Page 45 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

The key to helping separate Gabriel and me, giving us both the chance at independent existence we were denied. Even if it's not a permanent solution— even if it only works temporarily —it would be enough to prove we could exist separately.

"Gabriel?" I call out softly, hoping he might manifest in this space that's so fundamentally ours.

But there's no response.

No shift in the air that suggests his presence. He's been silent since we entered the labyrinth, and worry gnaws at me. Is he trapped in his own trial somewhere in our shared consciousness? Is the dimensional collapse affecting him differently?

My panic must resonate to Mortimer, because his voice hums in the depths of my mind.

Focus on what you can control, Mortimer's voice advises. One crisis at a time.

He's right.

I carefully tear out the magazine page, folding it with reverence before tucking it into my jacket. This information is too important to lose.

"Thank you," I tell the room, the books, the memories they've preserved.

The books flutter in response, a sound like applause made of paper. One small picture book bonks against my hand affectionately before floating away.

As I move toward the door, I feel it—the pulse of shadow magic that's uniquely Cassius.

He's close, his room somewhere nearby in the impossible geography of this place.

Be careful, Mortimer warns. His trial will be different from Atticus's. Shadows turned inward become something else entirely.

"I know," I murmur, already moving toward the pull of our bond. I have a feeling I’m going to get my ass beat by tendrils, and not in the pleasureable way I would have secretly enjoyed.

The door to Cassius's room is exactly what I expected—pure shadow given form, darkness so complete it seems to absorb surrounding light. But there are cracks in it, thin lines of silver that suggest something breaking through from inside.

Or breaking out.

Grim makes a worried "gree" sound, hiding behind my hair.

"It's okay," I tell him, though I'm not entirely sure that's true. "Cassius won't hurt us."

Cassius won't, Mortimer agrees carefully. But whatever the trial has made him believe he is might.

The warning sends chills down my spine, but I've come too far to hesitate now. My hand finds the shadow-door's handle— cold enough to burn, dark enough to blind —and I turn it.

The door opens silently, revealing darkness that makes Atticus's trial look bright by comparison.

But this darkness isn't empty.

It's full of mirrors.

Hundreds of them, each one reflecting different versions of Cassius.

Some show him as the controlled prince of shadows I know.

Others show him younger, angrier, covered in blood that might be his or might be others'.

Still others show possibilities—Cassius crowned in darkness, Cassius alone in empty realm, Cassius corrupted by power until shadows consume rather than serve.

And in the center of it all, the real Cassius stands perfectly still.

His eyes are closed, shadows writhing around him in patterns that speak of internal war. He doesn't react to the door opening, doesn't acknowledge my presence.

Because in his trial, he's fighting himself.

All his selves.

Every version he could have been, should have been, fears becoming.

"Cassius," I call softly.

Every reflection turns to look at me simultaneously, hundreds of silver eyes opening in perfect synchronization.

"You shouldn't be here," they all say in harmony that makes reality shiver. "We're dangerous. We've always been dangerous. We just got better at hiding it."

The words are delivered with such certainty that I almost believe them. Almost.

But I know better.

I know him better.

"You're not dangerous," I tell them all, stepping into the room despite Grim's worried noises. "You're controlled. There's a difference."

"Control is just delayed violence," the reflections respond. "We're going to hurt you eventually. It's what shadows do—consume light until nothing remains."

"Then why haven't you?"

The question makes the reflections pause, their synchronized movement breaking into individual confusion.

"We've had countless opportunities," I continue, moving deeper into the mirror maze. "You could have let me die in the trials. Could have used our bond to control rather than protect. Could have taken instead of given."

"We wanted to," some reflections admit.

"We still want to," others add.

"But we won't," I say with certainty that makes the shadows pause. "Because that's what control actually means. Not the absence of dangerous impulses but the choice not to act on them."

The real Cassius—I can identify him now by the way his shadows move with purpose rather than pattern—finally opens his eyes.

"You don't understand what I really am," he says, and his voice carries exhaustion of someone who's been fighting himself for hours, days, centuries. "What I could become if I stop holding back."

"Then show me," I challenge, moving closer to him through the maze of mirrors. "Show me the worst version of yourself. Let me see what you're so afraid of."

The shadows explode outward.

Not attacking—revealing.

Every mirror shatters simultaneously, but instead of falling, the fragments hang in air, each one showing different memory, different moment where Cassius chose control over violence.

I see him as a child, shadows responding to rage by destroying everything around him. I see him learning control through pain, binding his own shadows until they cut into his soul. I see him alone in the shadow realm, refusing connections because closeness means vulnerability.

I see him watching others with hunger he won't acknowledge, wanting things he won't take.

Alone…

As time goes on, like a ticking clock, only time of hesitation has continued its journey with him through the years, as the world has left him to be alone because his nature to them deserves to be just that.

Abandoned.

Discarded.

Trapped in his own dismay.

"This is what you're fighting," I realize, understanding flooding through me. "Not external enemies but internal possibilities. You're so afraid of what you could become that you're paralyzing yourself."

"Better paralyzed than monstrous," he responds, but the certainty is cracking.

"You're not a monster," I tell him, finally reaching him in the center of the shattered mirrors. "You're just someone who's been alone so long you've forgotten that shadows can protect as well as consume."

My hand reaches out, not hesitating despite the writhing shadows that could destroy me if they chose. They part for me, recognizing something that Cassius himself seems to have forgotten.

"I trust you," I tell him, my palm pressing against his chest where his heart beats with rhythm that matches mine through our bond. "Not because you're safe but because you choose to be safe for me."

The shadows still.

All of them, all at once, freezing mid-writhe as if reality itself has paused to process this declaration.

"That's not enough," he whispers, but his hand covers mine, holding it against his chest. "Trust isn't enough to change nature."

"It's not about changing nature," I explain, understanding arriving as I speak it. "I’m not asking you to change, my King. It's about accepting it. You are shadows. You are darkness. You are everything people fear when the lights go out."

His expression shifts to pain, as if I'm confirming his worst fears.

"But," I continue, "you're also protection in that darkness. You're the shadow that shelters. The darkness that hides the wounded while they heal. The night that gives rest from burning day."

"Shadows and darkness aren't evil, Cassius. They're just the other half of light. And I need both."

The words seem to echo through the broken mirror fragments, each reflection showing different understanding, different acceptance, different possibility.

"I could still hurt you," he warns, but the certainty is gone.

"You could," I agree. "So could Mortimer with his dragon fire. So could Atticus with his vampire hunger. So could Nikolai with his Fae magic. Power always carries the possibility of harm."

I step closer, eliminating the last distance between us.

"But you won't. Not because you can't but because you choose not to. That's not weakness—that's the ultimate strength."

The shadows around us shift, and suddenly the mirrors reform—but different now. Instead of showing possibilities of corruption, they show moments of protection. Every time Cassius used his shadows to shield rather than strike. Every moment of gentleness hidden in darkness.

"This is also you," I tell him. "This is equally true."

He looks around at the new reflections, seeing himself perhaps for the first time not as restrained monster but as chosen protector.

"I'm tired of fighting myself," he admits, the words escaping like confession.

"Then stop," I suggest simply. "Accept what you are—all of it—and choose what you do with it."

The trial space shudders, reality reasserting itself as the psychological loop breaks. The mirrors fade, the excessive darkness recedes, and we're left standing in a room that's solidifying into something more normal.

Well, as normal as a floating room in a dimensional labyrinth can be.

Cassius pulls me against him suddenly, not aggressive but desperate, his face burying in my neck as his shadows wrap around us both.

I melt in his hold like butter, taking in his scent like its a lifeline while closing my eyes.

He can feel the calm he delivers to me, and maybe that helps him realize he’s not a monster.

He’s not one to me anyways.

"I thought I'd lost myself," he whispers against my skin. "The trial kept showing me becoming everything I fear, and I couldn't tell what was real anymore."

"You're real," I assure him, holding him just as tightly. "We're real. Everything else is just possibility, not certainty."

I hug him even tighter.

“But you’re safe. A lover and protector. And see? Your shadows didn’t hurt me.”

“GREE!” Grim agrees, which makes me smile further as I tighten my hold on Cassius. I expected to be in agony with this trial but this trial was clearly an emotional confrontation than a physical manifestation of torture.

We stay like that until his shaking stops, until his shadows calm from writhing to resting, until he can pull back and look at me with silver eyes that hold recognition instead of fear.

"The others?"

"Atticus is safe, resting with Mortimer. We still need to find Nikolai and Zeke."

He nods, understanding immediately that we need to move, to continue the rescue before the labyrinth adapts again.

"Together?" he asks, and there's vulnerability in the question.

"Together," I confirm as I stroke his cheek, going on my tiptoes to kiss him gently. He kisses me back, not as hesitant now, though I can still feel those strings of concern, which will surely fade as time goes by. He’ll be okay, just like we all will when we make it though. .

As we prepare to leave his trial room, I think about what I learned in the nursery. About Gabriel and me, about the necklace that might separate us, about the true history hidden in children's books.

But also about what each trial is teaching us.

Atticus faced his fear of loss and learned to trust presence.

Cassius faced his fear of himself and learned to accept his nature.

What will Nikolai's trial reveal? What will Zeke's?

And perhaps more importantly—what trial am I going through, walking through this labyrinth collecting the people who've become essential to my existence?

Understanding yourself, the book had said.

Maybe that's what this is.

Not just rescuing others but understanding what they mean to me, what I mean to them, what we're becoming together as a unit surviving the wicked turmoils of this academy.

Which brings us back to the foundation of Wicked Academy’s creation…

Was it out of love that was tainted by the unexpected deaths and coiled into a sinful rumor that no longer reflects is purpose?

The labyrinth shifts around us as we exit, more aggressive now with three of us free from trials.

I have Grim floating at my shoulder, Mortimer's voice in my mind, Atticus waiting in our safe room, and Cassius's shadows protecting our path.

Soon I'll have Nikolai and Zeke too.

And then, together, we'll either escape this labyrinth or confront whatever is waiting for us at the “end”.

The end that can potentially lead us to the final year of this wicked paradise…revealing whatever truth has been held by the one person we’ve yet to confront in this journey.

The sister of a mastermind…