Page 6 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

I had to find her, help her, get her out of the mess I had caused, however inadvertently, by making her feel that I was looking down on her.

“Stay here,” I told Pothos, who was scrabbling at a scratching post, ignoring me entirely. “I’m going to go find your owner.”

I bolted to the door, but this time it didn’t swing open for me. Scowling, I grabbed the doorknob. It refused to twist under my grip no matter how hard I tried.

After a week of locking me out, Chanel had decided to lock me in.

3

EVANGELINE

As I pulled myself to my feet, I felt my magic rising within me. A heady rush crashed through my limbs, making me feel light and shockingly powerful. I let out a hoarse, giddy laugh that was definitely more than a little manic.

Morgana paused in the doorway of my cell, head cocked to the side. It was only for a moment, but I didn’t need more than that. I let the magic surge out of me in a crushing wave. It hit her square in the back and sent her flying into the hallway. Damien was caught in the blast, too, and tumbled out behind her. The aftershock hit the one guard, throwing him back against the wall. He didn’t even have enough time to look shocked before he passed out. Morgana managed to keep her feet, bracing herself with a furious snarl, but Damien crashed into her, toppling her over and pinning her to the floor with his bulk. I was already moving, but I saw him wink at me as I ran past.

“Get off me, you oaf!” Morgana seethed behind me, and I heard an oof! coming from Damien. I didn’t look back.

The hallway streaking past me was an odd mix of old, rough stone and poured concrete. The LED lights were set into ancient sconces that filled the whole place with the stark white light of an operating theater. The air smelled musty and faintly rotten, like the back of a fridge that hadn’t been cleaned properly and left unplugged.

The hallway split and curved, and I charged ahead blindly. I had to put distance between myself and Morgana. Finding a way out was a close second on the list of priorities, but I couldn’t let her get her hands on me again or I’d miss my chance. She didn’t strike me as the sort of person who would ever make the same mistake twice. I had to escape now, or the next time I found an opening I’d be even more worn down.

I dashed up a flight of stairs, the rough stone stinging my bare feet. At the top, it felt as though I had run through a thick mass of cobwebs, that telltale buzz of magic pricking my skin. Shit. My chest heaved, and even with my magic back, I was painfully aware that I hadn’t had a full meal in way too long. There was only so much energy you could get out of gruel and the rarely smuggled protein bars. It was bizarre, feeling incredibly powerful and incredibly weak at the same time. I had to keep moving. If I let myself stop, the exhaustion would catch up with me.

But no matter how hard I tried to push myself, I was starting to slow down, stumbling a little with each step. Suddenly, a wall of fire shot up, blocking my way, and I reeled back, covering my face with my hands. There was no heat, I realized after a moment. Light, yes, and the sound of crackling flame, but no heat. Just an illusion, but a damn good one. I tentatively stuck a finger into the flames; it tickled faintly, but didn’t burn. I clenched my teeth and jumped through the barrier. So, that was what the spell I’d blundered into did. But it was too much to hope that would be the spell’s only effect. I could still feel it clinging to me, changing my perception.

The hallways around me began to twist as I looked into them, warping around on themselves, growing doors that hadn’t been there a second before, sometimes even disappearing entirely. Fucking illusion magic. If the fire had been intangible, then that meant the rest of the illusions would be as well. Maybe I could figure out my way forward by touch alone? But no, I couldn’t waste time feeling my way around blindly until I found the right path. Alarms were going off, and I could hear the pounding of boots on stone. It was distant for now, but if I kept fumbling around here, sooner or later I’d be found.

It wasn’t only the people holding me prisoner I had to worry about, either. The curse was a ticking clock of its own. How long did I have before I started to lose myself to its call again?

I stumbled into a spot where the corridor split in eight different directions. At least it seemed like it did. How many of those doorways were real? How many of them were just in my mind?

“Shit,” I muttered through my teeth. “Shit, shit, shit…”

The idea hit me abruptly. It wasn’t a great idea. Hell, I didn’t even know if it was a good idea, but it was the only one I could come up with. My light spell, one of the first Marcus had ever taught me, created globes of light that had a physical mass. If I sent them out with a couple of minor tweaks to the spell, they would drift through empty space for as long as they could, then bounce back when they hit an obstacle. They could find the dead ends for me.

Of course, if they bounced back, then anyone in the tunnels would be able to follow them straight back to me. I’d be giving them a literal beacon.

Fuck it. I threw out the little balls of light, and they bounced gently through the air, each one heading toward one of the corridors around me. Three of the lights bounced off immediately, floating back to me—three illusory passageways, then, or ones laid with wards I didn’t have time to break.

Waiting for the lights to return was agonizing. I hadn’t bothered to send one down the pathway I’d come through, so I was still waiting on four of them. After a few excruciating seconds, another one came back into view, drifting peacefully toward me. Would all of them be so slow? I thought I’d put more energy into the spell, but I wasn’t exactly at my best. The footfalls were getting louder. Someone was at the bottom of the stairs behind me.

Stay calm. Just stay calm. You can do this.

A grunt of surprise came from one of the corridors, and I could see the glow of the light down that pathway starting to come back. Someone was following it, their boots thudding heavily against the stone floor with each step. Two lights left to go—one had gone straight ahead of me, and one to the right.

A fifty-fifty chance.

Then from the stairs, a bellow. “She’s up here!”

The illusion of fire licked up around me again, flames dancing to waist height. Whoever had spotted my light was getting closer, nearly at the last corner, and the man who’d yelled was pounding up the stairs. The last two globes of light still hadn’t returned. I was running out of time.

As the guards burst into the room, I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could and channeled more power into the light spell. The orbs that had returned to me flamed brilliantly, the light bright enough to paint the insides of my eyelids a searing orange-pink. One of the guards let out a startled squawk. Now that I’d well and truly destroyed any night vision they might have had, I threw up a ball of darkness in the center of the room, big enough to fill half the space. The guards stumbled blindly into it as I launched myself up toward the ceiling on a tendril of magic as quickly and quietly as I could.

Was that…? I squinted. Was it another hallucination, or was there a faint glow coming from the tunnel in front of me? Was it my light spell bouncing back?

Fuck it. I’d have to take my chances. I dashed down the tunnel to my right. There was another set of stairs leading up, and I raced up them two steps at a time, scrambling to brace myself with my hands when I stumbled. The soles of my feet were stinging, and I hoped the rough stone hadn’t broken skin. If I was leaving a trail of bloody footprints for them to follow, I’d be in even deeper shit. Luckily, the floor here was more in line with the poured concrete and LED side of things than the ancient, worn stone. I ran past offices and what looked like a conference room. Something was sketched on a board pinned to the wall in there, but I couldn’t pause to look at it. The alarms were clamoring here, too. I needed to keep moving. Hallucinations kept hounding me. Walls of fire, shifting pathways, and now people, too. As I ran, I could’ve sworn I saw Marcus reading a newspaper in one of the offices, and my parents—adopted and biological—sitting around a table in what looked like a break room, sipping casually from mugs of coffee.

“Not real,” I panted. “Not real.”

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