by Leigh Kelsey
“Was there?”
Iain shook his head. “I was looking in the wrong place. It was the ghosts in the tower. And to an extent, your brother and his friends.”
“Yeah,” Kati said, glancing down. “About that. I spoke to Alexandra Chen. Theo and his friends … they brought her back.”
“We know.”
We being him and Hawkness. And his team…? “I’m sorry, Iain,” she said quietly. “If my brother hadn’t been such a stupid piece of shit—”
“She’d have found some other way to come through,” he finished, covering her hand where it rested on her thigh. When had she sat down beside him again? She couldn’t remember, but she was sitting intimately close to him. And his hand was in alarming proximity to her pussy; her clit throbbed, and she scooted back a few inches, taking her hand from under his. The way her body had felt when he’d touched her horn earlier…
Souls, her horn. That sounded insane.
“Are the horns still there?” Kati asked hesitantly, motioning at her forehead.
“No,” he answered softly. “Your eyes are green again, too.”
Kati exhaled in relief. “Then I should go. I’ll come back in the evening. And don’t even think about teaching tomorrow,” she said, pinning him with a fierce glare.
He chuckled and held up his hands, inkstained at the tips. “Alright, I’ll take the day off.”
“Good.” Kati nodded.
She headed for the door, but paused before she opened it. “I’m still angry that you didn’t tell me,” she said, looking back at him. “And I don’t understand why you kept it secret. It hurts. But I don’t hate you. I can’t remember if I ever said I did, but just in case—I don’t, I never could. Be safe, okay?”
The look he gave her was soft and so sad. “I’ll be safe if you will.”
Kati nodded. “Deal.”
She left before she could say anything else, like how relieved she was that he was okay, how terrified she’d been that his aunt would kill him, and how much she still loved him.
Madam Hawkness stood when she saw Kati, giving her a questioning look.
“He’s awake,” Kati said, walking past her, Dolly trotting beside her with her nose in the air and a snooty look on her face. “You’re welcome.”
She sped out of the room, down the tower, and didn’t stop until she threw herself on her bed. Her whole body shook, and Kati couldn’t let go of the sense that Lady LaVoire had set a target on Iain’s back.
Possessing dreams was tame for her, but how long would it be before she did something bigger, something so much worse?
How long before she made her real move and the whole country discovered she was back?
Part II
Predator
If you ask me, the world would be a hell of a lot safer if people’d stop going ‘round torturing and possessing each other. But what do I know? I’m only a gentry veteran. You kids go on, keep throwing black magic at each other, see how the world ends up.
Myfanwy Davies, Headteacher of Second Breath Academy 1867-1900
Not These Guys Again
The next four weeks were fraught with worry and dread for Kati. She kept expecting another wraith to appear whenever she crossed a dark corridor on her own. Kept waiting for another attack from Lady LaVoire. She trained with Salazar on weekends—and some early mornings after classes—building her strength and speed with her wand, as well as learning basic self-defence in case she lost her wand in a fight. Salazar was a good tutor, even if he was distracting with his tall, tattooed body and his salacious mouth.
So far, all they’d done was harmless flirting, but something was building between them. It would be forceful when it erupted.
Kati didn’t speak to Alexandra Chen again, but she caught the woman glancing at her sometimes, as if wondering if Kati would corner her again. Or maybe she was just thinking about when they’d fought those wraiths together.
Madam Hawkness put SBA on full alert, with Mrs Balham patrolling much more often than before, and the security measures seemed to have worked. No more wraiths were seen on academy grounds. Kati had been gifted a month of calm, uninterrupted education. She could hardly believe it.
Death magic theory lessons were … difficult. Kati still ached over Iain’s lie, but she was starting to accept that their relationship hadn’t been an assignment. It hadn’t been supposed to happen; that much was obvious. Madam Hawkness didn’t approve, Kati could tell, and she made a point to avoid her in the hallways whenever she ran across the headteacher. And as for necromancy, they didn’t even have a replacement teacher yet. Miz Jardin had been teaching them what little bits she could in amongst their health and safety lessons, but it wasn’t much. Kati did learn a few new sigils for her glowing circle, though, and they’d supposedly stabilise the window for longer.
She hadn’t attempted anything practical again. She daren’t after how disastrously it went last time. The necromancers in her year had taken one of two stands on the matter: Kati was a reckless idiot, or Kati was a superhero.
She preferred the latter, naturally.
“Rise,” Naia muttered under her breath, drawing her wand in an upward slash through the air even though she was supposed to be changing into her P.E. kit.
Kati wiggled to get her tight yoga pants on—no way was she wearing shorts when they were going out onto the training field in February—and zipped a thick hoodie over her vest, half wishing she could go out rolled in a duvet, burrito style. She didn’t do well with the cold. At all.
“You’ll be fine, Naia,” she said, tying her hair back and grabbing her water bottle. “You’ve practised it a hundred times.”
“But if I get it wrong, I could fall to my death!” Naia’s brown eyes were wide and panicked behind her turquoise glasses. “I have a crippling fear of falling, Kati.”
“We won’t let you fall,” Rahmi promised, squeezing Naia’s shoulder. Or using her as a counterbalance as she pulled on her trainers; it was hard to tell.
“Even if you do fall,” Harley said from where she sat on the changing room bench in a khaki T-shirt and baggy shorts, her blonde hair flattened by her signature backwards baseball cap, “you can use that spell you cast in the tower, when you slowed your fall. That was awesome, by the way. I mean, I was petrified for my life and being possessed by a bustle-wearing maniac with a parasol, but I saw enough to know it was fucking cool.”
Naia averted her eyes, but she was smiling.
Kati elbowed her. “Just admit it, you’re a badass. You’ve got this.”
Naia rolled her eyes.
“Nope,” Kati declared, turning Naia by her shoulders until they were face to face. She got another eyeroll for her trouble, because Naia knew exactly what was coming. “Out loud, Clarke. It’s affirmation time. Say it.”
Naia sighed, giving Kati an exasperated look even as she laughed. “I’ve got this. I’m a badass.”
Kati squeezed her shoulders and let go, satisfied. “Yes, you are. Fastest runner in our year, plus you’ve won almost every competition in P.E., and you’ve got more information in that head of yours than a library.”
“Alright, fine,” Naia relented, her eyes averted with embarrassment at the praise. “Maybe I’ll be okay with the levitation spell.”
Rahmi beamed with pride. “Hold onto that confidence, Nai. It’s time to go out.”
Kati’s stomach did a little flip. Time to go. She was finally going to play levby, a lifelong dream coming to fruition.
The wraith attacks seemed very far away as Kati giddily made her way out of the changing room.
Mr Prise was in a foul mood when they arrived on the training field at the back of the academy, ringed by dense trees, with the academy at their backs and the silver lake sparkling in the moonlight just ahead. Like all ghosts, their teacher was transparent and blue-silver, although Kati could have sworn he was more corporeal than last term, as if being out under the moon made him stronger. His barking voice, too, seemed amplified as he yelle
d at them.
It became clear pretty quickly why he was scowling and muttering: Sybil Esperanza had joined them and was aweing everyone by executing her patented leap-roll in the air. She pushed off the ground in a regular jump, but her gruff voice called out the levitation spell, buoying her higher. Twenty feet high, she did a forward roll in the air and let out a whoop of joy as she descended. It was one of the most difficult maneuvers in levby, and it was both daunting and awe-inspiring to watch from below.
“I feel sick,” Naia breathed.
Gull elbowed her lightly, giving her a teasing grin, his sandy hair wind-ruffled and his familiar Tony’s alarmingly similar hairstyle dancing too as he watched Naia with puppy eyes. “You’ll be fine. Have you ever not trounced an entire class at a subject?”
“Yes,” Naia replied, swallowing as Sybil nose-dived for the ground. “This.”
Gull squeezed her shoulder, but didn’t say anything else. For a split second, he looked serious and concerned, but then excitement split his face in a grin as Sybil landed and took a smug bow in the same movement. He rushed towards the Eternal with his mouth hanging open. “Can you teach me how to do that?”
“Nope,” Sybil replied brusqely. “I plan to get through this whole lesson without any broken necks.”
Gull pretended to pout.
“Alright, kids,” Mr Prise boomed, as if determined to be louder than Sybil. For a ghost—and a militaristic P.E. instructor—he sure could be pissy. “Form a line! I want to see every one of you cast a levitation spell before I let any of you near a levby ball.”
The class spread into a single file line, the twenty or so of them casting the spell when prompted and rising a few feet into the air. The problem was keeping your balance when you were up there; it involved a lot of readjusting your weight and constantly sensing the pull of gravity around you. Not to mention the wind.
Naia did fine, as they’d all told her she would.
Harley shot into the air higher than anyone else and landed perfectly, blushing at the cheers she received.
Kati and Rahmi were around the middle of the pack; they didn’t fall like stuck-up Jacob Alders or pink-haired, brawny Mayhew—Kati still didn’t know the woman’s first name—but they weren’t amazing, either.
Gull, however, leapt into the sky, cast the spell with a shout, and flew around in the air, pausing right above their heads to take a little bow before landing.
“Show off,” Prise muttered sourly, his bulky arms crossed over his see-through chest. “You’ll be on the bench today, Mr Llewellyn.”
“Aw, what? But there’s only twenty of us!”
“Yes, well, I’ve just decided it’s nine-aside levby. Alders, you sit this one out, too. You’ll only end up injuring some else as well as yourself.”
Still nursing a bruised arm and twisted ankle, Jacob Alders limped to the slight incline of grass and sank onto it. After a staring—well, scowling—match with Mr Prise, Gull stalked off, too. Prise was in top form; stubborn and glaring, refusing to be beaten. His form didn’t even flicker as he out-stared Gull and silently challenged the remaining students, an impressive feat.
Marching up and down the line of students, Prise went over the rules of Levby one last time—the same as regular rugby, but with leaps and flight for as long as you were able to hold onto the spell—and begrudgingly split them into teams.
Kati ended up with Rahmi and Naia as opponents, but at least she had Harley on her side. She was missing Gull, though—it would have been nice to have his boundless energy and cheer.
Kati got the hang of balancing the more she leapt and sprinted for the ball, and she found that all the training she’d done with Salazar had made her fitter. She didn’t tire as quickly as she had playing rugby and football in the past, and she even managed to dive and twist in the air to evade Rahmi, who was the most competitive person in documented existence.
She scored, and a sense of pride and rightness swelled inside Kati. This felt good. Damn good. It was a relief; she’d been dreaming of playing levby for as long as she could remember.
She stayed on the ground for a few minutes, assessing the ebb and flow of the game, watching how the other team moved, and once she’d got a good feel for it, she kicked off, shouted, “Lift!” and rose straight up through the air, snatching the ball right out of Rahmi’s hands. With a grin, she rolled out of the way and evaded the tackle her friend had intended for her, rushing down towards the goal line—glowing bright green with Sybil’s magic.
You should be aware, an unfamiliar, droning voice said inside her mind, there are wraiths making their way towards your levby game. They look hungry, it added uneasily.
It was a male voice, but nobody Kati recognised. And they sounded older than her and the other students. A teacher maybe?
Kati scored the try, and then whipped her head around, searching the floodlit training field for who’d spoken. A member of Rahmi’s team swooped in and tackled the ball from Kati; she only just managed to land without breaking her ankle.
Who are you? She demanded.
You tell me, he replied.
Kati growled, her breath racing as she frantically glanced around her. Don’t play games with me, whoever the fuck you are. Where are the wraiths?
She scanned the trees and valley around this side of the academy, not seeing anything amiss. But then again, it was night, and outside the floodlights erected around the academy, anything could be hiding in the darkness.
They’ll come out near the lake. You could thank me, you know. For warning you.
Yeah, whatever, Kati replied absently, sprinting hard off the pitch toward Sybil and Prise. Thanks.
“Don’t ask me how I know this,” she said breathlessly, desperately hoping the two teachers believed her. “But I think there are soulwraiths on academy grounds. Coming from over there.” She pointed towards the edge of the lake, her hand shaking. She remembered how it had felt the last time she’d faced a wraith, couldn’t forget the shivery fear, the certainty that her magic couldn’t hold it back.
Sybil frowned. “They shouldn’t be able to—”
“Yeah, well it wouldn’t be the first time,” Kati snapped, too worked up and afraid to be respectful to the teacher. “Someone should go check. Right now.”
“Listen here, Miss Wilson,” Mr Prise began, a dark scowl on his face. “You’re a student, you have no right talking to us—” But then his head snapped up and he seemed to go very pale and very incorporeal. Faintly, he said, “You’re right.”
He shook his head, straightened his shoulders, and grew more solid, seemingly at will. Ghosts were weird, Kati decided, but she had bigger things to be unsettled by. “Everyone inside!” he boomed, startling the levby players into inactivity. “Game’s over! Everyone down on the ground and inside! I’m not messing around—now!”
“I’ll go get Mrs Balham,” Sybil said, casting worried glances towards the lake.
“What’s going on?” Gull asked, running over. “There’s still twenty minutes left of the match.”
“Not now there isn’t,” Mr Prise snapped. “In, in, all of you. Hurry up, get moving.”
He sounded very much like a drill sergeant. Kati made come on! gestures at her friends and the group of them ran up the grassy incline and into the academy.
“What’s happening?” Rahmi asked, craning her neck to see back out the door they’d entered through. “Is something wrong?”
“Wraiths,” Kati said quietly. “And it gets better. I’ll tell you back at the dorm.”
“I’m coming, too,” Gull announced, pitching his voice low. “Harl can show me where it is.”
Harley nodded, her face pale. “Is it ghosts?” she whispered.
“No.” Kati squeezed her arm. “No, not this time.”
“Soulwraiths,” Naia breathed, giving Kati an alarmed look. “Tell me it’s not wraiths.”
“Let’s just get changed,” Kati said evasively, and marched them to the changing room.
Well
… Shit
No wonder Harley fit right in amongst them; she was as good at collecting little lost lambs as Kati, Rahmi, and Naia were. When the three of them got back to their dorm, not only were Harley and Gull there, but so were Marigold, Hannah Willowswift, and Alexandra Chen.
“Oh good,” Kati said under her breath. “A whole rabble.”
“Sorry,” Harley said, rushing over, her eyes dark with apology. “They overheard me and Gull talking, you know how loud he can be.”
Kati snorted. “No explanation needed.”
Harley sagged in relief, giving Kati a wide grin and a friendly shoulder punch. “Ready to enlighten us on what happened?”
“With this lot here?” Kati made a face. “Everyone’s about to think I’m losing my mind.”
“More than we already do?” Gull teased, eavesdropping as Rahmi closed the green door behind them.
“Prick,” Kati growled good-naturedly, and elbowed him as she walked past.
He gasped, faking injury. “You know, I’m starting to think you have a crush on me, Kati Wilson.”
Kati barked a laugh. “I’m not stupid enough to think I could compare with your one true love: yourself.”
Gull fluttered a hand at his chest, pretending to swoon against the sofa back. “You’re right. I’m head over heels for myself. I’m just so big and strong and handsome—”
Kati didn’t miss Naia’s quiet laugh, or the way Gull noticed her smile and played up the dramatics, falling backwards onto the sofa as if dizzy with self-love. One day, Kati would lock them in a closet together. Well. Maybe not a closet. It was still too soon after the Venom Chamber incident for her to be okay with that. But a locking spell on a classroom door would be just as effective…
“Don’t even think about it,” Rahmi warned with a knowing smile.
Kati raised her eyebrows. “Moi? Thinking of doing something? Never.”