Behind me, Ramsey cleared his throat, his rain-scented magical signature putting me somewhat at ease. "Miss me?"
"Did she seem okay to you?"
He pushed off the doorframe, closed the doors, and sauntered closer, his steps confident and silent. "I'll take that as a yes. Yes, you missed me.”
“But did she?”
“We’re at Necromancer Academy,” he said with a sigh. “Is anyone really okay here?”
“Of course not.”
He pointed down. “The door to the catacombs is right under our feet."
"No one cares if we go down there?"
"Not if they don't know," he said, chuckling.
"You like the thrill of doing something you're not supposed to more than anyone I've ever known."
"Wrong. I like the thrill of doing something I'm not supposed to with you."
The way he said it, with that gleam in his eyes, hummed my blood faster.
“You're in luck, then. I'm definitely a catacombs kind of girl."
“Eh...” He knelt to feel along the stone floor. "You might change your mind about these catacombs."
"Why's that?"
Part of the stone caved slightly under the pressure of his hand. He grasped an invisible handle and peeled the stone away like it was made from parchment. It revealed a square hole that dropped into nothingness. A burst of stale, cold air and dust wafted out.
He brushed his hands together, his face grim. "These are necromancer catacombs. They're...different, to say the least."
“Yeah, why am I not surprised?” I stared down into the hole, unease pitching my stomach.
Still kneeling, he held out his hands, glancing toward the Gathering Room doors. "You first. The bottom's just a little ways down. I'll close up after us."
I squatted down and swung my legs over, then with his help, lowered myself down. My feet touched uneven ground, and I tried to keep my balance while snapping my dark gray light into my palm. I flinched at what I found myself standing on—a massive pile of bones. I shouldn't have been surprised but still. I moved out of Ramsey's way as he dropped down next to me and rolled the stone floor over our heads with another invisible handle.
"How did you know the door was there if you can't see it?" I asked.
"I knew it was there."
"But...how? Was it on one of your maps?"
"You want in badly enough, you'll find a way. Like you, into this school." He gazed down the steep mountain into the darkness below and sighed. "Come on. The way down isn't easy."
He was right. I slid and stumbled most of the way, and when the mountain grew too steep to get any kind of traction, I ran the rest of the way. Ramsey beat me, hardly out of breath, while I sucked enough dust-covered air down for the both of us. It snagged in my lungs, though, as I looked around. We stood in a large cavernous area. The high ceiling curved into a white dome, and carved into the bone-white walls almost halfway down were circular windows almost like eye sockets. Below that was what was left of a nose, and below that, about ten feet above us, stretched a wide, toothy grin.
"We're standing inside a huge skull, aren't we?" I whispered.
"Yes. Manmade tunnels made from other bones wind down and outward for miles," he said, studying me carefully.
“Down and outward... Is this someone's... Is this a real skeleton?"
"It might just be the shape the catacombs were built, but it's rumored to be a giant's skeleton who was banished to Eerie Island long, long ago for practicing necromancy. It wasn't always as accepted as it is now."
I scoffed. "I'd hardly say it's accepted. Would you? Have you ever been to town here? They look at you there like you're walking gut foam."
He laughed, the sound echoing strangely. “I’ve never thought of myself as walking gut foam, but okay. I see your point, though, but with the exception of Ryze, we're not all bad. Some do see our value, even the townspeople, when we bring back crops after a drought, or if you’re really talented, after you bring back their one and only milking cow when it was their only source of money. Just because we use black magic doesn't mean we're evil."
"I see that now. Before, I had no idea what to expect, but now I think I realize why Leo wanted to teach here. Like you, he saw the good."
"Like you too," he said, smiling. "There's a reason your magic is gray and not black. You still use it for good."
I gazed at the magic dancing in my palm and swallowed. Bringing back Ryze successfully had darkened it considerably, and shadow-walking down here would even more. I'd have to balance it out, keep it gray by using healing spells and other white magic. Kind of like Morrissey had forced me to do to keep my magic gray for bringing back Ryze.
We started walking to the left through an archway made of skulls, our steps crunching over ground bones. Huge glowing green worms slithered in and out of the gaping jaws and eye sockets, the same kind that had attached to my ankle in the infirmary the night Ryze came back.
I stopped and pointed. “Careful not to step on those.”
“I remember.” He crossed toward them slowly, his arm lifted. “Habitus.”
The air crackled off-white around them, and they slowed to a stop.
I slid him a look. “I would’ve petrified them until they exploded.”
“Which is why I got to them first.” He chuckled as we safely passed underneath the archway, and the worms stayed put. "There are about sixty million bodies buried down here."
My jaw dropped. "Sixty million?"
"You have to remember the academy's been here for a long time, Eerie Island even longer, but a lot of people wanted to be buried here for a reason."
"To be brought back." I shook my head, unable to fathom that many bodies. "Has someone done that before?"
"Someone like Ryze, you mean? Well, I haven't met the guy like you have, but I imagine he has a bit of an ego. Just because he can doesn’t mean he wants to. He split his soul across six stones himself. If he had help with that, it wasn't the reliving variety."
"No, I suppose not. But it could've been. He is a talented necromancer."
"Even if he did bring them back, what would he do with them? We're on an island. What's he going to do? Put sixty million bodies on a boat and take them to his stronghold in Keptra?"
"I suppose not, but he wouldn't need sixty million, would he? Just a few to do his bidding and then gradually create an army of the dead." It was what I would do, if I were him anyway. He'd have to do something different to make sure he didn't have to spread his soul over six stones again. He wasn't stupid. I'd give him that much. We had to make sure he came back here, somehow. Trick him maybe, and I would meet him at the door, stronger than I'd been before when we’d faced off in the infirmary. And deadlier.
Ahead of us, a path tracked through the ground bones on the floor like something had been dragged. A casket perhaps, like the one Ryze had been buried in.
"Must be a popular place to collect items and thread a plan together, because look," I said, pointing, “something was dragged through this very same tunnel."
"Morrissey?"
I nodded.
"She'd have quite a collection of teeth to pillage down here."
"I think she only likes fresh ones in people’s mouths because they whispered to her." A surge of anger soured my tongue as I prodded the hole where my tooth had been. "That way she can replace them with whatever she wants."
“Only a coward would run like she did.” He gazed at me, his expression an angry roll of thunder. "She's afraid of you."
I kicked at the bone dust, sending a white cloud over my boot, and swallowed down the bitterness of her betrayal. "Good."
We wound our way through more tunnels, the floor gradually sinking us deeper into the giant’s skeleton. Cut into some of the bone-white walls were large squares with ornate bone handles. If I happened to pull one, I was sure a dead body would be lying within. It didn’t bother me to be surrounded by so much death. If anything, I found it fascinating.
"So the
shadows really start down here, a concentration of black magic residue so thick, not even the whitest magic will light the space.” Ramsey shivered hard. “Remember the graveyard with cages? The cages contained the shadows rolling off of those graves, but we felt them, that cold, terrible feeling. You feel it now, right?"
I nodded, even though I didn’t. Darkness choked the area ahead, but it didn’t feel awful at all. The darkness welcomed me, wrapped me up in a pleasantly cool embrace, and I hadn’t even started shadow-walking yet.
"The Staff of Sullivan is hidden in those shadows, I bet. That's where you come in to teach me your handy skill. Pun definitely intended."
I snorted.
He swept forward and grabbed my hand. "So teach me." He swiped his thumb over my knuckles, shooting a thrill up my entire arm.
I grinned. "You took the wrong hand."
"I like this one better..." He tracked his thumb up over my wrist where he could surely feel my frenzied pulse. "So I'll take both." His off-white magic in his palm blinked out, nearly swallowing us up in complete darkness since my dark gray magic didn’t light the way at all. Fabric sighed as he slipped his free hand into his pocket. "Now what?"
“Is your dead man’s hand open?”
“Yes.”
I sank my eyes closed at the feel of his breath breezing across my lips, at the feel of his strong fingers stroking mine. His nearness and simple touch drove away the chill down here, even near the thick shadows. I craved their comfort and his, caught between their dark and his light. Truly gray.
I stepped in closer to him and grazed my smile across his chin, addicted to that powerful thrum every time we touched. "Your intent has to be as dark as mine was in order for you to shadow-walk."
He heaved a shaky laugh. "I don't want to kill the Staff of Sullivan."
"Then think about what it can do." I pressed a light kiss to each corner of his mouth, my heart rejoicing a little more with each one. "Or what you could do if you had it."
"I don't know what it does exactly.” His breathing grew ragged as I kissed down his jaw. “It was stolen from my grandfather when he was a student here. I don't even know what it looks like. A staff. That's all I know."
"I'm not so sure this will work, then,” I said, skimming my lips over his warm skin. “The intent behind shadow-walking must be dark and specific."
"Well, I have a very specific intent right now. That should count for something." He released my hand to cup my cheek and angle my head for a deep, sensual kiss. It hummed through my entire body and skipped my pulse to a wild beat.
I put out my magic in my palm so I could wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him closer. We fit so well together that I never wanted to move from this spot.
"This isn't what I expected shadow-walking to be like," he said between kisses.
"The benefits of having me for a teacher."
"If that's the case, I'm going to need a lot more help." He kissed me harder, and I had to remind myself to come up for air.
"This is what normal people do, right? Kiss in catacombs with sixty million dead people?"
"You came to Necromancer Academy to kill me. Normal has no meaning anymore. Besides, I like this much better, this different version of how you're killing me right now."
"Am I?" I sighed as he flicked his tongue over my bottom lip.
He nodded. "Worth it."
I swept my lips over his one more time. Then again for luck and snapped my light back into my palm. "While you hold your dead man’s hand, say umbra deambulatio."
With a dazed expression and a goofy smile, he pulled away and slipped his hand in his pocket. "Umbra deambulatio."
Nothing happened. He was the same warm, solid Ramsey as ever.
Sighing, he snapped his magic back into his palm, too, the off-white color highlighting the tightness in his jaw. "Well, it was worth a shot."
"I’ll find it." I stuck my hand in my pocket and grasped the murderer’s open hand that would lead me into the shadows.
"But the intent—"
"Umbra deambulatio." I drifted apart into a shadow, nothing but a black stain on the white bone floor. Behind me, the creeping shadows swarmed closer as if to draw me into them, prickling my awareness with their dark smiles, but I ignored them. I focused only on the man in front of me, rising in front of him and teasing my shadow fingers up his arms.
He shivered as he stared at my shadow self standing at my full height in front of him. "I see you. Your shape. I feel how cold you are."
There was an edge to his voice. I could tell he didn't like this and would rather I didn't flirt with these dark shadows, but this was the only way to find the staff and save his family.
I swept past him then turned and waited for him to follow.
Reluctantly, he did. "This is dangerous. I'd much rather do this myself so you don't have to. Shadow-walking is too dark, and they could decide not to let you out again."
It was dangerous, but it felt good, like joining friends after a long time away. It was a relief to have a dead man's hand in my pocket once again.
I turned and drifted deeper into the shadows toward a bone wall with square holes big enough for a coffin to fit through it. Empty tombs, I guessed, but where were the bodies now?
Ramsey hardly made a noise behind me as he treaded closer with his magic flickering in his palm. I didn’t need his light. Shadows dripped down the once stark-white bones and blended their extreme darkness with mine. Anything else that was hidden within, like a staff, would stand out. If it was hidden inside one of these millions of tombs, though—
My shadow self froze, stopping my forward creep along the floor. Through the hole in the wall, something had moved past with a swish of a black cloak. We weren't alone down here.
Chapter Seven
QUICKLY, I REFORMED, and the shadows yanked me hard by my shoulders and hair to pull me back in. I wrestled myself away from them and flicked my gaze to the other holes in the walls and then to Ramsey. He stared with wide eyes.
I put my finger to my lips and listened. The bell around my neck that indicated someone was reliving nearby remained quiet. This person was alive.
"Someone's here," I mouthed to Ramsey and pointed at the end of the holey wall. They’d have to appear there unless they doubled back or that tunnel forked off somewhere else.
Ramsey held his light out in front of him while he gazed toward the end of the wall with intense determination.
"Is someone there?" he called, and his voice echoed back to us.
Sweat slicked my palms, and my stomach hitched. I briefly consider dissolving into a shadow again to sneak up on the person and follow them to see what they were up to, but that would mean leaving Ramsey alone. Not that he couldn't handle himself but still. Besides, maybe this person was just hanging out...with no light and seemingly all alone in the catacombs. Not to mention whoever it was hadn't yet answered Ramsey.
Ramsey and I took a single step toward each other, quiet as we could, then another, our gazes locked at the end of the wall. Were they about to spring for a surprise attack? I had my dagger in my boot and rusty Latin spells in my head. What could go wrong?
We waited.
The wall wasn't even that long, maybe twenty feet past where I'd first spotted the person, but I had no idea where the path behind led. I reached for Ramsey's cloak and tugged. We could leave this spot, go somewhere else less crowded.
Someone spun out from behind the wall with hands raised above their hooded head.
"Occidere," they shouted in a voice that was neither male nor female.
Green flames shot through with writhing black veins erupted from their palms and hurled toward us.
We dodged in opposite directions.
"Reducere," Ramsey yelled.
"Obrigesunt," I shouted at the same time, and a dark gray ball streaked from my palm.
The figure ducked behind the wall again.
Ramsey grabbed my wrist, and we took off down another tunnel behind us and d
eeper into the catacombs. We didn't stop, both of us risking looks over our shoulders, and even when it appeared we weren't being followed, we still didn't stop. Pain stitched through my side. My heavy breaths burned into my lungs. As we wound our way through more and more tunnels, I couldn’t take it any longer and collapsed against a wall.
Ramsey posted his hands on his knees and bent over, gasping. "Occidere means kill. Whoever that was is trying to kill us."
"I guessed as much,” I said between pants.
"Why though? Because we're down here? No one has ever tried to kill me down here before."
"Maybe it’s because I can shadow-walk. Maybe they don’t want you to find the Staff of Sullivan," I said, keeping my voice low. "You're sure you don't know what it does?"
"It’s the source of my family’s magic. Way, way back, the Sullivans were just humans, not mages, with no magic to speak of. The staff was given to my great-great-great grandfather for rescuing a warrior’s daughter. A curse, really, because humans are too frail to have magic, and then to have that magic taken away... It slowly drains them. The staff has a ton of magical properties I don’t know about. Without it, we grow weaker. Without it"—he leaned against the wall and buried his head in his hands—“the Sullivans will die a painful death.”
My chest ached for him. I knew what the absence of the staff was doing to his family. I'd seen his two sick little sisters in the crystal ball he’d given me. The responsibility of trying to save them was crushing him.
“My parents gave me their magic—all they could anyway—before sending me here.” With a heavy sigh, he stood straight again and gazed at me, his jaw set, determination striking across his thunderstorm eyes. "Even if it kills me, I have to try, which means you can't help me anymore."
"Then how are you going to find it?" I asked gently.
"I'll keep practicing to shadow-walk."
Practicing wouldn't do him any good. If someone were trying to prevent him from getting the staff, I wouldn't let him come down here alone. I’d follow after him. Or better yet, come down here myself as a shadow and find it myself.
Necromancer Revealed: Book 3 Page 7