by Leigh Kelsey
Kati blinked, pausing in the process of setting an alarm on her phone. Eat him?
Yes. Then he wouldn’t be able to cause you pain. I prefer mice and birds—much easier to digest—but I would attempt a larger prey if it would ease your suffering.
He sounded one hundred percent genuine. And it was sweet … kinda?
Uh, Kati said, thanks for the offer, but I’d like him to stay alive.
I understand, Freddie replied sombrely.
Dolly snorted.
Not a word, Kati warned her. I don’t want my familiars getting into an argument; I need to sleep.
I didn’t say anything, Dolly replied sweetly.
Kati rolled her eyes, stuffing her phone under her pillow after plugging it in to charge, lifting her wand to flick off the lamp—but she paused. Do you need the light on? Kati asked Freddie. For the heat?
Much obliged, he replied. I do indeed.
Kati smiled at his way of speaking, rolling over. She wasn’t going to think about what it meant for her to have two familiars, just like she wasn’t thinking about her red eyes and tiny demon horns, or the way her breath kept clouding in front of her face even when the fire blazed a few feet away.
Tomorrow, she’d head to the library and check out every book on familiars she could find. If Freddie was right and she had a third familiar, she wanted to find them before another wraith attack took place; the more familiars, the better, right? And since Kati was their apparent target … actually, she was going to add that to the long list of things not to think about.
Luckily, the shattered heart in her chest and the man it belonged to consumed her every thought, leaving no space for worries about why she was so powerful, or what the souls she was.
Eventually, Kati fell into a restless sleep.
Queen Beats King
“I’m going to destroy you,” Theo warned, his mouth tilted into a lopsided grin.
“You wish,” Kati threw back, jamming the buttons on the controller harder, leaning forward over her crossed legs and staring intently at the TV screen. No fucking way was she losing out to her brother on this level again. He was going down.
Theo snorted. His red hair was sticking out in all directions, his glasses crooked on his nose as he shot Kati a challenging glare.
Kati narrowed her eyes at her avatar, refusing to be beaten. Within two minutes, Theo was dead and Kati was doing a victory dance where she sat on the carpet. “Admit it. You’re a peasant compared to me, the queen.”
Theo rolled his eyes, pushing his glasses on straight. “Sure, baby sis. Sure. But if you’re the queen, and I’m older than you by a year … hmm, I think that makes me the ruling monarch. King beats queen.”
“Not in chess.” Kati shoved his shoulder. “You owe me a Big Mac now.”
Theo groaned, slumping. “I was hoping you’d forget that. I’m skint, Kati.”
Kati gave him a sweet smile. “I’m sure you can find the money somehow. I’ll be generous, give you a week to come up with the cash. And if all else fails, you could try selling yourself on the street. Twenty might be pushing it, but I’m sure someone would give you a fiver for a quick—”
He shoved her so hard and suddenly that she rolled onto her side on the carpet, laughing until she snorted. Within seconds he was chuckling too.
“I’m sorry, Kati,” he said, sobering.
Kati huffed a laugh, still grinning. “For what? Losing so spectacularly?”
“No,” he replied. “For this.”
And before Kati could process the flip in his emotions, he grabbed her arms roughly and ice flooded her body, freezing the blood in her veins in a painful rush. Frost crawled across Kati’s face, her panting breaths forming a white cloud as she struggled sluggishly against his hold. She felt like she’d eaten an ice lolly too fast, cold filling her belly and freezing her brain until her head pounded painfully. Her heart began to slow, the blood inside turning to a solid, frozen block.
Theo gave her a big, manic grin as Kati lay there, paralysed and choking on frost. “Now you can come with me, and we can both serve Lady LaVoire together.”
“Never,” Kati gasped, so weak that it was barely a whisper.
Theo’s smile slipped, the look he gave her pleading. “You shouldn’t have said that. You should have just come with me, Kati.”
Kati stared at him, numb and agonised as ice stabbed every part of her—inside and out. Was she dying?
She was sure of it as she turned her head to the side and saw ghosts phasing through the blue, poster-covered walls around them, invading Theo’s bedroom. Kati couldn’t make out the details of their faces or clothes, weakness taking hold of her until her vision wavered, but the cold inside her spiked as the ghosts reached for her. Surrounded by silvery figures, Kati screamed, pain tearing through her every limb, her every atom. They were killing her, making her one of them—
Kati sat up in bed with a gasp, breathing in fast, panicked gulps. Just a dream, she told herself, gobbling down the details of her dorm room at SBA, safe and familiar and softly glowing with lamplight.
It was just a nightmare.
But the nightmare had started off as a memory from last summer. It had been real, up until the point she’d started to ice over. And then Theo had somehow called those ghosts to … to kill her?
Hurt spread through Kati’s chest, even though it wasn’t real. The problem was it could be real. The Theo she’d learned about here at SBA wasn’t her Theo; he was barely recognisable as her brother. She didn’t know what that Theo would do, where he’d draw the line. She didn’t know if she could still trust him.
The fear will pass, Freddie said in a low, sombre drawl, curling tighter around the lamb base. All things do.
Thanks for that cheery thought, Fred, Kati replied, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Dolly rolled over in her sleep, and Kati smiled, taking a sick sort of pleasure in flicking her familiar’s nose and sending her snorting into consciousness.
Wha—whasgoinon? Dolly asked, half asleep but urgent. Is that a ghost?
It was just a dream, Kati replied, rubbing her sleep-crusted eyes.
“Ah,” a hesitant voice said, “that’s not—not strictly true.”
Kati shot back so suddenly that her spine hit the headboard, a scream building in her throat—that never formed.
“Sorry, sorry,” the voice went on, panicked and apologetic, and Kati realised there was a guy floating near her ceiling. Literally floating. He was in his late teens, handsome in an everyday sort of way, with messy blonde hair and pale eyes, wearing a floaty shirt and trousers that were a few centuries out of style. Oh, and he was slightly transparent and silver-blue. “Just—don’t scream, okay? No one else can know about this.”
“Know about what?” Kati rasped when her voice was returned to her, subtly reaching for her wand and athame.
“It’s … it’s a delicate matter,” the ghost said with a wince. “And—it’s very dangerous. You’ll be alright, I think. You’re … um, you’re more powerful than the other girls in this dorm. With the—um—” He gestured at his forehead and Kati’s mouth went dry when she realised he was talking about her horns. “I wasn’t spying,” he rushed out, his silvery cheeks going a shade pinker. “I was just drawn to you, because you … there’s another thing. Not just the demon thing.”
“What thing?” Kati ground out, wracking her brain for any spell she could use against a ghost. There was magic that worked to drain their energy but she didn’t know them. And anyway, those were for dangerous ghosts. Other than being in her room, this guy didn’t seem threatening. The opposite actually—hesitant and nervous and shy.
“The cold?” he said, posing it as a question and running a hand through his sandy hair. “You’re—ah, your breath’s actually clouding now.”
It was.
Kati glared. “Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”
The ghost wrung his hands. “Thaddeus Claus, nice to meet you. And what do I want? Well,
um, I’d really like the ghosts who were banished from the Stolen Tower to stay banished, and for no others to come back.”
“Right,” Kati said, frowning. They were on the same page with that, at least. “And why would they come back? Is that even possible?”
“With their mistress involved, anything could be possible.” Thaddeus shrugged. Everything about him was slouchy and uncertain, but he still scared the shit out of Kati. She’d thought she was getting over what happened in the tower with Ingrid and the other ghosts.
Nope.
Not even a little bit.
“So you’re saying … Ingrid could come back,” Kati said slowly, watching Thaddeus like a hawk. He hadn’t made a move to possess or hurt her, but the second he did, Kati would scream the dorm down. She’d shout so loudly that the whole fucking academy came running.
“Ah,” he said, shifting from foot to foot despite that fact he was hovering in the air and it shouldn’t have been possible for him to do so.
“What?” Kati hissed, giving Dolly and Freddie matching looks that said be ready.
“The thing is … she’s not … the Congregation weren’t strictly able to get rid of Ingrid. She was already, um, gone.”
“Gone?” Kati’s heart sprinted. Souls. Shit. She could come back for Kati any time she wanted. “So she’s free?” she breathed.
Dolly growled low in her throat.
“Actually, she’s—you trapped her. With your … athame. When you stabbed her,” he blurted haltingly. “And then when you got stabbed—her soul sort of—attached itself … to you. That’s why you’re the only one who can stop this happening.”
Kati leant against the headboard of her bed, nausea and dizziness swimming through her. She was going to be sick, but she pushed away the revelation that she had part of Ingrid’s soul attached to her. For now. And not just because she really did not want to think about it, but because Thaddeus seemed worried about something happening, and it sounded urgent. “Stop what?”
“Her nephew, she’s … she’s controlling him.”
Well. That made Kati push her nausea aside, alarm clearing her fear of both Ingrid and Thaddeus. She threw the covers back and shot out of bed, Dolly and Freddie both moving to flank her when she wavered, a show of force against the ghost boy who scared the shit out of her. “You don’t mean Ingrid,” Kati said, her voice a twisted thing of fury and panic. It wasn’t a question.
No, he meant Lady LaVoire. She’d come for Iain again, and this time he’d lost the fight.
Kati straightened, strength and determination shoring up her weak parts. She gripped her wand tight, her athame in her other hand, and stared down the ghost hovering above her.
Thaddeus shook his head, his brow furrowed. “All I can do is warn you. She sent him into the catacombs to find something. She’s … she’s outside the academy, in the forest. With … ah…”
“Right,” Kati bit out, shoving her wand into her arm holster and strapping it on, pulling jeans on over the leggings she slept in, with a black cable-knit jumper thrown over her vest. It was as good an outfit as any for saving her ex-boyfriend from a power-crazed maniac. “Got it.”
Theo. That’s who Thaddeus meant. That’s why Kati had dreamt of him, she bet. Some part of her—possibly the ghost part, although she was ignoring that—had sensed his nearness, and it had told the rest of her—the Kati part, that was deep down scared of her brother now—and hey presto, a fucked up nightmare was born.
“So,” Kati said, zipping up her boots and slipping her athame—the one Iain had gifted her—into the waistband of her jeans. “Lady LaVoire is somewhere outside, waiting for Iain—who’s under her control—to bring her something no doubt scarily powerful from the catacombs. And I’ve got part of Ingrid’s spirit attached to me. Which means I’m unusually qualified to save him. Anything I missed?”
“That’s … that’s it,” Thaddeus replied, chewing his bottom lip.
“Right.” Kati marched for the door.
You two stay behind me and out of sight, Kati said to her familiars, talking to them both at once without giving much thought to how she was doing it. She needed to do it, so she did. Maybe it was a regular familiar thing. Maybe it was her demon magic at work. I want you to stay safe so you can lend me strength. I’m gonna need it.
We await your command, Freddie Bowie replied seriously.
Yeah, what Posh Boy said, Dolly agreed.
Kati stopped on the threshold, looking up at Thaddeus. “You’re sure no one else is up for this? I’d feel better with my mates at my back.”
“They’ll die,” Thaddeus replied, and he was so apologetic that Kati believed him. And no fucking way was she risking Naia’s, Rahmi’s, or Harley’s lives. Not happening. “No one else in this academy has ghost magic. Or demon magic. Not even the teachers.”
“No backup whatsoever, then,” Kati sighed, her stomach a snarl of panic and dread. “Right, well. See you later, Thaddeus Claus. Assuming I don’t die.”
“You really shouldn’t joke about it,” he replied, his shoulders hunched.
“I wasn’t,” Kati replied. She checked her wand and athame one last time and walked out the door.
Leaving a ghost in her bedroom.
Souls, she’d better not regret this.
This Is An Awful Idea … But Let’s Do It Anyway
Thanks to an unjust detention, Kati knew exactly how to get into the catacombs that sprawled beneath Second Breath Academy. And she knew some of what to expect from the immensely powerful, highly volatile magical artefacts stored there. It was essentially a dumping ground for broken chairs, tables, cracked wands and athames, and faulty magical objects. Powerful items were left down there to decay, and from what Kati had experienced of the catacombs, those powerful items were pissed off about it.
She couldn’t warn the teachers or any of her friends about Lady LaVoire or Iain’s compulsion, not unless she wanted to risk their lives, but Kati hesitated at the archway into the catacombs, a narrow set of stairs leading down into dank, silent blackness.
Going down there without a single soul—living or otherwise—knowing seemed like a very bad idea, so Kati rolled onto her tiptoes to reach the stone arch above her head.
“Hey,” Kati said, tapping the squat stone cat perched above the stairs.
The catgoyle’s eyes opened to slits. It let out a long, yowling yawn, arching its back and blinked down at Kati from its perch on the edge of the stone arch. “Oh. I don’t know you.” It—she—tilted her head to the side.
Kati blinked back at the creature, wordless for a second. It was always a shock to see something made of stone be so animated, with expressions and gestures and life. Even the whiskers on her face were made of stone, but they twitched as she scanned Kati, her eyes narrowing.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asked with a sigh.
“Big time,” Kati confirmed, shaking free of the shock. “You know who Lady LaVoire is?” The cat hissed. Kati took that as a yes. “Well, she’s compelled Mr Worth, and she’s trying to steal something from the catacombs through him. But if any of the teachers try to stop her, they’ll die. The same goes for students. I’ve got … some really messed up magic, you’ll just have to take my word for it. But it means I’m less likely to die.”
“I see. What do you want from me, then?” the cat asked, her claws snapping out as she arched her back. For a stone cat, she looked pretty ready for a fight.
“I’m going down there to get Ia—Mr Worth back.” Kati pointed at the dark staircase into the catacombs. “If I haven’t come back in half an hour, send for help. Tell Madam Hawkness to call in every gentry nearby.”
The cat nodded briskly. “I can do that—but only because you’re right and the faculty isn’t up to handling LaVoire, not because I think an eighteen-year-old student is more capable than the woman who turned that despot to stone ten years ago.” She paused, giving Kati a doubtful look. “Are you sure going down there alone is a good idea?”
“It’s a terrible idea,” Kati admitted with a wince. “But it’s my only option. Plus, I’ve got these fuckers. My familiars.”
The cat peered over the arch to look at Freddie, coiled on the floor, and Dolly pacing circles around Kati’s legs. “Thirty minutes,” she said, “and I’ll call for help. For the record, this is an awful idea. But I’d rather not risk Madam Hawkness. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to this academy.”
Um. Was the catgoyle only agreeing because she was more okay with Kati potentially dying than Hawkness? That was nice of her. But at least she’d agreed to the plan. At least someone knew Kati was about to risk her life. “Thanks…?”
“Janet,” the catgoyle replied, sitting alert on the arch and scanning the corridor.
“Well, thanks, Janet,” Kati said.
She took a deep breath, her wand glowing violet as she cast a lighting spell, and with a final glance at the catgoyle sentry, Kati descended the dark steps into the unknowable depths of the catacombs.
Iain Can’t Reach The Phone Right Now
Kati didn’t make it into the catacombs; she reached the landing at the bottom of the dark steps, the scent of rank, decaying things invading her nostrils, and came to a sudden stop when a figure came out of the vast shadows towards the violet light.
“Iain,” Kati said in relief, lifting her wand so the light fell on his face. And that face… “Iain?” she asked, her voice coming out small. She went cold all over, goosebumps flashing down her arms as she stared, her heart thumping.
Iain’s eyes were flat, dull, and his face was completely slack. No studious concentration, no worry, and definitely none of the wickedness she only saw when they were together. “Iain?” she repeated, desperate now.
He didn’t respond, didn’t seem to see her at all as he walked right past her and up the stairs.
