Shadowborn Academy_ Year One (Dark Fae Academy #1) - G. Bailey Page 0,48
Can you feel it?” Sage whispers and I nod, knowing exactly what she’s talking about. The academy has been eerily silent all day. There’s not a single student talking or running around like normal. Even the common area is completely empty.
We head to the cafeteria to grab snacks for the day. As we approach the doors, we see a bundle of students looking at a bunch of posters nailed to the wall.
Sage side-glances me. “Uhh, I’m going to grab snacks. Why don’t you see what it is they are all looking at?”
“If they have Oreos…” I drift off, too engrossed in what’s going on.
Sage chuckles before rushing off into the cafeteria. It’s usually quiet on the weekends anyway, so she shouldn’t find a queue. I push through the students until I get to the front and see the five new posters stuck to the wall.
Five wardens are missing.
And I know each and every one of them. They were the guys I turned into slugs. The whispers of the students around me seem to blast into my ears as I back away in shock. I completely forgot to ask Zander about them. That was over a month ago! And now they’re missing? Oh, fuck…
“They haven’t found any bodies. Do you think a creature ate them?”
“The parents are so upset. They gotta be dead.”
“Shame, they were handsome.”
“And that girl went missing yesterday. No poster yet, but there might not even be a search. She was only a shadowborn, after all.”
I don’t even look back as I walk away, my feet picking up speed with every step, and I don’t look where I’m going until I slam into someone. Large hands catch me, holding me in them as he grunts.
“Hey, where are you today, Vina?” Gage asks, holding me way closer than a teacher should. As if he notices the same thing as me, he lets me go super quickly and clears his throat. “Are you silently going to ignore me again? Our last few sessions have been awkward as fuck, I know, but I call that progress.”
“Are teachers meant to say ‘awkward as fuck’?”
With a big smirk, he crosses his arms. “I just did.”
Well. He isn’t wrong. They have been awkward, simply because we are making progress. I think.
“I have to get going. I need to find someone,”
“If you want to talk about it, you know where I am,” he offers, stepping around me and lowering his head to my ear. “And I mean anytime. I’m your friend first, Vina.”
Are teachers meant to say that? I almost ask him. I turn and watch as he walks away, and I suspect he isn’t joking. If I turned up at his door in the middle of the night, he would open it and help me.
Gage is a good guy.
And he doesn’t need a friend like me in his life. Good and bad don’t mix.
Talking of bad…
I swiftly turn on my heel and rush to the top of the academy. My legs burn by the time I get to the top of the million-odd steps and into the corridor of the wardens’ apartments. Remembering which is Zander’s doesn’t take long and I bang his door a few times, waiting for him to answer. He doesn’t, and I swear under my breath.
Pitch reminds me, and I sigh, knowing he is right.
“Always try the handle first. Magic isn’t always the easiest route,” I reply and I hear Pitch chuckle in my head as I turn the handle and the door opens easily. I step in, surprised to see Zander just come out of the bathroom with Echo in his hands, wrapped in a white towel.
“First off, did you kill those wardens?” I demand. “The spell I did only lasts a few hours and they were safe when I left, but apparently they’ve been missing for weeks!”
“Corvina-”
“If you did kill them, why? They had their punishment and murder is a tad extreme,” I blurt out, knowing I’m nervously rambling. Why does this guy make me nervous? He could be a murderer for all I know.
Though technically I am one.
But I didn’t kill those sluggish guys. What if Zander accidentally did? Or worse, what if he purposely got rid of them?
“Corvina-”
“And is there any way someone saw us in the clearing? They could tell someone and then I’d be locked up in the Shadowborn Prison quicker than I could blink, and that can’t happen!”