Page 24

Chapter 23

Selestina

T he cool night air makes me shiver as I step outside the academy walls, my senses attuned to every sound. It's late, too late to be wandering around alone, but I need the quiet, the solitude. It's the only time I can let my guard down, even for just a moment. The academy feels too suffocating lately, like the walls are closing in.

I wrap my arms around myself, looking up at the night sky, my mind racing in a hundred directions. Alexander's orders. The princes. The shadows. My murder. Which is sounding more and more like it is actually a possibility and not just the coroner's mistake. It feels like everything is reaching a breaking point, and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold it all together.

But as I move across the courtyard, something seems wrong.

I stop, my heart slowing as I listen, my body already racing into survival mode. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I feel eyes on me. I turn, scanning, but there's nothing. No one .

Except…there. A shadow stirs, slipping from the trees near the edge of the courtyard.

I tense, my hand instinctively going to the dagger hidden beneath my cloak. I wait for them to attack. Let them have the first move.

Out of the darkness steps Eztli Moreno. His eyes are wild, his face pale in the moonlight, and there is something off in the way he's moving. Unhinged. Manic.

“Selestina,” he snaps, a crazed grin spreading across his face as he stalks toward me. “You thought you could hide. Thought you could fool everyone, didn't you? But I know. I know who you are.”

I freeze, my blood going cold. I don't move, don't breathe. “What the hell are you talking about?” I say, voice low, cautious.

My mind's screaming at me while doing everything to keep my face a blank mask.

He laughs, the sound shrill and unhinged. “Don't play dumb with me. We know exactly who you are. You're not just some nobody human.” His eyes narrow, manic intensity burning in their depths. “You're the Shadow Reaper.”

I freeze, the words hanging between us like a death sentence.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say, my voice tight. But it's too late. I can see it in his eyes. He's already convinced, and nothing I say will change that.

Eztli takes a step closer to me, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Oh, you think you're so clever? But I've been following you. Following your every move. And now, I'm going to expose you.” His voice is rising, manic and gleeful. “You're done for, Selestina.”

A flare of panic rises in my chest, but I tamp it down, keeping my face neutral. “You don't want to do this,” I say calmly. “Whatever you think you know, you don't. Just walk away.”

But he doesn't listen. He lunges at me, a dagger flashing in his hand.

Instinct takes over, and before he can even blink, I've disarmed him. My movements are quick, precise, too quick for someone who's just a student. Too quick for a nobody human, like he said. His dagger clatters to the ground, and I have him pinned against a nearby tree, my dagger pressed to his throat. His wild eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I think he might actually be afraid.

But then he laughs.

It is not the laugh of a lost man; it is that of a man who knows something I don't.

“You can't stop what's coming,” he says in a low, husky tone.

Before I can move, before I can utter a word, Eztli reaches for something hanging around his neck, a little vial filled with dark liquid. My heart lurches in my chest as I realize what he is about to do.

“Eztli, no-”

But it's too late. He uncorks the vial and downs the liquid in one gulp, his eyes never leaving mine. A strange glow overtakes his skin, his body trembling as he lets out another laugh, this time twisted and unnatural.

And then, in another instant, before I can stop him, he disintegrates.

One second he is there, grinning like a maniac, the next, he is gone.

I stumble backward, my dagger still clutched in my hand, my breathing raspy. What the fuck just happened?

He's a freaking demonio. He could have shadowed out of my grasp. He did not have to go and off himself .

Shit.

I spin around, trying to steady myself, trying to make sense of it all, but the world tilts beneath me. My heart is racing, my chest tight. The panic I had been holding at bay slams into me full force, and I can't breathe. I can't think.

I buckle under my weight and land on the ground, wheezing as the panic burrows talons into my throat. My vision begins to blur, my hands are icy cold, and I’m shaking uncontrollably.

Not here. Not now.

He said we.

We know who you are.

I press my palms into the chilling earth, trying to find my grounding, trying to find purchase and pull myself back from this spiral. But it's no use. The fear, anxiety, guilt, it’s too much.