Necromancer Revealed: Book 3

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  No such luck. Nebbles was nowhere in sight, and Seph hovered about four feet over her bed. Still floating. Still with the glowing onyx stone in her hand. The only difference between now and that night was that someone had changed her out of her bloody nightgown and put her in one like mine and draped a blanket over her. Her perfect ebony skin had lost its luster. The torchlight gleamed off her bald head and flickered over her red and white tattooed swirls on her face, giving them movement. The only thing that moved. I’d never seen her so still before. She’d always been full of life, and now...

  My eyes stayed glued to her as I shut the door behind me, and I kept a hard grip on the knob in case I needed to escape.

  This was too much. My roommate was almost exactly like I'd left her three months ago. That could've been Leo if the stone had continued to whisper to him and make him sleepwalk in order to activate it. If his life hadn't been cut short.

  "How?" I choked out, not really sure what I was asking. Just...how could this be?

  Ramsey wandered deeper into the room, his steps whisper-soft. "No one knows. Your parents. Other healers. No one. It's not mage's oblivion because before you found the dampener, she didn't have any magic to deplete. No one in the school did except you, remember? You can't deplete what's not there in the first place."

  "Does Professor Wadluck know? Is he doing this?" I blurted.

  "No. He's in the Ministry's jail where he can't slip in and out of mage's oblivion to put his spirit into her and make her do his will. Even his sleep is monitored," he said. "I think it's just the effect on her of activating the stone. Nothing will keep her grounded, and no one can get the stone away from her. Since no one has ever activated the onyx before, no one really knows its effects...or how to stop them."

  "Except Ryze."

  He nodded. "Except Ryze."

  "I almost killed him." I sagged against the door, feeling defeated all over again. "Right after I brought him back, I had a knife in my hand, and I charged at him. I had every intent of killing him, but he was too strong and I was..." I shook my head, bitter tears rolling down my face. "He might not have killed Leo, but he was just as much to blame."

  Ramsey stared at me as if I'd struck him, and his face paled. "Dawn." He crossed the room in two strides and placed his hands on my shoulders. "He could've killed you. You can't just go after Ryze with your dagger. He's the most powerful, dangerous mage in Amaria now. What were you thinking?"

  "I was thinking about stopping him,” I fired back. “His power is nothing once it's taken away, and that's exactly what I plan on doing. He doesn’t scare me. No one who needs little minions helping him will ever scare me. He's pathetic. He separated his spirit out into six stones in the first place because he was afraid of losing power. He’s afraid even now."

  I hadn’t realized how loud my voice had become until I stopped and heard the echoes in the tiny room.

  Ramsey just looked at me, his warm hands and the door the only things keeping me upright. I hated these feelings of helplessness and anger, but I’d felt them so often lately, they’d formed thorny roots. Waking from mage’s oblivion and seeing all the damage from that night had twisted the roots until they hurt.

  I glanced at Seph and shook my head. "If anything, Ryze should be scared of me. He might not know it yet, but he will. I owe Seph and Leo that at the very least. I have to do something."

  Nodding, Ramsey closed his eyes briefly and stepped away. "Can you promise me one thing, then? Don't face him alone ever again. He has no reservations about killing. None at all."

  "I was as good as dead anyway, and he knew it. But I'll be just fine when we meet again," I said through gritted teeth.

  "Yeah...” He crossed his arms, the fabric of his black shirt pulling tightly around the bulk in his arms that hadn’t been so pronounced three months ago. “I didn't hear a promise in that at all."

  "I promise,” I said, frowning. “Just don't get in my way."

  "Oh, I’ll definitely be getting in your way. But it’s because I don’t want you to die. I want to keep you alive."

  “You’re not a very good necromancer, then.”

  He laughed, his eyes widening like it had startled him, and then he shook his head. Smoothing his hand down a lock of my blonde hair, he stepped closer and dropped a kiss on my forehead. "I'm glad you're back," he murmured, his lips still brushing my skin. "It's been unbearable burying all my friends."

  Of all the things he'd ever said to me, that was the most brutally honest and raw. I couldn't imagine what he'd gone through, was still going through. No wonder he looked so haunted. Experiencing your close friends' deaths in a single night... That had to have changed him just like Leo's murder had changed me.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I threaded my fingers through his that were still wound around my hair and wrapped my other arm around his back as I peered up at him.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  He gave a sharp nod, avoiding my gaze, and then unwound his fingers from mine to wrap me up in a hug. I stood immobile for half a second while memories clashed with my current reality. But this Ramsey looked nothing like the one who'd stood over Leo's body. This Ramsey needed me, had been there for me all these months, so I hugged him right back.

  "You can talk to me," I told him, but I wasn't so sure I was the best person for that. I hadn't handled death well at all, but maybe I would have if I'd known someone in a similar dark place.

  "Later." He stroked the back of my hair as he reluctantly pulled away. "I told Craig's parents and the headmistress I’d help with setting up a memorial scholarship fund."

  Craig, as in Echo's Craig. With her roommate, Morrissey, she'd had a double dose of heartbreak. I had to find her even if it meant getting punched in the face again.

  But first, I needed Seph to know I was here. Sliding away from Ramsey, I stepped toward her. The hand not holding the onyx lay on top of the blanket across her stomach, and when I stood next to her floating body, I kissed my fingertips and pressed them to her knuckles. Her skin felt dry but warm, still very much alive.

  “What happens if I try to take the stone away from her?” I asked softly.

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That arm won’t even move.”

  I squeezed her fingers as I studied her face. At least she looked peaceful. “There has to be a way to get you out of this state, Seph. I’ll find it. I promise.” I pulled away, my heart splintering so much the pain stole my breath. “Love you, roomie.”

  We left her there and found Jon still sleeping on the bench.

  “Is it morning?” I whispered. With no windows, it was impossible to tell. No wonder my mom hated that since our house had more windows than solid walls. I didn’t see my parents in the hallway anymore, so they must’ve been working their magic on someone else.

  “Early, yeah.” Ramsey’s firm grasp supported me as we made our way slowly down the hallway. He kept stealing glances.

  “What?” I sighed.

  “I like the blonde.”

  “You liked it covered in coal too.”

  “Guilty.” Smiling, he stopped in front of my infirmary room. “I’m assuming you’re going back to coal?”

  “Definitely.” It was like he knew me or something. After I colored my hair to better blend with the shadows, all I needed was another dead man’s hand.

  "I'll find you later." He walked away backwards as if he couldn't stand the thought of tearing his eyes away, but then finally turned around. His strides were long, confident, and filled with grace I’d never seen before in anyone else but him. I liked it better when he didn’t wear his student cloak so I could truly see him—which sounded creepy because it was.

  I snorted at myself, and my smile half stuck. My heart had grown jagged spikes when Leo died, so how was it that the person I thought I saw do it softened the edges of those spikes and made them a little less pointed? A little less unbearable? I didn’t know, but I welcomed the feeling.

  Instead of returning to my infirmar
y room, I followed after him at a great distance, still dressed in my white gown. It covered everything well enough, and I didn't care anyway since I probably looked like walking death. When I hobbled into the academy’s main entryway, gazes swiveled toward me and held there. Mages I didn't know and students dressed in their black cloaks whispered and murmured my name. None of them shrank back, though, or spat in my face like I expected them to for bringing Ryze back.

  "Should you be out of bed?" someone asked. I didn't see who.

  "Yep." But I was already out of breath, and my muscles threatened to collapse. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “She’s blonde?” someone else muttered.

  With a sigh, I continued onward, my bare feet slapping the stone floor toward the Gathering Room. The smells within summoned me, beckoning my hollow stomach with the holiest of smells—bread.

  Once inside, I could immediately tell the magic dampener’s effects were gone since the whole place sparkled darkly and torches floated below the high ceiling. The tables were about half filled, and chatter instantly stopped when I walked in. I guessed I'd have to get used to that. I made a beeline for the freshmen table where cauldrons of steaming gravy sat next to platters of giant, buttery biscuits. My stomach rioted for me to dive in headfirst. But when I sat down, drooling all over myself, I groaned. I had no money. Seph always paid for me like the saint she was, and my parents weren't anywhere in sight. I needed to fix this whole money situation, but first I needed to eat. I wasn’t so sure I could make it out of here on my shaky legs.

  When I started to push to my feet anyway since there was no point in sitting here torturing myself, a voice ordered, "Stay." A soft voice, minus its usual bite.

  I looked up and found Echo sitting down across from me, the embroidered sleeve of her black cloak nearly catching on a fork. She rolled two coins onto the table, which instantly vanished, and started loading a plate.

  "Thanks." My hand trembled as I reached for the gravy ladle while watching her. Her blonde hair looked unwashed, her blue eyes appeared vacant and bloodshot, and her usual scowl pulled down in a deep frown. She used to be all brawn, but now she looked thinner, and devastated.

  When she’d filled her plate high, she said, "I want in. Whatever you need me to do."

  I paused the gravy ladle, and some plopped to the table instead of my biscuits. "Huh?"

  "You're going after Ryze, right?"

  Around us, conversations stalled again, and wide eyes connected to us.

  "Yes," I admitted.

  Suddenly everyone appeared to be listening and watching. Even the skulls hanging from the chandelier above aimed their empty eye sockets at us. It was so quiet that every fumbling move I made to get breakfast on my plate crashed and banged.

  "I'll do anything. Anything at all. You want information on Morrissey, I have it." She hooked a finger in her mouth and peeled back her lip to show a missing tooth near the back. "I took out her fake tooth myself after I found out she was in on Ryze’s return."

  "What did your tooth tell her?"

  She shrugged. "Lies. My tooth supposedly said there was something wrong with my head, that I'd injured it in P.P.E., and that I should get it checked out because it was making me hallucinate."

  "Hallucinate what?"

  "Her missing from our room after the dark hour. Her bed was empty a lot."

  Because she’d been shadow-walking just like me.

  Echo picked up her fork, but before she could take a bite, I reached across the table to grab her wrist.

  "Quarum sacra fero revelare." When her food didn't change color or shape, I released her with a relieved breath. "You have to say that from now on, Echo,” I whispered. “Always. Morrissey might be missing, but who knows how many other mages can't be trusted around here?"

  She blinked hard and then stared down at her food like it might change its mind and morph into something bad anyway. "Thanks."

  I said the spell over my food and then practically climbed on top of my plate. The first huge bite was absolute heaven. "So did you go get your head checked out?"

  "Hells no,” she scoffed. “I have five brothers, so if you do the math, I've had five concussions in my lifetime by default. I know what head problems look like, and the only one I've had lately was trusting her. I went along with her theory, though, because she was so small and quiet and...innocent. I believed her, and at the same time, I didn't."

  "I don’t think anyone could've seen that coming. She was a friend...or acted like one." Her betrayal was still so bitter and sharp that it soured the bite I'd just taken. "Where do you think she went?"

  Echo shrugged. "All of her things are gone in our room, and I am too. I moved to an empty one. Who's to say she won't come back as a shadow and slit all of our throats?"

  Or what if she was here now, lurking behind the skin-walker and Ryze’s other secret minions? We needed to figure out who the skin-walker was for several reasons, one of which because they’d already murdered before. Leo and probably Vickie too.

  Just then, Jon wandered into the Gathering Room, his mouth parted slightly, his blue eyes haunted. He usually looked put-together, but today, his cloak was buttoned wrong and his neat blond hair spiked up in all directions. My stomach buckled at how lost he looked, and I immediately waved him over. He spotted me, registering only vague surprise, and shambled over.

  "Jon." My voice cracked, and I gestured him to my side of the table. When he sat, I threw my arms around him. "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault," he said, patting my head awkwardly.

  But it was. I should've never left Seph alone in our dorm that night. My throat was too choked to say as much to Jon though.

  Echo swiped angrily at her face and then shoved her plate away so hard it clanked against a cauldron. "What do we do? I can't just sit here and do nothing."

  "Me too," Jon said. "I can help."

  True. One of the many things I liked about him.

  "Well, I need a dead man's hand so I can search the shadows for Morrissey," I said, lowering my voice. "As well as keep myself hidden when I’m sneaking around."

  Jon nodded. "There's a bigger graveyard close to the academy gate. We can see if there are any murderers buried there."

  "I'll get shovels,” Echo said, half out of her seat already. “What else?"

  "Something for my memory?” At their blank looks, I continued. “I still need to find out who killed my brother. I saw the skin-walker as Ramsey, but if there was a way to clarify my memories, rub away his face, make certain details stand out more than others that night..."

  Jon leaned away from the table, a sickly green coloring his face. "Like the memory grenade spell?"

  "The what?" Echo and I asked.

  "The memory grenade spell.” He swallowed. “It's been done before with...not great success."

  "How do you do it?" The snap of my voice made him flinch. I tried to swallow my desperation, but it wedged in my throat. "Where did you learn about it?"

  He looked at me like I should already know. "In the Book of Gray Stone."

  I stared at him, my mouth flopping open. "The what?"

  "I-I did some osteomancy to see if I could help Seph somehow,” he said carefully. “The bones led me to the Book of Gray Stone, a huge book of gray magic spells. I thought you'd know about that, given the...your color of magic."

  "No. I know white. I know black. Everything in between is..." Me. I was a gray mage, as of right now anyway, which was one reason why I'd been chosen to bring back Ryze. Because black and white magic couldn't do it, not with him anyway. I heaved a breath, shoved Ryze out of my head, and promised myself a nice mental breakdown later. "How do you do the spell?"

  "It requires certain ingredients, some of which are hard to come by, and can only be done during any season’s first thunderstorm after the dark hour. The good news—probably the only good news—is that most purely gray magic spells aren’t in Latin, so that’s..." He gave a halfhearted thumbs-up.

 
"And it's been done before?"

  "Not... Not well.” He winced. “See, some of the ingredients can be poisonous, and you have to drink it for the spell to work."

  Echo caught my eye, her brows riding high in question.

  Can be poisonous, he’d said. Not definitely but can be. Still, could I risk death to find out the truth? It only took half a second for me to decide if it was worth it or not. "Show me the spell."

  Chapter Three

  JON DID NOT, IN FACT, show me the spell, at least not right away, because when I rose to follow him from the Gathering Room, I collapsed back down on the bench.

  "Dawn?" Echo said, staring at me from the opposite side of the table. “Are you all right?”

  I shook my head in frustration. "I'm made up of wet noodles."

  "That sounds...delicious?”

  Jon turned, already halfway to the doors, and realizing we weren't following, he swept back to my side with a frown. "What's wrong? Do you need to lie down?”

  "I've been lying down for three months," I grumbled.

  He nodded. "So...yes?"

  "So no. We have things to do. We don't have time to wait for me to get my strength back."

  "Okay. I have an idea.” He held up a finger. “Stay here."

  I slumped in my seat and growled. This was worse than feeling helpless, and I already hated that with a passion.

  “Hey.” Echo propped her elbow on the table and jabbed her finger at me. "You were stabbed by a professor. Attacked with a weird green worm thing. Forced to perform the darkest magic imaginable. Found the magic dampener. Just woke up from mage's oblivion. Give yourself a break. You don't need to walk to be a mastermind."

  My lips twitched. "Mastermind?"

  "You get things done. You can have a noodle body and still get shit done." She pounded the table with a fist, making everything jump and rattle, and then stood. "I'll go get shovels."

  But...mastermind? And what had I done exactly? I'd failed at everything I'd set out to do—kill Ramsey, protect Seph. Echo did have a point though. The one thing that was working perfectly was my drive to stop Ryze and find out who killed Leo. Maybe my brain was working, too, but that was up for debate.