Page 29 of Beasts of Shadows #1

We aren’t supposed to be out after dark.

Not unchaperoned. Not unarmed.

But Samhain rewrites all the rules.

By decree, we’re expected to walk to the fire on foot. No divine escorts. No shortcuts. No patrols watching from the trees.

No talking.

The point, we’re told, is the walk itself. To move in silence, honoring the Shadow Realm—and those in the end world.

There was a time when Samhain was the one night deities could leave the Shadow Realm and seek anchor among mortals—driven by vengeance, longing, or need.

Some came to reclaim debts.

Some to whisper warnings.

Some just wanted to be remembered.

Some came to steal lovers.

And some, they say, never went back.

Of course, that was before Calea.

Calea .

I have yet to see the woman who is supposedly going to be my undoing.

But I’ve felt her.

The chill of winter touches Nowhere faster than California. This close to both Vancouver and the Shadow Realm, the wind bites when it shifts.

It carries her presence like smoke—thin, sharp, and impossible to hold. The kind of cold that seeps past coats and skin and marrow. The kind that feels personal.

She hasn’t shown her face. Not to me.

But I think she’s watching.

Waiting.

Cody walks beside me, silent as the grave.

He doesn’t complain when the shadows thicken or the path narrows into a winding trail carved between black pines and bleached rock. Just walks. One hand curled around the hilt of his knife. The other swinging loose at his side.

The further we go, the stranger the light becomes.

Jack-o’-lanterns line the path—

Some carved with faces, others with symbols I don’t recognize.

Spirals. Antlers. Eyes.

Each one lit from within, glowing like a ward or a warning.

And then the drums begin.

Low at first—distant, slow and steady, like a heartbeat echoing through the hills. Then chanting joins it, carried on wind and smoke, voices rising and falling in an old tongue no one translates anymore.

And finally, through the trees—

Torchlight flickers. Not electric. Not mortal. Flame—gold and orange and bone-white—moving in a wide, snaking line down toward the ridge. A procession.

The fire is calling.

The night presses close.

“Remind me.” Avril’s shoulders twitch in silent judgment as she turns to glare at me. “What exactly happens at this thing?”

Cody’s voice is rough, half-breathless from the climb. “Bonfire. Offerings. Some fancy chants. Students get… weird.”

“How weird?”

“Shh!” Avril snaps, her fierce eyes catching the nearby flames. “The procession is meant to be silent. In honor of the dead.”

I bite my lip, glancing back at Cody.

Avril confessed to Stella and me last night that her brothers died in a gang shootout. She was hoping—praying—one of them might visit the Mortal Realm tonight.

It’s not exactly a sentiment I understand.

The only person I ever knew who died was Ravi.

And I certainly never wanted him wandering around on Samhain, haunting me.

At least I don’t have to worry about that this year.

The procession winds down the final stretch of trail. Dirt turns to stone, slick with moss and frost, and the jack-o’-lanterns grow closer together, pulsing softly like breath.

Someone up ahead coughs and gets immediately shushed.

When we crest the ridge, the world opens into a clearing ringed with ancient pines and white flame torches. The bonfire sits at the center—taller than any of us, its flames burning too steadily, too silently, for anything natural.

Figures move around it. Faculty in long ceremonial coats. One of the Lycean twins holds a curved blade and a silver bowl. Someone’s already crying.

A horn sounds. Hollow and low, like something carved from bone. The students closest to the circle part, clearing a path.

Mistress Burrows steps into view.

She wears a black velvet coat lined in ash-white fur, her hair braided down her back and fastened with crow feathers. Her bare hands are covered in ink—symbols I can’t read curling up her fingers and wrists.

The flames don’t waver as she raises her arms. “We gather,” she says, voice like flint on stone. “In silence. In shadow. In the wake of what was lost.”

A ripple of energy passes through the crowd. Cold and dry. Like static, but older.

“Tonight, the veil thins. Tonight, we honor the ones who crossed before us. Those we failed. Those we carry. Those who never left.”

As she speaks, figures flicker into being. Mauled faces, solemn eyes.

The dead. Those killed here, on the island, in sacrifice to the gods.

A girl stands beside me, the flesh on her face torn in three places. Her hands are wrapped around a necklace, and when she catches me looking, she lifts the chain into the light.

I stagger, then trip completely. The split second motion is enough to save me from the launching form of a wendigo. It brings down the girl beside me, her Athena chain ripped out of her bloodied hand.

This is the girl who died when I stumbled on the assessment. Her eyes are accusatory, and the only thing I can be thankful for is that spirits cannot speak. Cannot accuse.

I look back to Mistress Burrows, my heart thumping.

Someone hands her a bowl. Another gives her a dagger.

“Each student will offer something willingly. A part of the self. A piece of the past. A wound you still wear.”

Her gaze sweeps the line—and for a moment, it lands on me.

The crowd starts to move again, slow and solemn. One by one, we step toward the fire.

Cody bumps my arm lightly. “You brought something?”

I nod. In my coat pocket, my fingers close around a tiny, cream bone carving. It’s the same one Nikolai gave Ashki on the Mary Celeste. The seal. She returned it to me after we said our goodbyes. I don’t know if she meant it as protection or penance.

But ever since then, it’s felt like it burned through every pocket I kept it in. Not because it held power. But because of who made it.

Nikolai carved it. With that same ruthless precision he carries in everything he does. He didn’t give it to me, but somehow it ended up mine. Another unspoken rule I never agreed to. Another thread in the web of divine games I didn’t ask to be a piece of.

I don’t know what the seal means . A promise? A claim? A warning?

All I know is it came from him—and it stayed.

Too long.

The procession crawls forward. Offerings fall into the fire—ripped letters, stained cloth, a cracked cassette. The flames accept each one in silence. No judgment. No mercy.

I draw the carving from my pocket.

The ghost beside me shifts—just slightly—but it’s enough. Her split-open face turns toward the bone in my hand. Her cloudy eyes narrow with something like recognition. Or resentment.

She doesn’t speak—can’t. But the way she looks at it…

It’s not just the gods watching.

Her life paid for mine. And now, here she is, staring at a token I didn’t earn. One that didn’t even belong to me.

My fingers tighten around the bone carving. The grooves bite into my palm.

It’s warm again. Like it’s trying to stay.

I’m done carrying other people’s symbols like they belong to me.

I step forward, raise the seal into the firelight.

The ghost leans closer, hungry or hollow—I can’t tell which.

“This doesn’t belong to me,” I whisper.

But it’s mine to burn.

I drop it into the fire.

The flames surge—not loud, but sharp . A flash of white-hot light bursts at the center, silent and searing. I feel it in my teeth.

When it fades, the carving is gone.

The ghost girl beside me closes her eyes.

And then she’s gone too.

Just... gone.

I take a shaky breath and step back, my hands empty.

The fire accepts the offering.

And whatever that seal was—whatever it meant—

It doesn’t define me anymore.

Cody brushes my elbow. “You good?”

“Ready for bed,” I tease, unable to shake the chill still dancing up my spine.

Cody grins.

“Don’t worry, that’s the worst of it. Now…it’s time to party.”

#

The worst part is how normal it all feels.

After the fire, after the chanting, after the offerings and the ghosts, we party.

Because that’s what we’re supposed to do. To remember the dead and celebrate the living. To reclaim the night before winter takes it all. Before Calea takes everything.

The ceremonial robes fall one by one.

Silk puddles at our feet. Velvet melts into the frost-bitten earth. The bonfire throws white flame across our faces, casting everyone in stark relief—unmasked, unarmored, exposed.

And I look.

Because now that Nikolai’s ward is gone—burned, swallowed, accepted—I feel it. The absence.

There’s nothing left between me and tonight but flesh and fun.

Cat looks like a divine hitwoman who got bored with heaven.

Her black tactical pants—clearly borrowed from Bri—are cut high and tight, slit at the thighs with gold mesh.

Her halter bralette gleams with embroidered fangs, and the twin blades strapped to her boots aren’t part of the costume.

Thin gold chains dangle from her ears like whiskers, and her eyeliner could kill a god.

She smirks at me. “You like? Bastet meets Bond.”

“Dangerously on brand,” I mutter.

Cody didn’t even try to pretend. He’s in black jeans, scuffed boots, and a vintage Dead Man’s Bones tee layered under a leather jacket I’d bet money is lined with wards. His bone pendant flashes when he moves. Gloves stay on. Always.

“Costume?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Death doesn’t need accessories.”

He’s not wrong.

Geneir and Reema step into the firelight like they rehearsed the moment.

She’s Macha, of the Morrigan. All blood-slick silk and sharp edges—her crimson gown cut like armor, her braid twisted into a crown laced with iron thread. Her lips are the same color as her dress. Her presence commands.

And he’s the Hound—coiled and war-stained. His dark leathers are torn in all the right places, a heavy chain looped around one fist, streaks of red painted across his jaw like war paint. His smile dares anyone to challenge her.

They don’t just match—they mirror each other. Power and destruction. Madness and loyalty.

“Couples costume,” I say dryly.