Page 40 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

T he stairwell up to the peasant student dorms had the echo I liked—every footstep from earlier still seemed to be hanging around, refusing to die properly.

I floated up the last flight backward just because I could, watching the corridor slide underneath me like a ribbon.

Doors lined both sides, each with its own little shrine of personality: a crooked charm hung on one, a stack of dog-eared romance novels by another, a very serious row of polished boots outside a third.

Living made clutter; dying gave you all the time in the world to judge it.

I drifted through the first door on the left, then the next, passing like breath through plaster.

In one room a girl had fallen asleep mid-essay, ink bled into her cheek from where it had kissed the parchment.

I wiggled the tip of the quill until it rolled off the desk and tapped her wrist. She snuffled and swatted at air.

In another, a pair of roommates snored in perfect counterpoint, an ugly little symphony that made me clap once, delighted, before I remembered no one could hear it.

I considered trying to wake them just to see what kind of chaos would bloom, then spared them on the grounds that their snoring duet was already punishment enough.

By the time I reached Eris’ corridor, I had seven new opinions about dorm décor and a craving to rearrange someone’s bookshelf by vibes rather than author.

I paused outside her door, listening. The slow tide of sleeping breath greeted me.

As did the tick of the wall clock. Good.

Eris was out. If I timed it right, I could get her to that dreamy between-place where seers noticed edges that weren’t supposed to be there.

I pushed through the wall and let the dark fold around me.

The dorm had that middle-of-the-night stillness where every tiny sound felt like it was holding its breath — the faint click of the wall clock, the flutter of the curtains when the wind found a gap in the stone, the slow, even breathing of the people asleep inside.

It smelt faintly of lavender from one of those freakishly little sachets Eris kept under her pillow.

I drifted in through the wall, letting the quiet wrap around me.

Eris was curled up tight on her side, knees tucked, blankets pulled right up to her chin like the bed might bite.

The moonlight hit her hair and cheek in sharp silver streaks, making her look a little too much like she’d fallen asleep in a painting.

I floated closer, hovering just above her face.

“Eris,” I whispered, stretching her name out like I was trying to tempt a cat out from under a couch. “Eris. Come on, you nutty little thing. Wake up. Waaaake up.”

Nothing.

I sighed and poked at a strand of her hair until it drifted across her forehead.

“Eris, I swear to all that’s unholy, if you make me repeat myself again, I’m going to start singing. And you don’t want that. My voice used to shatter glass. And not in the magical siren way — more in the ‘my school’s choir director once cried in the car park’ way.”

Her face twitched — the smallest flicker. I grinned.

“That’s it. You’re getting there. Follow the sound of my voice, Sleeping Beauty. No, scratch that — you don’t have the budget for a Disney princess. More like... Sleeping Ferret. It’s less glamorous but honestly way more accurate with how jumpy you are.”

Her lashes fluttered, and she made a soft little sound in her throat, pushing herself up onto an elbow like she wasn’t sure what planet she was on. I leant in closer, my voice dropping to something sharper.

“I need you to listen, Eris. This is important. I’ve been trying to get through to you all day, and—”

“Go the fuck back to sleep, Eris. Stop being a freak.”

The voice came from across the room — low, drowsy, but dripping with spite.

Saphira the teenage bitch.

Eris froze, her shoulders folding in like someone had cinched a string around her. She sank back into her pillow, eyes darting to the wall as if pretending she’d never woken in the first place.

I turned my attention to the other bed. Saphira lay sprawled in her sheets like she’d just won a petty beauty contest no one else entered, her hair a dark halo on the pillow.

I drifted close enough to see the little twitch of her mouth — pleased with herself, already moving on from the damage she’d just caused.

“When I was alive,” I murmured, letting the words hang close to her ear, “I used to bully mean girls like you. Only mean girls. And it made me very happy.”

She shivered. Probably not from me, but I chose to take credit.

With a huff, she threw off her blankets and padded toward the door, not bothering to look at Eris again. The latch clicked softly behind her.

Perfect.

I slid under her bed, the space dusty and close, shadows stacking like layers of smoke.

The underside of the frame loomed above me.

My eyes landed on the big, heavy screws anchoring it together — thick enough that once they were gone, the whole thing would be one bad decision away from a complete collapse.

With every ounce of strength I could muster, I gripped the first one, twisting until it gave a reluctant squeal.

“Let’s see how important you feel when you’re eating shit,” I muttered. One by one, the screws came free, clinking softly as I lined them up neatly far under the centre, right where she’d never think to look.

By the time I was done, the frame had a subtle sag to it — like it was already bracing for humiliation. I floated up toward the ceiling, waiting.

The door opened.

Saphira returned with that same lazy, self-satisfied gait, climbing into bed without so much as a glance at Eris. She yanked her covers up, exhaled sharply—

The bed gave an offended groan. There was the tiniest beat of warning before the entire frame dropped out from under her with a teeth-rattling crack. She went down with a startled yelp, the mattress folding her into the wreckage like an angry sandwich.

Eris gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth — but her shoulders shook, and a muffled laugh broke through.

Saphira sat there in the ruins, hair askew, face twisted in fury, glaring daggers at Eris. Eris only shrugged, the corner of her mouth twitching despite her best effort to hide it.

I basked in the glow of my own brilliance for a few seconds longer before slipping out through the wall into the corridor.

The stone outside was cooler, the air carrying that faint metallic bite of night.

I floated until I could see a sliver of moonlight through one of the tall windows, just enough to give me the illusion of breathing space.

The laughter from inside still clung to me, but it didn’t reach far enough to push away the other thoughts. Jinx and Draven were somewhere in this maze of rooms, alive and untouchable to me.

The killer was too.

Before I left, I hovered just outside Eris’ door, listening for the rustle of sheets and the quiet stutter of stifled laughter.

It was there, shy and stubborn, the kind that young girls shared in the dark when something finally tilted in their favour.

I rested my forehead against the stone and let myself enjoy it for a breath.

Then I pushed off and glided down the corridor, trailing my fingers through a hanging banner until the woven crest rippled like water.

I could have ended the night there and called it a win, but momentum was a delicious thing.

I ghosted through two more rooms, purely for research, absolutely not to commit any additional crimes, and found a wealth of opportunities: a teacher’s wardrobe begging to be reorganised by chaos, a drawer where someone hoarded pilfered teaspoons, a chalkboard with a schedule that would look so much better with a single, imperceptible column shift.

I left them as they were. For now. It soothed me, just knowing the options existed, a cupboard full of future mischief waiting for the right hour.

In another area I found a creepy classroom that had been abandoned.

One I knew my sister would have loved. It was full of cobwebs, broken floorboards and peeled red wallpaper.

With shelves of rotting books, jars filled with unidentifiable objects, and an entire stack of ceramic dolls that I swore were staring at me when I floated around.

Back on the main landing, a draft slid up the stairwell and toyed with me like I was a strand of hair.

Somewhere below, a door slammed, followed by the sleepy bark of a worker who had not been paid enough to care.

I leant over the rail to stare into the dim shaft of the tower and pictured Jinx at her table earlier that evening—the way she kept her chin up when she wanted to hide the way she was watching the room, the way she pretended indifference like it was a language only we spoke.

I pictured Draven too, shoulders squared even when he was tired, smile always bright.

The ache that lived in me most hours of most days stretched and turned over.

“Fine,” I told the empty stairwell. “You win tonight. But I’m coming back.”

I drifted to the tall window at the end of the hall and pressed my palms through the glass until they met moonlight.

Down in the courtyard the trees were black lace against the sky, and the gravel paths drew pale lines between building sections like chalk on slate.

Somewhere in that pattern the killer walked, nursing whatever fascination they had carried in a locket like a secret they fed to themselves in the dark.

The thought crawled over me. It should have been mine—the locket, the joke, the mirror of two faces; it had been ours .

The bastard had already taken my life; I didn’t like the idea of them taking my secrets too. I didn’t like them finding any form of fascination in my sister.

I pulled back before the anger could thin me to nothing and returned to the quiet corridor. My jaw tensed, and humour faded.

I knew without a doubt that I would find a way to make Eris hear me. That I would stitch a path from her to Jinx that even a blind man could follow.

For now, I let myself smile again, just a little, remembering the crunchy scream of the bed surrendering under Saphira and the surprised, bright sound of Eris’ laugh. Mischief was not a cure, but it was a tonic, and I had always been generous with doses.

I turned toward the tower stairs and floated down, humming an off-key line from a song I once loved and could no longer name, quiet enough that only the stone noticed.

Just like since I died.