Page 37 of Immortal Consequences (The Souls of Blackwood Academy #1)

Masika

Masika didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like she could just pretend she hadn’t heard Irene call for her mother. But she also knew trying to bring it up would be pointless. Irene would grow defensive. She’d bury herself inside that iron fortress and lock the doors, shutting Masika out completely.

“Are you okay?” Masika pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet.

They’d landed on what appeared to be an open road, flanked on either side by dark clouds and a blanket of stars. A single streetlight hovered above them, the flashing red light washing the concrete in a faded crimson hue.

“I’m fine.” Irene dusted off her knees as she stood up. “Let’s just keep moving.”

“Do you…” Masika cleared her throat. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Irene stalked forward, ignoring Masika’s question. “We need to find the next door.”

“Look,” Masika sighed, following after her. “You don’t have to pretend like everything is fine. If you need to talk about your mother—”

“Don’t.” Irene whirled around, eyes blazing with anger. “I’m serious, Masi. That topic is off-limits and you know it.”

“Your past doesn’t go away if you ignore it.” Masika knew she was pushing her luck, but she figured she’d never have another opportunity to talk about it. “The more you pretend it doesn’t exist, the more it consumes you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Irene spat out, venom lacing her words. “Taking nightly trips to Memorium. Crying yourself to sleep.” Masika flinched, only fueling Irene’s tirade. “What? You thought I didn’t know? That I hadn’t noticed you writing those pathetic letters and leaving them in Memorium.”

Masika clenched her fists. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Irene let out a bark of laughter. “Seriously? You can’t lecture me about accepting my past when you’re still so clearly living in yours.”

“That’s…that’s different.”

“How? I mean, we’ve been friends since I got here, and this entire time you’ve refused to tell me who you lost to the Demien Order.

How the hell do you expect me to open up to you about my old life when you don’t tell me anything?

We’re supposed to be friends, and it feels like there’s just this…

this trench. This massive, gaping rift between us.

And no matter what, you’ll never open up and just tell me—”

“Her name was Catherine.”

Silence fell between them as the words tumbled out of Masika’s mouth. She hadn’t meant to say them out loud, but they’d sprung out of her without warning.

Irene blinked, stunned. It was hard to decipher what she was thinking, but Masika could sense a cloud of uncertainty hovering over her.

“Catherine.” Irene repeated the name slowly. “And she was your…” Her voice faded as she struggled to find the right answer.

Masika sighed. “Friend…at first. And then I suppose you could have called her my girlfriend. Though now it’s hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t.”

She waited for Irene to say something. The streetlight creaked above them, the noise mixing with the roar of the wind.

When Irene finally did speak, her voice was softer, no longer equipped to kill. “Did she…did she tell you why she left?”

“Kind of.” Masika swallowed the lump in her throat. “If you count a barely legible note left on my nightstand.”

She would have preferred for Catherine to have left nothing behind. Her note had only made things worse. The part that didn’t make any sense, that still didn’t, was how quickly it had all happened.

Shouldn’t Masika have noticed something? A change in her demeanor? A shift in her tone? But everything had seemed fine, until it wasn’t. And once Masika had realized what had happened—it was too late.

She had lost her.

But that had always been Masika’s fatal flaw—she could delude herself about anything, convince herself that everything was fine, even when reality itself was crumbling.

When she was crumbling.

“She shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”

The words caught Masika by surprise, bringing her back to reality. “What?”

“Catherine. She shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. Properly. She should have at least had the decency to tell you to your face.”

They stared at one another for a moment. Irene seemed to be on the precipice of saying something else, her mouth opening and closing, but she must have changed her mind, because she simply shook her head and said, “We should keep moving. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

Masika wasn’t going to push her luck. It was clear that Irene had no intention of continuing the conversation, and that was simply going to have to be the end of it.

They walked along the paved road in resolute silence.

Time moved differently in the Ether, so it was nearly impossible to tell if it had been five minutes or five hours.

Everything seemed to bleed together, like the feeling of waking up from a dream.

Eventually, they crossed through the final door, which led them to another landscape—a forest of redwood trees dotted with powdery snow.

The sky above them was a pale lilac shade, two crescent moons illuminating the dense forest, enveloping the landscape in an ethereal glow.

Masika shivered, wrapping her arms around her chest. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

And that was when she spotted the small yellow cottage tucked within the trees.

Thick, rotten branches encircled the house like a cage—jagged thorns sticking out from each one. Dark storm clouds hovered directly over the rooftop, thunder rumbling deep within.

“Great,” Irene muttered, teeth chattering. “That’s at least two different wards over the house.”

She was right. Various protective wards had been placed around the target soul, each one more complicated than the last. It was normal for lost souls to create their own wards, a way for them to prolong their inevitable crossing, but these barriers seemed deliberate. Expertly detailed and complex.

“These wards weren’t naturally created,” noted Masika as they approached the cottage. “I bet these were placed as part of the trial.”

“Well, good thing we have you.” Irene nudged her. “Defensive magic does seem to be your specialty lately.”

Masika smirked. Of course. Irene was still slightly bothered by Masika’s ability to dismantle the ward outside Calligan’s office.

Masika approached the house and glanced into the front window. Through the foggy glass, she could see the target soul standing at the foot of a bed. It was a kid. A girl no more than eight or nine. She had dirty-blond hair and unruly bangs falling over her eyes, rosy cheeks soaked with tears.

And, more importantly, she was staring down at her dying body.

Nobody knew exactly why certain souls found themselves unable to cross over, stuck between the world of the living and the Other Side.

It had been vaguely explained to Masika upon first arriving at Blackwood.

Lost souls died with a set of perfect ingredients—a traumatic death, excessive baggage, and a relentless desperation to hold on, no matter the cost.

Which meant that most people who died could cross over without a hiccup. But there were a stubborn few who needed theirhelp.

She reached her hand out, examining the pointed thorns sprouting from the thick branches. Strings of gold trickled from her fingertips, wrapping around each individual thorn like a cocoon.

Masika glanced over her shoulder. “You want to help with the other side?”

“Already on it.”

They worked in silence. It was a tedious and arduous process, one that required total concentration. Masika could feel herself becoming increasingly drained, a palpable exhaustion weighing down her bones.

She was being leached of her magic.

With every push, with every inch of the ward she dismantled, a dense pressure swept over her, inundating her with fatigue. By the time she finished dismantling her side of the ward, she could barely keep her eyes open.

Irene hobbled over, snow crunching beneath her boots. The skin beneath her eyes had begun to darken, a constellation of broken blood vessels marring her face. Masika had no doubt that she probably looked just as wrecked.

“Finished.”

Masika nodded, fiddling with the last of her section. “I’m about done.”

“They really outdid themselves with this one,” muttered Irene with a scowl. “Imagine if we hadn’t partnered up. It would have taken you hours. ”

Masika could only nod in response. She’d suddenly become too tired to formulate coherent sentences.

“Well, let’s get this over with.” Irene stepped forward, walking straight through the wall as if it were nothing but air. Masika followed after her. The wallpaper on the other side was chipped and peeling, the floorboards rotten and warped. The more decay present, the more the soul was suffering.

A brief yet overwhelming rush of sorrow struck Masika’s chest.

She’s only a child.

For a moment, the little girl didn’t appear to notice them, too fixated on her dying body to pay them any mind. But then Irene cleared her throat and the little girl’s gaze snapped up to meet hers.

“Hello,” Irene said simply. “What’s your name?”

The little girl gawked up at her in disbelief, jaw slack and eyes wide. Irene shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. When the little girl remained silent, Irene leaned forward and snapped her fingers in front of her face.

“ Helloooo? Can you hear me?”

“Don’t snap at her,” Masika bristled. “She’s not a dog.”

“Well, what the hell is wrong with her? She’s catatonic!”

“Just give her a second,” Masika pleaded.

Irene scoffed. “I don’t have a second. We have to go find my soul next, remember?”

“I thought you said you weren’t worried about being late.”

“I’m not!”

And then a noise cut through the air. A biting, grating noise that shocked them into silence.

The little girl had begun to sob, wailing with her head thrown back and tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, no.” Irene staggered backward, horrified. “No. Absolutely not. You deal with that.”

Masika winced as she approached the young girl. Her cries were earsplitting, like fingernails scraping against a chalkboard. But as Masika knelt in front of her, dropping to her eye level, the little girl’s cries subsided into a muffled sniffle.

“Hey,” Masika whispered, wiping a tear from the child’s face. “Are you okay?”

The girl rubbed her eyes. “Am I…am I really…am I really—”

“Jesus Christ,” Irene muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Masika shot her a warning glare. Irene rolled her eyes and mimed zipping her lips.

She turned back toward the girl. “Don’t worry. We’re here to help. It’s time for you to pass on.”

“Pass on?”

“You get to cross over. And only the very best souls get to crossover.”

The little girl tried glancing back at her body, but Masika stepped in front of her, delicately placing the tip of her finger against the girl’s chin and angling her face toward her. “I wouldn’t fixate on that. How about we get you ready to cross over? Does that sound like a good idea?”

The little girl nodded, wiping her face. “But…will I see my family again?”

“Yes,” Masika lied. “They’ll cross over and find you.”

It wasn’t a certainty. Nothing was. Masika had no way of knowing whether the girl’s parents would cross over as Corrupted Souls or if they’d make it to the Other Side.

But Masika knew there was no point in divulging that information to the kid, not unless she wanted to prolong the process for the rest of eternity.

“I’m scared.” The little girl whimpered. “Will it hurt?”

“No,” Masika assured her, lightly placing her hand against her cheek. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

There it was. The familiar glow emanating from the child’s body. The sign that her soul was ready to cross over.

Masika’s magic sparked in recognition—a buzzing in her limbs and a warmth pooling in her chest. The golden sphere of light traveled through her body and down her arms, spreading into each individual finger.

And before the little girl could second-guess what was about to happen, Masika lunged forward, shoving her fist through the young girl’s chest, deep into the core of hersoul.

For a moment—Masika could see everything.

Feel everything. The little girl’s entire life laid out before her, playing in her mind like a broken record.

Every painful memory. Every heartbreak. Tears shed, hidden beneath covers.

Hopes shattered before they could reach fruition.

But glimmers of light floated within the darkness.

Moments of happiness. Of unfiltered joy.

Her first day of school. Riding in the car with her parents, warm air trickling in through the window and the faint scent of jasmine perfume.

Kisses before bedtime and magical stories whispered between bouts of laughter.

So much laughter. It echoed against her skull, ringing out for all eternity, consuming every inch of Masika’s mind.

And then it stopped.

The little girl’s form began to fade, her limbs growing translucent, until the only thing left in front of them was a single light, a glowing wisp hovering in the air.

The light flickered—and then she was gone.

Masika collapsed onto her knees seconds after, her head swimming violently and stomach churning.

Irene approached her, squatting down next to her. Her lips curved into a wry smile.

“Ready for the next one?”