Beside me, Joti was snoring.
What the fuck? I prodded her. “Joti, hey.”
She mumbled something unintelligible but didn’t wake.
“What seems to be the matter?” Madam Latrou asked. She clipped over and patted Joti. “Miss Raj.”
Joti didn’t even stir.
“Shit,” Kash said softly.
“What did you do?” Fiona snapped.
It took a moment to register that she was speaking to me, another to note that Madam Latrou was staring at me as if I had two heads and she’d only just realized, and another to feel the hot gaze of everyone in the room.
“Excuse me?” I shook my head. “What did I do? I didn’t do anything. She said she was tired and then she fell asleep.”
Madam Latrou waved a hand over Joti and then clenched her fist. “This is no ordinary sleep.” She stared around the room at the other cadets.
Fiona yawned and then covered her mouth.
“Everyone is affected,” Madam Latrou said. “Except you.”
What was she talking about? “I’m sorry. I’m confused. What does everyone being tired got to do with me?”
She pressed her lips together, her gaze flicking from side to side as if working on a problem.
“Yes,” Fiona said. “It must be something to do with her whacky connection to the weave. She’s messing us all up.”
Madam Latrou studied me for a long beat, and my heart thudded hard against my ribs.
Was this my fault? Had I unwittingly done this to my friend?
Madam Latrou smiled thinly. “I’ve seen this phenomenon once before,” she said, her gaze roving across the room to touch each student. “Miss Raj has fallen into a deep sleep, and in a few minutes that sleep will become a coma. Only the person responsible for her condition can save her.”
I nodded. “If I did this, then tell me what I need to do to fix it, please.”
Madam Latrou sighed. “We can try, but we have very little time. If this doesn’t work, then she will die.”
“What do I do?”
“No,” Kash blurted out.
“Shut up,” Fiona hissed. “Just shut up.”
Kash glared at her and then pushed his chair back. “It’s me. I did it. I need to be the one to help her.”
Madam Latrou arched a finely plucked brow. “Mr. Raj? Do elaborate.”
“I … I can’t help it. I’ve tried everything to stop it, but I can’t stop feeding.” He took a deep breath, his expression tormented. “I’m a siphon.”
Fiona was glaring daggers at him, but he ignored her and walked over to us. “It started a year ago, and it’s gotten worse. I wanted to come forward, but I know what they do to siphons, and I thought I could ride it out until I got my amulet. Until I could control it.”
Madam Latrou frowned. “What do you think we do to siphons?”
“Bind their powers.” His throat bobbed. “With my powers bound, I’d have been exiled. Barred from any union or from fathering any children.”
Her frown deepened. “Bind your power? Where in the world did you get that idea?”
Kash blinked down at her. “You wouldn’t bind my power?”
“Goodness, no. Siphons are rare, and very useful once they get a grasp on their power. Which is probably why you weren’t aware what the protocol is.” She smiled kindly. “Protocol dictates we fit a siphon with a training amulet as soon as the ability manifests.” Her expression hardened. “Who told you differently?”
Kash turned to glare at Fiona.
“I didn’t know.” She widened her eyes innocently. “I thought siphons were bound for life. I-it’s what I heard.”
“Miss Payne?” Madam Latrou sounded disgusted. “Your grandfather is a siphon. You know we don’t bind them.”
Kash’s jaw ticked. “You fucking lied to me.”
Fiona’s mouth worked for a moment as if searching for the right words, and then she sighed heavily. “Whatever. You were stupid enough to believe me.”
Kash’s hands curled into fists, and for a moment, I thought he’d lunge at her, but instead, he turned to Madam Latrou.
“Please, tell me how to save my sister.”
“Your sister will be fine,” Madam Latrou said. “I knew Miss Justice couldn’t be the culprit. I noticed the tired students last term before Miss Justice joined the class. I had to hope that none of my students could be so callous as to let a fellow cadet die simply to keep a secret.”
Madam Latrou pressed her hand to Joti’s head for a moment, then stepped back.
Joti sat up with a start. “What? Oh, shit. Did I fall asleep?”
Kash made a strangled sound. He reached for her, then checked himself.
“It’s all right,” Madam said. “You can hug your sister. You won’t hurt her.”
“But I have,” Kash said. “I’ve been hurting everyone for months now.” His voice cracked. “No matter how much I try and stay away … When I enter a room with people, they feel the effects.”
And the weavers felt it the most because they were around him the most, except … “What about Fiona?”
Fiona rolled her eyes and pulled up her sleeve to reveal a charm bracelet. “I have protection.”
The bitch.
“What’s going on?” Joti asked.
The overheard conversation came back to me, and my stomach rolled with nausea on Kash’s behalf. The bitch had been blackmailing him to be with her. She’d coerced him into sex.
“I’ll explain later,” Kash said to Joti. “What happens now?” he asked Madam Latrou.
“I can port to headquarters, and we’ll get you fitted with an amulet today.”
Kash’s shoulders sagged. “Just like that?”
She smiled warmly at him. “Just like that, Mr. Raj. There is very little we cannot find a solution to if we work together.” She turned a frosty gaze on Fiona. “As for you, Miss Payne. I’ll be speaking to Brunner about this incident.”
Fiona raised her chin. “And say what? That I passed on misinformation to a fellow student?”
“No, that you blackmailed him,” I snapped.
Her lip curled. “I made a suggestion, an offer, and he accepted.”
Joti was looking from me to Fiona and then she turned to Kash. “She blackmailed you?”
Kash’s throat bobbed. “Joti, I—”
But Joti was out of her seat and across the room in a flash. A slap rang in the air, not just any slap, but a proper bitch slap.
Fiona stepped back from the assault, her hands flying up to protect her face. “You bitch.”
“No,” Joti sneered. “You’re a bitch. If you come anywhere near my brother again, I will gut you like the pig you are.”
She dismissed Fiona with a curl of her lip and rejoined us.
“Well, Joti, who would have thought. Look at the balls on you.” I grinned at my friend.
“Madam Latrou?” Fiona said. “Are you going to let her get away with that?”
“Get away with what?” Madam Latrou asked, deadpan.
Fiona opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and then pressed her lips together. At least she knew when she was beaten.
Madam Latrou clapped her hands together. “In light of the events of today, the lesson is canceled. We will resume on—”
The ground shook, and a rumble filled the air. I grabbed at the desk to steady myself.
“What was that?” Joti asked.
It hit again, shaking the room. Plaster rained down on us. Shit, the crack in the ceiling was getting wider.
“What is this?” someone else shouted.
Cracks all over the building. Cracks made by a blast maybe … Like the catacombs. And now they were blowing up shit in the mists. The tunnels went deep. Could the blasts be causing this?
“We need to get out of here. Now.” I ushered Joti toward the port arch. “We need to go. Come on.”
For a moment, no one moved, and then the ground shook again, and a chunk of plaster fell into the cente
r of the room with a crash.
Fiona screamed and ran past us, straight toward the port arch. There was a crackle followed by a blue light, and then Fiona was thrown backward across the room. She landed on her ass, hard.
“The port. It’s damaged,” Madam Latrou said.
“So, we use a door.” I searched the room, realizing for the first time that there was no door. “Is there another exit?”
“No,” Madam Latrou said. Her eyes widened with panic.
Another tremor, another crack.
“Windows?” Kash asked.
“Just for show,” Madam Latrou said. “The port is the only way in or out.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Joti said. “You should always have a second exit.”
No point arguing about that now. “I need to stop the explosions.”
“What explosions,” Kash asked.
Shit, I couldn’t explain it to them. My oath prevented me from revealing any more. “Trust me. I’m going to get help.” I backed away, searching for a pocket of darkness. “I’ll be back.”
I spotted a cluster of shadow in the corner of the room between shelves. I needed to get to Hyde. He could radio in and stop the explosions. I ran into the darkness with Hyde’s face in my mind.
* * *
I emerged to the hiss of steam and the splash of water on my face. And then hands were grabbing me and slamming me against tile. A body pressed against mine, warm and hard.
My brain put together the pieces. Shower. I was in the shower with Hyde. He was staring down at me, wet and naked, his lips too close, his body too distracting. Think, Indigo.
“What the fuck, Justice?” he growled.
I pressed my hands to his pectorals, reveling in the feel of his velvet skin against my fingertips before pushing him back a little. “You can be pissed at me later. Right now, you need to get out of the shower and radio whoever’s in charge of the explosions and tell them to stop. Now.”
“What?” He ran a hand down his face to wipe away the water and reached around me to turn the faucet off. Muscles rippled under taut flesh, and his citrus scent clung to me.
“Explain yourself,” he demanded.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and focused. “The explosions are bringing down the weaver wing. The classroom I was in is about to cave in. The only exit is a port, and it’s broken. There are cracks all over that side of the Academy. I think Redmond blowing up the tunnels weakened the foundation of part of the Academy.”
He stepped back, and I was only human—I looked down. Fuck. Wow.
Hyde pushed open the shower door and grabbed a towel. I noticed his leg then, gold and silver feytech metal, woven together to look exactly like a limb and yet not a bead of water clung to it. It went as far as his knee, where it seemed to melt into his skin.
“Do not go back in there,” Hyde said, wrapping the towel around his waist and heading for the door. “Go to Brunner. Get help. Promise me.” He glared at me, waiting for an affirmative.
If I promised and had to break it … I caught sight of a shadow behind him and stepped out of the cubicle.
“Dammit, Justice. Promise me.”
“I’ll be okay.” I ran past him and into the shadows.
Sixteen
I materialized in Brunner’s office.
The headmaster yelped at the sight of me, and then her face clouded with annoyance. “What is the meaning of this intrusion, Miss Justice?”
I held up a hand to ask for a minute as the dark edges retreated from my vision. “The advanced weaver class is trapped. The port isn’t working, and the room is about to cave in. I think the whole structure is unstable.” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. “You need to get the port open.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“No, it isn’t. I can’t explain it all without breaking my shadow oath. But Payne will know. You have to get to the weaver wing and open the port.”
“I’ll find one of the other weaver masters.” She stood quickly.
I backed up, searching for shadows.
“What are you doing?” Brunner asked.
“I have to get back to the class. Maybe I can get some of them out using my shadow casting.”
“Can you do that?” She looked worried.
“I have to try.”
I shot past her and into a pocket of shadow lingering between the thick drapes and a bookcase.
Madam Latrou’s face filled my mind, and then I was back in the classroom.
“Indie!” Joti ran toward me.
I hugged her on instinct and felt the tremor in her body. She was terrified.
I rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay. Brunner is getting help. We’re going to be okay.”
“The quaking has stopped,” Kash said. “But …” He turned to look behind him.
Madam Latrou was in the center of the room with her arms up and her eyes closed. Above her was a fractured ceiling that had come away from the foundations. Lumps of cement and rock hovered above us. The whole thing was about to come down, and the only thing keeping it up was the soft blue sheen surrounding us. A shield created by Madam Latrou. I’d phased right into it.
I stepped closer to the tutor. “Madam Latrou? How long can you hold that?”
She shook her head, and I noted her forehead was beaded in perspiration. “Not much longer,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now, if this had occurred a few weeks from now, I may have trained the class in this particular manipulation of the weave.”
The blue shield flickered, and Madam Latrou’s face drained of color.
It wasn’t going to hold. There wasn’t time to get the cadets out one by one. I needed to get them all out now, but the last time I’d carried more than one person, it had knocked me for six. How would I cope with carrying several? Could I even do it?
“Madam Latrou. I need to shadow cast and take you all with me. Is there a way I could do that?”
She winced as if in pain. “The amount of power needed would exact a huge price on your energy. You don’t have the controlled circuit needed to refuel. I’m afraid it could kill you.”
Shit. I did not want to die. I didn’t have to die. I mean, I could leave right now. Just shadow cast out of there before the shield failed.
“Go,” Madam Latrou said, echoing my thoughts. “You need to go now.”
For the past few years, it had been look out for number one, but being there, being a shadow cadet, had triggered a part of me I’d suppressed for far too long. Leaving wasn’t an option for me. It wasn’t who I was, not anymore. Yeah, it was my life or theirs. One to save the many, but it was the only choice.
I took a deep breath. “I have to try.”
“Miss Justice, no,” Madam Latrou said. “That’s suicide.”
“And leaving you here to die would be murder.”
The room around the shield was wreathed in darkness. I’d get one shot at this because once the shield went down, we’d have a split second to phase before being crushed.
There were seven students, seven people to carry, and Madam Latrou.
I wrapped one arm around the tutor’s waist and grabbed hold of Joti’s hand. “Everyone link hands.” My heart was sledgehammering against my chest because this was crazy, this was insane. This could kill me. “We need to be connected.”
The blue shield fizzed. Madam Latrou was weakening.
“On the count of three, we run for that pocket of shadow. Madam, can you hold the shield till the last possible moment?”
She nodded, no longer able to argue with me. Every ounce of her concentration was fixed on keeping the rubble at bay.
I took a deep breath. “One. Two. Three.” I ran at the darkness, opening myself up to the weave. Allowing it to blind me. The blue shattered, the ceiling rushed toward us. Someone screamed, and then the darkness took me, skimming over my skin like a welcome friend. But then the friend morphed into a nightmare as it grabbed me, dug its claws in, and took a bite.
&nb
sp; * * *
The weave was calling to me. Bright and wonderful and peaceful. Almost there. Just needed to get closer, a little closer. I needed to touch it. Something wrapped around my torso and pulled.
Down.
Away from the weave and the light. Into a darkness with teeth and claws.
“I can do this. I got this.”
Kash?
It hurts. I couldn’t … I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s right, Mr. Raj, invert the energy, good, good. There’s color in her cheeks.”
Please, stop. No. Too much. Too much pain. Let me go.
“Hold on, Indie. We got you.” Joti’s voice sounded strange, strangled.
And then pain ripped through me, tearing me in two. I was broken, I was lost. I was floating.
* * *
Heat caressed my face and nudged my eyes to open, and Hyde’s citrus scent filled my head, but when I opened my eyes, it was Larkin looking down on me, his face haloed in light.
“Angel …”
He chuckled. “Why thank you, pet.”
I blinked slowly as my memory came back online. Sunlight filled the room. Daytime … which day?
“Did it … did it work?”
“Oh, yes. It worked all right, but it almost killed you.”
I groaned as my head throbbed sharply. “How am I still alive?”
“A young man named Kash. He’s a siphon. He used his ability to draw energy from your fellow classmates, and then Madam Latrou helped him invert his ability to siphon that energy into you. You saved their lives, and they saved yours. Med bay is now filled with weaver cadets and a very grateful tutor all recuperating from severe exhaustion.”
“Oh, shit.” I tried to sit up, but he gently pushed me back against the pillow. “They’re alive. That’s all that matters. But you need to rest now. Recharge.”
“What about barracks?” What about Hyde, and Brady, and the guys.
I belonged with them.
He snorted. “You’re stuck here with me, Justice. At least until you can walk on your own steam. The cave-ins didn’t work. They had to stop or risk bringing the whole Academy down. It’s all hands on deck out there right now. Patrols are up, and guards are posted at every known tunnel exit.”
Shadow Weaver: The Nightwatch Academy book 2 Page 11