Page 170 of Every Shade of Shadow

Sabrina slaps the table. “Fuck me. I knew you looked different.”

I raise a hand. “I’m not going to get into all that, suffice to say I accepted the invitation and the next thing I know I’m…there,” I tell her, leaving out the whole needle-in-the-neck thing. “I know I should have left you a text or something, but it was all very rushed. I thought I could contact you from the Academy, but they have it locked down pretty good. I know I’ve been a terrible friend leaving you in the dark like this.”

Her expression turns serious. “I know something happened there, Ana. People have been talking, but the AOB’s keeping a tight lid on it. Were you involved? Were you there?”

A lump the size of a grapefruit rises in my throat. If I close my eyes, I know I’ll see that ballroom, the countless bodies, Leo, Damien…the horror of it. I still haven’t processed it all. Maybe I’m still in shock.

“Yes,” I reply, leaving it at that.

Sabrina reaches out and covers my hand with her own. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me everything right away, even though you are going to tell me everything. But you’re safe, and you’re here, and clearly no longer a virgin, so overall, good, right?”

I smile for real now. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I might have become an all-powerful shadow queen and stopped an all-powerful evil sorceress from destroying the non-magical world,” I smile. “Plus a lot of really kinky sex stuff.”

I see her watching me, wondering how to react. But she isn’t buying it. She raises her eyebrows, playing along. “I see. Well, humble Shadow Queen, I eagerly await your tales, but for now, why don’t you tell me why you’re sitting there secretly looking like your cat died?”

“I don’t have a cat.”

She wags her fingers. “And therein lies the problem. Something to do with the weirdly possessive Professor then?”

“Damien.”

“He has a name.”

I’ve always told Sab everything. This should be no different. “He’s in a coma.”

She sits back. “He’s what? Was it an accident? Misfire?”

Damien would never be so clumsy. “It’s because of me.”

Sabrina looks confused. “You put him in a coma?”

I have to smile at the absurdity of that before my stoicism returns. “No, he was trying to save me, actually, got caught in the crossfire, you could say.”

“Crossfire? The fuck was happening out there?”

I shake my head. “You have no idea, but I need to get back, to make sure he’s okay.”

“Don’t suppose they left you a map.”

“They did not,” I say. “I was hoping maybe you could ask around, use your Society contacts?”

“I can do that,” Sab says simply, “but I don’t imagine anyone’s going to give it up. I mean, hell, I didn’t even think Lumina was a real place before all this.”

I fold my arms over myself. “Oh, it’s real, alright.”

He was real. What we had was real, and now he’s lying there caught in limbo and I’m sitting at a diner in New York. It doesn’t seem fair.

I give Sab a brief rundown of the Academy and how things played out, skipping the intimate details and the massacre as a whole. Maybe I’ll tell her, but for now I don’t really want to sit here picking at my burger rehashing how half the student population was murdered.

I eventually let her take over the conversation. She talks about her job at the label, her bitchy new manager. It’s simple gossip, but it’s nice having this bit of normality back. There’s no evil sorceress lurking around the corner or secret room about to unleash all hell.

“I have been having some fucked-up dreams, though,” she goes on.

I almost choke on my burger. “Really?”

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