“I’m so sorry,” I mouth, unable to actually say it. I press the button, and he’s gone.
The village, the theater, the yellow light of streetlamps . . . all gone. They’re replaced by the high, gleaming white towers of Highborne Academy.
The air settles around me with a soft sigh like a whisper. Nicholas and the village might be gone, but the look of betrayal on his face remains imprinted on the forefront of my mind.
I had to do it. I have to see Edgar, to get answers.
I just really hope it’s worth it. But only time will tell.
Chapter Twenty-One
There’s something almost sterile about the limestone walls inside Highborne Academy.
Maybe it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to how dark everything is at the Academy for the Dark Arts, or maybe it’s the lack of message-carrying bats, zombies peeking out of corners, or really . . . much of anything other than those pristine white walls and marble floors to match.
I was worried I’d stand out too much, that one glance at me would reveal the shoddy home-made uniform beneath my cloak. That or the obvious way I keep swiveling my head back and forth at every noise like a turkey in late November. But so far, the few witches I’ve come across have barely given me a second glance.
I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to blend in. Here, I’m just another new witch who’s gotten a little lost on her way to whatever All Hallows’ Eve celebrations they have going on. Here, being a girl doesn’t make me an immediate spectacle, a rare creature on the brink of extinction.
Now, so long as none of them look long enough to see the gray aura that hangs around me, I might actually be able to find Edgar and get out undetected.
As I’d hoped, the transporter dropped me off inside the grounds just past the main gate. I don’t immediately hear a ton of alarm bells going off, so I head around the side of the castle until I find a door. When it too lets me inside, I have to wonder if Highborne’s defenses are always this bad. If the Crusaders had come for me here instead, would they have been stopped or would they have been able to waltz right in?
Once I’m inside, every witch I spot makes me tense up so much that I’m sure I look like the tin man walking. But after the third or fourth one just ignores me, I find myself able to relax and walk like a semi-normal witch.
Now, deep in the heart of the academy, I have to remind myself to stay alert. I might look like one of them at first glance, but it won’t take much for someone to figure me out if they pay even the slightest bit of attention.
I’m determined to get out of here as quickly as possible—until I take a turn out of the winding corridors and into their great hall.
Unlike the Academy of the Dark Arts, paneled in dark wood and full of shadows, the great hall here is all reflected light.
Two massive chandeliers hang overhead, flickering with the glow of a thousand magical candles. The floor is polished to such a shine that I can see the reflection of the crystal-lined stairwells inside it. More lights have been cast so they hover like giant fireflies just over the heads of the students laughing as they’re drawn towards the sound of a swelling orchestra.
I stop in the shadows of one of the huge pillars lining the room. This is what I should have been greeted with that day after the initiation rites—grandeur and sparkling magic, not suspicion and spider-people and bats that shit on your head on their way to deliver messages.
For just a second, I envision stepping into this place alongside Edgar as I always imagined. I’d be in awe of the high ceilings, the giant stained glass windows, the gold-flecked wallpaper glinting from the open doors at the end of the hall.
One of the teachers glances my way as she takes a hot drink off a platter served by a non-zombie waiter. The apples of her full cheeks are flushed red, and her hair, swept back in a disheveled bun, looks like it was put that way after a haphazard tumble in the hay.
“Hurry up now,” she slurs at me, her eyes narrowing into slits as she tries to decide if she recognizes me or not, “the show’s about to begin.”
I mumble something, not really even sure exactly what myself, and pretend to head towards what I can only assume is the door to the bathroom. But she’s having none of it. She brushes the male professor next to her aside, much to his obvious annoyance, and lurches out to grab me by the arm.
Before I can even try to wrench myself free, she’s snatched another one of the hot drinks off a platter, shoved it into my hands, and swept me out of the great hall and into the packed ballroom beyond.
It isn’t until we’re inside that I realize how much bigger this school is. Just from a cursory glance around the room, I’m guessing Highborne has five or six times the number of students.
That and the fact that a single sip of the drink in my hand gives everything a soft-focused glow, it’s no wonder no one batted an eye at me in the halls.
I extricate myself from the inebriated teacher as soon as I can and slip into the outer part of the crowd. From the sound of everyone’s voices, whatever’s in these drinks has been liberally poured for some time already. The chilly sterile feeling of the outer corridor melts away in the press of so many bodies. Laughter carries above the conversation, drowning out the screech of bowstrings as the orchestra ends to make way for some kind of demonstration.
My original plan was to sneak up to the boy’s dorm and look for Edgar, but I realize now that I should’ve known Highborne would also be celebrating the holiday. I also realize my original plan was very stupid since they probably have the same sort of spells keeping girls out of the boy’s dorms here and vice versa. Looking for him there would be the surest way to immediately get caught.
But here in the packed crowd of students and teachers, I find a new challenge. At first I was worried I wouldn’t be able to spot Edgar among the constantly shifting bodies. But as I look up from another steaming sip, I realize I should have been more worried about someone else spotting me. Someone far more worrisome than one of my old classmates I’ve so far been lucky enough to avoid.
Warlock Wright stands in the middle of the room, chatting to someone who I can only assume is the headmaster of Highborne. As soon as I see him, my blood runs cold. He looks as displeased as ever, his eyes roving over the inebriated students pretending to hold it together far better than they actually are.
I nearly choke on the drink, immediately regretting my second sip as the edges of my vision grows fuzzier still.
A nearby group of students overhears the sound of me inhaling hot liquid and glances my way. I’m surprised when they don’t look at me with disgust like I’ve gotten used to. One of the boys even eyes me admiringly for a moment before turning back to whatever it was they were talking about.
Before I’m tempted to drink myself into a false sense of security, I leave the rest of my beverage in the leaves of a potted plant and start stalking around the edges of the room. It’s a surprisingly complicated task, what with keeping one eye out for Edgar and the other on Warlock Wright . . . or anyone else here who might recognize me. I’d forgotten that there’s a decent number of other students here who I’ll have to watch out for as well.
Several false alarms later, thanks to tall boys with golden-colored locks who look surprisingly like Edgar from behind, and I’m about ready to give up. Maybe Edgar isn’t here at all. A tiny part of me imagines, just for a second, that maybe I misunderstood him the last time we talked. Maybe he is as upset as me about everything that’s happened, so much so that he couldn’t bring himself to join the festivities.
But my visions of Edgar holed up somewhere, alone in this gorgeous academy mourning my obviously devastating loss, are dashed when I spot a flicker of more golden hair over by the punch bowl directly behind Warlock Wright. I have to step on three sets of toes in order to get a closer look.
At first I think my eyes have played another trick on me. It’s just another fair-haired boy in another Highborne uniform. Then, just as Warlock Wright raises his hands and orders the room
to clear a space in the middle, the boy at the punch bowl turns his head in my direction, just for a second, and laughs.
I freeze. It’s him. I’m sure it’s him.
I’m so stricken by the sight of Edgar after all these weeks, that I don’t even notice the crowd thinning around me.
I can’t take my eyes off Edgar. It’s like staring into a mirror and not recognizing my own reflection. All these years together, and just a few weeks apart . . . and he looks like an entirely different person.
A finger taps on my shoulder and I spin around with a sudden, overflowing rage. I’m fully prepared to snarl at the person responsible, only to discover I’m standing in the middle of the empty floor.
When I turn back around, there’s nothing between me and Wright.
I’m sure this is it. I’ve been discovered. I’ll be captured, tried, and probably burned—if he has any say in the matter.
But somehow, in the greatest stroke of luck I’ve ever personally experienced, Warlock Wright’s eyes are even more glazed over than the rest of the witches here.
He takes one cursory glance my way and just shoos me back into the crowd with a disinterested wave of his hand. I catch a few dirty looks from witches as I push myself further back into their ranks, but still no one seems to recognize me.
Thank god for whatever’s in that drink.
While Warlock Wright starts what promises to be a long and rambling speech about the future of Highborne society, I crane my neck to search the crowd for Edgar. I think I’ve lost him until, in another lucky break, I happen to catch sight of him again.
“Edgar!” I call after him, because I’m a stupid idiot who drinks enchanted alcohol on what’s supposed to be a super-secret covert mission.
A few more witches glance over, but I just pretend to be more drunk than I am until they look away with a shake of their heads.
I stop the fake stumbling act, mutter an apology to the girl who’s shoulder I was using to balance, and straighten up just in time to catch sight of Edgar slipping out of the ballroom and into the hall beyond.
Finally. I don’t know how much more of this crowd I could handle before my own anxiety gets the better of me. Or, more likely, I make an even more complete ass of myself and wind up exposing myself in more way than one.
Now that the crowd has made space to clear the middle of the floor, it’s a lot harder moving around the outer edges of the room. By the time I’ve reached the first doorway and shove my way through into the now-empty great hall beyond, there’s no sign of him.
“Edgar?”
This time, I have the good sense to whisper his name rather than shout it at the top of my lungs. All I get in return is the muffled cries of delight from the ballroom behind me as Warlock Wright’s speech finally ends, and some kind of magical demonstration begins.
While I’m trying to decide which way to head, the door into the ballroom opens and another boy steps out. The music swells with the opening of the door, concealing my shuffling feet as I dart behind one of the columns. I hover under a depiction of the academy mascot, a snarling lion with dark beady eyes carved into the marble.
He glances nervously around the hall before heading straight for a fountain set against one of the walls. With one more look over his shoulder to check he’s not been followed, he presses the nose of another snarling lion, this one spewing water from its mouth. He stands there impatiently, anxiously, as the whole fountain scrapes to the side to reveal a dark passage beyond.
As soon as he steps inside, the fountain starts grinding its way shut again. In a matter of seconds, I’ll be alone in the great hall again and the fountain will just be that—a fountain. I take a couple of steps out, glancing down the corridors that curve out of sight on either side of the hall.
I came here to find Edgar. Sure, I still haven’t found him, but he’s most likely in the bathroom or something, not sneaking around secret passages. I know that. Or, at least, sober me knows that.
But hidden passages behind fountains should not be ignored . . . especially when said secret passages would be more at home in the Academy of the Dark Arts than built into the great hall of Highborne Academy.
So, without considering whether or not it’s a good idea, because it’s most definitely not, I follow the stranger into the darkness beyond.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There’s something to be said about the thoroughness of zombie servants.
I never thought about it before, not until I find myself appalled by the filth of the secret tunnel on the other side of the fountain. They might not keep the hallways polished to a mirror-like shine, but they do at least remember to sweep the secret tunnels from time to time.
From the looks of this place, no one’s bothered to clean it since the academy was built. Rat droppings coat the floor and spider webs stretch in thick white strands overhead. Tiny fragments of broken glass crunch underfoot as I try to straighten up in the narrow passage—only to find the corner of my cloak got caught in the door when it shut behind me.
After a second of patting the grimy wall, looking unsuccessfully for some way to unhinge the door and get it out, I have to leave it behind.
Now that the drink’s effects have started wearing off, I find myself clutching my arms to ward against the sudden damp chill. The passageway is just wide enough for me to walk through, but someone much wider than myself would have to pass sideways. It seems to follow the edge of the great hall and then turns and mimics the curve of the outer corridor for about a hundred yards.
Or it could be less, it’s hard to tell in the dark.
I move slowly, careful to keep my footsteps muffled and my breaths low. There’s no sign of the boy I saw slip in before me, but with only one way forward—I press on. A few small pinpricks of light fight their way through cracks in the otherwise bare walls. It isn’t until I’ve passed a third pair that I stop and examine them more closely.
At first glance, they appear to just be nothing more than cracks formed over centuries of wear. I pass by several sets until I start noticing they always seem to come in pairs of two. I get an idea, and as stupid as it seems . . . I have to try it. If I stand just a little higher on my toes and press my eyes up to two of the holes, I find I can see right out into the hallway beyond. It takes me a second before I realize how the builders could’ve disguised something like this.
All along the white polished walls had been carvings of the Highborne Academy Lion like the one spewing water from the secret entrance to this very passageway.
I wonder if I had looked closer . . . if I would’ve been able to see through their beady marble eyes. Just thinking about all the carved lions I passed in the halls, and all the peeping eyes that might have been watching from inside, gives me the shivers.
For a place that likes to pass itself off as the very pinnacle of witch society, it sure is pretty fucking creepy.
Just to be safe, I pull my wand from my sleeve and keep it at the ready. Since I don’t want to resort to making any witches tear themselves apart, I also start running any possibly helpful spells through my mind as I reach a spiral staircase at the end of the tunnel.
I stop and peer up between the metal slats. It’s hard to be sure, but I think I see a tiny sliver of light somewhere up above.
I hesitate at the bottom step.
Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. There’s no telling what I’ll find up there. Best-case scenario, I get caught. Worst-case scenario . . . I’m murdered inside these walls and no one ever finds out what happened to me.
Then again, waiting around here long enough basically ensures I’ll be caught . . . so there’s really no way to go but up.
As I grow closer to the top of the stairs, I think I hear quiet voices coming from further on. The passages curve up here as well, so I can’t see the source of the light right away. It grows brighter and the voices louder as I creep through the tunnel until, finally, I see a slender doorway ajar up ahead.
Relief and panic flood me s
imultaneously.
I was starting to worry I’d be stuck in here forever, but there’s no guarantee that whatever lies on the other side of the door isn’t somehow . . . well . . . worse. This is not what I came here for. I’m fairly certain whatever’s behind that door, it’s not going to be Edgar.
Then again, I barely recognized him downstairs. Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought.
If there’s even the slightest chance Edgar is behind that door, I have to look. So, though I’m sure I won’t like what I find, I sneak up as close as I dare and peek inside.
Seated around a circle are at least a dozen witches. In front of each of them is an oil lamp, set so as to cast their hunched, flickering shadows up on the curved walls behind them.
This in itself isn’t so odd as the way each of them wears a matching crimson-colored cloak with the hood pulled forward to hide their faces. Or the way they reach forward, first to plant their hands flat on the carefully-drawn chalk lines on the ground in front of them, then to grasp the hands of the witch to either side.
This, I might be able to forget. I might be able to write off as some weird, though harmless, hazing ritual or something.
But then the chanting starts, and I’ve never heard a sound so eerie. Something about it seems wrong. It grates at the insides of my head, sours the acid in my stomach, and makes my heart race until I think it’s going to simply burst.
Yet, I can’t tear myself away.
Until I hear another sound.
It’s faint at first, but unlike the strange chant, this sound is familiar. It pulls me out of a dream-like daze, tugging at the back of my mind like I’m trying to remember something I forgot. I try to shake it off, try to concentrate instead on the witches now slowly rising to their feet, still chanting, in front of me.
But it tugs again, and this time, I can’t ignore it. The sound’s muffled and far off, but it’s unmistakable.
Dark Witch: A Paranormal Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1) Page 19
