CHAPTER NINE
A cacophony of noises stirs me from my sleep.
I bring two fingers to my forehead unsure if I’m still dreaming, because the last thing I want is to wake up in a shitty New York apartment to discover I’m being evicted today.
But no, still at Lumina.
There’s a deep male voice, shouting, people speaking outside.
I swipe away the covers and pad to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open.
In the hallway I’m confronted with a wall of people’s backs. For once, I wish I was a bit taller. Three inches would suffice.
But everyone’s here, their attention drawn to something a few feet beyond them. Keeping my eyes up, I notice a much taller man facing the gathered students, his arms extended—one of the professors. I try to place him. Elemental? I think. Maybe ethics?
“Everybody back. Please, return to your rooms.”
Which has absolutely no effect whatsoever on getting anyone to move.
The noise of the crowd has picked up, a ripple of murmurs, making it hard to understand what the professor keeps rambling about.
But one phrase floats above the rest: Crime scene.
What now?
I stand on my toes between students still in their PJs, half the guys shirtless, the guy directly in front of me reaching down to readjust his balls.
Ah, fuck this.
I elbow my way through mumbling apologies until I’m at the front of whatever this is.
And I wish I hadn’t.
Lying on the floor, facedown, is a brunette’s body. Her curly hair is splayed out over her upper back, lush tendrils covering both of her cheeks. The oyster-gray silk of her night shirt is torn, riddled with holes and splotches of dark red, a pool of congealed blood around her a perfectly still, crimson mirror.
My stomach twists, the air tainted metallic.
Whatever happened to her, she’s very dead now.
Nauseous, I bring my fingers to my mouth, turning and elbowing my way back through the throng.
I can’t unsee it.
The crazy part is how no one is screaming or freaking out here over the obvious murder scene, because there’s no way she did that to herself. It’s like this is more of a curiosity, an art installation.
I continue down the hall and hit the stairs, spiraling up them and bumping into someone in the process. I catch her swaying to the side out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t stick around to mumble apologies. I have to get the fuck out of Dodge.
I move up the steps, clearing more students, my calves beginning to burn. My ears also pick up the name of the unfortunate girl on the floor. It’s Stephanie Something-Ton. Not that it makes any difference. She’s still lying down there full of holes.
The air thins further as noises from below begin to fade in my ears. Finally, I find myself standing on the top landing with a closed, glass door across from me. Mercifully, it’s unlocked. I go through it onto the roof of the castle—the chilly air a welcome reprieve.
A glorious mix of scents rushes through my nostrils, my eyes savoring the sea of greenery and the soupy sky around the castle. Hundreds of towering trees fill my gaze as I recognize balsam, fir, and cedar. Dark clouds loom over the forest, a gust of cold wind sending leaves tumbling across the roof.
The nausea fades, but the shock remains. It’s not every day you come across a corpse.
When I found Gran in the bathroom her skin was pasty and off-color, but for all intents and purposes she was otherwise peaceful enough there save for the fact she was dead.
But that girl down there? Stephanie?
No one deserves that.
There are footfalls behind me, light. “Saw you bussing up here. You okay?” It’s Lily. She pulls up beside me at the short wall running around the perimeter of the roof, a neon pink dressing gown about the brightest thing in the entire castle. “Shit it’s cold out here.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
She eyes me. “You’ve got newbie written all over you. You know that?”
“Newbie?” I pitch my voice higher. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your reaction,” she explains, her voice surprisingly calm. “You should know it’s not uncommon for students to go missing or run away here, even die at the Academy. Everybody who’s been here long enough knows that. It’s just Lumina. People know what they signed up for.”
I fucking didn’t. “I’m not sure I signed up to be stabbed to death and left in the middle of the hallway for everyone to gawk at.”
“Stabbed?” Lily queries. “You think? Injuries looked more magical to me.”
I pivot from the wall, eyebrows dipping. “You think someone used magic to do that?”
Lily shrugs, pulling her dressing gown tighter around herself. “Not everyone’s here with honorable intentions, you know. A kid was expelled last year for torching his girlfriend after he caught her screwing someone else. He came into her room one night, Ignis Fluctus, and that was that.”
“Shit.”
“Is about right, yeah.”
Lily nods past the forest. “The world out there, inanis? They have no idea of the fucked-up shit that goes on behind these walls.” She pauses, expression blank. “Not everybody can take it. They leave, disappear.”
“But that Stephanie girl,” I begin, pointing back at the door behind us. “She didn’t go missing. She’s dead—stabbed to death, magic murdered, whatever. You can’t stand here and tell me it’s only natural for someone to get fucking butchered like that.”
“Not natural,” Lily shakes her head sideways once. “It’s just not…unusual. There are already rumors swirling as to the perpetrator—who, or what.”
“This is insane,” I say, unable to reconcile this all. “That girl just died and there are people speculating who did it? Isn’t that a bit callous?”
“Like I said, for most students, this isn’t their first murder.”
I palm my forehead. “Jesus.”
Lily gives a short laugh. “Not exactly sighted around here, sorry, unless you’re looking to turn water to wine, but there’s a spell for that, as I’m sure you know. Hey, at least we get the day off.”
This place is getting more morbid by the second.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“They always suspend classes when there’s an,” she lifts her fingers to air quote, ‘incident.’”
I’m starting to regret accepting that invitation from Darkwood. Every day seems to bring with it some new, fresh horror.
And then there’s Darkwood himself and his little games.
I recall his hand on my ass, such a display of sadism…could it be he’s dominated by even more savage instincts? Like, and I’m just throwing this out there now, but murder?
The culprit didn’t even try to hide the body—just left it lying out there in the open for discovery. Who does that?
And in such close proximity to my room. That’s a big fucking problem. I didn’t even hear anything. Should I have?
“I’m heading in,” says Lily nonchalantly, the murder clearly old news. “See you at breakfast?”
My stomach gurgles, threatening to eject its contents. “I don’t think so.”
“Later then,” she smiles, hand reaching to my shoulder. “And try not to think about it so much, yeah? You’ll get used to it.”
But that’s the thing. I don’t want to get used to it, to stepping out of my door every morning and wondering if there’s going to be a body there, if it’s going to be mine.
Lily heads back in and I stay out in the cold a little longer doing my best to breathe and compose myself. It’s only when I can’t feel my fingers anymore that I make my way back to my room.
The hallway has cleared, a shimmering screen of magic erected around the body, the bobbing heads of two faculty members behind it examining the victim. Another two guard the scene from the outside—almost looking bored.
A voice comes over the PA, the first time I’ve heard it used: “Students of Lumina, this is your Headmistress speaking. Given this morning’s unfortunate incident, classes are suspended. I repeat—classes are suspended for the day. The castle is in lockdown. No one is to leave the premises until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Just like Lily said.
The second part of that announcement sounds more like a bad joke. I may not be an all-powerful witch yet, but I sure as hell know how to disappear. If I want to leave, Isadora Lumina ain’t going to stop me. Not that stumbling through the woods going fuck knows where sounds like much of an option either.
I lie in bed and stare at the wooden beams running across the roof wondering how long they’ve been there, how long any of this has been here.
There’s a knock at my door.
“Who is it?” a call out, hoping ‘the murderer’ isn’t the response, but it’s just Lily again.
I raise my hand, unlocking the door from the bed and Lily enters, now dressed in khaki slacks and a shirt that reads ‘Holiday? Si vous plait.’
Lily sits at the desk facing me. She taps her fingers on her thigh.
“That was quick,” I offer.
She shrugs. “Girl’s got to eat. I’m sorry, by the way,” she murmurs, the finger tapping ceasing.
“For what?” I ask, my curiosity piquing.
“I was pretty blunt before,” she admits, looking to the floor. “It’s a lot to dump on someone, I know. It was the second week for me. Someone had pinned this poor bastard to the wall. Took his eyes, too.”
“Fuck.”
“Precisely, but like I said, I should have eased you into it.”
“Apology accepted,” I say, sitting up. “But tell me, do they ever catch the…” I can’t even say it.
“Killer?” she fills, nodding. “There was this one girl,” she says, making eye contact with me for a brief moment before running her hand through her hair. “Happened about five months ago. And no, they didn’t. They never do. But I’m pretty sure it’s the same person. Same M.O.”
“Christ,” I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut. “So there’s a serial killer on the loose here?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine. As to motive, it’s common knowledge the girl I’m talking about was really, like really into the Craft.”
“You really think Shadowcraft is getting people killed?” I speculate, a touch of irony in my voice.
“It’s just a theory, as is Darkwood being behind it, but I don’t think it’s him.”
Perhaps she hasn’t seen Darkwood in all his brutal glory like I have.
Lily pushes off the desk, brushing herself down even though there’s nothing there. “I’m going to hit the cafeteria—again. Given it’s lunch and all.
I hadn’t even noticed. I feel like it’s been minutes, not hours.
“The place is going to be manic,” Lily continues. “It’s like a full moon when classes are suspended. Everyone goes nuts. You in?”
I shake my head, my stomach definitely not ready for food yet. “No, thanks.”
“Okey-dokey,” Lily nods, heading out, the room somehow more silent than usual when she’s gone.
I bum around for a bit, fiddle with my laptop, but eventually decide to dress and head back to the roof.
When I step out into the hall, everything is gone—the body, the privacy shield, the professors… It’s like it never even happened save for the lingering stench of bleach.
I return to the roof, where rain has begun to drench the stone. It’s a mild rain—my favorite kind. I like the dull sound it makes, the floating waves of it, like murmurs, across the forest.
A shimmer to my left steals my attention.
I turn, and there he is: Damien Darkwood.
Teleportation again—impressive and certainly of the more serious magical ilk. It not only takes a shitload of focus but fuck it up and you’ll teleport yourself between two walls and subsequently find yourself in two pieces. Worse, you can teleport yourself right into the ground—just up and bury yourself alive. So no thanks. No teleportation for me.
People think there’s this big flash of light when something, or someone, is teleported, a spectacle, but the truth is, apart from a slight shift of light, something simply appears—simply pops right into focus.
Maybe he’ll pop right into your room again, I wonder.
Darkwood acknowledges me with a nod, his gaze softer today. “You seem troubled.”
“Shouldn’t I be?” I laugh, crossing my arms over my chest. “Someone was found dead twenty feet from my room.”
“Mmm,” he nods, scanning the rooftop to make sure we’re alone. “Your pretty head must be full of questions right now.” The rain makes his eyes appear brighter, more prominent.
“Yes,” I admit, pressing my lips together. “But I don’t imagine I’ll get any answers, will I?”
He lets out a short laugh. “On the contrary. Dinner, tonight, in my chambers. Shall we say, seven o’clock?”
“Your chambers?”
That fuck-you-senseless smile settles on his features, but I can’t tell if it’s malice or mirth I see there. “I will collect you.”
He evaporates completely, a tiny pinprick of light marking where he just stood before me.
‘Collect you’—because that’s all I am.
An object.
A toy.
His to do with as he wishes.