Page 45 of Shadebound
She looked so miserable; it tugged at something in my chest. The kind of ache that was equal parts pity and unwanted familiarity. And a little sprinkle of not knowing how to help my brother, but maybe knowing how to help her.
“My mother’s friend is a seer,” I blurted. “I know a lot about them. I could help you with your visions... if you wanted. It might make you feel a bit better about things here. Not right away, I need a few days to settle in. But after that.”
Her head snapped up, hope flickering like a flame trying to catch. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Might as well be haunted together in this place.”
Her laugh was small but real as I asked, “What do you already know about your magic?”
She fiddled with her spoon again before answering. “My parents and older brother were all killed just before everyone evacuated for the war. So not much. I was seven when they passed, and we spent the years before that worrying about dying.”
I stared at her for a moment. The way her shoulders hunched in, how her voice tried to sound steady and failed. I remembered what I knew about the war in Mortavia—how it started thirteen years ago, burned too hot, and was ravaged too fast for anyone to stop it. The ruling magic council evacuated everyone who survived barely two years in. Which meant Eris had only spent the first five years of her life figuring out who she was.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s an awful hand to be dealt.” I leant in slightly, voice soft enough that nobody else could ever hear it. “I lost my sister last year. So I know how it feels.”
She gave a small sympathetic shrug. Both of us, two sides of the same coin, neither feeling the need to say just how much we hated it.
“What about you?” she asked. “What happened to your sister?”
“She was murdered,” my jaw tensed. “The Salem serial killer made her his last victim.”
With how big a deal the bastard was in the magical community, I felt no need to explain who he was.
Eris’s black eyes softened. “I’m sorry she died the way she did. That serial killer really is horrid, isn’t he?”
“Don’t be,” I said, lifting my spoon and stirring the porridge slowly, not bothering to give it any taste at all. “The bastard probably writes bad poetry and thinks he’s misunderstood. I’d hate to give them any form of thought again.” The poetry made me think of the book in my nightstand and I felt like the owner would have understood me. He wrote more darkness than jest in the lines between stanzas.
Eris didn’t answer. Her expression flickered. She tilted her head slightly, brow furrowed, like she was studying me. “I figured you’dwantto think about the killer,” she said. “What with him being here too.”
I didn’t move at first. Her words didn’t quite register until they did, like each one had to be dragged through something thick. I looked at her properly then, blinking once. She didn’t seem to notice my sudden shift. She went on like it was nothing, telling me what she knew.
Four students were dead. One of them just last night if the rumour mill was true. All of them found the same way. If the cycle held—if it was reallyhimagain—there would be thirteen in total.
Thirteen victims before he disappeared without a trace.
I sat there and listened to her talk about the bodies, despite the ringing in my ears and the fog in my brain. I wasn’t breathing right. Everything inside me pulled inward, like I was bracing for something I couldn’t name.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t trust it. Not just because I didn’t believe her—but because I did. Zayden and Maya had been acting strangely that morning. And now it made sense. They hadknown. They’d kept it from me. Whichmeant they believed it. They believed he was here. And if they did, maybe they were right. Maybe this was real. Maybe the bastard who killed Bells was walking these halls, breathing this air, leaving more bodies behind.
My hands had curled without me meaning to. I didn’t speak right away. Icouldn’t. There was too much crawling under my skin. Grief. Anger. Something colder than both.
The monster and pain I thought I’d buried—or shoved down deep enough inside me that it could not escape—came instantly rushing to the surface. So much so that despite the cuff digging into my arm, the table shook. The ceiling groaned. And the candlelight on the walls flickered as my connection to the shadows begged to burst forth.
Begged me to obliterate this building and everyone inside of it just in case we killed Bells’ murderer.
“Tell me everything.” I looked back at Eris, hands trembling, with one undeniable need that changed all my plans of coasting and dying at Mors once Draven left.
I wasn’t going to die. Or coast. Or do anything like that at all.
I was going to get revenge again. For real this time.
Even if I had to kill everyone else in sight.
Field Journal — Entry #092 - Classified
They say the dead can’t touch you, but Shadebound know better. The ghosts don’t pass through us — they pass into us. Their voices ride the magic, whispering things only we can hear. You can’t train that out. You can’t fight it with steel. You can only listen... and hope you know when the voice is yours.
Chapter Fourteen, Love Letters & Laces
