Nightborne Academy

  He laughs and inclines his head toward me. "I'll give it to you since I'm learning a little bit, as well."

  "After the fight, what happened? This is part of the original question."

  A swipe of his claw on my right hand. Papercut depth. He did promise to keep them shallow for simple ones. "I'm afraid that counts as a legitimate question. Don't break the rules again."

  I curse in my head and rub my hand, hating the stings of the small cuts almost as much as the big ones.

  A harsh wind blows through the gazebo, tearing at the wet blood-soaked cloth clinging to my wounds.

  "Before you answer that question, let me get my backpack."

  "Why?"

  "I have bandages in there. I can stop the bleeding so we can continue."

  He laughs, but this time it doesn't reach his eyes. His silver hair dances across his face. "Anyone else would run screaming by now."

  "You said you would teach me how to defend against magic. Will you also teach me to defend against you?"

  Another swipe. This time it's my cheek. Blood slides down my face, cooling as it goes, tickling the skin as it drips down. I refuse to wipe it away as he flings my blood onto the floor between us. What a waste of blood. "If you can last for the entire time without shedding a tear or choosing to walk away, I'll teach you how to fight against someone like me."

  Fight. Not defend. Still, being able to defend is a natural part of any fight. "Agreed. Let me get my bag."

  "No." He presses closer to me, claws extended to deadly points.

  "Why not?"

  He flashes into smoke and swirls behind me, slicing at my shoulder. I hiss and spin, but he’s already back where he started. "Because it's not part of the lesson I want to teach you."

  I clench my jaw and move away from the barrier. "What's the lesson you want to teach me?"

  Smoke again flashes behind me. I catch his movement out of the corner of my eye and pain blooms along my side. He's not holding back now. Did I irritate him with my request to bandage up my arm?

  "The lesson I want to teach you is to know your limits." He's not even tasting the blood anymore, just flinging it off his claws when he comes back to solid form. His irritation is obvious in the line between his brows. "Quit wasting time and ask the right questions."

  Everything about him changes to a more dangerous and deadly intent.

  "Are you angry with me?"

  He lunges toward me and I move too slow. Another slice on my face, close to my ear.

  "Yes." That one he licks from his fingers.

  "You still owe me an answer to the question about my sister. What happened after the fight?"

  He clenches his jaw and starts to pace slowly around me, a caged animal ready to lash out. "She became a completely different person. For three years, she would challenge anyone and everyone to arena fights. Eventually, she moved to their own turf, in rings of power like this one." His aura is a complete mess.

  I clench my arm, putting pressure on it as best I can, but the blood is sticky and slick at the same time.

  "Before you ask, after three years, she stopped fighting and no one else bothered her. She never lost."

  How many enemies did you make, Lacey? My vision darkened slightly, and the thick scent of blood overwhelmed my senses. Was I losing too much? How many cuts did he make? I've lost count.

  "Let's stop for now."

  "The time isn't up." I draw in a breath. "You want me to ask the right questions. Here we go. Do you know who killed my sister?"

  Flash of smoke. Slice. Pain across my other side. At least he wasn't aiming for the legs.

  "No."

  "This next question needs a specific answer, not speculation. Do you know why she was targeted?"

  I try to track his movement, but he's getting faster. It must the be the side effect of drinking my blood. A deeper slice across my back. Fire erupts from the cut and I stumble forward.

  "No."

  "Hey, that cut was too deep for such a simple answer."

  He flashes in front of me and grips my chin in his fingers, lifting it so I stare into the fire-tinged depths of his black eyes. "Do you know why they want you to take her place?"

  I try to jerk away from his touch, but my body is forced still; a spell of some type enthralls me and I gasp in real, deep fear. "To lure out the person who set my sister up. That’s why I need the amulet from Cutter."

  He laughs and I see sharp fangs where his normal canines had been. "Think about it. You've received no guidance. No training. You passed out before you even got here and the only help you've received is from two criminals forced to work for the Academy."

  I blink slowly. "You're one of those criminals, I take it."

  "Yes." He whispers the word to me. "Detective Cutter is so sure of your assistance that he left you an envelope with a set of instructions, and this." He holds up his hand and a familiar pendant dangles in front of me. The burned inscription, the ruined metal.

  "You already had it with you. Why didn’t you tell me?"

  He releases my chin and puts thumb against my lower lip, lightly slicing down. Blood spills out and the sting is far worse for the way he stares at his handiwork. Papercut damage, no worse than a split lip, but his hunger is almost palpable. "You were in bed for four days. I got bored, so I snooped through your things."

  "You looked at my dad's letter."

  "The one on your luggage?"

  "Yeah."

  "Yes, I did. Your dad is one piece of work, by the way. Completely ruthless."

  Burning rage ignites inside me. That's two people who have touched his letter before I have. No wonder Lacey cast spells on our letters so only I could read them. "My relationship with him is none of your business."

  He dissolves into smoke and I rub the back of my hand across my lower lip, another smear of red across my skin. The sound of blood spatter hits the wooden planks.

  I drag in one breath after another, watching him float leisurely across the floor. He reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out an old pocket watch. "Looks like you have five minutes remaining. Make the next questions count."

  “How can your clothes travel with you when you move?”

  A small slice on my chin and he’s back where he started, still looking at the watch. “Unique magic that you’ll never be able to learn. Next question.”

  "Did you betray my sister?"

  He cuts a glare at me and closes the pocket watch with a snap. He slips it back into his pants pocket and is on me before I can breathe, claw stabbing my shoulder, body weight crushing me against the barrier behind us.

  Pain tears through me and I scream, but all I can see is his furious expression and those fire-filled eyes glaring at me. "No." He grinds out the word.

  I shudder under his pressure and drag in a shaky breath, holding back my sobs with desperation. "Di-did you know she was going to die?" I force the question out, despite my terror, my skin crawling with the expectation of pain.

  His jaw clenches and a muscle bunches in his cheek. It seems as though that's all I can see. The world is getting darker.

  "Time's up."

  "You said I had five min—"

  "Reese," he bellows, and withdraws his claw. I cry out and the wall against me disappears, knocking me off balance.

  Arms wrap around me and I'm lifted between two people. Reese's shadows. There are two of them now. I'm so dizzy. My eyes close and the world spins, but I don't have the energy to fight against it.

  "Don't you think you overdid it?" Dr. Reese—no, his clone stares at Grayson while grabbing my jacket and backpack.

  "Someone needed to teach her what it means to bend the rules here."

  "She's lost a lot of blood." A hand touches my forehead and fire rushes through my veins.

  "Do you think I wanted to go this far? She doesn't back down. Just like—" He's shouting, and my entire body throbs as all the wounds seem to burn at once. My arms and side burn hotter than the rest, searing from the inside. I scream
until I'm hoarse, wishing I could pass out, but unable to.

  "Look at me." My eyelid is pried open. First one, then the other.

  The entire world is a blur.

  “We can’t close these all up at the same time or she’ll die.”

  “What is this?” Fingers dig into the hole in my shoulder and another scream tears from my throat.

  “A mistake.” Grayson stands beyond my field of vision.

  “T-tell him,” I choke out through a gasp of pain. I grasp the lab coat of the medical clone. The material is as thin as paper, nothing like the cloth I expected. “Tell him he owes me an answer.”

  “What is she talking about?”

  The question comes at me from a distance and the answer is just a mumble. I realize I’m falling asleep.

  Panic forces me to fight it, but the pain wears me down to the fringes of oblivion. If I die, will Mom and Dad get a hefty payout? I think I laugh, but maybe it was just in my head. Coming out here was stupid. Next time, I’ll be smarter.

  15

  “Hey, wake up.” A familiar voice echoes in my ear as I jerk awake.

  Opening my eyes, I struggle to sit up. I’m lying on the ground. Did they leave me in the cemetery or something?

  I look down at my arms and flex a bit. No soreness. That’s not true. There is a faint soreness, but it’s somewhere far away from me.

  “How many times are you going to nearly die before you’re satisfied?” A girl appears next to me, startling me. I scramble away from her, but she stays where I left her, squatting at my side with a long plaid skirt tucked demurely around her legs. Fog swirls around us, trapping us in this clearing, and I have no interest in finding out what lays beyond it.

  I put my hand on my chest, feeling the slam of my heart. “Who are you?”

  Her hair is dark like mine and my sister’s. Her face looks familiar, but I can’t place her.

  “I was the girl trapped in the stone formation. The one who died before your sister. Don’t tell me you forgot already.”

  I suck in a breath. The vision I had on the drive the night Lacey died. “I remember you. What happened? You were drawing something on the ground with your blood. What was it?”

  She laughs. “Slow down with your questions. One at a time. I’ll answer your questions, but there are more important things you need to know and we don’t have much time. I was the first sacrifice in the circle.”

  “Sacrifice for what? And why don’t we have much time?”

  “I don’t know what the sacrifice is for. That’s for you to figure out. I’m just the ghost trapped here by accident. The circle was a blood seal pact. I hoped to stop their death ritual and seal their powers at the same time without dying, but it was too late by then.” She stands up and flashes beside me. A stench of rot and filth fills my nose and I gag.

  My body springs away on instinct, and chills skitter down my spine.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” I swallow down my bile. Since I don’t know where I am, insulting the hostess is a stupid move. “Am I dead?”

  “No. You’re very much alive.” She grabs my arm and I break out in a cold sweat. “That reaction is your body’s physical pain from my touch. Things that happen here will affect you out there.” She drops my arm and flashes back toward the edge of the fog.

  Her body doesn’t shift to smoke like Grayson’s. She’s a true spirit. Sort of like a ghost that levels up. And that meant she could crush me from the inside any moment she wanted. Especially without Dad here to protect me.

  “You know what I am.”

  It doesn’t surprise me that she can read my mind. “I’ve faced true spirits in the past.” They were both mass murderers who ascended from eating the souls of their victims, but hopefully, she’s different.

  Her laughter skitters over my skin, harsh and grating as though she’s forgotten how it’s supposed to sound. Actually, looking at her dress style, I’d say she was far older than me by at least fifty years.

  “Closer to seventy.”

  “Wow.” A cold wind whips through the area and I shiver.

  “We don’t have long to chat. Looks like your sister is worried enough to finally break out of her cage.”

  “Cage?”

  “Hush and listen. You’ll see her soon.” She waves her hand and we’re suddenly back at the huge gazebo with Grayson. I see me standing with my back against the barrier and Grayson attacking me in slow motion swipes.

  My expression is terrified. And my lack of movement completely embarrassing. It was the most one-sided fight in the history of fights, ever. “Do we have to keep watching this?”

  “Look at this part.” The scene flashes forward to the part where he hits me twice at once. “There. Did you see his aura?”

  “No. But his face is really pale.”

  “What were you thinking at this moment?” She stops the movement right where I winced.

  “Probably something about not wanting to get hit again.”

  “Now look at his aura.” She runs her hand along the smoke. “Let me back it up.”

  Time rewinds to right before the wince. “Now watch his aura. I will tell you when your facial expression changes.”

  I walk around his body, noting the tension and the fact that his shirt clings to his back in sweat despite the frigid temperatures outside.

  “Starting now. Be ready.”

  Time inches forward and I see his muscles tense up. The aura flexes around him and then suddenly whips toward my image. “There it is!” My shout echoes in the distance, but she’s already hit the right spot.

  “What is this?” I touch his aura. The smoke drifts toward the image of me, light and barely noticeable.

  “It’s what stopped him from attacking you after you asked your question.” Time moves forward again. “See the strain on his body for breaking the agreement?”

  His face turns pale and the aura cringes around him. “It caused him pain.”

  “Who knows? The important thing is that you were able to control him for a split second.”

  “Can you rewind it and play again in real-time?”

  “Of course.”

  I brace myself for the embarrassment of seeing me totally fail at survival.

  She does the pass several times for me, slow and sped up, not once ignoring my demands. Each time I see something different in the fight. The way his body seems to respond to my facial expressions. I piece together moments from our conversation, but toward the end, it all runs together in my mind.

  “Is he the person who killed Lacey?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who killed my sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “If I say their names, they will see us. The only reason I’m able to see you again is because of your near-death state. I saw you before because of your sister’s traumatic death. The next time you see me, you might be in the same boat. So pay attention.”

  I want to stay quiet, I really do, but a question escapes anyway. “Why are we watching this?”

  “To learn how to fight back. They will come for you in fourteen days on the night of the new moon.”

  “Will this work on them?”

  “No, but it will work on ghosts and spirits. And half spirits like him.” She runs her hand across his smoke aura. “He’s half in, half out of the spirit world. You can temporarily disable people like him, but don’t count on it. Instead, focus on using ghosts and spirits like me to do your bidding.”

  “How?”

  “The same way you did it here.”

  “Am I supposed to do some kind of spell or train in some way?”

  She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “How would I know?”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here? To guide me or something?”

  That weird laughter pours out of her again. “I’m here with you because your naivete is going to get you killed before I can escape this purgatory hell I’m in.”
<
br />   Disappointment floods my thoughts and douses the little hope I’d managed to gather since watching me get my ass kicked dozens of times.

  “Look, kid. The only reason I can even see you right now is because you spilled your blood all over the circle of power I scrawled on the ground. We are now bound by blood, but the moment you wake up, it’ll fade again.”

  “How was I able to see you that first night then?”

  “Your sister’s blood. When she came to find you, I managed to tag along for a little while.”

  I bury my face in my hands and scream one loud, long yell of anguished frustration.

  “Feel better?’

  “No.” My hands fall to my sides and I force my shoulders back from the slouch they’d fallen in. “I can affect him. So you think I can affect ghosts and spirits in the same way, but that’s not going to help me.”

  “Why not? They’re your most powerful weapon.”

  “But I didn’t see any ghosts until I was in the cemetery.”

  “That’s because they’re sealed there.”

  “Then how will this help me?”

  “Listen, the stone circle I was sacrificed in now sits in this gazebo. It’s the same spot where your twin sister was murdered. She’s the latest in a long line of sacrifices for this ritual. It’s a circle for death magic users to channel high amounts of power. No one should be able to overpower these. Everything on these grounds should be restricted.” She holds up her wrist and I see a similar band to the one that encloses my wrist. “What does that tell you?”

  I suck in a breath. “The person is an outsider?”

  “Possibly. But think about the safety of this school. Why was the gate locked and access restricted? Why are ghosts and spirits like me able to walk free now?”

  I walk around the gazebo, taking in her words. “Is this circle outside the protection of the Academy?”

  “That was the purpose of building the circle in the first place. No one should be able to infuse this much power, so the person who did this to me and your sister planned for this eventuality. The circle was here before I died and will stay for as long as they continue hiding here. This lack of protection is why he could hurt you to this extent.” She taps his shoulder. “He never intended for you to go this far.”