I make sure the door closes softly behind me, tiptoeing on the balls of my feet so I don’t make any noise. I don’t know who might be in here, and I have no desire to get my ass kicked by some custodian for wandering around where I shouldn’t.
Besides, two students have been attacked. I really don’t want to be the third.
I reach the spot on the third floor where my History of Magic class is, then move past it to the right. The student was taken from around this area.
Wellwood Hall is massive, with a complex, convoluted architectural style. Corridors and doorways are situated in odd places, with no rhyme or reason to the sprawling design. Moonlight shines through the windows, casting blue-white shapes over the stone floors and walls as I search for clues.
Nothing.
Frustrated, I give up searching the third floor after half an hour and head down one level, and then another.
I’m wandering around the far east wing of the first floor—a part of the building I’ve never been in before, where no classes are held—when I feel… something.
My breath hitches, and I stop short.
Something’s… pulsing? No, radiating, it feels like it’s radiating…
It’s like the feeling of being bathed in sunlight, only I can’t see anything. What is that?
I think… it’s magic.
Very, very powerful magic.
For me to be able to physically feel it like this, it either has to be coming from a person using magic, from a very powerful object, or from a place that has magical runes of some kind etched into it, like for protection. If it was someone practicing magic, I’m pretty damn sure I would’ve heard the sound of movement by now, so that rules that out.
Exactly how powerful would an object have to be to send out this much magic? Crazy powerful. That seems unlikely.
So it’s probably a room of some kind, with runes on it that radiate gobs of magic.
But as I follow the corridor I’m in all the way down to its end… there’s nothing. It just dead-ends.
I feel along the walls until I find a spot that’s practically warm with magic. Something’s got to be here—it has to be. But there’s no door, nothing. Just a blank wall.
Hmm.
I try tapping on the bricks. Nope, nothing.
I look for runes that’ll let me open it. Nothing again.
What the hell?
Fine. I don’t need to figure this out tonight. It’s not like I have a deadline. I’ll do some research in the library, maybe, see what I can dig up. Cam’s pretty knowledgeable about magical history, maybe he knows something about the school.
I head back toward the building’s main entrance, almost getting lost twice. I’ve learned how to get to all my classes, but it’s easy to get lost in the rest of the school.
When I finally find a familiar hallway, I pick up the pace, moving quietly as I turn the corner—
And run smack into a broad, firm chest.
My feet shuffle backward as I rebound off the hard planes of muscle, peering up through the darkness.
Dark blue eyes flash in the dim light. Roman.
“Jesus Christ!” I hiss, my heart thundering in my chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Likewise.” Roman grabs my elbows to steady me. “What are you doing in here?”
Ah, crap. I don’t really have an excuse ready. I was counting on nobody finding me. Or that if anyone did find me, it’d be the asshole who’s been attacking students, and I’d be a little too busy fighting for my life to worry about making up a story. Of course this had to be the night my hot professor decided to work late grading papers or something.
“I’m… what are you doing here?” I reply, turning the question back on him.
Roman gives me a thoroughly unconvinced look. “Deflecting is not going to help, Elliot.”
“Oh, like you do with me in class? Trying to avoid anyone thinking we fucked by treating me like I’m less than?”
He looks genuinely pained at that, his chiseled features stiffening. He draws me out of the hallway toward an alcove. As if someone would actually come along and see us.
The idea almost makes me laugh, but I guess it’s possible someone might. You never know. Roman’s here late, and so I am. Maybe we’re not the only ones.
“I’m sorry about that,” he murmurs, his voice low and serious. We’re standing so close together I can feel the heat of his skin. My body is already responding to the proximity of