Page 75 of Shadebound
Thank you, she mouthed the words.
I didn’t let go. Neither did she.
And for a moment, there was no screaming shaking the walls. No sickness. No cuffs or shadows or poison and issues.
There were just two people standing in silence. And something that felt like hope.
Part Four
‘I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sin.’
H.H Holmes
Field Journal — Entry #426 - Classified
Ghosts linger because they are tethered to what they could not finish.
A promise unkept. A revenge unclaimed. A truth left rotting in silence. Until it is done, they cannot rest—they drift in the in-between, half in this world, half aching for the next. I often think the shadebound are the same. We are just ghosts with blood in our veins, given bodies so we can finish what death interrupted.
Chapter Twenty Two, Midnight Mayhem
The stairwell up to the peasant student dorms had the echo I liked—every footstep from earlier still seemed to be hanging around, refusing to die properly. I floated up the last flight backward just because I could, watching the corridor slide underneath me like a ribbon. Doors lined both sides, each with its own little shrine of personality: a crooked charm hung on one, a stack of dog-eared romance novels by another, a very serious row of polished boots outside a third.
Living made clutter; dying gave you all the time in the world to judge it.
I drifted through the first door on the left, then the next, passing like breath through plaster. In one room a girl had fallenasleep mid-essay, ink bled into her cheek from where it had kissed the parchment. I wiggled the tip of the quill until it rolled off the desk and tapped her wrist. She snuffled and swatted at air.
In another, a pair of roommates snored in perfect counterpoint, an ugly little symphony that made me clap once, delighted, before I remembered no one could hear it. I considered trying to wake them just to see what kind of chaos would bloom, then spared them on the grounds that their snoring duet was already punishment enough.
By the time I reached Eris’ corridor, I had seven new opinions about dorm décor and a craving to rearrange someone’s bookshelf by vibes rather than author. I paused outside her door, listening. The slow tide of sleeping breath greeted me. As did the tick of the wall clock. Good. Eris was out. If I timed it right, I could get her to that dreamy between-place where seers noticed edges that weren’t supposed to be there.
I pushed through the wall and let the dark fold around me.
The dorm had that middle-of-the-night stillness where every tiny sound felt like it was holding its breath — the faint click of the wall clock, the flutter of the curtains when the wind found a gap in the stone, the slow, even breathing of the people asleep inside. It smelt faintly of lavender from one of those freakishly little sachets Eris kept under her pillow.
I drifted in through the wall, letting the quiet wrap around me. Eris was curled up tight on her side, knees tucked, blankets pulled right up to her chin like the bed might bite. The moonlight hit her hair and cheek in sharp silver streaks, making her look a little too much like she’d fallen asleep in a painting.
I floated closer, hovering just above her face.
“Eris,” I whispered, stretching her name out like I was trying to tempt a cat out from under a couch. “Eris. Come on, you nutty little thing. Wake up. Waaaake up.”
Nothing.
I sighed and poked at a strand of her hair until it drifted across her forehead.
“Eris, I swear to all that’s unholy, if you make me repeat myself again, I’m going to start singing. And you don’t want that. My voice used to shatter glass. And not in the magical siren way — more in the ‘my school’s choir director once cried in the car park’ way.”
Her face twitched — the smallest flicker. I grinned.
“That’s it. You’re getting there. Follow the sound of my voice, Sleeping Beauty. No, scratch that — you don’t have the budget for a Disney princess. More like... Sleeping Ferret. It’s less glamorous but honestly way more accurate with how jumpy you are.”
Her lashes fluttered, and she made a soft little sound in her throat, pushing herself up onto an elbow like she wasn’t sure what planet she was on. I leant in closer, my voice dropping to something sharper.
“I need you to listen, Eris. This is important. I’ve been trying to get through to you all day, and—”
“Go the fuck back to sleep, Eris. Stop being a freak.”
The voice came from across the room — low, drowsy, but dripping with spite.
