Chapter Six

The absence of a dead man's hand in my pocket tied my insides into knots. The awkward weight of the steak knife that had somehow found its way into my boot at dinner rubbed at my ankle wrong, not like my dagger which I’d hardly noticed.

This was not how I preferred sneaking around, right out in the open like this.

I stuck to the shadows the best I could as I made my way down the stairs. My ears burned for any sound other than my thudding heartbeat. Sweat broke over my forehead and slicked my palms, making me feel hot and cold at once. At the bottom of the steps, I paused, searching what little of the Gathering Room I could see across the entryway. Its doors were open, the torches still lit, but from this angle, I couldn't see if anyone was inside.

On tiptoe, I slinked along the side of the staircase until I stood almost directly across from the large room. A slow peek revealed empty tables. Good enough for me. I hurried past toward the doors that led to the classroom wing.

"Goodnight, Margo."

The voice just behind me leapfrogged my heart into my throat.

The door to the classrooms was still too far away to disappear through. I kept going, risking a glance over my shoulder. It was Professor Blumgart who taught Latin. He had his back turned and leaned against the doorway of the Gathering Room. He was close enough that if I made a sound…

I couldn't make a sound.

Almost there. I reached out for the handle—when a single footstep behind me locked my lungs together. He was turning this way. I dove to the right into a shadow-filled corner as his footsteps drew closer.

Could he see me? Would he see me soon enough? My hood already covered my head, and I let my coal-colored hair fall into my face. I pressed my back hard into the wall, wishing I could disappear into it. This had been so much easier with a dead man's hand.

Closer. Closer. I squeezed my eyes shut. He'd see me. Any second now, he'd see me.

Parchment rustled over his footsteps. I cracked open an eye. He was sorting through a stack of parchment and hardly looking where he was going. The door creaked open, and he disappeared through.

I didn't dare breathe or move or blink. Then, long after the door had shut behind him, I opened it and swept through. The domed ceiling reflected the red and black stained glass onto the floor, lighting my way well enough to the pitch-black gym. I hovered near the open doorway while goose bumps tracked up and down my spine.

Why here? Why the gym? After what Seph and I had been through, it was easily one of the creepiest places in the entire school. Especially at the dark hour.

"Ramsey." It wasn't even a whisper.

He hadn't come. This was a trap. How could I have been so—

"Dawn." He gradually materialized out of the darkness, first the swish of his cloak and then his pale face, followed by his slow grin as he stopped in front of me. "I was starting to think you weren't coming."

"Yeah, well…" I glanced up and down the hallway and then tried to look over his wide shoulders into the gym. "I'm still not convinced I should be here."

He nodded, the intense storms in his eyes sparkling with excitement as he held something out to me. "Which is why I brought you your note you sent me."

With a cautious step, I moved into the gym and out of the hallway but clung to the lit doorway where I could still see. I took the note from him, and his thumb brushed the side of my knuckle as he tucked something else—something silky—into my hand underneath the parchment.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Open it.” With half of his face hidden in shadow, the other half glowed with patterned moonlight from the hallway ceiling. “Then maybe you'll trust me."

"Doubtful." Shrugging, I tucked the note into my pocket and unwrapped the silk cloth—and gasped. 

It was my brother's knife he'd given me, the one etched with Biscuit, the same one I'd used to try and kill Ramsey with. Not a trace of rubber, and it looked like it had been both polished to a high shine and sharpened. I just stared at it, my heart pinching like when Leo had first given it to me.

“Think fast, Biscuit,” he said and then tossed a wrapped package to me.

I snatched it out of the air one-handed and shook it. “A box?”

“Only the best boxes for you. Maybe there’s something inside it.” He winked, hovering close while I opened it. “Probably not, though.”

It had been perfect then. Now, though…

"You're—" My voice snagged as I turned it this way and that to catch the light. "You're giving it back to me?"

Why would he do that? Why would he present it to me in even better condition than when I'd tried to kill him with it? Who did that kind of thing?

When he didn't immediately answer, I looked up at him, and a corner of his mouth lifted.

"It's important to you."

"Yeah, but…I could kill you with it."

He crossed his arms, his smile growing bigger. "But why would you do that before we find the familiars’ cemetery? At least wait until afterwards."

"We'll see," I said, and he chuckled.

“What’s Biscuit mean?”

Swallowing hard, I knelt and slipped the knife into its sheath hidden in my boot, replacing the steak knife, which I subtly dropped into my pocket along with my quill, ink pot, and parchment. My other pockets I’d sewn up to prevent any more death charms from slipping inside.

“Biscuit is what my brother used to call me,” I finally admitted.

“Oh,” he said softly. “The brother who was murdered…”

I nodded, my eyes prickling. I didn’t really want to talk about Leo with Ramsey, so I pointed to the far wall in the gym. “You put more Diabolicals on the stone?”

“I did. Now why did you send me that note earlier?” He nodded to my pocket where I’d stashed it.

“Because after we shoveled snow, I saw Seph in here, just staring at that wall, but it wasn’t really her. She was in our room with three other freshmen.”

Sighing, he screwed his eyes shut briefly and raked his fingers through his hair, spiking it up in odd angles just like the walls of this school. “You’re sure it was her in your room?”

“I…I mean I feel like I know my roommate. She feels real when I’m talking to her, but…” I shrugged, not really knowing what I was trying to say or how I knew. I just knew.

“I know what you’re saying,” he said, his gaze roaming over my face. "I can tell with you that you’re definitely not the skin-walker."

I hesitated, feeling exposed, like he was seeing way too much. "How?"

"If you’re hurling death threats and murderous looks my way, that’s a good indication it’s you. Plus, you reveal everything on your face at every given moment." He smiled then, a full, dimpled one that somehow shrank the space between us even though neither of us moved.

I fought the urge to take a step back and cover my head completely with my hood. "Then maybe you've been staring at my face too long."

"Actually…" He leaned around the corner to peer both ways down the hallway and then locked eyes with me again. "I kind of enjoy it. Come on."

He slipped out the gym door before I had time to process. He enjoyed my face? But…I’d tried to kill him. I was starting to think Ramsey Sullivan was not right in the head.

I followed after him, going back the way I’d come toward the entryway and the Gathering Room beyond. Several torches had been extinguished since I’d gone to the gym, leaving thick patches of shadows and hardly a whisper of sound. It appeared everyone had gone to bed.

Ramsey looked over his shoulder at me. “Through the Gathering Room, there’s a door that leads outside, but we’ll have to sneak past the kitchen.”

Spoken like someone who’s done this a hundred times before.

“You said there are three potential places for the familiars’ cemetery to be. How do you know that?” I whispered.

He turned back around and paused by the closed Gathering Room doors. “I have a ton of maps of this school and have searched a good portion of it.”

“Searched it for what?”

Ignoring me, he inched open the doors and peered through, then slipped inside, holding one open for me.

It was pitch-black in here until a flicker of off-white light appeared in his hand. He held it out in front of him and started down the middle of the room between the sophomore and junior tables.

“Hello?” I hissed. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“Only if you teach me how to shadow-walk,” he said in a low voice and glanced back, his light dancing crazily over his face.

Was what he was looking for hidden in the shadows of the school? Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to say, and I wasn’t going to teach him. It wasn’t something I could really teach anyway. It was dark magic that only worked if the intent was dark too. Since my intent had been murder, and I’d meant to actually carry it out, that was about as dark as it could get.

Ramsey skirted the professors’ table that ran parallel to the stage behind it and then pulled himself onto the stage since there weren’t any visible steps. Kneeling, he offered me his hand.

I stared at it and curled my fingers at my sides.

His eyes narrowed, clearly reading my face that must’ve given my hesitation away. “It’s just a hand, Dawn. You’re used to them.”

“Dismembered ones.”

He grinned. “Well, the night’s still young.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a morbid sense of humor?”

“Just the ones who get my humor.” He wriggled his fingers at me.

With a deep breath, I took his hand, and he clasped it firmly and pulled me up on stage.

“There.” He squeezed before letting go, the light in his hand flickering softly over his smile. “Was that so bad?”

No. No, it hadn’t been. He’d been the warmest thing I’d felt since I’d arrived at Necromancer Academy, and strong, and I wiped my hand down my cloak so I wouldn’t have to feel that ever again.

“Where’s this kitchen you were talking about?” My whisper shook a little, and I cleared my throat.

He jerked his head for me to follow, his smile still on his lips. He was having entirely too much fun.

The stage creaked as we crossed it, and behind a black curtain, a door led to a short set of stairs and a narrow hallway beyond. Torches burned down its length and smells of yeast and baking bread wafted from a large kitchen at the end.

Oh, my gods, that smell. I inhaled as deep a breath as I could while following behind Ramsey, practically tasting it. He looked over his shoulder at me, and something in his eyes flickered as they dipped down to my lips and then up again. He touched a finger to his own lips, and I wondered if I hadn’t accidentally let out a moan at the divine scent.

Outside the doorway, he stopped and peered inside then waved at me to follow him into the sprawling kitchen. Huge wooden tables took up most of it with flour sprinkled over the tops and what must’ve been dough rising in pans underneath cloths. Two enormous, lit fireplaces took up one whole wall on the right with several bubbling cauldrons inside each, and two huge brick ovens were set into the far wall. Shelves of cooking utensils and closeted pantries crowded the left wall.

The smells intoxicated me. I could live right here and be perfectly happy.

A distant voice sounded behind us. Someone was coming…and humming a melancholy tune.

Ramsey whirled on me. Before I could protest, he smashed one hand over my mouth and shoved me through a narrow door on the left into a spice pantry. Releasing me, he shut the door with a small click as the voice neared.

“Gustafson?”

It was Headmistress Millington.

If she caught us out after the dark hour, my time here was likely done. I was already dangling from a frayed rope with her.

A nearby torch outside funneled into the cracks and spotlighted us should someone open the door. The overpowering scent of spices in the enclosed space tickled my nose, and I hoped to the gods I wouldn’t sneeze.

“Do you have the menu for next week’s meals?” the headmistress asked, and it sounded like she stood just outside the spice cabinet.

No one answered, not that I heard anyway.

I held my breath and tried not to move, but the closet was cramped, barely room enough for the two of us and the three tall wooden shelves stacked with spices.

“Very good, Gustafson,” the headmistress said, and footsteps sounded toward the kitchen’s exit. “And about what we discussed for the meal before the winter holiday…With so few students staying at the academy, we may need to make some changes…”

Her voice faded with the noise of the crackling fires.

Both the shelves and the door squeezed Ramsey's shoulders, and he shifted slightly, his breath fluttering the top of my hood. Pressed this close, I could feel the heat rolling off of him, feel the power of his gaze roaming over my face.

"You're staring," I whispered.

"I can't move," he whispered back. "What do you want me to look at?"

"The spices behind me. Read their labels or something."

"It's not near as interesting though." He wriggled one arm between us and touched a lock of hair peeking out from under my hood. "Why coal?"

"Why not?"

"Does it have something to do with shadow-walking?"

Sighing, I sealed my lips shut. 

His gaze dipped to my mouth, and a sly grin curved his. "That's how I know I'm right. I can tell exactly what you’re thinking.”

“How wonderful for you.”

He nodded. “I think so.” He leaned toward the door, listening, and then opened it a crack. “I think we can go now. Come on."

He twisted to open the door wider, and then we had to un-wedge ourselves to spill out into the empty-looking kitchen.

“What is Gustafson?” I asked, looking around.

“A ghost. He won’t tell.” He led the way toward the back wall and a door that blended in with the stone wall so well, I didn’t realize it was a door until it opened to a wintery blast of air.

We stepped out into a dead forest that pressed in close to the door. I shivered farther into my cloak and pulled it tighter as Ramsey led us through the trees, following the wall of the school.

"There are ravens circling the outside of the academy,” he whispered, stopping to face me. “Use them if you have trouble or find the familiars’ cemetery, and I’ll do the same.”

"If I have trouble, I'll scream. Loudly. I'll make sure I'm heard," I said, shoving my meaning between his eyes.

"Whatever works. I'll come running either way." He circled around behind me and lifted my arm by the wrist, using his fingers to shape mine so I was pointing at the sky. His heat pressed in close, his breath sliding past my hood and over my temple. 

"What are you doing?" I turned toward him, and my lips glided across his cheek. I flinched, horrified by what I'd just done. I’d…I’d kissed him. Unintentionally, but still. My skin flushed hot to the tips of my ears. My muscles turned my body to stone, but mentally, I wanted to shake my head hard to deny that had really happened.

He ignored me or pretended to anyway. "I'm helping. See that tower you're pointing to?"

"Yes." My voice came out like a flutter, so I cleared my throat.

He dropped my arms and stepped away. "That's the tower you're going to, the top of it anyway. The staircase starts at the end of the girls’ wing, not the same staircase you saw earlier today, okay?"

I nodded, turning and casting my gaze anywhere but at him. “And which tower are you going to?"

"I’m not. I'm headed this way to the footbridge over the frozen pond. There’s a path beyond it I never got a chance to follow.” He moved closer, all serious intensity once again as he touched my arm. "Use the ravens. Scream. Just hurry before you freeze to death. Evanescet."

He vanished into thin air, leaving me alone.

That sonofawitch. I’d never thought to transport there.

“Evanescet,” I said, but nothing happened, because of course it didn’t. I’d have to walk and practice that spell for another time.

The knots in my stomach tightened. My breaths plumed from my mouth as I started for the tower, my footsteps hurried and loud across the dead branches and bones at my feet. One good thing about the lack of windows in the school was that no one could see us out here or hear the crash of my boots.

Unless there was someone lurking out here in the shadows with me.

Okay, no more thoughts. Ever.

Other than my footsteps, the silence pressed in around me. If I were to have company, I would probably hear their approach. The trees grew denser the farther I went, so I stuck to the side of the building, following its strange sharp angles until roots and gnarled branches forced me away from the stone and even deeper into the trees. If I got lost and froze to death, I would be so mad. But no, I could call for a raven. Ramsey would find me. At least…I was pretty sure. So, did that mean I trusted him? Best to decide that after I survived the night.

I couldn’t believe I’d accidentally kissed him. I touched my lips, remembering the heat from his skin, and how I could feel it even now. But then his face appeared in my mind, his mouth twisted in an unnerving smile while he stood over my dead brother. I scrubbed my hand over my lips to wipe any evidence of what I’d done away.

A faint bell rang, a dark chime like sinister laughter even though the whole of the forest didn't move. Was that the statue’s bell, the kind that only rang when a reliving person was near?

My breaths turned ragged as I sped my pace.

The bell sounded as though it were getting louder even though I ran away from the little cemetery. Surely a trick of the wind.

Ahead, stone steps appeared that coiled upward around a section of the building Ramsey had pointed to. The girls’ wing. I sprinted toward it, listening hard to the bell and any other sounds that might join it. When I was halfway up the steps, footsteps sounded below.

Someone was coming. Fast. Taking the steps two at a time. 

I could only see down the spiraling steps a few feet. Dread chased down my back as I hurried upward and risked tripping to throw glances behind me. Who was it? Ramsey? Why did I think this was a good idea?

I climbed higher, higher where hopefully there was someplace for me to go. Or a second to dig out my dagger and fight.

Finally, I burst onto the top of the tower, a small, circular space filled with snow-covered dead weeds and dropped tree limbs. On the far end, a sharp wooden post speared upward with loops and symbols etched into it I couldn’t quite make out. Only one exit—back the way I came. I lunged for my dagger and whirled around, and my mind slipped sideways at what I saw. 

A bell like in the graveyard, lying at the top of the steps. Horror plunged into my heart with an icy finger.

No. No, this was a joke. Someone was having fun with me. Ramsey, that sonofa—

Overhead, a raven appeared, discernible from the night only by the snowflakes glistening on its inky feathers. It circled once and then landed softly at my feet. A roll of parchment was stuck in its beak. Swallowing loudly, I kept my gaze on the bell and the steps behind it then bent to retrieve the parchment.

It read: Nothing across the pond. If you see nothing, head west to the very next tower, and I’ll meet you there. Let me know.

My shoulders heaved as I stared at the parchment and then at the bell. I could scream. I could tell him I found his stupid bell. Or I could tell him I was heading west. It all depended on what I believed had just happened, and I had no clue. But I couldn't stay up here and freeze while I thought about it.

I brought out my quill and ink from my pocket, and with a trembling hand, scrawled out: Going west.

The raven flew away with my message. Not toward the bottom of the stairs, which proved nothing.

Pulling my spine straight, I gripped my dagger tighter, scooped up the bell without it making a sound, and stuffed it into my pocket. Other than my boot prints, there were no tracks around where the bell had been, no marks. And as I took to the stairs one cautious step at a time downwards, I followed my own prints.

There weren't others. Neat trick.

I sucked in a wintry breath through gritted teeth and stalked west. My ears prickled. My eyes felt too big for my head as I searched every shadow for movement. The branches grabbing for my face looked like bony hands reaching—

A tree to the right jerked toward me. The air funneled out of my lungs, and dread scurried down my flesh.

No, not a tree. Worse, a Diabolical, his black hood hiding his whole face. He gripped my arm and yanked me to a stop.

“That was too easy.” His whispered voice rubbed against my skin like broken glass.

Several more Diabolicals surrounded us in a tight circle.

White-hot anger charged down my back like a bolt of lightning. Ramsey. He’d sent me into a damn trap.