Page 42 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)
The floor isn't exactly floor—it's a suggestion of solidity that holds only because I believe it should. The moment doubt creeps in, it becomes less solid, more theoretical. I have to walk with confidence, I don't feel, projecting certainty that the universe accepts as temporarily true.
Turn left at the floating astronomy section, Mortimer's voice guides, warm in my mind like whispered secrets. Then up—yes, up, gravity is negotiable here—toward the cluster of red books.
Following his directions feels like those trust exercises where you close your eyes and let someone guide you through obstacles. Except the obstacles are violations of physics, and the guide is a centuries-old dragon prince I just blood-bonded with in ways that definitely weren't scholarly.
The floating books part as I pass, some following in my wake like curious pets.
One particularly insistent tome keeps bumping against my shoulder until I grab it.
The title shifts as I look at it—sometimes reading "Dimensional Navigation for Beginners," sometimes "Why Your Academy Collapsed: A Primer," sometimes just "HELP" in increasingly frantic fonts.
I tuck it under my arm. Might be useful, might be sentient, cry for assistance.
Either way, abandoning it feels wrong.
Good instinct, Mortimer approves. Books choose readers as much as readers choose books. That one wants to be helpful.
The warmth of his approval makes the bond mark pulse with pleasure that's entirely inappropriate for the situation.
I force myself to focus on navigation rather than how different everything feels with dragon blood warming my veins, dragon magic tingling at my fingertips, dragon scholar whispering guidance directly into my thoughts.
"How do I know which room is whose?"
Feel for your bonds. Each one resonates differently. Cassius will feel like shadows given form. Nikolai like spring wind carrying winter's memory. Atticus ? —
Like blood and copper and violence barely contained, I finish, already sensing it.
The pull is different from the others—my wrist mark burning with specific frequency that draws me toward a door floating at a perpendicular angle to my current orientation.
You'll have to jump, Mortimer warns. Trust the space to catch you.
"Easy for you to say," I mutter, but take the leap anyway.
The sensation of falling sideways is nauseating until suddenly it's not falling at all—it's standing on a new surface that insists it's always been the floor, that my previous orientation was the weird one.
The door is in front of me now, carved from wood so dark it seems to absorb light. Iron bands cross it in patterns that hurt to look at directly, and the handle is shaped like a fang.
Definitely Atticus's room.
Be careful, Mortimer warns. His trial will play on his nature—vampire impulses, ancient pride, the constant battle between control and hunger. You might not like what you find.
"I can handle it."
The conviction in my voice surprises me. But it's true—I've seen Atticus at his worst, blood-drunk and violent. I've seen him at his best, protective and devoted. Whatever lies beyond this door, it's still him.
"Besides," I add, hand on the fang-handle, "I have dragon fire now if things get too intense."
Mortimer's mental laughter is warm honey poured directly into my thoughts.
Please don't set Atticus on fire.
"No promises."
I turn the handle before I can lose my nerve.
The door swings open on silent hinges, revealing darkness so complete it makes the void between stars look bright.
Vampire darkness. The kind that doesn't just absence light but actively devours it.
I take a breath that tastes of copper and old blood, then step through.
The door slams behind me with finality that suggests it won't open again until whatever trial awaits is complete. The darkness presses against me from all sides, thick enough to swim through, cold enough to make my teeth chatter despite the dragon fire warming my blood.
"Atticus?"
My voice doesn't echo—it's swallowed, consumed by hungry darkness that wants more than sound.
I'm losing connection, Mortimer warns, his mental voice already fading. The trial is blocking me. You're on your own until ? —
Silence.
Not just the absence of his voice but the absence of the bond itself, like something has severed the connection temporarily. I'm alone in darkness that might be infinite or might be coffin-small—impossible to tell without reference points.
Then I hear it.
Breathing that isn't mine.
Slow, deliberate, predatory.
The sound of something that's been waiting for prey to finally enter its web.
"Hello, Queen of Spades."
Atticus's voice, but wrong. Older. Hungrier.
The voice of a vampire who's forgotten why he ever pretended to be human.
"Welcome to my parlor."
Red eyes open in the darkness—not two but dozens, all Atticus but also not, each pair representing different hunger, different decade, different version of control slowly slipping away.
"We need to talk about what you've done to me."
The darkness shifts, and suddenly I understand what Mortimer meant about trials being individualized. This isn't just about rescuing Atticus.
This is about confronting what our bond has become, what it's making him become.
What I've made him become by feeding him my blood, by changing his fundamental nature with every exchange.
"Okay," I say to the darkness and all its eyes. "Let's talk."
The eyes blink in unison, and when they open again, they're closer.
Much closer.
"Let's start," all the versions of Atticus say in harmony that shouldn't exist, "with how you taste like dragon now."
The bond mark on my wrist burns with a warning that comes too late.
The trial has begun.
And I'm starting to understand why Mortimer was worried.