Page 20 of Shadebound
Now it sat in my palm as I moved through the tunnels beneath the arena. I should’ve returned it. That had been the idea, hadn’t it? Sneak into her room. Leave it where she’d find it. Some quiet, anonymous gesture. But every time I imagined her holding it again, I imagined her wondering who had given it back. And I didn’t want her wondering about anyone else.
So I kept it. Just for now. Until I could find a way to tell her it was me. Sometimes I imagined her finding me instead—her eyes on me, her hand reaching for the necklace still warm from my palm. She’d see I’d kept it safe, that I was the one who noticed what everyone else missed. Maybe she’d thank me. Maybe she’d stay.
Then I remembered thoughts were not for things like me.
The crypt was worse than I remembered. The air was thick and wet and sour. Hideous enough to make my nose wrinkle as I breathed in air that had been exhaled by something long dead and left to stagnate. Bones were built into the walls—not in obvious ways, not meant for display, but integrated. Hidden. The architecture was clever about it. A curved line of narrow bones reinforced one of the ceiling beams, delicate in their placement. Teeth lined the lip of a window arch. Spine bones stacked like bricks beneath flaking plaster. Most students nevernoticed, if they ever wandered down here in secret. But once you did, you couldn’t unsee it.
Mors was literally built on death.
Which made it feel almost honest.
More honest that the voice I heard when I was halfway through my route.
I almost kept walking. Hightower’s voice alone wasn’t enough to make me stop. Not until she said the name that would always make me pause.
“Jinx Draconis is here. I think that proves I was right.”
I froze.
The crypt hallway curved ahead, leading to an old service stairwell that funnelled up toward the administrative wing. A heavy iron door sat partway up, carved with deep containment runes. It was slightly ajar. Enough that flickering golden light spilt through the crack. Candlelight, probably.
I crept closer, the soles of my boots silent against the stone.
“We’re in no rush,” Hightower said. Her voice was threaded with the kind of confidence that made my stomach twist. “Everything is proceeding the way it should.”
I hovered near the wall just outside the door, keeping my breath shallow. She had no wards this deep. The magic didn’t settle right because there was too much bone. Too much interference from older magic than Hightower herself. Which meant I could listen without being caught, so long as I didn’t do something hideously rookie like sneeze.
She paused, then responded to someone else—but the second voice was too faint. I couldn’t hear who she was speaking to. Another figure, maybe. A projection? A magical link? The words were too warped by distance and stone to be understood.
Then Hightower spoke again, and I leant closer.
“The prophecy is in effect now,” she said. “We’ve seen the signs already. Things are aligning the way we hoped, and I have high hopes we shall reach our goal by summer.”
Another pause. More murmuring. I couldn’t catch the reply even when I strained. Then her voice again, calm enough to make me twitchy.
“Just be patient; let her settle in and understand the depth of Mors depravity. I think her soul needs crushing before you try to fix it.”
I held my breath until the silence returned. But I didn’t move right away. A good thing, seeing as the other voice became loud enough to make out, even with their distortion spell making it impossible for me to garner any information about them.
“Do you not need reminding of the prophecy?” They hissed. “There is not much time left for things to truly begin.”
“I know it off by heart.” Hightower replied before she recited the prophecy in question and then added, “You simply need to learn restraint.”
The quiet stretched for a moment, and I strained to hear more. But the conversation had ended or moved beyond my reach.
A chair scraped across the stone. My chest seized. Footsteps moved toward the crack I listened through. I pressed against the wall, clutching the necklace until the chain dug half-moons into my skin. The urge to run tangled with the urge to stay, to see the face of the other voice.
But I couldn’t risk it. If they saw me, they might think I was here for Hightower. They might think I was here for anything but looking after my dark delight.
The footsteps stopped. A shadow passed across the candlelight, breaking it for a heartbeat, then slipped away.
I let the air out of my lungs in pieces. The prophecy still seemed to hum in the walls, curling into the edges of my mind. Imouthed the words again, tasting them, letting them settle until they felt like mine.
My heartbeat was loud in the stillness. My fingers ached from clenching the necklace too tightly as I repeated the prophecy enough times until I memorised it in my mind.
When the dead claws the earth,
And nature turns black.
