Academy of the Fateful (Cursed Studies Book 3)

by Eva Chase

Oh, God. My throat closed up before I managed to work my voice again. “Cade. He—the spirits at Roseborne—he was saving someone else’s life. And the spirits killed him for it. Deep down, he wanted to be someone who helped people rather than someone who hurt them. I don’t know all the things he had weighing on him… His dad, the foster families we were with… But it wasn’t all an act. He cared. I’m sure he cared about you, even if it came out wrong sometimes.”

  I hadn’t realized how much it would sting to admit that last bit. If Cade had gotten himself sorted out in the real world—or even at Roseborne in time to save himself—maybe he’d have come to care about someone like Sylvie more than he had me. And that would have been okay. I didn’t have just him anymore either.

  The thought of the three guys waiting for me back on campus sent a pang of urgency through me, but I held myself in place. This vision and Sylvie didn’t appear to be finished with me yet. What else did they want from me?

  Sylvie bit her lip and looked at the ground. I expected her to accuse me of failing Cade or to break down in tears, and I braced myself. But before either of those things could happen, or anything else, my attention was caught by a fresh scraping of clawed paws against the pavement down the alley. A scraping and a snarled bark—and the snap I immediately knew was the breaking of the leash.

  Panic flashed through me and across Sylvie’s face. A volley of barks carried toward us, louder by the second. She backed up a step, all the color draining from her face, and started to whirl around.

  I leapt to her and caught her by the elbow. “No!” I said raggedly. “That way! Get out of here. I’ll cover you.”

  I shoved her away from the broad glass window she’d crashed through in reality, toward the shorter alley she’d entered the courtyard from. Sylvie fled. I spun around, just in time for the Rottie to come charging into the courtyard.

  He lunged to the side, after her, and without a second thought, I threw myself into his way. His massive, muscled body slammed into me like Cade’s had in his beast form when I’d first encountered him at Roseborne all those days ago.

  I fell, my back smacking the hard ground with a jolt of pain, but all my attention narrowed down to digging my fingers around the dog’s neck, catching his collar, holding him here with me no matter how he bit or scratched, until Sylvie could make her escape.

  Hot, meaty breath wafted over my face. A heavy paw socked me in the gut. Jaws gnashed by my ear, I clung on to the collar tighter—and all the pieces of the scene flew away from me.

  Or rather, I flew away from them, spiraling and falling on my hands and knees on the lawn, no more than ten feet from the gate.

  I shoved myself upright as fast as I could. The sense of power that had come over me before shot back through my veins, even more potent than before.

  A crowd of students with anxious faces had gathered by the wall, my three guys in their midst. Elias shot me a relieved smile and then stiffened when his gaze slid past me.

  I whirled around. A blast of multiple streaks of light had just burst past the school’s doors. Roseborne’s spirits had rallied some of their own power. And now they were blazing straight toward me and every person I’d intended to save.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Trix

  I didn’t wait for Oscar and the other vengeful spirits to reach me. With a hitch of my pulse, I whipped around and hurled myself toward the gate. The eerie energy that I’d used to break through the basement wall earlier this evening, to hack apart the twisted rosebush, thrummed through every inch of my body.

  I could do this. I just needed to make it there before the spirits reached me.

  My combat boots thudded over the lawn. The students standing closest to the gate pulled back to make way, their eyes wide. I barely felt the ground beneath my feet for the last few steps.

  My hands slammed into the bars. I grasped the latch and willed all the power inside me into wrenching it open.

  With a grating sound, it sprang free. The gate moved at my heave, swinging open so smoothly a startled but joyful laugh spilled from my mouth.

  And then the spirits hit me.

  They pummeled me into the swing of the gate with a burning intensity that seared my skin hot enough to sting. My breath hissed through my teeth at the pain. My fingers clasped tightly around the gate’s bars as my feet stumbled over the asphalt on the other side. More of that blazing energy shoved at me, forcing both me and the gate farther out.

  They were pushing it open even wider? Why would they want that?

  With the next slam of supernatural force, so hard my hands jarred and nearly broke from the bars, understanding clicked in my head. It wasn’t the gate they wanted to push—it was only me. They were trying to propel me right out of the school and away, and then I’d bet they’d yank the gate closed again faster than you could blink. Kick me out, leave everyone else trapped inside. One last-ditch, desperate gambit.

  One that might work. Would I be able to open the gate from the outside once I’d left campus? Already the power I’d put into the act was fraying with their battering. Whatever magic Roseborne held, it could seep beyond the campus walls, but maybe not with the same strength.

  Then I just had to hold on until there was no one left for them to confine.

  “Come on, everyone!” I shouted over the howl of energy around me. “Get out while you can. Don’t let them stop you!”

  Easier said than done. The spirts whirled and shrieked through the opening. I peeked behind me long enough to see a couple of students make a run for freedom, only to be smacked backward onto their asses.

  Sizzling fingers yanked at me. Two of the spirits rammed into me from the side. I skidded a foot farther, one of my hands snapping off the gate for an instant before I snatched at the bars again. A smell like baked cement and ozone, a hot summer day with a thunderstorm brewing, clogged my nose and lungs.

  Holding the gate wasn’t enough. I had to stop Roseborne’s spirits… somehow. What could I do when I could barely hang on right here?

  A tall, brawny figure managed to shove past the spirits’ blockade at the far end of the gate. Elias hauled himself toward me hand over hand along the bars, planting each step against the bolts of energy that struck at him. As some of the spirits focused on him, Jenson and Ryo managed to follow along the same path.

  Blood was leaking through the bandage on Jenson’s shoulder, and Ryo’s nose had swollen where Cade had punched him, but they all looked so determined I wasn’t sure even a tidal wave could have knocked them down. They pressed their shoulders into the gate, holding it open alongside me.

  “Did you really think we were going to back down now?” Jenson yelled at the swarm of spirits. “Fuck that.”

  Ryo’s voice joined his. “You’ll have to break a lot more than my nose to get rid of me.”

  Elias’s hand closed over mine with a firm squeeze. He looked at me rather than our enemies. “You do whatever you need to do. We’ll keep standing right here with you. This is exactly where I’m meant to be.” He hesitated, and his voice dropped so I could barely hear it over the spirits’ furious roar. “I love you. I wish I’d said that sooner.”

  A bittersweet lump filled my throat. If I could have kissed him without risking everything, I would have. I’d have kissed all three of them for taking this stand with me.

  That was how we won, wasn’t it? Love instead of hate. Forgiveness instead of vengeance. Sacrifice instead of self-preservation. Two long chains of cause and effect unfolded in my mind as the spirits shifted their attention to batter more of the students who attempted to join us.

  In some ways, that conflict had made up so much of our lives from the start. Chains of meaning that could be skewed in one direction or the other. There was darkness in me, sure. Darkness that had been left to stew after my parents’ abandonment, after the abuse I’d suffered from one foster family and another. Darkness Cade had stoked into something dangerous with his emotional manipulation.

  His darkness had
been fueled in turn by the battles he’d had to fight, the hurt he’d carried over his parents’ beatings and rejection. And who knew what had happened to his mom and dad or mine to lead them down the paths they’d gone down?

  Everyone faced pain and betrayals and pressure from people who didn’t have their best interests at heart. I’d seen it over and over again in the stories of all the other students here, in the history that had brought this place into being to begin with.

  Oscar and the others’ need for vengeance hadn’t come out of nowhere, after all. It’d been built on the back of the torment their classmates had inflicted on them first. And God only knew what had driven those students’ animosity, if you kept unraveling the chain further and further back.

  But there were paths out of that seemingly endless spiral. Winston had found one in the shape of a woman who’d shown him there were people who would stand up for what was right even when they didn’t need to. He’d loved her more than he’d hated the people who’d cut him down here, and that had given him the strength to leave Roseborne for good. To pass on some of his power through the generations until there’d been a time when one of us could use it.

  Mildred had freed herself through her love for him and her decision to let go rather than keep attacking us. In some small way, I might have freed Cade with my forgiveness as much as he’d freed himself with his sacrifice. The power that I’d used to open this gate had come with each step I’d taken on that route away from pain and anger, toward compassion and affection.

  So, how could I use that now?

  The spirits thrashed around in the gate’s opening, still managing to block off anyone else who might have tried to escape. Within the disparate streaks of light, that shadowy energy I’d noticed before unfurled in thicker wafts. The sight of it stirred something deep in me with faint flickers of memories and emotions I knew weren’t mine.

  An awful lot of Winston’s essence lived on in me. He was looking through me at the people he’d considered his friends. Maybe what they’d done to their classmates and then themselves had ultimately been an act of hate, but he’d been devoted to those seven people too. He’d stuck with them out of a bond of loyalty just like I’d stuck with Cade, until we’d each seen how much more and how much better love could be.

  Winston didn’t hate them, even now. He… felt sorry for them. It pained him to see them in this distress, still clinging to their old resentments. All that toxicity fueled everything here at Roseborne, from the weather to the life cycles of the roses that clung to this wall.

  A tearing sensation formed in my chest, creeping up toward my throat. I resisted instinctively. What would it do to me to let go of a life essence that had supported me, given me power? How tightly was what remained of Winston’s soul entangled with mine?

  I dragged in a breath and found a certainty in myself with the memory of Cade’s last words, of the power that had raced through me with them, of the moment when I’d thrown myself in the path of a rampaging dog to save Sylvie’s life where I’d ruined it before.

  It didn’t matter what happened to me. I couldn’t live with myself if I put my own survival over trying to set everything here right—and Roseborne kept on killing. So I would follow Winston’s tug and the understanding that had come to me, and discover whether I got to live with that or die in the process. One final test. I wasn’t sure who it was for most.

  I pulled myself back along the gate, past Elias and Jenson and Ryo with a quick squeeze of each of their hands. They braced themselves even more solidly against the asphalt. As I reached the opening, the energy of the rushing spirits shook my hold. A couple of them whirled toward me with a tensing of their faces.

  Before they could throttle me again, I sprang the last few feet to the stone wall and the branches of the rosebush climbing it. One hand closed around a handful of leaves and thorns, my skin prickling with drawn blood. The other I held out toward the blazing spirits as if to take their hands in turn.

  “He forgives you,” I called out to them. “He only ever wanted you to find peace and be safe from the people who hurt you. You can have that now. He’ll be right there with you.” I swallowed hard. “And I forgive you too. You tortured us the way you were tortured. Let it end here. Let the roses grow free.”

  My sense of Winston’s presence expanded inside me. I closed my eyes. “Go and do what you need to do,” I whispered to him. “I won’t stop you.”

  With the last rush of power thrumming through me, I opened myself up—body, mind, and spirit. Winston broke away from me with a pain that seared from my forehead to my gut. I cried out, but it was a release as much as a wound, a brilliance that flashed behind my eyelids and streamed from my hands toward the friends he’d given so much for and then given up, toward the brambles tied to the lives of every student who’d entered this college.

  My legs sagged. For a few seconds, my senses dulled. I wasn’t aware of anything except the energy streaming through me and out of me. My knees hit the ground, and the impact jarred my eyes open.

  Roseborne’s spirits were still racing this way and that beside me, but the shadows I’d seen inside them were fracturing apart. The darkness disintegrated into a haze that blew away from them like dust. Their light faded, but not exactly dwindling. It simply spread out farther, stretching across the lawn to the mansion and the other buildings, out along the wall, and up toward the starred sky.

  A warmth tingled through the section of rosebush I was still clutching. Someone in the crowd of students still gathered around the gate sucked in an awed breath. I leaned forward to see fresh blooms bursting open all along the wall, filling the air with a fresh scent that held no hint of decay.

  My fingers slipped away from the brambles. I sank to my hands and knees, but my vision stayed steady. My heart thumped with all the power it needed to keep going; my lungs drew in air.

  Winston had left me, had given what life he still had to the campus and his former friends, and I’d survived it.

  My three guys gathered around me as the spirits faded away completely. I caught one last glimpse of Oscar’s face, his mouth twisted as if he wasn’t sure he wanted this, but there was something bright and almost hopeful in his eyes. It sparked an answering hope in me in the instant before he disappeared completely.

  “What the hell?” someone said. As I raised my head, a waft of warmer air carried over me.

  It’d been late spring when I’d first entered Roseborne… With all my cycles through this place, it was probably late summer in the real world by now. The real world that was taking back this campus.

  The lawn’s grass sprouted up even taller and wilder beneath the moonlight. The bodies that had fallen there, lifeless, faded away into the earth. Those few, I hadn’t saved in time.

  Before our eyes, the Victorian mansion where we’d endured so much torment crumbled. Half of its roof collapsed; the windows went dark, some of them glinting with broken glass. The corner of the sitting room caved in. The front door toppled off its frame. Within a matter of seconds, the building transformed from the heart of the school into a ruin.

  The ruin it’d been all along underneath the supernatural power that had sustained Roseborne?

  The gate behind me wavered in a waft of hot breeze, its hinges squeaking. I hauled myself to my feet with Elias grasping one of my arms, Jenson the other. The weakness that had gripped Elias earlier appeared to have left him. Nothing but joy showed in his posture now.

  The other students milled around us in a daze of relieved confusion. Violet emerged from the crowd, her scars still deep as ever but no longer angrily raw. Someone had made sure she escaped after all.

  She shot me a crooked smile. “You managed it. You broke them.”

  “No,” I said, with a pang as I thought of Winston. “I gave them the chance to put themselves back together.”

  “Well… Thank you.” She peered past me toward the road beyond. “I guess now we all get to find out what’s waiting for us out there. It can’t be an
y worse than what we dealt with in here.”

  Other students came up beside her to stare at me. A couple of them touched my arms briefly as if confirming that I was really here would help convince them of the rest. “Thank you,” one and another murmured, some sounding teary, others a little terrified. “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t sure I deserved all that gratitude. Had I managed this coup because I was stronger or smarter, or just because I’d had something in me they hadn’t through no fault of their own? It wasn’t as if I could claim to be better.

  But I wanted to be. I wanted all of us to be.

  “You know what?” I said, pitching my voice just loud enough to carry across the lawn. “The best way you can thank me is to go out there and fix the crap you did that made Roseborne notice you. Help as many people as you ever hurt. Build things instead of breaking them. Whatever you have to do. Just… Don’t let what happened here ever happen again.”

  I stepped to the side as they started to stream out past the walls. Between the uneasy whispers between them and the nervous glances, I didn’t know how much that plea had sunk in or how many of them would follow it. Roseborne had shaken us all, but how much would those effects linger once our time at the college seemed like nothing more than an extended nightmare?

  I guessed we’d each find out for ourselves.

  A glimmer of green caught my gaze through the doorway of the crumpled mansion. As the others left, I moved toward it with an itch of curiosity and a pinch of grief. The three guys came with me in silence.

  I stopped on the threshold. Where Cade had fallen—where he’d died—his body had vanished. In his place, sprouting up from the spot where the knife had dug into his chest, a sapling had stretched its branches and opened its first leaves.

  Not a rosebush this time. I spotted a few green shapes amid the leaves. It was a lime tree, already bearing fruit.

  Keeping a careful eye on the cracked ceiling, I edged across the floor and plucked off one of the limes. A faint warmth emanated from it into my hand. My chest constricted.