by Leigh Kelsey
Kati’s chest deflated. He could be lying, but Theo’s own handwriting had scrawled long live T.O.A. and everything Salazar was saying pointed to the Old Academy. “Do you think he did it?” she asked, ignoring the crack in her voice. “You met him, you know what he really believed more than I ever did.” She laughed bitterly. “Do you think he killed Colen Greensmith.”
Salazar’s mouth twisted. “Honestly? I don’t think Greensmith’s the victim everyone wants you to think he is; he was as bad as Wilson. They probably went into the woods to find a victim together, but something went wrong. Theo wouldn’t have murdered him; he was his partner in crime. Well, Greensmith and that Chen kid.”
Kati went utterly still.
“Did you say Chen?” Naia asked softly, shock in her eyes. “Alexandra?”
“Nah.” Salazar shook his head. “Bo Chen, same year as your brother.”
Kati blinked. What were the chances…? She turned to Naia, her eyes frantic. “That’s why she hates me so much, her brother … souls, her brother was the other guy who went into the woods, the one who killed himself afterwards.”
Naia blanched. “Oh.”
“If her brother spoke to her before he … she might know something. She might know what happened that night.”
Kati turned to leave, shaking all over and desperate to make sense of it.
“Don’t thank me, then,” Salazar called after them. “Pricks.”
“Hey!” Kati snarled, spinning. “Don’t you call my friend a prick. Me, fine, but Naia’s off limits.”
Salazar shrugged, backing away and shaking his dark head. “Whatever you say, Wilson. Just don’t make me your next victim.”
Kati expelled a growl. “Don’t tempt me to make you my first.”
AN ACCIDENTAL SUMMONING
The best thing about health and safety was that now they were a month into their lessons, Miz Jardin gave them a brief lecture at the beginning of each class, set them a group or pairs project, and then left them to it for the remaining two hours. The worst part was that she assigned groups by seating plan, and Kati had been unceremoniously placed next to Alexandra fucking Chen, likely in a sad attempt to make them friends.
Tonight, for the first time ever, Kati was glad of that fact.
But how to approach the subject? Carefully, subtly—or outright?
Kati sank into her chair, dropped her bag to the floor, and abandoning tact said, “I didn’t know your brother was the other guy in the woods that night. I just found out. I’m sorry.”
Alexandra’s fall of black hair sliced the air as she swung around to glare at Kati, a sneer curling her lip. “Bullshit you didn’t know.”
Kati looked her in the eye, ignoring all the hatred seething from Alexandra, and said, “I didn’t know.”
Alexandra’s sneer grew. “Finding out your perfect brother isn’t quite so perfect?”
Kati ground her teeth but bore Alexandra’s faux-sweet tone. “Yes,” she said with effort, the words like pulling teeth. “I am.”
A tiny flare of surprise widened Alexandra’s eyes but she turned away, snorting.
Miz Jardin chose that moment to breeze into the room, the beading on her dress rattling as she called them to order. She dumped an old-fashioned physician’s bag on her desk and snapped it open with a bright smile. “Evening, dears. I have a treat for you all tonight. This lesson we’re going be learning how to reattach a severed finger, an occupational hazard for reapers and necromancers both.” She clapped her pudgy hands together, looking delighted.
Kati sighed, resigning herself to two and a half hours of Alexandra Chen savagely dismembering Kati’s hands in revenge for something she hadn’t even known about until yesternight. At least Miz Jardin would teach her how to safely reattach all her fingers and thumbs.
The second Miz Jardin broke off her long-winded lecture on the many perils of using scythes and knives as tools of the trade, Kati turned to Alexandra.
“I need to know what happened that night, what Theo did.”
Alexandra scoffed. “You mean your darling brother didn’t tell you?”
“He told me he was innocent,” Kati bit out, “but everything’s pointing to him being guilty. Or at least equally to blame. Do you know something? Do you know what happened?”
A muscle ticked in Alexandra’s jaw, her sharp brown eyes pointing straight ahead and not deigning Kati with a single glance. “So what if I do?”
Kati sighed, scribbling in the corner of her health and safety book to work out her twitchy nerves. “Look, I just want to know the truth, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to get that from Theo. If you tell me what you know, I’ll never speak to you again. Okay?” It was the most appealing thing Kati could think to offer.
Alexandra’s lips twisted. “If I tell you, you leave SBA.”
Now it was Kati’s time to scoff. “No fucking way.”
Alexandra swung around to glare at her. “You don’t belong here, Wilson, and everyone knows it.”
“Tough shit.” Kati set her jaw. “I’m staying.”
Alexandra sneered at her for a long moment, and then, her voice lowered and venomous said, “Your brother, my brother, and Colen Greensmith went into the woods that night to summon a demon.”
Kati’s next breath was jagged, her pen digging through the page she was scribbling on and decimating the one beneath. “You can’t be serious.”
Alexandra’s eyes narrowed. “I can and I am. It was your brother’s idea—you must have known he was interested in demons.”
Kati sat back. “I don’t believe you.”
Alexandra shrugged. “Not my problem. You wanted to know the truth, well, this is it: they tried to summon a demon, your brother convinced them all it was the right thing to do to get the Old—to get someone’s attention. They were gonna set it on a bunch of non-legacies.”
Kati’s stomach twisted, a sudden sickness rising in her throat. The Old Academy—that was what Alexandra had cut off. Theo, Bo, and Colen had all been involved in it. But … not officially, if Alexandra was to be believed. They’d tried to summon a demon to get T.O.A’s attention? Was that what was killing people at the school now? Had they done it? But then why the different murder weapons?
Kati’s last thread of hope that T.O.A. stood for the Opal Academy, that Theo was one of the good guys, unravelled.
“The demon,” Kati breathed, swallowing. “Did it kill Colen?”
“No.” Alexandra had turned subdued, her eyes on the desk, and for the first time Kati marked the signs of grief on her face. “They called something else, someone that shouldn’t have been able to come through. It was an accident but she … she needed a sacrifice to gain enough strength to push through the veil and—”
Alexandra cut off with a sharp shake of her head, her expression hardening again. “You wanted to know, and now you do.”
“Who did they call?” Kati asked, barely breathing. If not a demon then … what? A spirit that had escaped the Congregation of Paranormals? A soulwraith?
Alexandra shook her head hard, flipping a page in the textbook set out before them so hard the page began to tear. She took a deep breath and seemed to struggle, for a second, with her composure. “He stopped making sense after he came back, started saying things that couldn’t have been true. I don’t know who they summoned, just that it wasn’t the demon they planned to, and that Colen suffered for their mistake. But your brother was the fucking ringleader, he planned the whole thing, encouraged Colen to do the demonology research and asked Bo to draw the sigil circle that night.”
Kati pretended to read the notes she’d scrawled during Miz Jardin’s lecture but they swam before her eyes. Theo had done that, led two boys to their deaths. It was easy to dismiss the words of one person, but Alexandra, Salazar, and even Theo’s own sign and fanatic handwriting dotted around the school—together, it was impossible to ignore.
But it was an accident. That’s what Alexandra was saying, what Bo had told her. An accident. Th
eo wasn’t a killer. Even if … even if they’d planned to set the demon on non-legacy students. She shut out the thought and exhaled in relief that he hadn’t killed Colen. “I’m sorry about Bo.”
Alexandra’s head shot up so suddenly, so sharply, it should have given her whiplash. Her voice was a dark, twisted thing when she growled, “Don’t you dare say his name. Not ever.”
“Alexandra?” Miz Jardin asked, flitting over to their table with a furrow of concern between her eyes. “Is everything alright?”
Alexandra shoved upright, her chair screeching. “I’m not sitting here. I’m sorry, Miz, but I can’t.”
With no other word, Alexandra grabbed her bag and left the room. Kati expected Miz Jardin to become suspicious and accusatory but instead she patted Kati on the shoulder.
“I didn’t know about her brother,” Kati whispered, locking eyes with Miz Jardin. “I really didn’t know.”
Miz Jardin’s round face was nothing but softness. “I know, dear.” She squeezed Kati’s shoulder.
“Why do you trust me again?” Kati asked before she could stop herself, the need to know burning inside her like a hot coal. “When Madam Hawkness called me to her office, you acted like you were sure I was attacking everyone, but now…”
Miz Jardin sighed, perching on the table end. “I did think you were dangerous for the academy, you’re right about that, but then you saved my Cathy, and … I knew I’d made a mistake judging you harshly.” Miz Jardin smiled, while Kati tried to connect the name to a memory, drawing a blank. “The woman you saved,” Miz Jardin said, her eyes twinkling. “Catherine Hopwell.”
“Oh,” Kati breathed. The cleaner who’d been attacked in Lavellian’s room. “She’s your…”
“Wife,” Miz Jardin confirmed with a nod. “Well.” She shrugged, her candy floss hair wobbling on her head. “Civil partner, but same difference.”
Kati nodded even though it wasn’t the same difference, not at all. “How’s she doing? You know after…”
“After a madman attacked her with a sacred athame?” Miz Jardin’s lips thinned but she smiled. “She’s on the mend, and she’ll be right as rain according to Nurse Gardner.”
Miz Jardin pushed off the desk and brushed creases from her beaded tulle skirt. “You should go visit her, I know she’d like to meet her saviour. And don’t let Alexandra’s attitude affect you—she’s still hurting, poor girl. Words are sharper instruments when we’re grieving.” She laid a brief hand on Kati’s shoulder, then breezed to the front of the room, calling for attention.
Kati glanced at her notebook and found it full of scribbles and little else. With a sigh, she closed it and hoped it didn’t come up in their end of term exam.
THE PERFECT END TO A SHITTY DAY
Mondays were the shittiest of all the days in Kati’s opinion. Forced to sit next to a girl who hated the sight of her in health and safety, then separated from Rahmi in the afternoon when she went to reaping, while Kati and Naia were made to endure the dour, spiteful Mrs Hale for a whole two and a half hours. Most of the lessons were suffered in complete silence and order—Mrs Hale would accept nothing less—and even Hale’s favoured students kept their mouths shut.
When Kati had pictured learning necromancy, she’d imagined lessons full of resuscitations and practical murder techniques, sketching portal sigils in the air with her wand. Not sitting in an uncomfortable chair for hours on end, the lights all turned off except for a spotlight on Mrs Hale’s splotchy face and frizzy red hair, her dry, unenthused voice droning on and on and on. She might have been a necromancy expert but it was hard to tell with how boring she was.
After the class let out, Kati was ready to go back to her room and collapse onto her bed until tea.
“My eyes hurt,” Naia moaned, squinting into the corridor outside the necromancy classroom, lit by magic and fire-blazing sconces. “I swear that room gets darker every lesson.”
Kati snorted, towing her towards the staircase, but she had a point. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked when they reached the ground floor and Naia headed for the opposite direction to the girl’s dorms. “You got a secret hookup or something?”
“No.” Naia scowled, glancing away. “I’m going to the library. I want to actually know about the underworld, and that lecture was useless. If I ever expect to open a genuine portal and make an Eternal, I have to know what to expect when the window opens.”
Kati’s thoughts exactly. “I’d come with you,” she said, “but my head will literally explode if I try to process any more information. See you back there?”
“I’ll make a copy of my notes for you,” Naia promised, hiking her bag strap higher on her shoulder and marching determinedly towards the library.
Kati smirked at Naia’s dedication and headed in the opposite direction. There was wanting to learn and then there was Naia Clarke. Sometimes Kati thought she took things way too seriously and took research way too far, but Naia would be laughing on results day in December. The chances of Kati passing necromancy were pathetic.
Maybe she should go to the library and get some work of her own done. Kati was about to turn and head back, resigned to more studying, when magenta pink light shot across the hallway. Kati spun on instinct, reaching for her wand, but a spell slammed into her before she could draw it. The magic hit her gut like a punch. Spots of black covered her vision until she could no longer see.
“Grab her,” a low female voice ordered. “It’s time to find out the truth.”
RAGE AND FEAR ARE A DEADLY COCKTAIL
Panic blurred through Kati so quickly that she couldn’t catch her breath, her fingers shaky as they finally closed around the hilt of her wand and drew it out, smearing blood on the base and hurling out the first spell that came to mind: Mrs Grant’s shield spell.
A grunt sounded in the corridor, along with Kati’s quick panting breaths, as she swung the shield around her in a blind arc. She’d never been blind before but full darkness covered her vision, and Kati shook with icy fear, unable to see her assailant—assailants, plural. There were more than one set of footfalls, not that Kati could tell where they were coming from—SBA’s walls were old and made of rough stone, distorting sound, and hearing had never been Kati’s strongest sense.
“Who the fuck are you?” she snarled, blindly lashing out with the shield but missing this time. Goosebumps rose all the way down Kati’s spine, her body on such high alert that every limb shook.
“What the hell are you idiots doing?” a familiar, sharp voice cut through the air—and through Kati’s fear. Rage, burning fiercer and hotter than anything she’d felt before, rushed through her. Still feeding the shield spell her blood, droplets sliding down her palm, Kati threw herself in the direction she thought the voice had come from.
“I’ll kill you,” she hissed at Alexandra fucking Chen. “I’ll fucking kill you for this. Give me my sight back and fight me like a real goddamn reaper, not a coward!”
“Get her wand off her,” Alexandra commanded cooly. “Now.”
“But—her shield—”
“Fuck her shield. This bitch is hunting people in our soulsdamned academy. She needs to answer for her actions.”
“I haven’t hunted anyone,” Kati snarled, lurching in a different direction and rewarded with a yelp as her crackling shield met flesh.
“Bitch,” the low-voiced woman seethed, and Kati had a feeling it was the third member of Chen’s little band, the broad-shouldered tattooed woman, and that the other was the horse-faced blonde with the headband. The next word she said was so hard and strong that Kati’s shield buckled. “Shatter.”
Kati pushed more magic into the spell, gritting her teeth and ignoring the sweat running down her back. She’d never thrown this much magic into a spell before, not even in Mrs Grant’s self-defense lessons. But in that split second, it felt like a fight for her life, and Kati would not give up her shield. Blood ran slippery down her wand, no doubt splattering the floor as she used the thorn to gouge he
r thumb. It hurt like a bitch, but pain was background noise to the adrenaline roaring through her system.
“Get,” Kati snarled through gritted teeth, “the fuck. Away from me.” She shoved out with the shield attached to her arm, power exploding from her, but Alexandra’s laugh told Kati she had her own shield up.
“Not bad, Wilson. Is that how you’ve been killing them? Knock them out with your magic?”
“Fuck you, Chen.”
“No, thanks, I’m sure I’d get herpes.”
Kati let the insult roll off her; she was more concerned with the fact that she’d been blinded, she didn’t know if the spell would wear off or if it was permanent, and she was outnumbered by a trio of bitches who wanted her to answer for crimes she hadn’t committed.
“Out of the way,” Alexandra growled, and Kati braced for the next assault, but it was so strong that it knocked her off her feet.
Kati hit the floor hard enough to rattle her bones, losing her grip on her wand in the impact. The sound of it rolling away made her hands shake harder. Before she could fumble for it, her ankles were shoved together, her wrists pinned to each other, and coarse rope wound magically around them. This spell hadn’t been taught by Mr Worth and Mrs Grant, that was for sure.
“What the hell are you going to do to me?” Kati demanded, her throat hoarse. “I haven’t attacked anyone, I mean it. You heard what Catherine Hopwell said, it was a man who went for her.”
Alexandra laughed. “It wouldn’t be hard to trick her, an oversized coat, a simple spell. I know it’s you, Wilson. You came to the academy to finish your brother’s work.”
Kati’s mouth opened and closed. “I only found out about the shit Theo was up to yesternight. Alexandra, think about it. Souls, I’m not doing this, you know I can’t be.”