"It's not her stuff I'm interested in, but thanks." I pointed to the door she'd indicated. "Roommate?"
A flicker of irritation crossed her expression, the first emotion...ever. "You're kidding me, right? Vickie? A roommate?"
"Of course I was kidding," I said, nodding, and stepped toward the door.
"Whatever, freshman." She brushed by me on her way to the staircase.
Just in case, I patted my pockets down after she passed by, then satisfied she hadn’t slipped me a death charm, I opened the door. It was a simple, single room, completely empty except for a bed, a dresser, and a desk and chair, all lit with one torch on the far wall. Why had Vickie slept in here and not her room?
As I stepped inside, the faint smell of lemons touched my nose. A memory of Dying and Reliving class surfaced, a cautionary tale about a girl who wrote an invisibility spell all over herself to hide from a lover she'd necromanced. To remove the spell, you used lemon juice. Had Vickie been hiding here while invisible? If so, from whom?
I checked the dresser and the desk, both empty, and then swept down the hall to her real room. Locked. Just as well since I had a date with a snow shovel.
Downstairs, I met Ramsey and the headmistress, wearing matching annoyed expressions.
"Well, look who decided to show up," Ramsey muttered behind me on our way out.
I cut my gaze over my shoulder. “You’re obviously more excited than I am about all the uses you’ve found for your shovel.”
He choked out a laugh and then faked a coughing spell when the headmistress turned to glare.
“If you see anything out in the woods like yesterday, let me know,” she told us. “I had a few professors out here earlier, and they didn’t find anything.”
When we both nodded, she let us out into the wintery cold and then shut the door behind us. We took to shoveling the path from the same spots we had the day before, and all the while, I searched the trees for more signs of movement and the school itself, as well as listening for a ringing bell. It bothered me that one of the bells was gone, but I didn’t know why or whether that was a bad thing since we’d replaced the other one in the statue’s hands.
Doing more watching than shoveling, I thought I spotted a staircase that spiraled up and around one of the bizarre angles along the side of the building between the gnarled trees.
But by the time I reached Ramsey, I'd lost sight of it. "Hey, where does that staircase lead," I asked, pointing vaguely.
He stopped and leaned against his shovel, his breath clouding the frigid air. His dark hair blew every which way, and he seemed resistant to using the hood on his cloak. "Up, I suppose."
I sighed and rolled my eyes so hard they spun around the inside of my skull. "I figured that one out for myself, genius."
He chuckled, obviously enjoying riling me up. "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm still looking for the familiars’ cemetery." I’d checked the map of the school Seph had bought for me in Eerie Island’s one and only town, but it wasn’t any help. I didn't want to ask anyone else for fear they'd want to ambush me there with more than a death charm.
Don’t trust anyone. I was taking that to heart.
“Yeah.” He scratched underneath his chin with the tip of his shovel, his height allowing for such conveniences. "About that..."
I flicked my gaze to his. "What?"
"There are three possibilities of where it could be. I could show you if you'll show me how to shadow-walk."
Sneak around the outside of the school with him after the dark hour? No thanks. "How about you just tell me?"
"No can do,” he said, watching me closely. “The temperature drops exponentially at night here in winter. With two of us searching separately, it’ll go a lot faster, and if you get lost, I can find you."
That was a bad, bad idea. Knowing he was out here with me after the dark hour while I was looking for a cemetery for reasons unknown... It just screamed trouble.
“Tonight." He shoved his hand toward me. "Deal?"
I twisted away, hesitating.
"A real deal this time, even if you attack me in the library first," he said, a crooked smile on his mouth.
I groaned at the indecision battling inside me. "Are you going to double-cross me? Tell the headmistress I was out after the dark hour afterwards?”
"Now, why would I do that if I'm out after the dark hour too?" He shook his head and dropped the arm I hadn’t shaken. “That wouldn’t be very smart, would it?”
"You’d do it to trick me. To watch me stumble around the dark before you—"
"Before I what, Dawn? Kill you?” He gazed at me for a long moment as something like hurt flared across his expression. “This isn't a trick. I want to help you so you can help me too. I really need your help with shadow-walking. That's all."
Sighing, he stalked away up the path toward the school.
I almost believed him. The sincerity in his voice sounded real, but...
"You said it yourself not to trust anyone," I called after him.
He stopped without turning.
"What if the skin-walker is you, or what if it's you tonight? This is me not trusting anyone, like you said, and you shouldn't either.” I curled my gloved fingers into fists around my shovel. “So get used to it."
Slowly, he turned, his mouth pulled in a resigned frown. "I suppose secret code words won't work."
"Not if you're the skin-walker right now, no."
"Or you're the skin-walker.” His haughty eyebrow quirked higher. “We'll just have to put our distrust to the side if we're going to work together, I guess. Meet in the gym at the dark hour tonight. If you don't show up,”—he shrugged—“you don't show up."
"What if you don't show up?"
"And miss an opportunity to sneak around after the dark hour?" He scoffed, his stormy eyes sparking with excitement. "Never."
With that, he turned and trotted up the steps into the school.
I frowned after him. It was probably a terrible idea to meet him tonight, but my tooth told Morrissey it was important I found the familiars’ cemetery, so if it somehow helped answer the horde of questions I had, then I needed to go. Still, I would be on guard and take Ramsey out if he so much as looked at me wrong.
Time to find a weapon. And the place with the sharpest kind? The library.
I followed him into the building but bypassed the Gathering Room and its glorious spicy, savory smells. A glance inside revealed I still had a few minutes before dinner started, so I headed through the hallway door that led to the classrooms and the library beyond. Ramsey wanted a dead man's hand, so if I found a dead murderer nearby, I could hold that knowledge over his head. Didn't mean I had to give it to him. In fact, I'd take the hand for myself before I ever gave it to him.
But the library wasn't as sharp as I'd hoped. The ravens led me to a lot about Professor Marjorie Effman in the dusty books—that she was a skilled dark magician accused of having an affair with a student and then lost her mind. She'd had no family, which was why she was buried here. But there was no mention of murder and there wasn't a whole lot about the others buried in the little graveyard.
I found even less about skin-walkers other than what I already knew, let alone anything about how to detect them.
Frustrated, I made my way back down the empty hallway—and gasped.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed something that shouldn't be there. Someone who shouldn't be there, inside the open gym. Seph, standing there in the middle while facing the far wall. Just...standing. Staring.
It took me a long moment to process, to slow my steps and then back up. My nerves pulled taut and my palms grew clammy as I looked inside the gym again. Empty.
"Seph," I called on instinct but then slammed my mouth closed.
That wasn't Seph. She couldn't even come near here without fainting unless she was sleepwalking, which she wasn't. Was she?
I slowly entered the gym, my blood crashing between my ears. My eyes grew wide,
trying to take in everything in the large room at once, especially the shadowy corners where the lit torches within their sconces couldn't quite reach.
It had been the skin-walker. Right? But if so, where had it gone? And what had it been doing?
I backed out, my skin prickling, my feet urging me to run. I rushed through the hallway doors and then skidded to a stop outside the Gathering Room to look for Seph. She wasn't there. Taking the steps two at a time, I elbowed my way past the oncoming students making their way to dinner toward our dorm room.
Out of breath, I burst inside.
Five heads swiveled toward me. Seph at her desk, Jon leaning over her and pointing to a piece of parchment, Morrissey and Echo sprawled out on the floor with their books and quills, and Nebbles glaring out at his domain from Seph’s bed.
"Hey." I waved casually, my breaths wheezing, and then propped my hands on my knees.
"Um, hey?" Seph stood from her desk and crossed toward me, the tattooed ebony skin on her forehead wrinkling in concern. "You okay?"
I nodded, but I was sure my expression gave me away.
She touched my elbow gently, understanding in her deep brown gaze. "We were about to head to dinner. You ready?"
"Not as a group though.” Echo sneered, her hatred of me rolling off of her, as she quickly collected her and Morrissey’s things and dragged Morrissey behind her out the door. “Not with you."
With a heavy sigh, Seph's shoulders drooped as she stared after them.
"I'll sit with you," Jon said to her.
I wasn't sure he was aware I was in the room. "Not this time, Jon. I have to talk to Seph about..." I shared a look with her, my mind blanking on everything but the truth.
"Sex," she supplied.
Jon turned eleven shades of pink while his eyes lit up with interest. "Another time, then." He floated from the room on his cloud of Seph euphoria.
I strode toward my desk, still trying to breathe normally. "I'm not the only one who wants to talk to you about sex, you know."
She closed the door, her attention squarely on me. "He can get in line. What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
“Close.” Sitting, I found my quill half buried under a pile of books and dipped it into my ink pot. "On my way back from the library, I saw...you."
"I was here."
"I know."
"Skin-walker." She plopped down hard on her bed, defeated. Nebbles blinked up at her lovingly. "Why me? What was it doing?"
"Staring at the far wall in the gym."
She gasped. "And behind it—"
"Is the onyx stone." I sighed while I scratched out a quick note on a blank piece of parchment.
"But staring at a wall isn't going to do anything. What was the point?"
"Waiting for the red door to appear. Looking for weak points in the protective magic. Searching for another way in, maybe. I don't know. When you were sleepwalking, it led you outside to that same wall. It's determined to get to the stone somehow." I stood, rolling up the parchment. "Let's go."
She pushed herself to her feet and pointed at my hand. "What's that?"
"A note to Ramsey."
Her eyes widened. "So...you're sending him notes now?"
"No. Yes. Listen." I squeezed my eyes shut briefly while my flustered thoughts calmed down. "He's a Diabolical, whose job it is to guard the stone. I feel like I should tell him what I saw right away so he can tell the others and be ready since the onyx is the only stone that hasn’t been activated."
"Solid plan, if you think you can trust him." She opened the door and waved me toward it.
"Bye, sweet Nebbles," I cooed, making kissy faces.
She twitched her tail, her one orange eye an angry slit. I really thought I was making progress with her. Soon, there would be mutual cuddling, I just knew it.
"There's more," I muttered, closing the door behind us.
Seph sighed, the kind that came from deep in her bones. "When is there not?"
"He said he might know where the familiar cemetery is." I glanced at her and then around us to make sure we were alone as we strode down the hallway. "We're going tonight."
"Wow, Dawn." She stared at me, horrified, as we made our way down the steps. "Just...wow. That's the worst idea I've ever heard, and coming from you? After what he..." She sealed her mouth shut in a firm line and shook her head.
"I'm aware of all the ways it's a terrible idea, believe me," I murmured, waving for a raven as we stepped into the entryway. A sudden idea struck, and I ripped a corner of the parchment off.
"Even if you take Ramsey out of the equation, which you totally can and should, by the way, you're already on thin ice with the headmistress. You’re already being punished. So if you get caught out after the dark hour..."
I stopped listening as she continued her lecture since I’d already given it to myself numerous times. As the raven landed at my feet, beak open, I found a small pebble on the stone floor and scratched out on the scrap the first short words I could think of. Love you. Then I rolled it up, stuck it in the raven's beak, and whispered, "Deliver to Sepharalotta."
It gave me an are-you-kidding-me side-eye and then skipped over to Seph's foot. The right Seph. Not the skin-walker version, though it could have very well taken on a different form already. Still, maybe the ravens could tell who was real and who was fake, and maybe we could use that to our advantage. At this point, I’d take any advantage.
"Are you even listening— Oh. For me? Why are you sending me notes when I'm standing right here?" She bent down to retrieve the scrap and unrolled it to read. With a heaving breath, she looked at me, her great big eyes shining bright and then threw her arms around me. "I love you too. I'm just worried, okay?"
I held to her tightly. "I know. Me too."
"I can come with you. Protect you."
Her words warmed and chilled me at the same time. She’d said she’d been fine at night all those months I was in the dungeon, but I much preferred being there with her just in case. The risk of her sleepwalking again while I left her tonight chewed through my nerves. But because I didn't know where exactly we were going tonight, I didn’t want to bring her anywhere near the gym. The only other alternative was leaving her alone since I couldn’t tell anyone else I’d be sneaking out after the dark hour. Well, maybe Morrissey if only she had any other roommate than Echo.
"We’ll figure out something," I said, to both of us.
After pulling away, I bent to scratch out another message at the bottom of Ramsey's note. P.S. Bring this & ink. Then I sent it and the raven on its way, and we followed it into the Gathering Room. A small bit of relief loosened my chest when it flew right to Ramsey. If he brought my note tonight, then it had to really be him. Right? Yeah, it was flimsy, but it was the best I could come up with.
"Yes," Seph groaned as we sat at the freshmen table facing the rest of the room. "I'm going to mashed potato myself into a coma."
I looked up over the sea of staring faces of those who still expected me to go on a murder spree any second to Ramsey. He held my note and caught my gaze, his brows squeezed together with worry, and then he nodded. Yes, he’d put even more Diabolicals on duty to watch the stone.
"Why?" he mouthed.
I shook my head. As long as more people were watching the stone, I'd tell him later.
He turned to the guys next to him and ducked low in conversation.
Seph ticked her gaze between us, the two coins for our dinner still in her hand. "Yeah, I just don't know how to feel about this. One minute you want to kill him, and the next you're..." She waved at the air.
I nudged her shoulder and tried for a confident smile, like I knew what I was doing. "And that's different than other guys how?"
I TIED SEPH TO HER bed. It was the only solution I could find, but I sure didn't feel good about it.
"I won't be able to sleep, you know." Her voice came out muffled since Nebbles insisted on sleeping on top of half her face.
"Because the rope
’s too tight?" I asked, fidgeting with it for the hundredth time.
"No, goofball. I'll be worried about you, with him. And tied up like this... Dawn, this is an unbreakable knot that only you can undo. If you don’t come back—"
"I'm coming back." I sat on the side of her bed with a sigh. "This is extreme. I know that, especially since you haven't sleepwalked in a while. But I can't ask Morrissey for help because then Echo will know, and she's just waiting for an opportunity to either punch me or get me in trouble."
"Both, actually," Seph said, without a hint of a joke.
"Thanks." I patted her folded hands on top of the blanket. "I feel better knowing that. I guess I could've asked Jon to come and watch you sleep."
Seph's cheeks turned rosy as she laughed. "That's at least date three fun, not the first or second. Everyone knows this."
"Ah, so will there be first date fun?"
"Not if I'm still tied up in the morning." She looked at me, her dark gaze imploring, the half of it I could see anyway. "I will be very angry with you if I am."
"Noted." I squeezed her hands and then started to reach for Nebbles, but she rumbled a low growl. "Stay cute. The both of you. Use your spell to lock the door after I’m gone. And try to get some sleep."
"Be careful, Dawn."
I nodded and stood, and before I could convince myself that this would be like walking to my death, I slipped out the door, drew a quick protection symbol on it, and hurried to meet my enemy.
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.
Necromancer Unleashed: Book 2 Page 5