Page 38 of A Deal with the Shadow King

My eyes narrow. “Your middle name.”

Cece is supposed to be safe at home, in Demeter. There’s no reason why she’d be here. No reason why she wouldn’t answer my question.

The snake darts out, and I flatten myself to the stones at my back. A familiar tingle of power prickles my fingers, and the shadows around me thicken. Instead of merely hiding within them, the darkness takes tangible form, and I reach for it like a knight would brandish a shield.

I’m no longer a girl or a princess. I’m more than Nell in this moment, quick and untouchable as smoke.

Someone without magic can’t begin to grasp the feeling of it being unleashed. Not molded into a tool or called upon for a specific task, but truly unleashed.

It’s not like blood or water. It doesn’t pulse or drizzle. My magic feels hot and heavy, like a dark stone under the desert sun. It’s cold and uncontrollable, like an icy stream tumbling down the mountains.

Magic drums. Magic soars. Magic lives.

You think you’re using it, but it’s really using you.

Shadows move under my command and shield me from the monster. They are thick as fabric, but swift and pliable as water. A moment later, the beast gives a low hiss and angrily returns to its lair, allowing me passage.

I stare at the spot where the fake-Cece was, but there’s nothing left of her, and I sigh in relief. I’ve hidden from Esme or the guards a dozen times, but never in such a formidable—and deliberate—fashion. The magic dims after a few seconds, and a hint of longing ties up my tongue. The power I just used wasn’t all mine. I drew it from the stone, the underground lake—even the beast itself.

I drew it from them and had to release it, but a tiny fleck of it, barely a spark, blended with mine. It warms my hands and tickles my breast bone, and though it’s as delicate and frail as a butterfly, it’s also certain as the night sky.

The magic inside me burns brighter.

Joy expands my chest, and a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth until a larger, thicker shadow looms over me.

Chapter 14

Bare

Ispin around and spread my arms, spooked by the apparition, but the darkness condenses into a familiar silhouette.

“Congratulations, you’ve passed the first neophyte trial,” One says without smiling.

“That’s all? I passed?” I bring a hand to my chest. “I felt the magic, it was incredible?—”

His eyes narrow. “Don’t kid yourself, seedling. You’ve barely got enough magic to breathe the same air as the Shadow King. Passing the first trial just means that you can survive in this world—nothing to boast about.”

Grumpy, much? I try not to grumble and square my shoulders. “Was it necessary to use my sister as bait?”

“Kaat is a most clever creature. It uses what you love most to lure you inside its lair.”

The loving way he speaks of the snake annoys me. “And what if it had succeeded?”

“Its bite is not lethal, but you would have proven yourself too weak-minded to hunt nightmares.” He spins on his heels and threads deeper inside the cavern.

I glower at his retreating back and follow him past the underground lake and into a man-sized tunnel. The air grows colder as we descend into the earth, and we squeeze into a crevice at the end of the path. Solid rocks graze my body from both sides until the crack widens to create a square-shaped vault. Mirrors cover the walls of the chamber from floor to ceiling, interrupted only by the crack we just walked through. A shallow natural pool ripples in the middle of the vault, leaving only a few feet of paving stones on each side.

One lights the candles on an altar set up next to it with a snap of his fingers, the tiny lights reflected to infinity by the four mirrored walls.

The warm glow of the candles flickers over the oily surface of the natural pool like fireflies blinking in and out of view in a dark forest, and the slow ripples of the liquid clue me in to the fact it’s probably not water.

I squint at my lonely reflection on the right.

One is only visible in the mirror to my left, and I jerk away from him. “What’s going on?”

He seems unbothered by the phenomenon. “Penelope Emanuelle Darcy, you’ve passed the master of nightmare’s first trial. Will you take the oath?”

The sizzle of his unseen gaze is both warm and suffocating. I open my mouth to ask questions, so many questions, but a thunderstorm clouds the mirror at the back of the room.

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