maybe. And they were coming fast.

I took Seph's hand and hurried her down the stairs, away from whoever it was. Away from our dorm. I leaped off the final step and hauled Seph around the staircase and into a squat within a deep pocket of shadows. Real ones, not mine.

Seph struggled against my grip but kept eerily silent for her normally chatty self.

Maybe I could've trusted the person trailing us, could've asked them for help, but I didn't. I wouldn't. Maybe Seph could provide me with some answers, and I’d glue myself to her side for protection. 

I quieted my breathing as the person clomped down the final set of stairs. Nothing I could do about the thudthudthud of my heart. A female professor I didn’t know appeared, striding quickly toward the classroom wing. As soon as the double doors clicked closed behind her, I released Seph. She popped up and headed straight for the exit doors.

Shit. This was exactly like Leo. He’d gone outside, too, but at home, someplace safe, so I’d thought. Not outside Necromancer Academy where everything was dead…or not dead.

Seph stopped in front of the doors, her blank gaze sliding over the various bars and contraptions that locked us in. The whole thing looked complicated, a maze of levers, pulleys, and wheels.

"Okay, Seph," I whispered. "It's not meant to be. Back to our room we…go."

But she was already pulling this and that, so quickly that her arms blurred. Like she'd done this a hundred times before instead of this being her very first day here.

The double doors rumbled softly out into the cold night. It had been a full day since I'd been outside or seen any traces that it still existed beyond our windowless school. The dead trees swayed and devoured what little moonlight there was. The sea breeze whipped against my face and threw the torchlight in the entryway into chaotic leaps. I quickly closed the door behind us so the torches wouldn't go out. The resulting click sounded so final, and I winced. Thankfully the lock didn't engage again so we could go back in.

When I turned around again, Seph stood a breath's distance from me. I shrank back against the door, my heart beating furiously. The deepening shadows hollowed out her cheeks and eyes, and the faint light shone on the tattoos on her face, which gave her a frightening, skull-like appearance.

"It's here," she said at normal volume, but it sounded so loud in the quiet night.

I swallowed thickly, not at all sure I wanted to ask this: "What's here?"

Without a word, she turned and stepped down the steps toward…what? Where was she leading me, and did I really want to go there in the dead of night? But I couldn't let her go alone either.

Things had never escalated quite this far with Leo. He'd go outside and stop as if he'd hit a wall, never saying anything, never with any recollection what he was doing the next morning.

At the bottom of the stairs, Seph took a sharp right off the path and directly between the trees. A jungle of sorts, a wild, twisted one with strangely bent branches and rough, uneven ground.

"Where are you going? What's here?" I panted and tripped trying to keep up with her, but she seemed to know exactly where she was headed and where to place her bare feet. Her poor feet. They must be frozen.

"It's here," she said again.

Frowning, I threaded my fingers through hers so I could better keep up. Rare shafts of moonlight slanted between gnarled limbs and shined on the tops of skulls half buried in the ground. Tree roots had grown through a few empty eye sockets and appeared to have pulled so hard that long fractures had split the skulls almost in two. I shivered hard.

Up ahead and to our left, several headstones poked up from the ground contained within a low iron gate. Five thick cages had been built up around the five graves. Two angelic statues stood at either end of the little graveyard with bells on red ribbons dangling from their stone fingers.

Someone really didn’t want these people coming back to life. And if they did, the academy wanted to know via bells? Who were they?

But Seph ignored that area and kept to the right where I saw glimpses of the school and all of its bizarre angles. My footsteps cracked loudly over the dirt, twigs, and, I guessed, all sorts of bones. Just because I couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't there.

Seph twisted her fingers from mine and rushed on even faster.

“Wait…”

Her silhouette blended in with the dark in front of me, her footsteps much quieter than mine, and behind…

Behind. It felt like someone had pressed in close to my back, matching the rhythm of my steps but not quite. My breaths grew ragged. Goose bumps peppered up the back of my neck, and pure fear soured my tongue. Coiling my muscles in case I needed to grab for my knife, I risked a look back.

Shadows swarmed with movement, possibly with life, possibly with death. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

But when I turned around again, I slammed nose-first into Seph. She'd stopped.

"Seph?" I asked, coming around to see her face.

Tears leaked down her tattooed cheeks, and she shook her head as she stared up at the academy.

"I can't go in there," she whispered.

"But…you already have."

"It's here." Her face crumpled then, and she buried her head in her hands. "It's coming at me from all angles, inside and out, up and down." Her shoulders heaved with desperate sobs, the sound so unlike my cheery roommate that it split my heart in two.

All angles…all angles of the school? I had no idea what she was talking about. But I couldn't let Seph suffer through what Leo had for a full week. The similarities frightened me, but I resolved that she would never meet the same fate he had. That was for damn sure.

This had to be Ramsey’s doing. I just didn’t know why.

"Ladies," a tight voice said behind us.

My stomach clenched and then bottomed out through the skull-covered ground. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh, shit.

Seph and I turned. Headmistress Millington stood there, her back to the little graveyard as if that had been where she'd come from rather than from inside the school. Her fists perched on the hips of her gray patterned cloak, and her lips were so pinched that it appeared they'd been swallowed by the rest of her head.

Her eyes shrank to slits as she ticked them back and forth between us. "What in the name of all that is dark and holy are you doing out here at night?"