Jon raised his hand. "Quick question, how many candles do you need to be kept lit?"
Seph nodded, distracted as she continued fussing with the napkin. "Yes."
"Huh?"
"The candles need to be lit."
"All of them?"
"All of them.” She looked at him, then, clearly exasperated. “Can you handle it?"
"Yes." He grinned, and I swear he thought he was looking into the sun. He had it so bad for the princess that I suspected he annoyed her to get her to notice him. Genius plan since it appeared to be working.
Seph took a deep breath and then held out her hands for Morrissey and Echo to take. "Okay. Ready? Now's the time to back out if you're not."
Morrissey cast her dark gaze around at the three of us and then took Seph’s hand without a second thought.
“This is a great idea. It really is.” Echo finished tucking her cloak tightly around her, swallowed thickly, then took Seph’s hand and held hers out for me.
Was I ready? I bundled every bit of courage I had close to my heart where Leo would always be. I might get to talk to him again, tell him how much I missed him. For that, I was ready. Anything else wouldn't really change a thing.
I grasped Echo and Morrissey’s hands, completing the circle.
"Close your eyes and concentrate on the spirit door," Seph said, her voice low. “You too, Jon.”
We did, and I pictured Leo's face in my mind, the sound of his voice while he taught me his favorite healing spells, asked me silly questions like “What do fish think about?”, and genuinely listened when I asked him, “Would you like to hear about my hopes and dreams?”
Seph was silent for a moment, then: "I call to Hecate on this day to open the spirit door and let us communicate with the dead. We're not looking for just any spirit to talk to. We need Leo Cleohold, the older brother of Dawn, who is sitting right in front of your eye. Hecate, will you grant us our wish?”
Silence except for the faint crackle of candlelight.
“Hecate, are you there?" Seph asked.
The air shifted, not so much as a breeze but a presence right in front of me. Hecate herself, opening her eye on the talking board. I didn’t dare peek and make sure, though. I’d never gotten this far on my own.
“Thank you, Hecate,” Seph breathed.
“Thank you, Hecate,” the rest of us repeated.
“Okay, open your eyes, everyone,” Seph said.
We did. The room itself didn’t look any different except for Hecate’s open eye staring up at me from the middle of the talking board, her iris and pupil all black. I shivered.
"We are calling for Leo Cleohold to come through the open spirit door,” Seph said. “Leo, are you there?”
Silence.
“Your sister would like to talk to you. Give us a sign that you're here."
Absolutely nothing.
All sorts of excuses and what-ifs marched through my head, but the one that took root was this: what if he was mad at me for coming to Necromancer Academy to avenge him? He'd always been excited about my white magic, had pushed me toward it, said I had a knack for it. But now... Now I was here throwing petrification spells in the library and shadow-walking through the halls. But he had to know this sharp turn was because of him, was for him. If not, I needed to tell him.
"Leo," I said, my voice too wobbly. I cleared my throat and tried to breathe through the pinch of heartache just saying his name brought on. "It's me, Dawn. If you're mad I'm here, I get it. But I really need to talk to you. Please."
A breeze swirled around me in a comforting embrace. It even smelled like him, like the meadow beyond our backyard and the wild lavender that grew there.
Seph and Echo gasped.
"Hi, Leo." My voice cracked, and a swell of emotions burst from behind a breaking dam. I couldn't wipe my eyes or my nose or I'd break the circle, so I dribbled into a puddle, unable to speak again.
A harder breeze pushed my hair into my face, and smoke wafted from some of the candles.
"Jon?" Seph asked softly.
"I'm getting them," he whispered. He snapped his fingers a few times.
"We need to make sure it’s really him, okay?" Seph said.
I nodded.
"Leo, if it really is you, we'll need you to prove it for our safety,” Seph said. “We have a talking, uh, napkin here in the middle of us. When Dawn can, she'll ask you a question that only you'll know the answer to. If you spell it out for us, we'll know if it's really you or not. Ready when you are, Dawn."
I took several gulps of air to steady myself. Why had I thought the emotional part of this would be easy? Of course it wouldn't be, no matter how hardened my heart had become.
"Remember..." I started. "Remember our favorite bench in the meadow behind our house? What did you write on my side with a rock?"
The glass moved almost immediately by itself, sliding over the napkin to the letters. Seph said the letters as it paused on them and then put them into words.
“Biscuit will not move from this...circle?” she said.
I laughed through a fresh onslaught of tears.
"Biscuit?" Echo asked.
"His nickname for me. I...have a thing for bread, and it’s kind of a family joke,” I admitted.
"I hadn’t noticed,” Seph whispered, a smile in her tone. “So, it really is him. Ask away, Dawn, but be quick. The spirit door is open, and anyone can get through."
Too many questions tipped my tongue at once, and not all of them had to do with his murder. Did he have enough to do? Did he miss stuffing our faces with honey-glazed sweet breads in the meadow as much as I did? Had he met any women? All of these were important, but the even more important ones jumbled up in my head and tumbled out in the wrong order.
"Was Ramsey sleepwalking when he killed you?" I blurted.
"Ramsey?" Echo asked.
Seph hushed her sharply.
The glass moved to NO.
I shared a weighted look with Seph. "Was he possessed?"
The glass moved around the napkin and then went back to NO.
"Were you killed because of the onyx stone?"
The candles flickered wildly as a gust of frigid air seemed to lift up from the floor. The glass moved in a slow circle, like Leo was considering how to answer.
Finally, it moved: YES.
The wind grew stronger. Several candles went out around the room, and Jon set about lighting them again as fast as he could. The glass roamed over the letters frantically, never settling on one as I tried to formulate my next question.
"Was it Ramsey who killed you?"
Morrissey, Echo, and Jon’s gazes bored into me, shock written on their faces.
Then every candle behind Echo extinguished at once. She gasped, peering over her shoulder at the smoke reaching like long, ghostly fingers toward the ceiling.
The glass flew over the letters and then finally stopped on YES. Then it flew toward NO.
I shook my head, trying to understand. “What? Leo, that doesn’t make any sense.”
The wind whipped into a frenzy. More and more candles went out faster than Jon could light them again.
The glass whipped back and forth between YES and then NO, over and over again.
"I don't understand," I yelled over the howling wind. It blew my hair into my face and eyes, and between that and the growing darkness in the room from the lack of lit candles, it was becoming harder to see. "Was it Ramsey who killed you or not?"
YES. NO. YES. NO.
Echo froze, every muscle clenched tight, a look of pure horror on her face as she stared straight ahead. I didn't see what she saw. I didn't see anything except for my window of opportunity closing.
"No, no, no. Stop this. Stop this." Echo's long blonde hair lifted straight over her head as if caught in someone's fist behind her. But there was no one there. She screamed.
Seph looked at me, her eyes wide. "That's enough, Dawn. We have to close the spirit door now. Someone followed Leo over."
"No, wait. I-I don’t understand what he means by yes and no."
Still, the glass spelled those words, faster than it had before.
Echo jerked hard backward into midair, nearly pulling her from mine and Seph's grasps. She screamed bloody murder, but whatever had her didn't let go.
I stared, slack-jawed, my lungs petrified into stone. Someone was trying to drag her through the spirit door.
"End this now,” Seph yelled over the rising wind. “Say goodbye to close the door."
"Please," Echo shouted, her desperation poking splinters into my heart.
But I couldn't end this. Not yet.
"What do you mean yes and no?” I shouted. “How can it be both?"
The glass zipped into a new pattern: GUARD STONE.
The howling wind slapped against my face like a physical blow. "I will, but did Ryze kill you?"
More candles extinguished, throwing layers of darkness over the room until I had to squint. The glass whipped back and forth between YES and NO over and over.
"Tell me more! Tell me anything more!" I shouted.
Echo's body jerked back yet again, nearly yanking all of us with her in order to hang on. She hung in midair, screaming for her life, all because I was too stubborn to know when to quit.
But I had to keep going. “Why you, Leo? Why were you killed?”
The glass moved toward GOODBYE.
That was it. He was telling me time's up, but I wasn't ready yet.
I opened my mouth to yell out another question when icy cold slipped across my cheek like a caress. But no one was touching me there. No one that I could see. My flesh scurried up and down my bones. My heart knocked around its cage.
The cold touch swept down to my chin and then tightened, tightened some more, so severely I thought for sure the pressure would snap my jaw. I cried out. Or I tried to. But icy fingers I couldn’t see slipped inside my mouth and clamped around my tongue.
To prevent me from saying goodbye back and closing the spirit door.
Instinct jerked me backward, but I sure didn't go far. I squirmed my tongue to free it, but the frigid pressure only squeezed it tighter. I screamed, the effort futile without the use of my tongue. Seph and Echo screamed, too, but I couldn’t turn my head, couldn't hear what they were screaming over the alarms blaring in my head. Panic dashed through my veins. I swept out my legs to the side and kicked even though there was nothing there.
I had to say goodbye first since Hecate’s open eye stared at me. That was the way séances like this worked. If the door didn't close, more and more spirits could slip over and drag us through the door. Like Echo. Like all of us.
Echo jerked backward with a shriek, wrenching my hand from hers. I curled my fingers around her at the last second and held on for all I was worth.
Jon tossed a handful of black salt all over me. Some got in my mouth, even my eyes. But it worked. I was free.
"G-goodbye," I sputtered, even though it wasn't good. Saying it ripped me up all over again. "I love you, Leo."
"I banish the spirits who've crossed through the spirit door," Seph shouted. "Go back now!"
The howling wind instantly stopped. Echo dropped to the ground. Smoke from all the extinguished candles floated in lacy ribbons around us. We sat there trembling, gasping, none of us daring to say a word.
Then Echo surged to her feet, spittle flying from her lips like she'd gone feral and viciousness in her eyes as she took the two steps toward me. Her fist flew and cracked against my cheekbone. Pain roared through my skull, and my head knocked sideways. I hit the floor.
"I told you to stop," she shouted.
Tears brimmed, more from pain but also because I was a terrible human being. She stormed out of the room, leaving the rest of us in shocked silence.
I lay there with my cheek pressed to the floor while staring at the twirls of smoke still rising from the candles, completely and utterly devastated. I was more confused now than ever, and I'd lost a potential friend because I was too selfish to stop without answers.
And I still didn't have them.
Chapter Thirteen
Echo refused to bring us any more food to our room, which I understood. I wouldn’t either. Morrissey did, though—and Jon, of course—and I wondered if that caused a rift between Morrissey and Echo since they were roommates. I hoped not.
"How's Echo?" I asked Morrissey when she dropped off our breakfast Monday morning.
She shrugged, the gesture carrying a lot more meaning than when anyone else did it, because normally she just gave everyone her dark stare.
"I'm sorry about the séance," I told her, like I'd told Seph countless times for the rest of the weekend.
The staff had all come back early Sunday morning, but I didn’t hear about or see Professor Wadluck’s return. He was still missing. So was the headmistress. I’d gone to tell her about what happened to Seph and me and the strange voice in the gym, but Professor Lipskin intercepted me and snapped at me that she was gone for the weekend. I couldn’t find anyone else who wanted to bother to listen to me.
Seph’s nighttime tea was still delivered—by Jon since he was always offering to help. I was glad the headmistress hadn’t forgotten about her, but Seph didn’t want to drink it. She wanted to remember her sleepwalking, so I spelled a rope that literally tied our ankles together at night.
Morrissey nodded and stood there somewhat awkwardly for a moment. This was the first time I’d seen her with her cloak undone, and she looked so much smaller without it. Which was brilliant, in a way. I could tell her magic was powerful, but at first glance, someone could easily underestimate her. A leather cord tied with several teeth weaved through the belt of her red plaid skirt, which was paired with a black sweater. Smiling faintly, she spun on her heel on her way out and shut the door firmly behind her.
I stared after her for a long moment after she had gone, my plate of fried sugary bread and sausage still in my hand. "Why do you suppose she never talks?"
“What are you talking about?” Seph said absently, setting her plate on her desk. “Of course she talks.”
My jaw dropped. “Not to me, she doesn’t. What does she say?”
Seph shrugged. “Not much. Just that she’ll tell me my fortune in exchange for one of my teeth.”
Ohhh, that made sense. "Well, I'm sure she’ll talk once she has something to say to me. She’s probably a great roommate with how quiet she is. Are you wishing she were your roommate instead of me?"
“I’m quite happy with mine, thanks,” she said, pulling her plate closer, “even when she talks my ear off but especially when she gifts me the hair of our enemies.”
“Same. Even when she uses nouns as verbs.” I smiled and then gazed down at my own plate, mostly breads and little cups of different honeys and butters. I hadn't even requested that, but Morrissey had just known, I suppose. She'd paid attention to what I liked.
My smile vanished. How was it that I had people who cared about me here where my enrollment was just an excuse for murder? I was conning all of them, and it gutted me with what it might do to those I liked if I left here. When I left here. Yesterday’s séance hadn’t really changed anything. Ramsey would still die. But would Seph be okay, or would the nighttime still haunt her?
Seph picked up her plate and dragged herself toward my bed where I was seated. Now that she knew her night misadventures weren’t dreams by giving up the nightly tea, a dark cloud followed her and weighed heavily on her shoulders. I hated it. I wanted my happy-go-lucky roommate back.
But today was day seven, one week to the day she’d started sleepwalking. One week, just like Leo.
"You're sad again," she said.
"More like still." I rested my head on her shoulder when she sat next to me. "I want everything to be simple again, you know? When life felt full and infinite and didn't suffocate with too many questions."
"Yeah. I know." She laid her head on top of mine with a sigh.
"Ramsey killed my brother, and
there isn't a yes no yes no about it," I said simply.
"I agree.” She lifted her head and picked at her food. “There is no maybe in this. Right?"
I groaned. My brain was starting to melt because I had no idea.
We both said the spell over our plates, and when our food remained food, we dug in.
"Want to go to the library before class and do some research?" I asked between bites of biscuit.
"Sure. I can research sleepwalking.” She shoveled up a forkful while looking at me closely. “And if Ramsey’s there again?”
I shrugged, picking up one of my biscuits, still warm and practically falling apart between my fingers. “Attack?”
"I’m glad I’m on your side," she said with raised brows. "And not just because you've saved my life countless times. I want to know what happened and why with your brother almost as much as you do, so I don't—" She broke off, her next bite of sausage falling limp in her hand.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders while mentally filling in the blank for her: so she wouldn't meet Leo's same fate.
THE LIBRARY WAS A BUST. It turned out I'd already checked out all the books on the onyx stone, and as far as researching how to tell if someone could murder someone but at the same time not murder someone... Well, the ravens had just blinked at me like I was an idiot when I'd asked for potential books on the topic.
We were missing something, a key part of what Leo was trying to tell me. But what? I had no idea, because apparently I wasn't asking the right questions, at least to the ravens.
Then a thought struck, but not the one I wanted.
“Ah.” I slapped my forehead. “I forgot my Death, Dying, and Reliving paper in our room.” It was a reflection report on the cautionary tales we’d heard so far, the scroll rolled up on my desk where I’d told myself I wouldn’t forget it.
“Come on.” Seph grabbed the sleeve of my cloak and pulled. “If we haul balls, we won’t be late.”
“How does one haul balls without said balls?”
Chuckling, we rushed down the crowded hallway bustling with students, giving the gym a wide berth, and pushed into the entryway. It was deserted, everyone else already where they needed to be.
Necromancer Academy: Book 1 Page 13
