Page 70 of Every Shade of Shadow

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Outside, it’s about as bright as it gets here. A certain sense of contentment comes over me because, hey, I’m finally getting outside the castle walls.

I never expected to be changed so fundamentally by this place. I know Darkwood has been a big, very sexual part of that, but just being surrounded by magic is something extraordinary. I’m walking down the hallway and someone’s yapping about fucking up Mentis Silentium, or that very particular, sulfurous smell that comes after fire spells.

You don’t get any of that in New York. Even in the confines of Gran’s apartment, magic was somewhat limited, kept on a leash. Not here.

But Sabrina is still there and still has no idea what happened to me.

I turn to Lily as we make our way through the extensive gardens that feature at the back of the castle. “Hey, I don’t suppose there’s some way to get a message out to someone back home, is there?”

She gives me a funny look. “Like, inais?” She shakes her head. “Even if you wanted to, this place is warded up to all hell. The only thing getting in is that plane and,” she makes a jabbing motion at her neck, “you remember how much fun that was, right?”

“They really do that to everyone who comes here?” I ask.

Lily nods in confirmation. “The first time. I guess they don’t want anyone freaking out because ‘Yo, can we drug you?’ and they’re real serious about keeping the location of this place secret, though we theorize this whole island—did I mention that?—is in some kind of external sub-dimension. Plus the whole needle-in-the-neck thing has a certain cloak-and-dagger feel to it. Society folks lap up that theatrical shit.”

I’m still trying to place this all as the forest looms right out of the pages of a fairytale. “So you get the needle when you go back?”

Lily laughs. “Fuck no. They use magic for that, which tends not to leave you feeling like you’ve spent the night being fucked by the Knicks when you wake up.”

“Oh, and there’s really no way to contact home?”

Ava speaks. “If you get murdered, they might send a nice letter, but to answer your question, no. No mail, no email, no internet, no Wi-Fi—Lumina is an information black hole.”

So there goes that idea.

Lily breathes in as we reach the forest and cute little path that meanders right into the piney heart of it. “Mmm, you getting that?”

“What?” I ask.

“Freedom. Come on.”

It’s cooler in the forest, perfectly straight trees reaching to the sky and the path turning almost dead straight right through the middle of it.

It’s too quiet for my liking, the forest itself deadening and dampening any kind of sound. I decide to make small talk. “Do you have family, back home?” I ask Lily, knowing she’s the more likely of the two to actually give a detailed answer.

“Family?” she scoffs. “You mean my three prick brothers? They’re all sitting around on their asses watching porn and jerking off over Andrew Tate while they wait to take over the family business.”

“And what’s that?”

“Oh, actual porn, though with a magic, dark kind of kink to it. You wouldn’t believe how many Society folk are freaks between the sheets.”

I can, actually. “But you don’t…”

“Perform?” she almost chokes. “Fuck. No. We’ve got warehouses and studios for that, plenty of performers willing to get down for whatever crumbs we throw their way.”

“And your parents are good with this?”

She scoffs again. “Children of Aquarius and all that. They’d fuck all day long when I was a kid, and we had thin walls, let me tell you. Even now they star in, like, half the films—masked, naturally.”

“Naturally,” I nod, kind of laughing. “It’s pretty funny.”

“Not when they drag you to the studio for an ‘education’ and the bin you just threw your sandwich into is full of used enema kits and smells like a midnight screening of Star Wars.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Lily laughs along. “I suppose saying it aloud makes my fam sound totally fucked, but it’s nothing on Ava’s. Right, Ava?”

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