"And me." Jon popped up from out of nowhere, scooting in close on Seph's other side, his attention consumed completely by her. "I can help."
“Oh...” Seph’s ebony cheeks turned rosy as she looked from him to me. “...kay.”
He liked her, and she obviously didn’t know what to do with that information.
I bit back a smile. "Three meals. Three helpers. You can even trade off. Make a schedule. Whatever works."
"I thought after leaving Graystone High and entering Necromancer Academy, the bully bullshit would go away." Echo quirked an eyebrow, her perpetual sneer growing. “Anyone else extremely disappointed in that fact?”
Seph frowned down at her lap. “I don’t think bullies ever truly go away. Even as adults.”
I looked at her closely, feeling there was a whole lot more to what she’d just said. Now wasn’t the time to pry though.
"Is this something you three can handle?" I asked instead.
"How much?" Echo asked.
"How much food?"
"How many coins?"
Ah, shit.
"Two coins each per day," Seph said confidently.
Echo snorted. Morrissey leaned forward on her tiptoes, her black eyes sparkling. Jon's gaze dipped to Seph’s lips, and then his mouth curled in a secret smile.
My stone heart warmed a little. The poor guy had it bad.
"Two coins each per day if you don't get caught," I clarified with a glance at Seph. "There's a trial period to see how good your stealth skills are. If the food you smuggle goes bad in any way, you're fired. Take it or leave it."
"I'll take it," Jon said softly, his gaze never wavering.
Morrissey nodded.
After a long moment, Echo did too. "Fine. But I'm taking dinner tonight. A delivery to your room all right?"
"Just make sure you're not followed," Seph said. “I’d rather the Diabolicals, or anyone else for that matter, not know where our room is.”
So we had a plan, for food anyway. We wouldn't starve.
But as Leo used to say, "Those were the good old day."
Things were about to get infinitely worse.
Chapter Ten
We were being followed.
Outside Necromancer Academy on our first full weekend, Seph and I strolled through the gates toward town. The blustery wind whipped at our cloaks, tossed my hair into my eyes and mouth, and deceived us into thinking we were alone since we could barely hear over its whistles and howls.
Up to this point, the rest of the week had been fairly normal with no more threats or bullies. Seph and I ate. Professor Wadluck was still missing. Ramsey seemed to be avoiding me. And the dead man’s hand had remained stubbornly closed.
Oh, and Seph had transferred out of P.P.E. to take History of Defense, which was right next door. I would've transferred, too, but I wanted to explore the gym, peek into its nooks and crevices and see why it affected Seph the way it did. I'd found a hairy pickle stuffed down inside one of the racks of equipment where the rope ladders were kept, but that wasn't exactly what nightmares were made of.
Speaking of which, Seph hadn't sleepwalked since that one night. Headmistress Millington's nightly tea was working, and a part of me couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing. I mean obviously good, but was her week-long clock still ticking? I hoped to find out when we got to town. The headmistress had assured us that she’d spoken to those who could help and that they were helping...somehow.
But now, multiple icy glares pricked up and down my back like I was one of Seph's cloth dolls and the students behind us were the needles. I risked a look and immediately regretted it. A whole flock of cloaked figures swarmed after us about fifty feet away. I wasn't naive enough to think they just happened to be headed in the same direction. The air shivered too much between us, and their faces were completely covered by their hoods.
The Diabolicals. I was sure of it.
Seph leaned in close so I could hear. "I could get some of their hair."
I nodded. Or I could turn around and petrify them. But all of them? They’d likely sling a spell at me as soon as I made a move. I gripped Seph’s arm and sped our pace. Outside the academy gates, our magic would be muted by the rest of Eerie Island anyway. Which could be both a blessing and a curse.
"Do you think they can hear us?" she asked.
"I don't know.” I looked over my shoulder again. They were only about thirty feet away from us now even though we were walking faster. “Why?"
"Because you haven't told me about Ramsey." She lowered her voice even more, and I had to lean in to hear over the wind and our footsteps crackling over the dead leaves on our path. "About why you hate him."
We'd been so busy with classes and homework and staying one step ahead of the Diabolicals that I'd almost thought she'd forgotten. Or had decided she was better off not knowing. Silly me for underestimating her.
And if Ramsey overheard me... Well, he already knew what he did.
The gates loomed up ahead. The wind kicked up and scattered more leaves, completely blanketing all other sounds. Including footsteps. A tremor of unease licked up my back as I glanced left, then right. Too many black cloaks billowed around us, pressing in from behind. I felt their presence a breath’s distance from the back of my neck like a thousand dark threats.
My heart stuttered. My breaths came too short. Should I fight? Should I run? I couldn’t take on all of them and protect Seph at the same time.
Tightening my grip on her, we shot for the gate and yanked it open. We zipped through. The wind slammed it closed behind us, and we turned back.
No one. No one was there.
Seph and I shared a look, breathing hard. Some of the tension slithered from my shoulders, but certainly not all of it. Now they were playing with us, like Nebbles batting at Seph’s cloak strings in our dorm.
She positioned her hood farther over her bald head. “Bastards always bastard everything right up. They’re obviously miserable to be such bullies, so I wish them all long, miserable lives so they’ll suffer even longer.”
“Damn, Princess. Glad I’m on your side.”
Grinning, she hooked her arm through mine again. “And I wish you a happy sex life.”
I snorted. I doubted I’d have much of a sex life since most guys preferred girls who didn’t think about murder all the time. Pretty sure anyway. The closest I’d come to sex was a hot kiss with Walton Banks in the library at White Magic High.
We started walking again, though still wary. After a stretch of silence in which I made sure we were alone, I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Then, finally:
"Ramsey killed my brother."
There. I'd outed him as the murderer he was. It felt so much more complicated than that, all the emotions and memories that it stirred up. Saying it left me feeling cold and hollow.
The news must've knocked into Seph with a forceful blow because she stumbled sideways into the edge of the path through the woods, staring at me in pure horror. "He what?"
Sawing my teeth across my bottom lip, I decided to skip to the end since I didn’t want to explain the sleepwalking and undo Headmistress Millington’s tea effects on her.
"One night last May, I woke up,” I began slowly. “It was late, still dark out, and I can't be sure what woke me. A sound, maybe. Or worry that something was wrong. I got up and found my brother, Leo—" I broke off then, the image of him lying there seared into my memory so clearly that it was as if I was reliving it. I was sure I'd stopped breathing when I saw him. I wasn't sure I'd started up again since.
Seph patiently waited for me to continue, her mouth pressed together in a solemn line.
"He was clearly dead," I continued. "Ramsey stood over him with a bloody knife, and... I remember everything so vividly, every grisly detail, but especially the sharp cut of Ramsey's smile. It was him. No question."
Seph sighed up at the bare branches stabbing at the overcast sky. "Then what happened?"
"Ramsey rushed outside into
the meadow behind our house. I ran toward Leo to see if there was any way I could heal him...even though I knew it was too late. My parents woke to my screaming, the Ministry of Law Enforcement was called to investigate, and...there was no sign that Ramsey was even there. Had ever been there. I didn't know his name at the time, but I described him—his height, his build, the natural arch of his right eyebrow. But it was just my word to the Ministry who kept telling me to calm down, to not get hysterical even though he was my brother."
My hero. My whole world.
A growl rumbled overhead, and I thought I heard Seph echo it. She cursed in a language I didn't understand, but with her harsh tone, I could sure guess. "How did you find Ramsey if you didn't know his name?"
I loosened a breath to try to stay calm. "Magic. I was never any good with locator spells, so I went to another mage for help. She found him in Pyr, so I sent a raven to one of my friends there with his description. She got back to me within a couple days with his name and that he would start his junior year at Necromancer Academy in the fall."
Seph looked at me for a long moment as we neared the sandy beach. Ahead, huge waves crashed violently onto shore, mimicking the roiling sky. The icy wind that blew off the water froze my lungs together. Other than us and a few dark specks in the distance that might’ve been students, we were alone. Even the dock was empty.
"How are you not screaming right now?” Seph asked. “Or popping off people's heads just to get to him? I would be completely losing it if I knew my brother's killer went to the same school I did."
"Patience,” I admitted, “though I’m running out fast. I had all summer to plan exactly how I would do it. Every hour I could, I dedicated to learning the blackest magic I could find in the Book of Black Shadows."
She eyed me closely. "But not torture?"
"Huh?" I said, frowning.
"What you did in the library was a petrification spell. What I did with the doll was a form of torture.” She shrugged. “I guess I was wondering why you didn’t learn a torture spell."
I opened my mouth with a protest balanced on my tongue, but I forced it down with a hard swallow. "I want him to know it's me who kills him and why. I want him dead. A life for a life... A cut throat like he did to my brother. That's all."
She plucked at my elbow to catch my eye, her gaze sincere. "It wasn't a judgement. I'm not judging you at all."
"I didn't take it that way. I just..." Should I want him to suffer? Of course. But that wasn't why I was doing this. I wanted him gone, cut from Amaria with a single swipe of a blade across his neck. The end. Which, at least I hoped in Leo's case, was a swift death.
Ahead, the little fishing village came into view around the edge of the forest about forty feet away. Fresh laundry snapped on the line at the side of a house, and a woman frantically took it down while throwing worried glances at the growling sky.
"Why though?" Seph asked, glancing over at me. "Why did he kill your brother? Did he know him?"
"That’s what I'm still working out. I don't have any idea. Leo came to Necromancer Academy for a job interview as a professor last spring and ended up turning their offer down. It's possible Ramsey saw him then and...decided he needed to murder him?" I kicked at a stray weed shooting up through the sand. "I don't know."
"He went out of his way to do it,” she said quietly, and I had to strain to hear. “He came all the way to your house in Maraday." Frowning, she shook her head and tightened her arm around mine. "From an outsider’s prospective, what if you're looking at this from the wrong angle? We deal in magic, some much darker than others. Now, Ramsey has proven himself no better than a pool of stagnant water bobbing with dead fish, but there's quite a leap between turning two freshmen girls' lunches into bugs and murder."
I was shaking my head violently before she'd even finished. "It was him, Seph. Please, have a little faith in me that I thought about the possibility of an evil twin or a skin-walker or any other explanation."
“No, that's not what I'm saying.” She pressed her forehead to my shoulder briefly, like a show of solidarity even though I wasn’t mad. Not at her. “I have all the faith in the world in you. But did you get a good look at his eyes?"
“Gray, not a ring of red around the outer edges at all. So not possessed by a demon. The Ministry of Law Enforcement found no traces of magic left behind or on Leo himself. But I do appreciate you trying to look at this from all sides. It helps me feel less..." I shook my head, unable to squeeze the words out. Alone. Alone with my grief. Alone with my rage. A dangerous combination.
Seph walked in silence for a while, contemplative. "Have you...thought about asking your brother why he was murdered with a séance? I could help if you want."
“Yeah, I tried one by myself,” I said.
“Dawn.” She stopped and stared at me with her jaw hanging open.
I shrugged. “It didn’t work.”
“Well, yeah, it didn’t work,” she said, her voice rising to hysterical. “There are four sides to the spirit door, not one. You need four people, not one. You could’ve left it wide open for any of the spirits to drag you through to your death. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
The woman collecting her laundry whipped around at the mention of a spirit door, and I’d never seen anyone scurry away back inside as fast as she did.
I frowned after her. “I don’t think I opened it period. I’m sorry. But okay. I’d love your help.”
"Yeah?" Seph asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
I nodded.
“Tomorrow, then.” She grinned one of her signature Princess Sepharalotta grins I hadn’t seen in a while.
But then it froze. Ahead, a black-cloaked figure with its hood drawn up leaned against the general store where we were headed. I couldn’t see their face, but I knew they were staring. Watching.
“Pretend you didn’t see them,” I muttered.
We breezed past and entered the store. They did, too, right behind, so close they bumped my shoulder. They were following us.
We zipped around a corner past a display of quills and ink pots, casting glances behind us. Our shadow was gone.
“Stay close,” I told Seph as we strode toward the books.
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” she asked. “Saying anything?”
“To scare us,” I whispered. “But it’s not working, is it?”
She snorted. “Speak for yourself.”
I chuckled in spite of myself. “Help me find a map?”
Her gaze was aimed at our shadow, who had crossed the store and seemed much too intent on the bins of dried herbs there. “A map of?”
“Necromancer Aca—”
But she was already handing me one.
“How did you do that?” I asked, incredulous.
She grinned. “I can’t necromance, but I do enjoy impressing people with my other talents.”
“Show-off.” I took the map from her, and after studying it for several minutes, it was just as I thought. According to the map, there was a room behind the gym, unlabeled, and no doors I could see anywhere that might lead inside. As I envisioned it, that was right where Seph had stopped during her sleepwalking outside the academy.
I can’t go in there, she’d whispered. But why?
Something was in that secret room, and whatever it was, it bothered Seph, even when she was asleep. Had it bothered Leo too?
Seph paid for the map and quite a few candles for our séance, and when we turned around, our shadow was gone.
And three more were waiting outside. Shit.
We ducked inside a pub a few buildings down—a rustic but cozy place called Eerie Spirits. It was crowded and loud, but not enough to drown the two panting students who'd just burst through the doors. We threw back our hoods to see better, and that turned out to be a mistake. Everyone turned to stare, the whole pub growing quiet.
Seph gave an awkward wave, and when I dragged her across the space to the nearest empty table, stepping on toes as I
went, the stares turned into glowers as they took us in. None of them wore black cloaks or had face tattoos which marked us—especially Seph—as different.
Honestly, why were people so obsessed with first appearances when they were so often wrong? That was climbing higher on my very short list of things that could cause me to get stabby.
"Nice place," Seph muttered through gritted teeth.
The barkeep crossed over to us and practically threw two glasses of water onto the table before scurrying off.
"And the people are just delightful." When people's attention slowly returned back to their own business, I fished the map out of my cloak and laid it flat on the grimy table so Seph could see. Light blue threads of magic sparked in the corners to keep it flat. "How well do you know the school's layout?"
"About as well as can be expected for a freshman at the end of her first week. Excellent, obviously." She whispered her food cleansing spell and then chugged back several gulps of water. "Why?"
I pointed to the mystery room. "What do you suppose is in here?"
She looked closely at it and frowned. "No label. I have no—" She smashed her finger into the nearby graveyard and blinked up at me, her mouth falling open. "I remember seeing this in my dream. I walked right by it, saw two angel statues over graves with cages over them, because I was looking for..."
This room.
"What was I looking for in my dream? It felt important." She heaved a frustrated groan, drawing disgusted stares at her once more. "It's right on the tip of my tongue."
Just then, Professor Margo Woolery strolled in, her chin held high and her red cloak fluttering behind her. People stared at her, too, but with a lot less disdain, possibly because she blended in a little better and was gorgeous.
When the barkeep handed her a glass of mead with a shy smile and a hint of a blush, the professor spotted us and waved. "Good to see you two had enough sense to come somewhere warm. It's freezing out there."
"It is," Seph said, scooting her chair over so the professor could join us. "When I heard the academy was near a beach, I automatically assumed warm sand I could sink my toes into, not...this."
Necromancer Academy: Book 1 Page 10