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.
Chapter Seven
In a fit of rage, I wrenched out of the Diabolical’s grip and ripped his hood from his head, my dagger gripped tightly in my hand. It wasn’t Ramsey. I didn’t know this one’s name, but I’d seen him before in the Gathering Room.
“Why are you out after the dark hour?” he asked, the sharp accusation in his voice cutting deep.
“I could ask the same of you. Of all of you,” I shot back. I slid off my hood to wither them into the earth with the force of my glare while I dangled the bell from my pocket in front of me. “What’s with creeping up behind me to leave me this?”
“Shit, it’s Dawn,” one of them said.
“Damn right it’s Dawn.” For a second, I forgot why that might be important, but then I remembered everyone thought I was a killer. “You let me go without telling anyone, and I’ll let you live.”
“We already know you’re not a murderer,” the one who’d grabbed me said. “Ramsey filled us in.”
Of course he did. There went the one thing that might’ve given me the edge to walk out of here unscathed. “Then what were you doing following me up to the tower to leave this cemetery bell?”
Footsteps cracked over the fallen branches ahead, and everyone turned. It was Ramsey.
"You," I hissed.
He came closer, cutting through the Diabolical circle, and eyed the dagger, the bell, and then my face. "Gods damn it, what now? Did something happen?"
"This happened." I threw the bell at his feet. "Explain that. Right now."
He blinked at it and then looked up, an incredulous twist to his mouth. "What part of ‘go to that tower’ made you think to go to that graveyard instead?"
"I didn't," I said, seething. How could I have been so stupid to ever think about trusting him? "I heard footsteps chasing me up to the first tower, and when I turned, that bell was at the top."
He regarded me for a long moment. "And you think it was me?"
"You or one of your friends here. I don't know," I hissed. "There were no footprints up to the top other than mine, so it's like...like someone's playing tricks."
"Well." He sent me a dark look and then whirled in the direction he’d come. “That doesn't fit with the picture of me you already have in your head.”
I marched after him, ignoring our audience, and snatched up the bell. "What are you talking about?"
"The Ramsey you think you know is a killer through and through, right?” he called over his shoulder. “Not someone with no footprints who's playing tricks. So which is it, Dawn? Who am I in your eyes? A killer or a trickster?"
I bit my tongue, realizing I didn't have an answer. The dead trees and shadows swallowed him up as he strode away.
The Diabolical who’d grabbed me cleared his throat from behind. “We were tracking whatever was making the bell ring, saw you moving, and thought you might be reliving. But we didn’t leave it for you.”
He sounded like he was telling the truth. Had I once again misread the situation?
I turned to face him. “And whatever else might be lurking about after the dark hour, right? Shouldn’t you be guarding the stone or looking for the dampener?”
“Half of us are. The other half are out here.” He stepped closer and waved in the direction Ramsey had gone. “We already knew you came out here with Ramsey.”
I sighed. “Sounds like you know my whole life story, then.”
“You’re not wrong,” one of the Diabolicals muttered.
“We won’t tell that you’re out here with one of us,” the first guy said.
One of them. Other than pestering the freshmen—Seph and me especially—they were the good guys, the protectors of the onyx. If that was the case, then we needed to work together and trust each other. That was ridiculously hard for me for obvious reasons, but still. If they didn’t leave the bell for me, then who did?
“If I see anyone dead, I’ll give a shout,” I told them as I followed after Ramsey.
Surprisingly—or maybe not depending on which way I looked at it—they let me go.
When I rounded the next odd angle of the academy, I found Ramsey waiting on the bottom of the next tower’s steps. He shot me a thunderous look, then without a word, he rose and started upward.
After securing my dagger in my boot, I followed. Now that we were out of the trees, the falling snow swirled around us in tumultuous circles.
Several seconds of silence lapsed, then he spun around to face me on the steps and jabbed his finger toward my face. "You can't blame me for everything bad or weird that happens to you. Someday, you're going to have to learn to trust that I'm on your side."
"But you weren't before,” I said, stopping. “You sent the Diabolicals after me and Seph."
His mouth parted in an incredulous O as he threw up his hands in frustration. "Because both of you attacked me in the library.” He heaved a short breath and dipped his head, seeming to compose himself. “I've known since last school year that there was a skin-walker here and that I shouldn't trust anyone. I thought it was you, trying to pick off the Diabolicals one at a time so you could get to the stone."
My eyebrows rose. "Wait, how did you know about the skin-walker last year? What happened?"
He shivered, seeming to call up a memory that unnerved him. "I saw Dixon in town one weekend, and when I came back, he was talking about what he'd just done with some girl. Here, at the school. So how was it he was in two different places at once?"
I released a breath that caught in the frigid air, my mind whirring, and then sticking on a horrific thought. "But if someone looked like him while it was his turn to guard the stone—"
"No. There are too many charms, spells, and symbols around the stone protecting it. Anyone with malicious intent can't even get near it."
"Except Seph. She’s the very opposite of malicious, and she can’t get near it when she’s not sleepwalking." I trembled farther into my cloak. "She almost got through the red door in the gym, but it nearly killed her."
His jaw dropped. "What? You never told me that.”
Well, no. Not if I’d been trying to kill him. "That night you interrupted Vickie from killing me? Seph was sleepwalking, and I found her in the gym walking right through a fire to get to the red door. She was badly burned, but—"
"You healed her," he said, nodding.
"As much as I could. And you did too." And me after Vickie choked me. That didn't match the monstrous image I'd created of him in my head either. Why heal when you could join in the killing? It didn't fit. Nothing about him seemed to fit what I'd so desperately wanted him to be just so I could have my revenge.
“Making someone sleepwalk... It’s the perfect attack when you’re at your most vulnerable.”
“There was a voice, too,” I said. “A man’s.”
“Did you check her eyes?”
“Of course. It wasn’t a possession.”
He stared off into the distance, considering. “I’ve read that some mages who are unconscious, but not coma unconsciousness like mage’s oblivion, have sometimes reported that their spirits have separated from their bodies.”
“Really?”
“It’s rare, though, and they’d have to be skilled enough to enter another’s body. Not like a possession really, since the spirit is still alive.” He sighed and his breath steamed from his nose. “I wish you’d told me about this before, Dawn.”
I shrugged. “I was too busy trying to kill you.”
“And too busy not trusting me.” Something that could’ve been regret flashed across his features.
“I’m trying,” I admitted, but was I? Coming out here with him after the dark hour was one thing, but telling him everything seemed like an invasion of Seph’s privacy. Mine too. But if it helped catch the skin-walker, I should probably be more forthcoming. Eventually.
“You're shivering." Slowly, as if reaching for a frightened animal, he cupped my shoulders and then rubbed down the arms of my cloak. He watched me closely as he did, his gray eyes searching my own. "Think you can trust me for a little longer so we can go back inside where it’s warm?"
His touch sparked a bit of feeling back into my body. I nodded, still reluctant to trust him completely. But I might've been running out of reasons not to. It was so hard to tell.
Seeming satisfied with my silence, he turned and raced up the steps.
"Ah-ha," he said, cresting the stairs seconds before I did. "This looks promising."
I looked around in amazement. The entire top of the tower was filled with little headstones with paw prints and adorable names like King Kitty and Reaper. Under the layers of snow, the familiar cemetery looked well-kept. There was even a live tree in the center, its branches dipping low to the ground with ice-covered lemons.
"Wow," I breathed.
Ramsey nodded. "Impressive."
But why had my tooth whispered to Morrissey that I needed to come here? I stepped forward, as careful of the tiny graves as I could be since I couldn't see a path. Despite the deep freeze, the smell of lemons wafted from the tree, stirring up memories of Vickie's room. It had smelled like lemons there too.
"What was Vickie's last name again?" I asked, turning to scan the headstones.
"Sloane." He frowned and stepped closer. "Why?"
I skimmed each of the names on the headstones until I stopped on the one closest to the lemon tree. Max Sloane, it read, and then underneath, Very Good Boy. My heart ached as I approached the grave, several rocks stacked on top of it. Was the loss of her familiar why she'd become such a troll-bitch?
Ramsey snapped a flame of off-white light into his palm, knelt, and pointed at the corner of a worn leather book poking out of the pile of stones, the pages ruffling in the wind. "What do you suppose this is?" He unburied it and pulled it out, dusting the snow off of it to reveal a pentagram sewn into the cover.
"A spellbook, maybe?" I asked, kneeling next to him. “Or a diary?”
"Should we open it?"
"Of course we should. For clues."
"Aren't diaries supposed to be private?" Propping it on his knee, he flipped through several handwritten pages while watching me, a faint smile on his lips.
"The rules are different when you're dead." I made to grab it, but he jerked away.
"If you say so." He held the book so we could both see with his light, turned a few pages, and then pointed to his name. "Oh look, she wrote about me."
"‘...those eyes when he looks at you, like you're the single most important thing in the world,’" I read. "‘He makes me want to shove him up against the wall and—’"
"Oookay." Ramsey snapped the book shut, stood, and stepped away, a tiny hint of color blooming on his cheeks.
"And what?" I demanded. I could imagine she'd gone into great detail after that ‘and.’ Not that I cared. I just wanted to see him squirm.
"And nothing." He held the diary behind his back, easily sidestepping me when I tried to snatch it back.
"Give it to me." I lunged for him again.
He bit down on his grin as he breezed away. "Why do you want to know so bad? Can't you use your own imagination about me?"
"I do all the time when I think about killing you. Like now." I glared at him with my hands on my hips, wishing he weren't so frustrating all the time. "What else? Skip to the end."
He stalked toward me, waving the diary as a taunt while snowflakes collected on his long lashes. "Think different thoughts about me. Just try it."
“Impossible.” I whipped out my hand. “Give me the book, or I’m leaving.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh and flipped to the end—and all the color drained from his face. Without a word, he handed me the book.
My stomach dropped to my feet when I read what she’d written at the bottom of the page.
I KNOW WHERE PROFESSOR WADLUCK IS.
A long jagged line cut parallel to the seam of the diary. More pages had been torn out, likely revealing exactly where the professor was. What was it about books at this academy not being allowed to keep all their pages?
“How would she know that when he’s been missing for months?” I asked. “When no one else can find him? Was...was that why she was murdered?”
“I don’t know.” He blinked hard so the snow clinging to his lashes fell to his cheeks, and he absently wiped them off. “But someone obviously found this diary, maybe the same someone who killed her, to rip the answers out.”
I looked to the rock where he’d found the book and then to the lemon tree. “Do you think she came here with the invisibility spell written on her because she felt she couldn’t tell anyone for some reason? And the lemons were to erase it?”
“Possibly. Maybe she knew if she told, she’d be murdered.” He gestured to the tree. “Plus, she was talented with Undead Botany and—” he picked off what might’ve been a lemon seed stuck to the top of a page—“I’ve seen her eat a few lemons.”
I grimaced. “Well, that might explain a few things.”
Ramsey’s light flickered closer to the book and glowed softly on something I hadn’t yet noticed. Written on the inside of the back cover, as if with Vickie’s finger, was the word ROOM.
Vickie’s room. As in the one she couldn’t sleep in or the one across the hall?
I took Ramsey’s arm and angled the book so he could see.
His eyes widened. “Invisible ink from lemon juice only seen by direct magical light.”
“We have to go to her room.”
“Agreed.”
As we took to the stairs, my mind rolled over and over about what Vickie knew and how she knew it. And how it was connected to me. Why did my tooth practically shout to Morrissey that I needed to come here? What did my tooth know that I didn’t? I needed to find out.
“Does your transport spell work on other people?” I asked at the bottom of the stairs.
“Never tried it,” he said and then held out his hand. “Want to?”
Sighing, I slipped my hand into his, instantly feeling his warmth and strength se
eping into me. To be honest...I didn’t hate it.
“Evanescet.” He vanished without me and seconds later reappeared. “Nope.”
“So we walk.”
“Looks that way.”
Except he didn’t have to. He could’ve gone on ahead and left me, but he didn’t. That wasn’t exactly something a person capable of murder would do, especially when he held dead tree limbs out of the way for me and didn’t snap them back in my face.
“We’re at Necromancer Academy...” he said over his shoulder.
“Um.” I studied the back of his head, thinking he’d suffered a brain injury while I wasn’t looking. “You’re just now figuring this out?”
“If you’d killed me,” he went on, “how would you have kept me from coming back?”
“There’s a spell in my Book of Black Shadows.”
“You’ve done the spell before?”
“On a lizard that was already dead. Then I sent the lizard to an old necromancer who lives in Maraday. He couldn’t work his magic, so the spell worked.”
He looked over his shoulder at me, his right eyebrow raised even higher. “Impressive. Yet another powerfully dark spell that’s hard to pull off, but you did.”
“Am I beginning to scare you?”
“Scare? No. Intrigue?” He turned around and grinned while walking backwards. “Hells yes.”
I shrugged, wondering what it would take to scare him. “Wherever Ryze’s body is buried... Surely someone did that spell on him, right? To keep him dead?”
He faced forward again and held another branch out of my way. “Supposedly he’s buried here on Eerie Island somewhere so necromancers can guard his body, but no one knows where exactly.”
“He probably has the seeker-blocking spell on his body, but maybe we can try to find it and make sure.”
“Yeah.” His voice went softer. “We can try.”
When had we both started speaking in we’s and us’s? I hadn’t even meant to include him. It had just...slipped out.
He glanced back, likely noting I’d gone quiet, but he kept silent, too, as if knowing I needed time alone with my thoughts. Must’ve read it from my face. Was I that obvious with everything I was thinking?
Necromancer Unleashed: Book 2 Page 7