"A date?" Ramsey's elevated eyebrow rose farther as he smiled down at me. "So that's why you wanted me to come."
"No. It isn't. We agreed to meet here anyway, remember?" But despite the truth, my cheeks warmed.
"If you say so. But if I'd known this was a date, I would've at least bathed. Maybe even with soap."
"It's not, and you smell fine."
"Ah." He grinned, flashing his dimple. "I'm taking that as a compliment, just so you know."
"Can you just..." Flustered at both him and his dimple, I hauled Seph far away from him and Jon.
"Seph, enjoy it. Jon likes you, and I like him, which is really saying something these days. Just...have fun. You deserve it."
"Uh-huh. Well, you deserve it too." She flicked her dark eyes over my shoulder where Ramsey was probably watching us. I could feel the heated prickle of his gaze skimming down my spine. "He likes you, which makes him freaky since you tried to kill him. I think you should stay away from him, Dawn, because that's not normal."
A laugh bubbled up out of me. I couldn't help it.
"Neither is trying to kill someone, so let's just go play with Jon's bones, all right?"
Seph threw her head back and laughed as she stepped in to hug me. "You're delightfully weird, you know that?"
I hugged her right back. "Well, it says an awful lot about you that I can be my normal weird self around you and tell you all my darkest secrets. Thanks for not running away screaming."
"Wouldn't dream of it." She pulled back and patted her flower back into place. "Now let's go bone."
I linked my arm with hers. "Your use of nouns as verbs is disturbing sometimes."
She chuckled. "Oh, it's meant to be."
We joined Jon and Ramsey who stood over several different kinds of bones Jon had already spread out on the floor. Given that we were here, at this academy, no one bothered to ask where he got them from.
"So," Jon said, holding out one of them, "each of these has a rune derived from Hecate herself etched into them, and the rune is something simple like up, down, et cetera. I think one of the reasons why osteomancy is often overlooked is because it is so simple, but simple doesn't mean bad."
"What do we do?" I asked.
"Picture what you're looking for in your mind. It can be anything, but just one thing each. Then choose four bones each and go sit in a big circle."
"What if I have three things I want to find?"
Jon frowned. "Well, I could take one of them. What is it?"
"Where's Professor Wadluck?"
"I've already tried with him, but we can try again." Jon looked to Ramsey. "Can you take Dawn's other question?"
"Sorry, no." His gaze flickered toward me, and then he turned away to gather his four bones from the floor, his brows drawn low.
And then I remembered—he was looking for something himself and felt he needed to learn to shadow-walk in order to find it. It had seemed like he'd already combed the whole school. Whatever it was, he didn't seem too keen on sharing what it was.
"I'll take your other one, Dawn." Seph gave Ramsey a hard look as he sat on the floor with his bones, probably imagining puncturing him with pins.
I wasn't though.
“Everyone's searching for something, Biscuit,” Leo had once told me. “And the journey to find it makes you who you are.”
“Did you just make that up?” I'd asked.
"That's actually from Dad. He was trying to find the chocolate-drizzled strawberries Mom hid from him.”
I laughed and then immediately blinked back tears. That was the thing with memories—they could fill you up and then cut you down in the same breath.
"You all right?" Seph asked, watching me closely.
Ramsey gazed at me, too, his expression troubled as he likely read every thought I’d ever had from my face.
I cleared my throat, reminding myself to save my emotional breakdowns for when I was alone. "Yes. Sorry. You can ask about the dampener, Seph."
Nodding, she gathered her four bones, and Jon and I did the same and joined them in a circle on the floor.
"Everyone has the thing you're looking for in your head?" Jon asked. "Good, so throw your bones into the center of our circle."
We tossed them together where they landed with a loud clatter.
"Right. I'll go first to show you how it's done." Jon rubbed his palms down his cloak and squared his shoulders. "Where is Professor Wadluck?" He closed his eyes, waved a hand over the pile of bones, and chose one, part of a leg from the looks of it. After flipping it over, he found the rune. "Outside. Well, I suppose that narrows it down some?"
"Sure..." I said, but where outside? Vickie knew, but she wasn't telling. "Me next?"
Jon nodded.
"Where is the person who killed my brother?" I asked, squeezing my eyes shut. Then I chose a bone. When I opened my eyes, I turned the bone—a pelvis from the looks of it—over and over but didn't find a rune. "Uh, Jon, I think you forgot one."
"No, I didn't. Let me see." Frowning, he reached across the circle for the bone. "I... Maybe I did forget this one."
Ramsey caught my eye, his expression blank, while Seph glared daggers into Ramsey.
"I swear I did all of them,” Jon grumbled. "Either I'm a dumbass, or I don't think the bones want you to know that quite yet. Can you ask another question?"
"You're not a dumbass, Jon," I said, but inside, my nerves were rubbing together. I didn't care what the bones wanted—I wanted to find out who murdered Leo. But thankfully, I guess, I had a hundred more questions. "Seph, I’ll just steal yours if you don’t mind. Where is the dampener that was stolen from White Magic Academy?" This time the bone I chose did have a rune, so I handed it to Jon.
"Inside," he read.
"Well, that's obvi—" Seph bit her tongue when she turned to Jon and then smiled and patted his knee. "That's obviously really helpful."
He beamed and touched the spot where her hand had been. My gods, they were adorable.
"My turn." Ramsey took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his long lashes fanning his cheeks. "Where is the Staff of Sullivan?"
Sullivan. That was his last name. Why did he think it was here?
He chose a bone and handed it to Jon.
"Down," he read, and Ramsey sucked in a breath like he'd just been hit hard in the stomach.
"Hey," I said softly, leaning toward him. It was the natural healer in me to make sure he was okay. That's all it was.
He nodded sharply and exhaled. "I'm fine."
Seph and I shared a confused look.
"Okay, Seph, your turn," Jon said.
"Um, I was going to ask Dawn's second question, so...what if I'm not really looking for anything important?"
"You are,” I told her. "I'm sure of it. Everyone is."
"Okay." She sat up straighter and closed her eyes. "Where will I find myself in the future?"
Jon read her chosen bone. "Up."
She grinned. "Well, that's the only way to go. I'll take it."
"I like your optimism," Jon said with a dreamy smile on his face.
"Thanks," she said, beaming.
"All right, well, Dawn and I need to do some research so..." Ramsey let that not-so-subtle hint dangle in the air, a good thing since I wanted to ask him about the Staff of Sullivan, and I doubted he'd tell me in front of an audience, if at all.
Seph stood at the same time he did. "We're researching too."
"We are?" Jon asked as he pushed to his feet. "I thought we could walk up to the Green Floor. The plants are dead, but some things are nice when they're dead."
"Spoken like a real necromancer," I said, smiling at him as I stood too.
He ignored me, as usual.
Ramsey frowned at Seph, who looked like she wanted to gut him. "You can trust me with Dawn."
She cocked her bald head, studying him while the nearby torches flickered over her face tattoo. "I really can't though."
"Suit yourself." With a glance at me, he waved do
wn a raven.
"We should do this again sometime,” Jon said. “We can get more people, more bones. Vickie Sloane once showed me this familiars' cemetery that everyone forgot about, so I...can..." He stopped when he caught both Ramsey and me staring at him.
"What do you know about Vickie and that cemetery?" I asked, stalking closer.
He quickly stepped back, his gaze bouncing between Seph and me. "I... Just that she showed me where it was the first week of school."
"Did she do anything strange? Say anything about...anything?" I demanded.
"She seemed distracted. Agitated, I guess. I don't even know if she knew I was there with her half the time while I dug up bones. I think she went to that cemetery a lot to be alone. It sounded like she was having trouble with someone."
"Who?"
"She didn't say."
ME. Whoever that was.
"I already told all this to the headmistress after Vickie died, but...” He swallowed hard. “I saw Vickie pull out a death charm from her pocket while in the familiars’ cemetery."
I took a step backward, my mind spinning. A death charm in her pocket... Was it one of mine? Was a death charm with her initials on it the real cause of her death? If someone was slipping death charms to the both of us, why? Why us?
"From her reaction, I don't think she put it there," Jon continued. "Shortly after that, she asked me to leave. Well, more like threatened, so I left. The next day, she...you know."
The air seemed to harden in my lungs. Ramsey and Seph watched me closely and their mouths moved, but I had no idea what they were saying. Vickie and I were linked...somehow. Just as Seph and Leo were linked in their sleep-walking and in their pure, good hearts. Vickie and I... We must have had more in common than I thought, which turned my stomach. Vickie wasn't a good person, but then again, neither was I. But Vickie wasn't terrible. She loved her dog. She seemed to love her parents. She was capable of love, just as I was. We were neutral. We were—
I gasped. "Gray."
"What's gray?" Seph asked.
"I am. My magic is. Was Vickie’s?"
"Yes," Ramsey said. “Hers was.”
"Seph or Leo was needed to activate the stone. Vickie or I... I don't know." I was missing something here, something vital, and it seemed to dangle just out of my reach.
"But Vickie did know,” Ramsey said, nodding. "She knew who ME was and where Professor Wadluck was."
"So she was killed before she gave that info away." I stared down at the raven flapping around Ramsey's boots, waiting impatiently.
After an uncomfortable pause, Jon nudged Seph.
“Want to get out of here now?” he asked.
“Fine.” Seph narrowed her eyes at Ramsey. “I don’t need magic to do harm with needles. You’ll do well to think about that hard while I leave you alone with my favorite roommate.”
Ramsey smiled. “Noted. I swear on my life I’ll behave myself.”
Lies, but I kept my mouth shut.
Once they were gone, I turned toward him. "Today is twelve-twelve, December twelfth, and whatever is supposed to happen, Vickie knew about that too."
"What's the significance of December twelfth?" Ramsey asked the raven.
It took to the air toward the second story. A dark, warped hollow in the trunk of the tree shelves spilled books and loose pages, and the raven pecked at a red book lying on its side.
Ramsey followed, and without even pausing to search for the best way to climb, he leaped up onto the distorted bookshelves and hauled himself up like his limbs were that of a spider's. He plucked the book out, and leaped back to the ground, his cloak whipping around him like shadows.
"How do you do that?" I asked. "Make it look so easy?"
"What?" A flash of those dimples. "Moving?"
"Yes," I said, waving my hand. "All of that."
He sauntered closer as he opened the book. "Practice. Why? Jealous? Impressed?"
"Of course not," I snapped even though I was a little of both. "You just seem to float like you're made of air."
"I can assure you I'm made up of a lot more than air." He pressed in close, too close, as he held out the book for me to see, his gaze staying on mine. I could feel what else he was made up of—overwhelming heat and solid muscle.
I tore my eyes from his but didn't take the book from him and run. But I sure didn't stop and analyze why either.
It took a long moment for my focus to sharpen on the book, but when I did, I found pictures of the different phases of the moon. "Did you get the right book?"
"That's the one." His voice came out rougher than usual, and I peered up at him to find him staring at me. He didn't even try to hide his strange interest in my face while a knowing smile crept over his mouth. "You were expecting history dates or something?"
"Well...yeah." I flipped through the book and tried to find a reference to December twelfth. "This would go a lot faster if you helped me look."
"You could’ve just asked me to go out on a date with you, you know."
"I have no interest in dating.” I shot him a death glare. “But I have a ton of interest in the Staff of Sullivan. Why is it here, and why can't you find it?"
As expected, that shut him down fast. He moved away a few steps and seemed to find the floor a fascinating subject of study.
"It was stolen about forty years ago," he finally admitted. "If it stays gone for too much longer, my whole family will be cursed."
"With what?"
He looked up, his expression pained. "With death."
"And the staff will save you."
He nodded, the angles of his face set in determination.
"Well, now you know where to look," I said, flipping a few more pages. "Down."
"I've already searched the catacombs." He raked at his hair so it stuck up in all directions. "But I haven't searched the shadows down there."
"So that's why you want to learn to shadow-walk." But searching for a staff probably wasn't a dark enough reason for a dead man's hand to lead him into the shadows. I doubted it would work, but for me, it might since I'd shadow-walked dozens of times already. If I decided to help him, that is. Like as a sorry-I-tried-to-kill you peace offering or something. Could I do that for someone whose face I still saw in my memories while standing over Leo's dead body? I honestly didn't know.
"Why is it up to you to find it?" I asked.
"Because I'm the only one who has the strength. The rest of my family is near death already. Two little sisters who should be running and playing, but instead, they're bed-ridden. And my parents... They're..." He heaved a shaky breath. “They’re growing weaker by the day. The Staff of Sullivan is the source of my family’s power, so without it...we start to die off.”
I'd had no idea. I mean, how could I? But the fact that he shouldered all of that and didn't let it show how much of a burden it was until now told me a lot about him, that he would do anything for his family. Kind of like me. I thought back to his memory in the crystal ball of him asleep with a children’s book in his lap while slumped between two sickly little girls. His sisters. If anyone knew how deep and special that brother-sister bond was, it was me.
"I'm sorry," I told him. For a lot of things, so much that the thorns I'd created around my heart began to ache.
He held my gaze for a moment and then nodded briskly. "See anything about the twelfth in there?"
I looked back to the page I'd flipped to with more moon phases drawn above the text. The page had been marked with a torn paper that looked a lot like the pages in Vickie's diary. I took it and held it up for Ramsey to see.
He angled his body to look closer at the book. "You know, a good place to observe the phases of the moon is on top of a tower in the familiars' cemetery."
I skimmed the text, and then my heart pitched into my throat. There were a list of specific dates with years, some of which hadn't happened yet, including December twelfth.
"‘It is predicted that these dates,’" I read, pointing, "‘will coincide
with the black moon, or in other words a new moon, the time when the darkest of magic can be performed. Magic of this kind can also be performed during the blood moon with slightly less powerful effects.'"
Ramsey jabbed his finger hard at the book. "Look. September sixteenth, a blood moon. That's the day Vickie was killed."
I gasped. "She knew something huge was going to happen then. Like the onyx stone would be activated...or worse?"
"That's why she was killed, then. To shut her up. That would explain the death charms Jon said she found."
I slammed the book closed. "Then we can't tell anyone about this. If word gets out that we know... I've already found a death charm in my pocket and been attacked by a shadow-walker."
"Shit." Ramsey stared up at the ceiling and rubbed his hand over his mouth. "But something big is happening tonight. Since it very likely has to do with the onyx—and it’s the only stone that hasn't been activated—I have to tell the Diabolicals since it's our job to protect it. We'll triple our numbers to guard it."
"And if they let it slip to someone else?"
He shook his head. "This is too big not to tell someone, especially if we can try to prevent it."
"We have to prevent it. Somehow, even with the dampener."
Guard stone, Leo had told me. With me as one of the few here who still had their magic, I had to try.
"This has all been building toward tonight, hasn't it?" I asked.
Ramsey sighed heavily. "Yes. It's all been carefully planned, and if someone gets in the way, they're killed."
Maybe even Leo. Maybe he'd asked too many questions about his sleepwalking and what it had to do with the stone, put pressure on the wrong people to find out why. And then murdered by a skin-walker.
"You don't have to tell the Diabolicals why,” I said. “Just tell them to triple their numbers for guarding the onyx."
"And the rest of the school? Headmistress Millington? Don't they have a right to know what might happen?"
"Of course they do." I squeezed my eyes shut briefly to stop my mind from whirling so I could think. "Okay, we send a raven to Headmistress Millington asking her to meet us."
He nodded. "And to bring the note so we know it's really her."
Necromancer Unleashed: Book 2 Page 10
