Page 164 of Every Shade of Shadow

I see Cassandra further back, still naked, pacing with what appears to be spellshock.

Lily’s over to the left sitting up and shaking her head but is otherwise unscathed save for the gash on her arm.

“What about…Dark…wood?” Ava pants.

“He’s fine. I patched him up,” I tell her, trying to look her over.

She lifts her finger in his direction. “Are you sure?”

I spin around to see Damien lying flat again, eyes closed. “Shit.”

“Go,” Ava says, choking it out.

I rush back to Damien’s side, bring two fingers to the side of his neck, but there’s no pulse there, no life at all.

I dip my ear to his lips, but again, there’s nothing.

It’s too much.

“Help!” I scream.

“Help!” I scream again, and again.

I scream until my lungs burn.

THREE DAYS LATER

I look to the towers looming overhead, one of which houses the recovery wing where Damien lies in a magically-induced coma.

It took ten minutes for help to arrive, even the Academy doctor looking down at the Professor ominously. Ten minutes I held him in my arms, cold, the pool of blood around us slowly cooling until it had the consistency of molasses.

Ava and Lily did what they could, but this was far beyond them.

Eventually Professor Hawthorn arrived. He’d been tending to his garden when this whole, hellish spectacle had unfolded. Together with the doctor they lifted Damien’s lifeless body out of there, Lily and Ava holding me back while they took him away to the infirmary.

That was three days ago—enough time for the Arcane Oversight Bureau to swoop in and start the clean-up. Read: endless interviews and questions and way too many people in black around here for my liking after Mortis.

I gave them what I could, without elaborating on certain nocturnal activities I’d engaged in.

I make my way across the courtyard, the Academy all but a tomb. Over seventy-five students were massacred in the ballroom that night, just butchered where they stood laughing, drinking, trying to get laid…

And poor Leo.

"Ana," Lily rushes up to me, hair flying behind her. "Any news about Darkwood?"

I shake my head. "Nothing new. The AOB healers are still monitoring him, apparently."

“Lucky Hawthorn had that plant.”

Veilweed. An ugly fucking plant if ever there was one. Hawthorn had been growing it to help him sleep, but it proved more than useful that night, allowing him to place Damien into a coma.

"This is awful." Lily wraps her arms around herself, peering around nervously. "Everyone's saying Mortis might not be dead.”

“She’s fucking dead,” I tell her. “I killed that bitch cold, hot, whatever. She’s ash.”

I place what I hope is a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but it’s trite. I’m not good at this. "The Professor will recover, and the wards will be strengthened to prevent anything like this from happening again. You see how the AOB are crawling around this place, right?"

Lily looks at the one standing guard in the corner. “Can’t tell if they’re AOB operatives or real-estate agents.”

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