Page 86 of Shadebound
I leant forward slightly, arms folded over the railing of the upper landing. I was shadowed enough that she didn’t spot me, though I doubted she would’ve noticed if I’d waved. Her focus was elsewhere, tangled in whatever frenzied little spiral had gripped her. Her voice was rushed, oddly pitched, but she wasn’t crying, or even visibly afraid. She just seemed... manic.
Agitated.
The kind of energy you got from people who argued with pigeons and crossed the street three times in a row.
I listened out of amusement as I hurried about my business, but then she spoke a single name that made me forget all my evening plans.
She said Jinx.
I had to follow her after that. So I did.
She just kept going, pacing fast toward the dorm wing like she was chasing a thought that might disappear if she didn’t pin it down quickly enough. Her shoulders were hunched slightly, her arms tight to her sides.
I let her vanish down the hall and waited a beat because there was no need for me to break into her bedroom. Not unless she didn’t come back out. But not even two minutes later, the dorm door creaked open again, and there she was. Now hauling a bulging shoulder bag and gripping a crystal sphere.
Her hair was dripping down her back. The sphere caught the low hall light and gleamed faintly, clearly made of something magic, not just glass. She looked over her shoulder once, said something sharp under her breath—something I didn’tquite catch—and then headed off down the corridor with more purpose than coordination.
Her boots slapped the stone, echoing off the walls, and her bag banged against her hip with every other step. So I followed. Not close. Just enough to keep her in sight. She wasn’t exactly trying to be subtle, which made it easier. Still, she managed to avoid the main staircases, cut through two side halls I hadn’t seen students use in weeks, and bypassed two sets of patrolling hooded figures like she wasn’t even aware they were there.
That, at least, was interesting.
She hesitated once on the third-floor landing—only for a second—and then made a hard turn down a rusted service stairwell with one hand on the banister and the other still cradling that damn crystal ball like a nervous squirrel.
I took a different route, slipping down through the cracked column shaft near the north wing, letting it spit me out at the bottom of the stairwell just as she disappeared into one of the low tunnels leading off the crypt entrance.
Now she really had my attention. The crypts weren’t off-limits, technically, but most students had enough sense not to wander down here alone. She moved through them with familiarity, though—like she’d been here before. Like she had a destination in mind.
She was talking again. Not as loudly now, but still out loud. Still with that odd rhythm, like she was being interrupted. I couldn’t make out the words, but she didn’t seem to notice how strange it all looked—wandering through the crypts at night, muttering to thin air.
I kept following until she stopped at one of the ritual chambers. Not a good one. The room had been drained years ago—stone arch cracked at the top, wards long since burned out. The door groaned open on rusted hinges when she stepped inside.
I paused just outside and leant against the wall, angled to catch a sliver of the room through the cracked doorway.
She dumped her bag on the floor like she was afraid it might catch fire if she held it too long. The crystal ball rolled a few inches before she snatched it up again. She dropped to her knees with clumsy urgency, fingers scrabbling through the bag until she yanked out a handful of supplies.
The first candle refused to light. She hissed something under her breath, rummaged for a match tin, struck one with shaking fingers.
She did it two more times before I realised this was not a girl who knew what she was doing.
At all.
I crossed my arms over my chest as she poured a circle of salt that looked like it had been measured with a bent spoon, then dragged a crooked pentagram across it. The candles were tilted. One kept going out. Her left shoe was untied and trailing against the floor.
It was honestly impressive how bad she was at this.
She sat cross-legged in the centre, the crystal between her knees, and stared at it like she expected it to whisper secrets if she squinted hard enough.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. If you’re still here, I—I need to know what you meant. In the bathroom.” She paused, then winced sharply like she’d been scolded.
“Yes, I know. I heard you. You didn’t have to smear it on the mirror like some horror movie, okay?” Another pause.
She shifted to relight the same damn candle for the third time. Her fingers were trembling—not with fear, I thought, but with strain. Like whatever she was trying to do was burning through her too fast. Or like she didn’t actually know how to control it, just aimed it in a direction and hoped for the best.
“I don’t know if this is working,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone—or anything—else. “I’m doing the salt thing. The circle thing. You could at least say something useful. Not just yell at me.”
The sphere twitched. Just once. A quick, subtle flicker of light inside it, like something had tried to press forward but lost interest halfway. She froze. Then leant closer, squinting at the faint glow inside.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Are you—are you actually hearing me?” Her voice was barely audible now, like she didn’t trust the words not to escape and alert something else.
