Page 27 of Monster's Reward

So, I shifted the focus of my reading to the shadow realm itself.

Every free moment I had, I was in the shadow-room or in my room, reading everything I could get my hands on to prepare me for anything and everything that might arise in the shadow realm.

By the time a month had passed, my wariness had fallen away again and I was becoming quite adept at leaping through the shadows.

I’d learned so much about shadow-walking that I no longer needed the shadows to connect in order to move from one to the next.

I only needed to see them now, which meant that I could stand at the top of the stairs on the fifth floor, lean over the railing to find a shadow—perhaps one directly under the second floor landing—and in an instant, could leap from the shadow currently sheltering me to the one I’d chosen by sight.

I learned so much in that first month and yet, I still failed in my goals.

I’d learned nothing about what had happened two hundred years before and I had no clues as to who the culprit really was.

Maybe ithadbeen a shadow-beast and I was simply deluding myself, but I couldn’t stop searching.

I had to know.

For me.

For Shadow.

For all the innocent shadow monsters killed in an effort to catch a serial killer.

Had they all died in vain?

We’d made it through about a third of the books in the shadow-room and I was truly dismayed that I was no closer to an answer to that question than when we’d begun.

I kept the book,A History of Shadowson my nightstand. Mikaela and Jasmine had both tried to read it, but whenever they opened it, the pages were completely blank.

I’d tried to hold the book for them, but somehow it knew and wouldn’t show them a single word, even with me standing right there.

We finally had to accept that only I would be able to read it, which was terrible news for me, because quite frankly, it was so dry and boring, I kept falling asleep anytime I attempted to read it.

Who knew history could be soboring?

I’d suffer through it, though, if I thought it would help, but since the copyrightwas a full hundred years before the time period I was interested in, I kept giving up.

Perhaps that was why it took me so long to notice.

One day, though, I had an unexpected afternoon free due to a class cancellation and I was determined to make some headway in the book.

I was startled at how heavy it was when I hauled it off the bottom shelf of my nightstand.

Am I imagining things, Shadow, or is this book quite a bit larger than it was before?

Shadow wasn’t really interested in the books that much, so she just let out a huff of annoyance and went back to sleep.

As it turned out, though, I was right.

I was deep into the story of a serial killer when Mikaela and Jasmine burst into the room.

“Wait until you hear what we found out,” Mikaela exclaimed. “I can’t believe we didn’t think to ask him sooner.”

I didn’t respond, too absorbed in the story I was reading.

“Kasi!”

I jolted and looked up at them. “What?”

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