by Leigh Kelsey
“It has to be this way,” Naia said, pointing past the big spells classroom towards where their history classroom was. “The clock tower is on this side—what if the west tower used to be on the other side?” Without waiting for an answer, with a focused look on her face, Naia marched down the tiny corridor between the spells and history classrooms. “It has to be here. But I don’t see anyth—”
“Oh shit, is that wall glowing?” Rahmi breathed, lifting the red potion in her hand.
It was. A large rectangle that looked alarming like a portal was glowing ghostly blue in the wall between classrooms. Right, then. Looked like they’d found the Stolen Tower
Kati’s expression hardened, and she refused to doubt herself for a second as she walked straight at the wall. She closed her eyes at the last moment, half expecting to slam into brick and mortar, but instead a coolness slid over her head and down her spine and she opened her eyes on a pale blue room that glowed at the edges.
Kati stared at the scene in front of her. The dozens of ghosts flickering in and out of corporeality were enough to startle her into stillness, but then she noticed two figures locked in a physical struggle at the center of the crowd. It seemed like half the spectators were egging them on, while others pled with them to stop, their voices ranging from as strong as Mr Prise’s to as wispy as a typical ghost’s.
Kati gasped as the spirits’ attention swung to her, shock marring their faces as Kati felt her own go slack with shock. Each ghost wore a different style of outfit, some looking homespun and plain—the sort of clothes commoners wore in period dramas—while others wore big bustles and ruffs and frilly shirts. What the hell? What the actual hell?
Who were these people, and how had they got into SBA? Or… Shit, she thought as another possibility occurred to her. Were these ghosts always here, hidden in their invisible tower while the rest of the academy went on oblivious to their existence?
And if so … how had Kati found them? Why had her dreams led her here?
The Stolen Tower had been mentioned a few times around Kati, the mythical lost tower that vanished in 1799. Iain had even spoken about it during their first tour. Did anyone know that it wasn’t actually stolen, but still here? And what the souls was this place? A ghost tower?
Judging by their unfriendly glares and the two spirits still locked in a fight, these weren’t the pleasant, harmless ghosts Kati was used to. But then … what? And how? The Congregation of Paranormals should have taken them, turned their energy into magic to fuel the spell of secrecy. The only ghosts who were allowed to roam free were benign, and they were carefully monitored by congregation members to make sure that didn’t change. Spirits who were deemed too dangerous to supernatural society were taken away, where they couldn’t do any damage. Kati didn’t want to jump to conclusions but her instincts screamed poltergeists.
How else could they make an entire tower disappear? Poltergeists were loose cannons, mostly because they still possessed the magic they’d had in life—and unlike the living who grew exhausted after hours of spell casting, they never tired. They were limitless, and unfathomably dangerous. Lady LaVoire had employed the use of them in her reign, and it had taken the gentry and the congregation years to take them down.
Regular ghosts couldn’t have done this—they didn’t have magic anymore. But poltergeists...
Kati backed away as their eyes narrowed, her breath catching, but she bumped into a very solid, warm body that let out a shriek upon the collision.
“Shit, Naia,” Kati gasped, grabbing her friend’s hand and squeezing tight, ignoring the creased book between their fingers.
“Souls,” Naia breathed upon seeing the ghosts. “Kati—Kati I think we should go.”
Kati was already nodding, agreeing with her, but then she caught a glimpse of the two ghosts fighting each other, and saw that one of them was fainter than the other, mostly see-through, and wearing a brocade waistcoat. Weakly, he brandished an eagle-headed cane at the ghost holding him down.
“Shit,” Kati breathed, her heart sinking. She caught Rahmi’s eye as she stepped through, horror seeping the colour from her face. That horrible certainty washed over Kati again, leeching all warmth from her body. “It’s Lavellian. Lavellian’s the one who’s going to die.”
OH GOOD, A GHOST PSYCHOPATH
“Um,” Naia whispered. “Lavellian’s already dead…”
Kati nodded jerkily, staring at the ghosts locked in combat, but she couldn’t dismiss the unease gripping her chest. “But he’s alive too. And I don’t know what’ll happen to him if another ghost beats the crap out of him.” The bad feeling in her gut twisted harder. “Could he just … fade away?” It wasn’t unheard of for spirits to just vanish.
“I haven’t read anything about how to stop a ghost killing another ghost,” Naia said worriedly, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “We should go get help.”
Kati looked to Rahmi as she switched out her glowing ruby potion for another, her pale wand clutched tightly in her other hand. Did spells and potions work against ghosts? Kati eyed Lavellian as the other ghost’s hands closed around his throat, the crowd of spectators separating just long enough for Kati to see that it was a woman, tall and statuesque, dressed in leather and chainmail and furs, her dark silvery hair in a thick plait down her back and a scar bisecting her face. Kati went still and cold all over, recognising her from the marble bust in the lobby—the fierce woman with the knife between her teeth. Ingrid the Terrible, the headteacher who’d slaughtered and tortured and beheaded her enemies, friends, and family alike.
As if recognising Kati’s attention, Ingrid glanced up and grinned.
Naia whimpered.
Kati remembered thinking she’d like to meet the woman when she saw her savage expression on the statue. The words be careful what you wish for came to mind.
“Stay close,” Rahmi said in a brisk tone and reared her arm back, throwing a bulbous potion bottle across the circular tower room. For a split second, as it raced through the air, Kati thought it would go right through the floor the way she’d passed through the wall. But it hit the floor as if it the bricks were solid and shattered, white smoke pouring out in a torrent. Within seconds, Kati couldn’t see a damn thing and the whole space stank of lavender.
“How does this help us?” she hissed, jumping as Rahmi grabbed her arm, Naia shuffling closer on Kati’s left.
“Let’s go back,” Naia pleaded. “We’re out of our depth. Way out of our depth. If we stay, we could be hurt.”
“If we leave, so could Lavellian,” Kati replied, her voice weak. She lifted her wand and, giving it only a second’s thought, fired off a volley of offensive spells. They were basic, enchantments and charms taught to first years, likely no match for a former headteacher—not to mention a poltergeist—but she had to try something.
“Get out of the tower,” a wisp-thin voice croaked, and it took a second for Kati to realise that Lavellian had spoken, and to them. Another second to realise Ingrid must have taken her hands from around his throat. A millisecond of pure white fear before Kati realised her magic had lit the smoke around them deep violet. She’d told Ingrid exactly where they were.
“Run!” Kati screamed, grabbing Naia and throwing her friend behind her, firing spells at random, in every direction but at her friends. Butterscotch-coloured streaks joined Kati’s purple as Rahmi cast hexes and jinxes too, the two of them exhausting their limited mental database.
Kati retreated in quick steps, backing towards the wall they’d come through—and slammed into hard, unyielding stone with a jagged gasp. Fear made her wand tremble, her mouth suddenly as dry as the Sahara.
“We’re going to die,” Naia breathed, but dared to fire off a spell, her pure white magic arcing through the room and slamming into the rafters high above, dust sifting down onto them. “We’re going to be killed by ghosts.”
“I don’t think she’s a ghost, Nai,” Rahmi said gently, glass smashing a few paces away as Rahmi flung another potion
, this one having no effect on the spirits whatsoever.
“We’re trapped,” Kati breathed, swallowing the lump of panic in her throat. Where the hell was Iain when she needed him to ride in on his white charger and save the day again? Where the hell was Dolly with her promise of help? “Soulsdammit,” Kati hissed and kicked the solid wall.
“I hoped you’d come find me, little Wilson,” a sweet feminine voice cut through their panicked whisperings, high pitched and childlike. Horror pierced Kati, twisting her gut, as she realised the voice belonged to Ingrid. “Did you like the dreams?”
A laugh bubbled from Rahmi’s lips, and Kati shot her a sharp look. “Sorry,” Rahmi said breathlessly. “I just wasn’t expecting the big bad ghost to sound like a three-year-old.”
“Rahmi, shut it!” Kati hissed, fear shortening her temper. She realised the smoke from the potion was thinning when Rahmi threw a shrug her way, her body visible through the faint fog. So too were the glowing forms of eleven ghosts, Ingrid at their head with a horrible smile cutting her face in two.
“I like a girl with nerve,” Ingrid said, moving sinuously closer, her eyes now locked on Rahmi. “It’s a shame I’m more spirit than flesh now, we could have had such pleasure, you and I.” She moved between one blink and the next, and suddenly she was in front of them, caressing Rahmi’s cheek with a tender expression.
Kati’s heart pounded in her chest at the ghost’s nearness, a chill coming from her and a sinister threat oozing from her despite the sweet voice, the purring words. It would be stupid to think she was harmless; Kati had read all about what she found fun, and that was just the preface of the book. She was very glad she hadn’t read the rest of it.
Rahmi had frozen, her face pale, and Kati couldn’t imagine how terrifying it must have been, to be the sole focus of a ghost so intimidating as Ingrid. Before Kati could reconsider, she drew her athame and launched forward, plunging it into Ingrid’s side, just beneath her ribs, and hoping it did something.
Athames were designed to kill quickly and cleanly in order to reanimate a person properly—messier deaths made messier rebirths—and as such, they bonded with the soul of whoever’s blood they absorbed, helping the necromancer wielding it to keep hold of the soul during the brief trip into the underworld.
That was the bare hope Kati clung to as she plunged her hand into the icy aura around Ingrid: that the athame would attract Ingrid’s soul, that it would trap her just long enough for Kati and her friends to figure a way out.
She held her breath, waiting for something to happen—the knife to vibrate, or heat up, or fill with power. She didn’t know what was meant to happen when an athame came into contact with a spirit; they hadn’t reached that part of necromancy in their lessons yet, and even if they had, Mrs Hale was a useless teacher so it might not have made any difference. Naia would know what was meant to happen, but Naia had frozen, shaking hard enough that the charms on her leather bracelets rattled.
“Ouch.” Ingrid pouted, turning from Rahmi to Kati, her salt-and-pepper braid swooshing. In the space of a blink, her expression turned from amused to terrifyingly furious. Kati wrenched the athame free and staggered back, gasping in fear. It didn’t matter that Ingrid wasn’t solid, that she was a ghost and Kati was a live, solid person—Kati’s instincts screamed danger. She’d never been as scared in her life.
“It’s rude to stab a lady,” the ghost said, and taking advantage of Kati’s shuddering terror, Ingrid snatched the athame from her hand. Spinning it with effortless grace, she drove it deep into Kati’s stomach.
A crying gasp tore from Kati’s throat, shock making her eyes fly wide, but she felt the odd sensation of the athame pulling on her skin long before the pain hit. Rahmi and Naia were screaming, but Kati barely heard them. A wind tunnel had risen around her, blotting out most sound, numbing her to everything beyond the knife in her gut. And then agony rose so suddenly that it crushed any thought of revenge or self-defence, and she toppled to her knees, numb to the impact as she fell onto her face on the stone floor.
“Kati!” Naia was howling, her voice utterly ragged, loud enough to pierce the fog around Kati. “You bitch,” she screamed, but a wave of unconsciousness stole the next few seconds from Kati and she never heard Ingrid’s response.
Kati had never felt pain like this, didn’t know how to process it other than to curl into a ball and cry, a scream between her gritted teeth as the agony compounded, never seeming to stop building. Wet warmth dampened her shirt around her wound but Kati could only concentrate on the pain, unconsciousness cutting through her more and more often.
Kati wanted to curl her hands around the athame and draw it out, wanted to search Rahmi’s satchel for a restorative solution, but that potion was designed for scrapes and grazes, not stab wounds.
“Let me help her!” Rahmi screamed in between Kati’s moments of blackness. “Just let me help her for souls sake!”
That was the last Kati heard before the blackness swallowed her for good.
DREAMS OF GHOSTS AND MORTALS
“C’mon, Kati, c’mon,” a quiet voice pleaded.
Kati groaned, pain rocking through her head. No—through her whole body. She whimpered involuntarily, biting her lip as the agony rose and rose, blotting out anything else that had ever existed, erasing any thought Kati had ever had. There was only the pain. There had only ever been the pain.
“It’s alright,” that voice said again, “it’s alright. You need to open your mouth, okay?”
Kati fought to understand the words, but there was no way she could open her mouth; her jaw was clenched shut.
“Please, Kati,” the voice begged, and Kati realised it was Rahmi, her floral scent all around Kati. Where was Naia? What had happened? Firm hands at her chin opened Kati’s mouth and liquid bubbled into her mouth; she coughed, choking on the first mouthful, but swallowed the next on instinct, warm fingers now rubbing her throat.
Kati groaned as the liquid burned a fiery path into her stomach, curling even tighter into a ball, the pain raging as hot and wild as a fire storm.
“It’ll be okay soon,” Rahmi promised softly, “I promise. I promise.”
Kati gritted her teeth, powerless to fight the pain, but it slowly began to fade. Desperate with hope, tears trickled from Kati’s eyes as the pain receded and receded and—hit a wall. Kati whimpered, biting her tongue. It wasn’t unbearable anymore but it was still excruciating.
“Rahmi,” Kati managed to croak, surprised at the blown-out quality of her voice, her sore throat. Had she been screaming? “Where … are we?”
“We’re in the Stolen Tower,” Naia answered instead, and a brief spear of relief weakened Kati as she uncurled from the fetal position. “The ghosts threw us into a … a cell, sort of. I’ve tried the bars—they’re solid. I’m sorry, Kati.”
“For what?” Kati asked, scraping herself up off the floor and propping herself against the wall at her back. Pain flickered through her, but she panted and gritted her teeth until she could bear it. Getting her eyes to peel open was a challenge that took a long minute. When they focussed, she saw the three of them had been squashed into a low-ceilinged nook in the wall, the only entrance covered by bars glowing faintly blue. Beyond and below them was the curved, bare stone room they’d been in before, Lavellian now bound by heavy looking ghost chains in the center of the space and the congregation of ghosts arrayed in a circle around him.
“He’s on trial,” Rahmi said quietly, her eyes full of dread and hopelessness. Her coat and pyjamas were smeared with dust, her face haggard. How long had she been trying to get Kati to wake up and take the pain potion?
“For what?” Kati repeated, looking at Naia. “Why are you sorry?”
Naia’s gaze was lowered, guilt in her expression. “I was the one who led us here.”
Kati shook her head and regretted it instantly, pain shooting down her spine like a lightning bolt of torture. It took her a while to form thoughts, let alone words, but she did so out of sheer s
tubbornness and refusal to let pain beat her. “I brought us here, because of my dream. I should have known we couldn’t handle it. You were right—we’re out of our depth.”
Naia said nothing, clearly still blaming herself, but Kati lifted an aching arm and laid her hand over Naia’s, squeezing.
“How do we get out?” she asked, because giving up and accepting that they were trapped here … that way madness lies, Kati thought, memories of Iain dominating her thoughts until she wished he was here with a fierceness that surprised her. She tried to remember any of the mental defence spells from the book he’d given her but pain made her memory slippery. “And what do you mean Lavellian’s on trial? For what?”
Rahmi stared down at the circular room below, her expression tight. “They’re saying he betrayed his kind by teaching non-legacies.”
Kati took a breath and held it as her head swam. She was going to pass out again, she could sense it coming, but she was lucid at least for now. “What are the chances these ghosts are the real Old Academy?”
Naia shook her head. “They’re too old. But … I think maybe they believe the same things? One of them called me a mongrel.”
Rage blazed a path through Kati, clearing the pain at least for a second. “Which one? I’ll kill them.”
Naia smiled weakly, messing with the end of her ragged braid. “It’s fine. I’m just saying, they can’t be the Old Academy—they rose around at the same time as Lady LaVoire did, and they’re still going now. The youngest person here died over two hundred years ago.”
Kati’s head hurt trying to process it.
“They keep mentioning a mistress though,” Naia whispered, biting her bottom lip. “I think it’s bad, Kati, really bad. You said … you said your brother and his friends brought someone else back that night, not a demon, right?”
