Page 12 of Shadebound
It pulsed through me cruelly. My shadows surged in response, pressing close beneath my skin, hungry for retaliation as they throbbed against the pain. Yet, I welcomed it.
She wanted to punish me?
All she’d done was anger me.
Even as the sting carved across flesh, I felt stronger for it. Pain didn’t make me small. It didn’t make me obedient. It reminded me I was favoured by Death himself. And in that moment, I made a promise I intended to keep: I would one day show her exactly why shadows never bowed to light.
I would show her what shadebound monsters did to those we despised.
Hightower’s gaze found mine again, icy and unreadable.
“This is not a fun place. It is not a game your father could send you to instead of a true prison or execution. Itisa punishment. And as I said before, one of the many things we punish for is insubordination.” She stepped back, gesturing toward the towering doors as they creaked open.
“I suggest you follow me to your initiation,” she added as my eyes narrowed. “And I suggest you remember your place,prisoner. My next lesson will not be so kind.”
Then she walked inside. Her heels clicked away, leaving only my panting gasps as I fought the urge to maim her for my brother’s sake.
Draven’s hand found my arm. His grip was tight, worried. I squeezed his fingers once—enough to let him know I was fine as we clambered far too many steps and followed Hightower inside.
I bared my teeth, lips twisting. A plan was forming in my mind of how I could get in touch with my father and find a way out for Draven.
My first instinct was Korrax. He was fast, clever, and nearly invisible when he wanted to be. If I sent him under cover of night, he might have been able to slip through whatever wardssurrounded this place and fly to Salem. But the magic that had dragged me to the carriage—whatever it was—had been tied to me. My power. My blood.
Korrax was a part of me. So were the others. If they tried to escape, the spell might trace them too. Pull them back. Hurt them.
Or worse.
I wasn’t willing to test it. Not with any of them.
For some reason, I thought of the man I’d seen in town. Soft around the edges. Mortal in every sense. Maybe I needed to think like one ofthem.
Maybe I needed a phone. Or a letter. A name slipped to the right person at the right time. The kind of magic that didn’tlooklike magic.
My hand slipped inside my coat. My blood-stained fingers moved past the rose stems and curled around the small bundle of stones tucked into the pocket lining. Ones that were too smooth, bright and cheerful for someone like me.
Bells had given them to me a couple of weeks before she died. She’d been drunk and sentimental, laughing as she pressed them into my hand and said,“Every villain needs a backup plan, preferably one with glitter.”I’d hated them on sight. They looked as if they belonged in a fairy garden. But I’d never thrown them away.
They were witch stones. Magic, but unpredictable. One could locate lost things. Another amplified spells for a few seconds—sometimes too much. Being a nature witch, Bells probably meant them as tools or a joke when she was bored. Maybe both.
But they still held power that was not mine. And maybe I could use them to reach something. Someone. My mother, or one of her witchy friends.
Even without that, they just made me feel calmer. As though a part of my sister was with me, in more than just my hair, now that my necklace was gone.
Clenching the stones, I concentrated on remaining calm. I just needed to wait. Watch. Find the cracks in the system, then exploit them like the petty little criminal they thought I was. Getting Draven out wouldn’t be easy. But I’d done harder things. Bloodier ones, too.
And if Mors Academy didn’t give me a way out for him—I’d make one.
And with each slap of my boots against the stairs, I thought of how this was meant to be a punishment, yet it wouldn’t be for me if I couldn’t get my brother sent home.
But for everyone else?Perhaps.
Field Journal, Entry #094 — Classified
There are a thousand ways to die in this world, but only one that stays with you. The shadebound don’t perish the way others do. Our deaths are slower—drawn out over years, decades. We die when we give too much. When we trust the wrong hands. When we use our magic before it learns to obey. And we die, most of all, when we try to love. They never taught us that part. They warned us about monsters, about curses, about madness in the marrow that would eat us all alive. But not this. Not the ache that comes from trying to protect someone with a heart that was never meant to feel. No, they never taught us that.
Chapter Five, All The Ways We Die
Six doors loomed in front of us in the stark grey welcome area. All identical, towering from the curved wall of the candle-lit atrium, like they had been carved into the stone. They had no signs, no markings, nothing to hint at what might lie behind each one. Just six perfect slabs of blackened iron.They practically screamedWelcome to hell’s wardrobe—pick wisely.
