Page 38 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

It can’t be easy.

To offer your heart to something carved from shadow—something quiet and cold, stitched together with old wounds and the echoes of lives they no longer speak of.

They feel things deeply, but rarely show it.

And when they do, it comes out wrong—sharp instead of soft.

Silence instead of comfort. Fear where warmth should be.

Loving a shadebound must feel like waiting for a door that never opens. Like pressing your hand to glass and pretending it’s the same as being held.

They don’t mean to hurt the ones who love them. But their grief sits too close. Their memories run too deep. And the more you reach for them, the further they seem to drift into the dark.

Perhaps love was never meant to reach that far. Or if it was—perhaps it was never meant to come back whole.

Chapter Twenty One, Silence

T he floor had stopped vibrating beneath my bed, but the others were still twitching like it hadn’t.

I couldn’t hear the sound, but I could feel the tension of it left behind in the bones of the room, the way air buzzed after a thunderclap.

Sweat-slicked skin. Twitching limbs. Shoulders pulled too tight.

Every time someone so much as shifted under a blanket, their cuffs sparked again.

I couldn’t hear them scream, but I could see the way their mouths opened wide and stayed that way.

Could see the tears standing in the corners of their eyes.

Across the room, I noticed the silver-haired dragon—Veyr, I thought his name was—pull his blanket over his head again.

His arms were curled around his legs, stiff with fear, and the trembling in his bones had got worse over the last hour.

I didn’t know him well, but being a dragon, I presumed he didn’t scare easily.

If he was trying to disappear under a blanket, it wasn’t out of weakness.

It was because whatever this initiation was supposed to do—it was working.

And from what I could tell, it was breaking most of the people in the room.

I had spent most of the night drawing.

My notebook sat propped against my knee, the silver spiderweb design faintly catching the dim light.

The corner was still bent from when I had dropped it off the roof back in the summer.

I had been sketching for hours, letting the pencil keep my hands steady while everything else shook.

My fingers were cramping, but I didn’t stop.

I was drawing my sister.

Not the version of Jinx I remembered from home.

The version I had seen earlier, in the classroom, when her shadows had risen like smoke and formed into a noose around Tyler’s neck.

One moment he was being hostile, and the next he was clawing at his throat, legs kicking against the air, face turning red.

Her shadows had lifted him as if it was nothing. Like he weighed no more than paper.

She did it because of me.

She always did.

Her magic never used to look violent. Not to me.

It was just part of her. Something always there, humming at her fingertips or coiled in the crook of her neck.

She didn’t treat it as a weapon. She used it the way people used a scarf in the cold or a phone to avoid conversation.

Her shadow creatures followed her everywhere, curled around her like a dark breeze.

Even now, even with the cuff on, she hadn’t felt separate from it.

I could still feel the same darkness lingering in the air around her.

But I had started to realise something since arriving at Mors. Something I hadn’t really put together over the last year until I had nowhere else to look.

The only times she used her magic—really used it—were for me.

Jinx hadn’t fought back when Tyler hurt her.

She hadn’t reached for the shadows when she was on the floor, coughing blood and having her bones broken.

She hadn’t raised a single hand to defend herself.

But the second he looked at me—just looked—something snapped.

Her magic burst out and shattered the room despite the cuff digging into her wrist.

It wasn’t just that.

She had sent Silk to follow me the night before.

It took a while until I noticed the soft scrape of something on my shoulder.

Then turned, and there she was—her tiny shadow spider, tucked into the edge of my jumper.

Jinx hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t made a big deal of it.

But she must have worried. And the cuff hadn’t stopped her from sending Silk, because her emotions must’ve spiked again.

She used her magic for me once more.

Not for herself.

I didn’t know if it was a choice, but it felt like one. And I hated it. I hated that she only broke the rules of this place when it was about me. I hated that she didn’t care enough about herself to let her magic protect her. And I hated that she didn’t think she was worth saving.

But I also loved that she cared about me, and that I was still important enough to reach, even in a place like this. I loved being someone she wanted to keep safe. Or that she looked at me and didn’t seem annoyed or disappointed or burdened. She just... cared . Like she always had.

I loved it. And I hated it. Both things lived in my chest at the same time, pulling against each other, making it hard to breathe.

The same way it was when I thought about Bells.

Jinx had always been different. Gothic. Quiet.

She liked dark things and sad songs and people who said honest things instead of polite ones.

She liked blood in stories, and in real life.

But after Bells died, something about her turned inwards.

She stopped trying. Stopped reaching out.

She didn’t stop existing, but she stopped caring about whether she did.

It wasn’t in my head either.

She didn’t know I had seen her that night in the bathroom.

It had been maybe two weeks after Bells’ funeral. After a late night, I’d gone to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I’d thought the room was empty, but the door had been slightly ajar, and that was when I’d seen her.

She was already there. Standing in front of the mirror, crying silently. Her hands were bleeding—she had been punching the glass until the whole thing cracked and split. I hadn’t made a sound to let her know I was there. Though I almost stepped forward.

She hadn’t seen me, and I quickly realised it was better if she didn’t.

She had reached down and picked up one of the shards. With bloodied hands, she had held it for a second. Then she had pressed it to her own throat and pulled.

The blood had hit the sink before I could process what I was looking at. Before I could comprehend my sister had sliced her own throat open, without a single beat of hesitation.

The blood stopped dripping from her neck before I could even think of stumbling forward to save her.

She hadn’t died.

I didn’t understand how.

She should’ve. There had been so much blood, and her eyes had gone so far away. Like she hadn’t even been in her body anymore. I had seen that look before—when she spoke to Death. When she answered him.

But after a few seconds, her throat had knitted back together. Her breathing had remained shallow. Her shoulders had shaken. But her body... it had healed .

I watched her cry harder then.

And then I had left.

I hadn’t said anything. To this day I’d never brought it up. I hadn’t known what to do with it and I still didn’t.

I didn’t know why she had done it. I didn’t know why she carried the guilt as if it were hers to bear. Bells had been my sister too. But Jinx acted as if it had been her fault, like it had been her punishment .

Sometimes I thought she wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for me. Not in an egotistical way, as though I were the centre of her universe. But because when she wasn’t interacting with me or being violent, she did nothing. Nothing at all.

And that thought never stopped hurting.

It was the reason I had come with her to Mors.

It was why I hadn’t been inside my home when the carriage came to get her. Why I’d cleaned my room and left no mess behind. And even packed my notebook and some pens in the hidden pocket of my jumper.

It was why I had followed her even when I had known it was dangerous.

Not a single part of me wanted her to be alone. I hadn’t trusted this place not to destroy her. I hadn’t trusted her not to let it. So I’d decided not to sit back and leave her to die.

Decided that I wasn’t going to lose another sister. Especially to something as ridiculous as a shadebound curse I didn’t believe in. Or misplaced guilt.

Before I’d left, I had written a note for our parents. Jinx didn’t know. I hadn’t wanted her to know.

I had left it in my room. I had explained everything—that I was going to try to keep her safe. That I couldn’t stay home knowing she would never come back. So, I would follow her. I hadn’t been dragged or stolen. That I had chosen it.

I had signed away my life to Mors Academy, and explained it so thoroughly to my parents that they would know I had meant it.

Even though Jinx thought I was clueless, I had known what touching the magic of Mors meant. I hadn’t been stupid. I hadn’t been tricked. For weeks I’d been researching the academy for my sister’s benefit, and I had known I wouldn’t be able to leave once I had crossed the line.

But I had crossed it anyway.

By now, my father would’ve found the note.

My mother would have been back from her witch hangout and trying to stay calm for his sake.

She’d be lighting candles. Holding her wrists too tightly.

Pretending she hadn’t known I would go when my father first used the school as an alternative to prison or death.

They already knew where I was, and that I did not need saving.

And I felt awful that I hadn’t told Jinx.