Before her fist could connect, he hooked his arm into her elbow, stepped into her at an angle so one of his feet was behind her, and shoved her backward to trip her over his foot. Except he didn't trip her. He grabbed her by the arms before she went down.
"You're good. Where'd you learn to fight?" Ramsey asked, making sure she had her balance before he stepped back.
Echo puffed the stray hairs out of her face. "Childhood, basically. I grew up with five brothers."
"Think you can block?"
She smirked. "I never block."
He tipped up his chin in acknowledgement, the action as arrogant as his stupid arched eyebrow. "Humor me. You might need to block someday."
"I doubt it."
"Echo's going to block using the same techniques I just did," he announced to the class, his tone light but final at the same time.
He started to turn away, but then launched himself at her.
She didn't even flinch, just widened her stance. He raised his fist, and she grabbed it from the air and dragged it downward. He swung up with his other hand, and she stepped into him to try and trip him. He spun away just in time. Neither of them appeared winded, but I was, my breaths snagging with frustration. Ramsey could fight, could defend himself against oncoming attacks.
Against me.
Things had just gotten ten times harder.
"When you see a fist coming at you,” he said to the class, “grab it with both hands and pull it down. Your attacker won't see that coming, and they’ll hesitate. You’ll feel it. That’s when you counterattack."
Someone near the front raised their hand. "Um, but now they will see that coming since you told everyone."
Ramsey leveled the freshman with a smug smile. "Not everyone. Just the underclassmen who think they're so smart." He looked out at the rest of us. "Pair up. I want you practicing without the intent to actually strike your opponent or lay them flat on the mats. Understood? This will all be on your semester exam."
Shit. I still had my dagger in my boot. One wrong move and it could fall out in front of everyone, including him. The last thing I wanted to do was reveal my murder weapon before I had the chance to use it.
I flicked my gaze across the students near me and zeroed in on a girl a lot smaller than me one row ahead. She looked like she could fall over at any second if someone sneezed. I rose with the other freshmen and elbowed my way toward her.
"Hey," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Let's be partners."
She nodded, staring up at me with the blackest eyes I'd ever seen. She had long black hair that skimmed her waist with short blunt-cut bangs, and was held back from her face with a black scarf and what looked an awful lot like human teeth sewn into it.
Oh yeah. Those were definitely teeth.
We found an empty space on the mats, as far away from Ramsey as we could get, and I let her go first. She thrust her small fist into my face with the force of a lazy breeze, but I caught it in both my hands and forced it down. Her skin was bitter cold, and I wrenched my hands away and shook the sting from them. She didn't say a word as we practiced, and I didn't, either, focusing mostly on keeping my back to Ramsey.
Then he crossed toward us, slowly making his rounds to watch everyone. I stiffened. I couldn't help it as I followed his movement from my periphery. The black-eyed girl's gaze ticked back and forth between us, and then she shifted closer to me, as if she could somehow hear my flesh slink up my bones to get away from him.
"I see the bubonic plague hasn't slowed you down much," he said, stopping a little ways from us with his arms crossed.
I bowed my head deeper into my hood, hating the smoothness to his voice, how it sounded as though he didn't have a care in all of Amaria. The weight of the dagger hugged my ankle. A tremble ripped through me at how badly I wanted to grab it and lunge at his throat. Rage unfurled inside me, searing and blistering everything in its path. Blurry red splotches edged into my vision, and my hands were so tightly fisted that my fingernails cut into my palms.
"Hello?" he said.
I could end this. Right now. Screw the witnesses.
Someone cried out on the other side of the gym.
"I said no contact," Ramsey snapped and marched across the room.
Something soft tucked its way into my fist. A tissue, I realized. A tissue for the hot tears pouring down my face. I hadn't even realized I'd been crying. After I dabbed some of them away, I saw my partner standing in front of me. I followed her gaze to the freshman across the room who sported a bloody nose.
"Was...was that you?" I asked her, pointing to the bloodied student.
She didn't say a word.
Regardless, I needed to somehow rein in my feelings while around Ramsey, try to act naturally. I thought I would be able to remove myself from the loss of my brother and seeing Ramsey again in order to get revenge, but I'd been wrong. That wouldn't stop me, though. It would just mean I'd need to go about this a different way. I'd have to stop pretending I could be a cold-blooded killer and instead let my emotions fester until I blew. Like they almost had seconds ago. But somewhere else while alone, somewhere empty where I could sneak up behind him.
Obviously not in front of witnesses. Geez, what had I been thinking?
"That's it for today, everyone," he ordered, his voice tense as he watched the student with the bloody nose run out the door. "Go eat."
"Thank you," I told the girl with the teeth.
Her black eyes shone like beetle wings, and she turned on her heel to join the others for lunch.
In the Gathering Room, I looked for her as I rolled Seph's coins onto the table, but I didn't see her. I quickly piled mini loaves of golden bread topped with seeds and grains onto two plates, along with sliced meats and cheeses, pickled eggs, orange cubes that looked like some sort of melon, and chocolate cookies about the size of my head.
As I turned to go back to the dorm, someone at the senior table sprinted out the double doors, his face an ugly shade of green. Poison? I was beginning to count myself luckier and luckier I'd befriended Seph.
She was asleep, though, when I got to our room, so I cast her poison-detection spell and then dug into my lunch while sitting at my desk. The rest of the afternoon was terribly boring with more defensive lessons in almost every single class. Psychic protection in Divination class, where the safety equipment was in Undead Botany, and in Latin class... Well, it had made me long for white magic, which didn’t require speaking a dead, dark language.
After classes, I went to check on Seph. Still asleep, though she had picked at her lunch. Feeling like a rotten thief, I took two more coins from her second drawer and then went to dinner with every intention of grabbing her a plate.
When I got to the Gathering Room, loud shrieks erupted from the sophomore table.
“They’re alive,” someone shouted. “What do we do?”
I sucked in a breath as I stared. The chicken legs and wings we were having for dinner had come alive on their table. Someone had tied several pairs of legs together, attached wings to the backs, and given each of the birds apple heads. The things moved jerkily, twitching all over the table in fast motion. The entirety of the sophomore table fled the room, attempting to look innocent. Those at the surrounding tables dove out of the way, some yelping, others laughing their heads off.
A few professors at the head table muttered a few words, and the chickens dropped dead again.
“Honestly," Echo said to the black-eyed girl from P.P.E. on their way out, "with chicken on the menu at Necromancer Academy, it sure seems obvious this would happen."
She was right. The chefs were surely having fun with us.
"To your dorms. Everyone," Professor Lipskin shouted angrily, his bald head shining in the torchlight. He was even balder than Seph. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s insufferable students who ruin a perfectly nice meal.”
He was my Undead Botany professor, and he'd lectured about all the other things he hated this afternoon before launching
into safety equipment. The sounds of breathing, smiles, sparkly things, and movement of any kind, he'd said. "If I see or hear any of those, I will make sure you never do it again." So we'd pretty much held our breaths the rest of class and didn't even blink. Fun times, especially for a whole hour.
Grumbling, all of the students began to file out of the Gathering Room. I quickly paid the table and then loaded two plates before I followed after them, and wouldn’t you know, I ended up right behind Ramsey. He was surrounded on both sides by his group of friends, both girls and guys.
I needed to know if he’d be alone soon. Juggling my two plates, I fished inside my pocket. The dead man’s hand was spread wide. And I still had my dagger. A dark spark lit inside me.
I wanted to know where his room was, who his roommate was, needed to know how many steps it took him to get there as well as his entire day's schedule to find the one second when he’d be alone.
Hopefully it would be tonight.
Hanging back a little in the entryway, I watched him as he climbed up the male stairs while I looked for somewhere to hide my two plates of food. There, behind the staircase, a perfect place beyond the reach of the flickering torches. After I set the plates down, I pressed myself into the shadows between the torches.
I reached into my pocket, gripped the dead man’s hand, and whispered, “Umbra deambulatio.”
The dead murderer’s hand led me into the shadows, and the shadows absorbed me into them. This was a powerful invisibility spell, but it wasn't just speaking the words and becoming a shadow-walker. This was big magic, dark magic, and few could even get through speaking the words themselves. It had taken a lot of practice, and I’d had to make some sacrifices. One being the dead man’s hand in my pocket I’d dug up and lobbed off myself after finding the deadest, darkest murderer I could find in one of Maraday’s cemeteries. And two being my natural white-blonde hair, which had been too shimmery to become a shadow, hence the coal dye I now used.
Shadows clung to darkness, which seemed obvious in the literal sense, but it was also true in the figurative sense. The shadows took some of my essence to darken them around me. The essence I gave to the shadows I would never get back, and it could weaken me the longer I did it. But perhaps the biggest drawback was that the essence I gave was my light, the good in me, the part inside me that had earned me a spot at White Magic Academy. The reason why I got this spell to work—I think, anyway—was my volatile rage, always simmering, always fueled by my need for revenge after Leo’s murder. It had almost eclipsed my light and colored my magic gray.
I slunk from shadow to shadow, passing easily by students on my way to the staircase. Then, as quick as a murder, I crept up the stairs after Ramsey.
He and his friends climbed higher and higher to the fourth floor.
"Diabolicals tomorrow," one of them said, his voice low. "We need to do something about Professor Wadluck."
The others nodded, seeming to know exactly what all that meant. Professor Wadluck was missing, so did that mean they knew where he was? Because they'd put him there, or another, less ominous reason?
One of the guys opened the door to their wing, and the rest followed him through.
"Oh shit, I forgot something," Ramsey announced. "Be right back."
He turned and came down the steps toward me, his hand fishing through a pocket in his cloak. Where could he be off to all by himself after dinner? Trying to get in a little murder before bedtime?
Was he going after Seph? Whatever he’d done earlier had made her faint, after all.
He cast his gaze across the empty darkness of the entryway below toward the women's staircase.
Even as a shadow, my heartbeat banged a warning between my ears. Absolutely no way I'd let him get that far. This was it. Time to end him as soon as he passed by me and I'd be at his back. The staircase was otherwise deserted.
I peeled myself away from the shadows slightly, edging out onto the steps in front of him where he wasn't even looking. Readying myself to turn corporeal, grab my dagger, and pounce.
At the last second, he took his hand from his pocket and flung the contents at me. The shadows dripped off of me instantly, turning me corporeal once again. He slammed his forearm against my chest and crushed me against the wall hard enough to flip my hood back. Cold steel pressed against my throat.
A knife.
He had a knife.
And he wore the exact same menacing grin as he had when he'd stood over my dead brother.
Chapter Five
Searing hot rage boiled through me and clawed up my throat to choke me. My brother’s killer crowded out everything else with his sheer size and the intensity that radiated off of him in waves. I made a mad grab for the dagger in my boot—or tried to—but the weight of him pressing against my whole body severely limited my movements.
"Do it, then," I ground out, but my voice sounded like tea leaves spilling to the floor.
The mad grin on his face slid into a grimace. "You. Why are you here?" He backed off and dropped his knife to his side. His stormy gray eyes swept over my face, his face tight with distrust.
I blinked, unable to comprehend anything except my blistering fury for several precious seconds. Then the realizations poured in: I was still alive. He hadn't killed me. He wasn't looking at me like he knew me even though we'd stared at each other before with Leo's life reaching bloody fingers toward my boots.
"You know who I am," I hissed.
"Yeah. A freshman." He took a scabbard from his pocket, secured his knife, and then stuck it back in his pocket, his gaze dismissive like I was no longer a threat.
But I tracked all of his movements, my gut clenched, waiting. Waiting for that killing slash. Waiting for my chance to grab my own knife. Yet while everything inside me was coiled to spring, he stood loose, relaxed, like this kind of thing happened every day.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Dawn Cleohold."
No sign of recognition crossed his face. Maybe he hadn't known my brother when he killed him though.
He folded his hands in front of him and regarded me coolly. "And what are you doing here, Dawn? The girls' dorms are on the other side."
Male voices sounded down below, as well as a herd of footsteps. I'd lost my chance since any minute they could be upon us. So if I wasn't here to kill him, then...
"I'm here to ask for your help," I blurted. "I'm nervous about the semester exam in P.P.E. I'm not...athletic."
That was a lie. With Leo as my older brother, I'd had to be athletic to chase him all over the house after he'd swipe the bread off my plate, which he knew very well was a crime.
"It's the first day of school," Ramsey said, shrugging. "You have plenty of time."
No, I didn't. And if extra help got me alone with him...
The voices and footsteps were coming even closer.
"Maybe you could train me a few times a week. Teach me to throw punches like you, move as fast as you do." My voice came out normal enough, but inside I seethed. I’d never imagined asking him for help, of all things, and complimenting him on how he moved. Whatever it took, though.
Whatever it took.
The herd trampled up the steps toward us then, barreling between us with curious glances thrown my way and knowing chuckles and pats on Ramsey’s back.
When they'd finally gone through the door, Ramsey crossed his arms, a hard look on his face. "I train you in exchange for what?"
I had nothing, not even money for food. Well, it had been a good enough excuse to be here in this spot anyway. Who cared if it didn't work? I’d think of something el—
"Shadow-walking," he said.
"What?"
"I'll train you in exchange for you teaching me how to shadow-walk." He narrowed his eyes. “That’s dark magic.”
Oh really? I hadn’t noticed.
This was not the turn of events I'd expected. I was talking to my brother's killer about training me to fight in exchange for teaching him to shadow-walk?
To sneak around and become an even better murderer?
No. No, because I wouldn’t let it get to that.
"Fine, then. We start tomorrow.” I stumbled away from him, my thoughts in a swarming fury.
“Tomorrow after dinner,” he called after me, and I felt his gaze probing my back with the precision of a sharpened blade.
Did he really believe me? It didn’t matter.
I hadn't thought it was possible, but I hated him even more now. How he put on a show for everyone else, all smiles and jokes and quick comebacks, until he was backed into a corner. But then he'd backed me into a corner. I couldn't let that happen again. It shouldn’t have happened the first time. What had that been that he’d thrown at me? I plucked at my sleeve, and little granules rubbed against my fingertips. Black salt, I realized, probably spelled to reveal hidden magic.
I realized I hadn't taken my shadow-walker form until a couple sophomore guys snickered as they passed me on the stairs toward their dorm.
"Not very subtle about it," one said.
The other took a more direct approach with, "How much?"
Yeah. Lovely.
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to lash out at them. Violently. Lately, I was balancing on the edge between darkness and light like my gray magic, and the more I walked in the shadows, the closer I tipped toward that dark, unfeeling vastness.
“Umbra deambulatio,” I said, taking the dead man’s open hand.
I took to the shadows, totally unseen, and swept down the rest of the stairs.
In the entryway, professors spoke quietly within clusters, and they didn’t notice me stepping free from the dark. Or trying to. Shadowy fingers curled over my shoulders and dragged at the back of my cloak. I shook free of them, but I had no idea what would happen if I couldn't.
I took up the two plates of food I’d hidden, headed back to my room—and stopped with a jolt outside our door. Three marks sliced across the wood. Like claw marks, but much bigger than a cat. And my protection symbol was gone.
Necromancer Academy: Book 1 Page 5