CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I go about the following day on a different kind of cloud. Three times in one session seemed excessive at the time, but it’s left me floating today, shifting from class to class as if I don’t have a care in the world.
Happy, happy hormones.
As for my poor pussy, I might have found a spell or two in the grimoire to help with that, though I doubt a spell to ease neck pain was ever used in quite this way.
And placebo or not, my power is growing with every lesson. Even coming out of the shower last night I practiced a quick Arcanum Missilia Tormentum, almost shattering every mirror in the process before I reined it back in at the very last second.
It’s more than sex with the Professor. The more time we spend together, the greater my power grows. Is there Shadowcraft involved? No doubt. Is it legal? Probably not, but damn if it isn’t addictive. To say it bodes well is the understatement of the century.
But still doubt lingers that Darkwood is using me. After all, I am his pet, his plaything, and he’s shown as much, but there is far more to the Professor than he lets on in our little encounters. Of that I am sure. I intend to poke and prod at the edges, at least find out what makes the great Damien Darkwood tick.
He’s not a fucking clock, my head cuts in.
What I was not expecting today, however, was to be called to the Headmistress. I suppose she sent that message to Professor Hawthorn telepathically given the way he reached up to his head in class and singled me out, finger whipping to the door.
It’s a cool trick. I make a note to tell Sab about it when I get back home.
If you get back home, I consider.
Whatever, Head. I will get back to NY, and when I do, I will be an all-powerful, do-not-fuck-with, ass-kicking super bitch.
Though such thoughts of glory seem to disappear when I enter the Headmistress’s office and suddenly feel like I’m six and about to be told Gran’s going to be called because I put paint in my mouth.
I stand in the center of the room while the paneled doors close behind me.
She knows, I tell myself, but perhaps not. Perhaps this is simply something innocuous. Maybe it’s a simple catch-up and nothing more.
But that’s the problem with Lumina: nothing just is. There’s always more running underneath the surface.
The Headmistress looks up and acknowledges me, removing her reading glasses before standing and pacing to a cabinet in the corner. She’s in her usual emerald robes. They sashay around her as she moves.
“Tea?” she asks.
So shit, maybe we are in England.
I shake my head sideways, once. “No, thank you.”
“Perhaps something stronger?” she smiles with meaning. “I hear you’ve had quite the baptism of fire.”
What’s she hinting at here? Does she know about the Professor and me, the Fire Lash, what followed? Last night’s triple fuck-a-thon that I’m still smarting from?
No, surely not.
She motions to a solitary chair in front of her desk. “Please.”
I seat myself, unsure what to do with my hands and deciding to simply stack them atop one another on my thigh.
His thigh, I correct.
The Headmistress resumes her place behind her desk, lifting the teacup to her mouth and sipping. It’s all very cordial.
“So you’ve decided to become Damien’s latest plaything?”
Fuck me. So she does know.
My cheeks burn. “I—”
She places the teacup down and smiles again. “Oh, please, we’re all adults here, aren’t we? What the Professor does in his own time, what you do in yours…well, that’s entirely your business now, isn’t it? Morals and ethics…” She waves a hand in the air. “We don’t judge, but what I would like to hear about is your progress—magical progress. I’m told you’re showing great aptitude.”
I clear my throat, try to summon some amount of composure. “I’m just doing my best. Putting theory into practice is proving…difficult.”
“Mmm.” She nods, her smile staying put, but I sense there is more lurking there—again something below the surface that shares more with the shadows than this simple presentation of understanding.
“But you aren’t here because things are ‘easy’ now, Ms. Fairchild, are you? Though something tells me little in your life has been, has it?”
“No,” I answer simply, willing my emotions not to spill over. Not here.
“Perhaps it is time,” continues the Headmistress, “I filled you in on your background.”
“My background?”
“Indeed,” she nods, the teacup rising again. I don’t know what she’s drinking. Could be Earl Grey. Could be battery acid. “Your mother and father, for instance, were not killed in a car crash, but you knew that already, didn’t you?”
I’ve always suspected as much. “How did they die?”
“On the job,” she smiles, as if this should explain it all.
I can’t read her. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll speak in plain terms, because I’m not one to beat around the bush—a wonderful inais saying, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
A beat passes where I’m sure she is summing me up, looking for chinks in my metaphorical armor.
“Your parents were magical assassins, and damn good ones at that. Some of the best in the business, actually.”
I laugh. It just nervously bubbles out. “Sorry?”
But the Headmistress remains stony-faced and serious. “Indeed. Because killing, Annabelle, good killing, is an art, and these targets, we shall call them, they deserved good killing. I’m sure Professor Darkwood has told you as much.”
Double shit. So she knows about that as well. I’m starting to wonder what Isadora Lumina doesn’t know.
My mind is starting in twenty different directions, my stomach churning. “I still don’t understand.”
She ignores that. “Did you know they attended this very academy?”
“Lumina?”
She nods and slides across an old yearbook. She places her finger on a single black-and-white photo of who I presume to be my father. “Here,” she shifts her finger to the other page, to a woman with long dark hair, “and here.”
I examine the photos and yes, son of a bitch, there is likeness here, but it could be falsified. AI can make anything look realistic these days. I remember some guy at the café watching a Taylor Swift sex tape that for all intents and purposes showed she was a real good cocksucker—all completely fake, mind. A damn good fake, but fake, nonetheless.
But why? I question. Why the ruse?
No, this seems like the truth.
“Your grandmother also attended Lumina.”
I shake my head, snorting in amusement. “No, that’s not true. Gran—”
“Edna was a model student, believe it or not. We even dallied with some of the boys from time to time.” Her tongue swipes over her lower lip, slug-like. “We were young, my mother, rest her soul, was Headmistress at the time. But Edna ultimately decided a career in the magical arts was not for her. For some, what we teach here can be…confronting. For others, addictive. For some, deadly.”
I don’t miss the way her lips tap together at this word.
This is too much to take in.
“It’s a lot, I know,” the Headmistress nods. “But I’m happy to answer any questions you may have, though might I suggest we take a break, allow what you have learned here to sink in?”
Good fucking idea.
Get out of here before she tells me everyone’s a lizard person and the castle’s just a big ol’ breeding factory.
I nod, the Headmistress gesturing to the door.
I stand and give a simple nod back, turning for the door.
The moment I’m through it, I swing against the wall struggling for breath. Everything I knew, or thought I knew, is what? A lie?
Magical fucking assassins, like Darkwood? Did he know my parents?
Gran, at Lumina?
It’s insanity. This whole place is fucking insane.
And why even tell me? What purpose does that serve?
Oh, I’ve got questions alright, not that the Headmistress seemed in the mood.
I can try to dig into the past on my own, try and work out who or what killed my parents, why Grand kept her attendance to Lumina a secret, but it also seems kind of pointless. It’s all in the past. It would only be to satisfy my own, selfish curiosity.
I push myself off the wall, close my eyes and pull in a deep breath.
I shall not let this cloud my thoughts.
I want to be a blank slate for whatever exquisite torture the Professor has in store next.
I’ll find answers to the rest in my own time.
*
It’s basically impossible to concentrate the rest of the day. Even in the dining hall while Lily and Ava debate the greatest temporal mishaps of all time, I’m tuned out completely.
It’s seriously late by the time Lily and I make our way back to our rooms. This is after she spent the better part of an hour detailing to me in the common room the extremely complex web that is Lumina’s social structure.
She’s walking faster than I am. Always seems to be in some sort of perpetual rush. “Like I was saying, the elementals really don’t do shit. ‘Wow, I can make it rain, whoop-de-doo. But up here, this is the real stuff. It can fuck. You. Up. Last year, this girl Emma, they found her in her room sliced up into twenty pieces. She was aiming for Mors Obscurum.”
“Oblivion’s Embrace?”
“Right. I guess someone told her it was magical ecstasy or similar BS, and she got oblivion alright. And then that poor girl the other day, that boy…this place is cursed, I’m telling you.”
I pull up.
Something’s off.
The air is thick with tension, an eerie silence enveloping us. My breath catches in my throat as shadows slither across the floor, their movements unnaturally fluid.
"Ana," Lily whispers, her voice trembling. "You see them too, right?"
"Yeah. I think we're being followed."
"Shit, I think they’re rogue shadows. What are they doing here?”
“What do we do?” I ask. We’re too deep in the castle, and I don’t remember passing anyone.
She stiffens. “We get ready.”
“For?”
“To fight.”
It was only the other day I learned of rogue shadows. They are not cast by physical objects blocking light. Instead, they emerge from a convergence of residual magical energy. When powerful spells are cast or magical disturbances occur, they leave behind traces of arcane energy. Over time, these lingering magical residues coalesce and become semi-autonomous. And voila, these bitches.
When exposed to magical energies, they amplify or distort the spells around them. Skilled spellcasters sometimes use them strategically, harnessing their unique properties to enhance or conceal their magical workings, a real Umbral Brotherhood thing, but it’s serious Shadowcraft. Dark, dark shit.
Nodding, I bite my lip and try to focus on the incantations we've been practicing in class, but my mind races with uncertainty. Suddenly, the rogue shadows surge forward, morphing into sinister, humanoid shapes, their dark tendrils reaching for us. Lily and I jerk back.
"Aegisium Protego!" I shout, conjuring a shimmering barrier between us and the advancing shadows. They collide with it, hissing in frustration.
"Ventus Glacialis!" Lily cries, sending a torrent of icy wind at the creatures. Some are momentarily slowed, but others remain undeterred, their dark forms twisting violently.
The subtle time dilation is not helping. I’m already feeling nauseous.
They rush us again, a barrier spell enough to hold them back, but it’s not going to hold.
"Ana, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up," Lily pants, sweat dripping down her freckled face, because these kinds of spells, they take an instant physical toll.
I rack my brain for a spell that might save us. "Ignis Aeternum!" I scream, unleashing a torrent of white-hot flames from all ten of my fingertips. A few shadows recoil, shrieking as they disintegrate into wisps of black smoke, but more continue to rise from the darkness.
"What do we do?" Lily pleads, her eyes voided with terror.
"Keep fighting," I say through gritted teeth.
Something inside me responds to the shadows, wills me forward. The power’s there, simmering under the surface, that ozone-scented creep of deeper, darker magic.
I send another spell, but the shadows don’t appear to be dissipating.
Doubt begins to creep in, chipping away at my resolve.
You’re stronger than this, I tell myself, but the voice is weak and fragile.
"Ana, I...I don't know what to do," Lily gasps, her face pale, and her body trembling from exhaustion. There wasn’t much of her to begin with.
Not much of a meal, I consider darkly.
"I can’t…” she begins.
A memory surfaces, a fragment of wisdom from Gran’s grimoire.
I crouch, my fingers pressing to the stone as I struggle to catch my breath, sweat dripping down my spine. With every ounce of strength left in me, I chant the incantation.
"Obumbratio praesidium, vincula dissolvere, tenebras dissipare!" I shout, the words torn from somewhere deep within my soul.
The shadows pause, hesitating for a moment before a sudden surge of energy sends me flying back. My body slams into something unforgiving, the air knocked out of my lungs.
The shadows creep closer, tendrils snaking around my wrists and ankles, pinning me in place while others wrap tightly around my throat. My eyes water.
So, yeah. That did fuck-all.
"Ana!" Lily screams, her voice raw with fear and desperation, but the darkness is relentless, pressing down on me like a crushing weight.
“Help!” she yells, to no one in particular.
There’s the cool touch of the shadow against my skin, its malicious intent seeping into my very being as I struggle to breathe. It seems to recognize something within me, maybe its own kind.
Panic sets in, my vision blurring while my mind races, digging for any last shred of hope.
The pressure on my throat increases.
Think, I whisper to myself, the words barely audible as the shadow tightens its grip on my throat.
There’s got to be another spell…
My lips move, forming the words despite the tightening pressure around my neck. One by one, they spill from my lips, forming the spell that had been eluding me from the very beginning of this ordeal.
"Per potentiam noctis, per arcanum diutius, protege me ab umbris," I choke out.
I don’t even know where this comes from. It’s not a spell I should be bringing to mind.
At once, the shadows recoil, their mish-mash forms dissolving as the ancient spell takes effect. They retreat, scurrying away.
I roll to my side, gasping for breath as Lily hobbles over.
"Fuck, you okay?" she asks, her eyes scanning my body for injuries. "Did it work?"
I nod weakly, my throat aching and my body trembling with residual fear. "Yeah...yeah, it worked," I manage to rasp out.
“Do you want me to get help?”
I shake my head, still wheezing. “No, I’m good. We’ll report it tomorrow. Let’s just get the hell out of here, okay?”
“What was that spell?” Lily asks, her curiosity clear.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
I look back to where the shadows came from, but they’re gone.
*
A sleepless night follows, because that? That shit was scary. I consider going to the Professor, but this isn’t an allocated night, nor have I been invited. The thought of being turned away from his door is unbearable.
I toss around in bed instead, thankful when morning arrives, or so sayeth my phone at least.
A long, long morning follows.
The acrid stench of herbs clings to my clothes as I collapse into the worn velvet couch in the corner of the common room, kicking off my boots.
"Fucking Professor Hawthorn and his sadistic pleasure in torturing us." Ava groans, examining her fingers. It’s unlike her to be so blunt.
"At least he didn't make you repot the venomous tentacula on your own this time." Lily winces, nursing her own bandaged hands.
"I swear that bastard gets off on seeing us suffer." Ava scowls, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion. “The whole faculty is a bunch of sadists.”
I consider the Professor—his hand, the whip.
The rack.
"That's nothing." Leo exhales a cloud of smoke, offering me the joint he’s holding. "You didn’t hear? Rogue shadows. You should've seen what they did to the Charms classroom."
I take a hit, the joint slightly sweet and grassy.
I glance at Ava, whose face has gone pale.
"Apparently they were everywhere." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Swarming across the walls. Too many to contain.”
It occurs to me then that maybe these shadows are behind the murders. It’s abstract, of course, but nothing about Lumina is straightforward. If something from the shadows could become corporeal, maybe?
Lily looks at me. “Ana and I had our own encounter.”
Ava looks over curiously. “You did?”
Lily answers for me. “To be honest, I thought we were done, but then Ana pulled out this wicked fucking spell from nowhere, and whoosh, fucked them up good.”
“I don’t know…” I begin.
“Don’t be modest,” says Lily. “You saved our asses.”
I don’t miss the look of jealousy from Ava, but it’s only momentary, her usual poise returning.
Leo’s smiling. “You’re an enigma, Ana Fairchild.”
“Oh?” I offer.
"There was something seriously unnatural about those shadows." Lily shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's like they had a life of their own—intelligence."
"If there are sinister forces at work here, we need to find out what they are." A determined glint enters Ava's eyes. "And stop them."
Leo laughs. “Yes, Mom.”
The joint slips from my fingers, scattering ashes on the floor as a single thought takes root in my mind.
Maybe this whole place is a front.
Maybe we’re not students at all.
Maybe we’re the prey.
*
Against my protest, we approach Professor Darkwood after Transfiguration, waiting until the other students have cleared the classroom. He stands at the front, rolling up scrolls of parchment and securing them with leather ties before placing them next to his laptop in a perfect pyramid.
On the way I’ve formed a running theory. I think this is all because of me. I fucked around with Darkwood, with the shadows, and now the shadows are fucking back. Or it could be bullshit and this place really is just cursed.
Ava steps forward, clearing her throat. "Professor, we were hoping to speak with you about the strange occurrences that have been happening around the Academy."
Darkwood pins us with a rather pointed gaze, a flicker of interest in his expression. "Go on."
"The rogue shadows, sir." I lick my lips, noticing how his eyes track the movement. "They seem...sentient, somehow. As if they're acting on their own."
“You’ve seen them?” Darkwood asks.
We nod in tandem.
"We think there might be dark magic involved." Lily blurts out. "Black arts that have given the shadows a life of their own."
I really think Darkwood will mock us and dismiss our theories as absurd—ridiculous figments of our imagination. Instead, he folds his arms across his chest and regards us with a calculating look. "What exactly have you witnessed?"
Lily and I take turns describing what happened in the hallway last night, Ava looking on like the poor puppy that’s been left out and desperately wants in.
Leo’s not so shy. "The times when they seem most active are dusk and after nightfall," he adds. "And they tend to gather in areas that are poorly lit or simply not illuminated at all." It’s like the poor kid is reciting from a textbook looking for extra credit.
But Darkwood listens without interrupting, his expression unreadable. At last, he gives a curt nod.
"Your observations are quite astute." His admission sends a thrill through me. "There are indeed dark forces at work within these walls that have gained control of the shadows. However..." His eyes settle on me, a silent warning in their depths. "This is not a matter for students to investigate. I will ask you not pursue this any further."
I open my mouth to argue, but Ava squeezes my arm, a subtle gesture that stills my tongue. We have already overstepped our bounds bringing this to Darkwood. I thought as much.
But something else occurs to me in this moment that should have been blatantly obvious from the start.
He is probably the one behind this. He’s admitted as much before, hasn’t he?
This could all be part of his dark games—another test.
"Yes, Professor," Lily says. "We will leave the matter to you."
The tension in Darkwood's frame eases at our compliance. "Very well. Return to your classes."
Dismissed, we file out of the classroom. But I know this is far from the end of the matter.
Whatever the Professor’s really cooking up, it ain’t an apple pie. It’s something dark and much more intricate than any of the others dare to believe. They don’t know him like I do, even if I’ve only scratched the surface.
*
We convene in an empty classroom after dinner, the only illumination coming from a few candles Lily has set up. My skin prickles as I glance at the shadows flickering against the walls, as if they might peel themselves free at any moment. I know it’s far-fetched, but after last night’s events I think my fear is warranted.
"We can't just leave this alone," Lily says in a hushed tone. "This shit is dangerous, and if Darkwood won't do anything to stop it—"
"We don't have a choice," Ava interrupts. "You heard him. He was clear we are to stay out of it."
Anger flares inside me at her willingness to back down. "And if we're attacked again? What then?"
You weren’t there, I consider adding.
Lily places a hand on my arm, her saucer eyes wide in the candlelight. "Ana's right. This is about our safety, and Darkwood has given us no reassurance he can contain any of this."
"So what do you propose?" Leo asks. "That we go against his orders and continue investigating?” He shakes his head in disapproval. “Fuck that."
I glance between them. "Yes. That’s exactly what I’m proposing."
Ava scowls. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Those shadows are hunting us," I insist. "And until Darkwood proves he has the situation under control, I'm not going to sit back and wait to become their next victim."
But what I really need is to speak to the Professor alone, to dig deeper into why these shadows are here at all and if our sexual rendezvous have anything to do with it.
Lily and Leo share a look, a silent exchange passing between them. At last, Leo nods.
"Alright, fuck it. I'm with Ana on this."
Ava throws up her hands. "You're all mad." But there's resignation in her tone that tells me I've won them over.
A fierce grin tugs at my lips. “So, who’s up for a trip to the library?”
*
The hallway is eerily silent, the only sound our hushed whispers. My senses are hyperalert for any sign of movement. But the shadows remain still, lurking within the portraits and statues as we follow the running lights to the library.
Once inside, we light candles and get to work. There are ancient tomes of magic lining the shelves, texts on summoning and binding spells that may hold clues to defeating these creatures, though this time I intend to leave things in their place.
"Here," Lily says, pulling a large leather-bound book from the stacks. "This discusses methods for controlling autonomous entities and malignant spirits."
“Are they really spirits, though?” Leo asks.
Lily shrugs. “To-may-to, to-ma-to.”
We gather around as she opens it, the parchment pages crackling. A diagram depicts a complex magical symbol, lines and circles intersecting in a delicate web.
"This symbol is said to bind spirits to the caster's will," Lily explains. "If we can lure the rogue shadows into it, we may be able to stop their rampage. In theory, at least."
"And if that doesn't work?" Leo asks. "We'll be defenseless."
Lily looks over to me. “Not with Wonder Woman here on our side. She fucking nailed those things.”
Hardly. I’m not even sure I could drum up the same spell, but I’ll take it.
“I can teach you,” I suggest, my tone casual.
Teach what? my head fires back, incredulous. You don’t even know what you did.
But with time I could figure it out.
“Hell yes you will,” Leo says, finger scanning against a row of books.
Lily bites her lip, flipping through more pages. "There are exorcism spells we can modify for umbral disturbances, prepare as a last resort. But binding them is our best option if we want answers about who created them and why."
That much is obvious, but I keep it to myself for now, including the fact I have shadows of my own. The last thing I need is a witch hunt. Cassandra would be first in line with a pitchfork.
No, what we need now is information, ideas. Best to leave my shadowy particulars out of it.
Three hours later and I swear we’ve been through every book in the damn library.
I’m about to call it when Ava pipes up in the corner. “Hold the phone. I got something.”
We all head over to where’s she stooped down to the bottom shelf, books piled beside her. She starts pulling at the shelf itself, trying to pull it free.
Lily looks at me confused. “Ah, Ava, dear, what the fuck are you doing?”
“One second,” she grunts, a section of the shelf coming free in her hand.”
I look closer. There’s a false floor in the shelf, a small compartment someone’s created below—not too prettily either. Loose pages are stacked there in a bundle, Ava lifting them out and leafing through them.
“Well?” Lily asks, when the suspense becomes too great.
“If that’s a hot or not list, I’m out,” says Leo, which we all ignore.
“These pages, they’re seriously old, the language kind of archaic,” Ava says.
“But let me guess, you can read them?” chimes Lily.
Ava nods, concentrating. “It’s about Victor Mortis.”
“Fucking who?” asks Leo.
Ava looks up to us. “Victor Mortis—the malevolent sorcerer? Almost destroyed all inais back in the Elemental Ages?”
Lily shrugs. “I got nothing. Leo?”
He shrugs back.
Ava shakes her head. “Wow, you two really are uneducated. Mortis was basically Shadowcraft incarnate, an exiled sorcerer who grew their power to almost unheard of heights. They were ultimately defeated by an early version of the Umbral Brotherhood, but according to this,” she places her finger on the page she was reading, “Victor Mortis is less of a who than a what, passed on down through a sole bloodline, or so the story goes.”
“So it’s a fairytale,” Lily says. “Why hide it?”
Ava keeps flipping through the pages, reading while we wait. “Maybe it’s not.”
“What?” Lily asks.
“A fairytale. See here,” she says, pointing to scrawled handwriting running up the left side of the page, an arrow looping back into the text. “This is in English—someone’s notes. It says ‘He’s here. He lives.’”
“Where?” asks Leo.
Lily punches his shoulder. “Lumina, dumbass, or this could be some stupid way to spook whoever finds this, right?”
But Ava’s too busy concentrating. “I don’t know.” She flips through more pages, the handwritten notes growing with each page and looking more frantic with each. Words are circled and underlined. It’s like the writing of a madman.
Ava stops on the last page, which is newer, torn from a notebook. It’s a list.
“Holy shit,” Ava says, holding the page up.
I start reading. It’s a list of names, of students and locations within the castle, times—all cross-referenced. There must be hundreds of names.
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask.
Ava nods. “A list of every student murdered here or missing on Academy grounds. It’s goes way back. Look.”
We each examine the page, but it finishes before the most recent murders.
I see initials at the bottom of the page and suddenly know why.
S.T.
Stephanie Tyler.
We all seem to clue in at the same time, except for Leo, who’s standing there clueless as always.
“So Stephanie was investigating the murders and linked them to this Victor Mortis?” I suggest. “Is that what I’m getting here?”
Ava starts shuffling through the papers. “It’s more than that. She’s saying Victor Mortis is here, at Lumina. Victor Mortis is the murderer—quite literally, I might add.”
“So who is this Morbid guy then?” Leo asks, and I kind of wish he’d just disappear and let the adults get on with this.
Ava’s shuffling again. “It doesn’t say, or she doesn’t know, but she was smart. There has to be some link to this, some reason she hid these pages, and I don’t think it was for a cheap prank. Look.”
Ava flips over the last page and there, in large writing: ‘Mortis knows. He’s coming for me.’