"There's a loophole, and it’s caused by the stone itself. By the power inside it. Ryze’s power. It's calling to people, whispering its secrets, and corrupting inherently good souls.” He waved his hand vaguely in the air. “You think your brother was the first?"
"My brother wasn't corrupt."
"No, but he would've been if he'd touched that stone filled with Ryze’s darkest powers."
"So you murdered him before he could."
His mouth flattened into a thin line, and the storm brewing in his eyes grew darker. "I didn't. I swear it. I know what you thought you saw, Dawn. I saw it, too, in the crystal ball. But it wasn't me."
"It was you," I hissed. Anger rekindled in my gut at his lies. Why couldn’t he just admit what he’d done?
"No, it was a copy of me," he insisted.
I opened my mouth to call bullshit but then shut it. A copy...
Thank you so much for the lovely Parents’ Weekend at White Magic Academy. We had a great time.
But why would someone make a copy of me at White Magic Academy?
“Wh-what do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean a skin-walker.”
I shook my head hard. “That’s even darker magic than—”
“Shadow-walking. I know, and you need an eyeball from a random twin to see the world as anyone’s twin. I thought you were involved in the plot to get the stone at first.” His gaze searched my face, a look of desperation pinching his features. “Now, I see that I was wrong.”
He was lying. The Ministry of Law Enforcement had confirmed there wasn’t a trace of magic around my brother, dark or otherwise, and there would be with a skin-walker. There was no way to block magic’s signature because even a magical block had a signature. He was trying to steer me in the wrong direction, away from him.
“You think this skin-walker killed Vickie? Did something with Professor Wadluck to get at the stone?” I asked.
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve never killed anyone, and it’s not safe to trust anyone at this school.”
Such a smooth liar, this one. No wonder he fooled everyone with his golden-boy looks and a velvety deep voice that reminded me of crystallized honey. I wasn’t fooled for one bit.
“So Ryze needs someone with a good soul to activate the onyx stone.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Then what?”
“Well, you’d probably have to ask him, but I’m guessing it won’t be fun and games for the rest of us like it wasn’t all those years ago.”
So, slavery, torture, and necromancy of the human kind. That would get ugly fast. There was no doubt in my mind that someone was helping Ryze, but none of what Ramsey had said so far proved it wasn’t him.
I took one step closer. “You have black salt to strip magic away and the Diabolicals to torment people, so why not use those things at your disposal and find out who this skin-walker is?”
He flicked his gaze to my knife again, seeming to watch me as closely as I was watching him. “The Diabolicals and I have thrown black salt at every student and staff member since the start of school. We haven’t found a thing.”
Because the skin-walker didn’t have magic to strip away. But how could you be a skin-walker without magic? Like he’d said, you needed a twin’s eye, much like I needed a dead murderer’s hand. There was no way to do it without magic. Just like there was no way for me to shadow-walk without magic or to practice necromancy without magic. If I could necromance, anyway. Which meant that none of what Ramsey was saying was true. He was trying to buy himself more time, spin me in circles until I began to doubt everything.
It wouldn’t work.
“You don’t believe me.” His eyes narrowed as they scanned my entire face.
“Good call.”
He widened his stance slightly, his shoulders tensing. “So now what?”
“Now what?” Oh, he knew exactly. I shot out my hand for the petrification spell. “Obrigesunt.”
The orange ball burst from my palm, but he sidestepped it easily, not a damn hair out of place.
I dropped my arm and gritted my teeth, a violent quake rolling through me.
“What else?” He curled the fingers of both hands at me, though instead of the usual arrogance written across his face, he looked completely blank. Not how he was supposed to look at all with a murderer in his dorm room. I wanted him scared and twitching and begging. I wanted him to apologize and not look so bored.
With a sound I’d never made before, I charged, my dagger raised. Moving as gracefully as water, he grabbed my knife hand like he’d taught us how to with a punch in P.P.E., pivoted, and bent my wrist back to force me to drop it. I spun away, though, but he was already surging toward me. Using the momentum of his body, he slammed my hip into the edge of the desk, making me finally let go of the knife. He scooped it out of the air with the speed of a predator. I cried out in pain. In fury.
He pressed in close, caging me against his desk with his body as he tried to subdue my flailing arms. “Stop, Dawn, please.” His breath brushed too hot over my forehead, and I squirmed harder. “I can find Tylvia. Have her show you where I was the night your brother died.”
“He was murdered!” I yelled right into the sonofabitch’s face. “You did that!”
His blank expression shifted into something I could only describe as pity for a split-second. A split-second too long for him to be unable to block my swift knee right between his legs. He released me instantly, his sharp inhale making the growing darkness inside me smile.
With his attention preoccupied, I yanked the blade away from him, flipped it around, and thrust it right for his throat. He dodged, just barely, and fell flat on his back on his bed. I leaped at him and pinned him underneath me, straddling his hips, my knife already at his throat.
But I couldn’t see his face clearly. It was then that I realized I was crying. Why, though, when I’d won? I could kill him right now and be done with it. I could have my revenge. Have some sort of closure over my hero’s murder.
Instead, I choked out, “Apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, keeping my gaze, and he sounded...genuine? “I’m sorry I sent the Diabolicals after you and your roommate. I’m sorry Vickie turned your food into bugs.” Then he turned his head toward his desk, granting me access to even more of his throat.
I hesitated, though, because something beat at the back of my mind. A few pieces that didn’t quite fit. Like the twisted doll and Vickie’s death. Like my existence at White Magic Academy while I was here.
Like why Ramsey, a mage who radiated power and strength, wasn’t fighting back.
But even louder than that were the footsteps thudding outside the door.
I followed Ramsey’s gaze. There, drawn on the underside of his desk, glowed a protection symbol similar to the one I’d drawn on Morrissey and Echo’s door to keep Seph safe. The one with the alarm when tensions were raised. Ramsey’s symbol pulsed red like it was blaring silently. My rage must’ve triggered it.
A light touch brushed the tears on my cheek and then cupped it gently. “I’m so sorry, Dawn. I can help you find your brother’s real killer, but I can’t do that if you don’t trust me.”
His door burst open, and framed in the flickering torchlight in the room stood Headmistress Millington and a dozen or so cloaked Diabolicals behind her. Her jaw dropped as she saw me with a knife at Ramsey’s throat.
“What...?” And then her gaze fell to my cloak. Or more specifically what was dangling out of it.
The doll that had been in my pocket. Vickie’s doll, with a long, red, very obvious curl trailing out from its head and its neck and limbs bent at unnatural angles.
This did not look good. This did not look good at all. This looked like I was the killer stalking Necromancer Academy, even though I wasn’t.
And I’d just been caught.
Necromancer Unleashed is coming November 21st!
About the Author
; Lindsey R. Loucks is a former school librarian living in rural Kansas. When she's not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she's dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she'll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate-induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to re-energize.
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Necromancer Academy: Book 1 Page 15
