Page 46 of Shattered & Returned

Hope flared.“You hear them too? The dead?”

Her silhouette shook.“A scream. Outside. Like someone…fell.”

Sindy flicked her wrist. Witchlight flared, painting the windows in ghostly outlines. Beyond the glass was only endless night.

“I think I saw something.”My throat closed.

The memory flooded back—that space between sleep and wakefulness where I’d caught sight of something falling past my window. Not something. Someone. A body plummeting down eight stories of ancient stone.

I lunged for the window, pressing my palms to the icy glass. Far below, a figure lay broken on the cobblestones, hair fanned out.

Red.Even in the moonlight, I knew.

“Someone fell,”I whispered, my voice hollow with shock. The words tasted like ash.Jumped? Pushed?

Doors banged open in the hallway. Voices tangled in panicked confusion.

“We need to go down there,”I said, already moving.

Sindy hesitated.“Is that safe?”

I threw on my cloak. After a beat, she followed.

We followed the flood of students down the spiraling staircase, our footsteps echoing against the black stone. The wards tingled against my skin as we burst into the cold night.

The body lay broken on the cobblestones. Legs bent at impossible angles. Arms splayed wide. Face turned skywardwith eyes staring sightlessly at the starless sky. Blood pooled beneath her skull.

“It’s Angelina Wood,”someone gasped.“From Kingsley Tower.”

My blood turned to ice. The girl who’d challenged me hours ago now lay broken beneathmywindow.

“Angelina wouldn’t jump,”a voice hissed.“She was pushed.”

Footsteps pounded behind us. Orren and Dante materialized at my side, their attention snapping from Angelina’s corpse to me. Orren edged closer, as if to block me from the grotesque sight.

“What happened, Carrot?”Dante’s voice was uncharacteristically tense.“Did you see anything?”

“A scream,”I managed.“Then a body fell past my window.”

Orren gripped my arm.“Are you hurt, Bloom?”

I blinked at him. A girl wasdead, and he was worried aboutme?

“She’s in shock,”Dante muttered.

Orren rounded on him.“Itoldyou one of us should’ve stayed in the tower. The game has started early!”

What was he talking about?

A sudden cold realization slithered into place.

Angelina didn’t belong in Ravencrux Tower. She lived across campus in Kingsley Tower, home to the elite. For her to be here, someoneinsidehad to have invited her in to get past the wards.

Sebastian’s warning hissed in my memory:“He has a thing for redheads.”

My gaze dropped to Angelina’s hair, two shades darker than mine, spilling into a pool of blood.

The killer hadn’t chosen this spot at random.

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