The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(25)

“Yeah. Maybe one of the missing students did.” Ethan jerked his head to get me moving. His tone suggested he didn’t believe his own words any more than I did. He descended the stairs, wand out. Clearly, he wasn’t going to make me go first, this time.

Halfway down, the darkness clung to his legs, then crawled up his body, so thick it looked like a physical thing. When it reached his waist, he lifted his arms, as though inching into cold water. He shivered, completing the image.

“Can’t you dispel that darkness?” I whispered, following him down.

“I don’t know how. I’ve had tutors to give me an edge for the academy, but I’m still freshman level, maybe sophomore at best. This is beyond me. I don’t know how they did it.”

“You need to talk to your dad about cheating a little more thoroughly,” I said as I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his shoulder. If this murky shadow blinded us, I didn’t want to get separated.

“Apparently so,” he said, and I didn’t think he was kidding.

The inky fingers reached his chest, then inched onto his neck. Right behind him, it slid over my breasts, dousing me with a chill that couldn’t be explained by a mere change in altitude.

“Here we go,” Ethan said softly as the darkness slid over his full lips. “Gregory better be worth—”

The shadow cut off his volume, or maybe stole his words. I dug my fingers into his muscled shoulder and pushed up close, my front glued to his back. Black slid up my nose and then stole my sight.

“Oh God,” I said, clutching Ethan with two hands now, both of us stopped dead still, the warmth between us the only thing grounding me. I didn’t hear the words I’d just uttered. I was either deaf or mute, and we were both trapped in our fear of the unknown.

I came to first, fighting through the paralysis. Fingers relaxing on one hand, I shoved him with the other, forcing him to move forward. He staggered, clearly missed a step, and fell, yanked from my grip. My heel hit the step I’d been steering him toward, and I careened forward.

His body hard but thankfully not bony, a prone Ethan caught my fall.

“Oomph,” I grunted, and thankfully heard the noise. He groaned and I rolled off, allowing him to sit up. Blood dripped from his nose. The ground wasn’t as forgiving as the backside of his body had been.

We’d reached the bottom.

Darkness pressed in around us, but it was the kind caused by an absence of sunlight, brightened only by a small glow from a distant torch flickering from its bracket on the stone wall. A narrow corridor into the earth led away from us and a funky smell tickled my nose—stagnant water, mildew, and gym socks, if I had to guess. I leaned closer to Ethan to inhale his pleasant-smelling cologne and dispel the stink of the place.

“Whatever this place is, it isn’t open to students,” Ethan whispered, wiping his nose and standing slowly. “They wouldn’t have hidden it so well if it were.”

“Thank you, Professor, for your fantastic insight.” I moved around him, peering down the long corridor and spying three more flickering torches perched against the wall, two on the left, and one on the right. Green lined the cracks of the old stone, pock-marked and dingy, which looked like it predated the mansion. Who’d built this place, and why? “Shall we?”

“I don’t think winning the trials is worth all this,” Ethan murmured under his breath, but he started forward anyway, his wand slightly shaking. Entitlement wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good down here and we both knew it.

“The director must know this place exists,” I said. “It’s old—really old—and it wasn’t hard to find.”

“It wasn’t hard to find for you,” he replied as we inched down the long corridor. The dank surroundings seeped into my bones, sending a chill down my spine. “You’ve already set a record at the school. You’re the first female to win three trials, and the second person to do so in history.”

“We all won.”

“You’re the driving force. I won’t admit it in public because—”

“Your reputation, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.

“What everyone has said is true—you’ve brought us together as a unit. Even with my cheat sheets, I wouldn’t have been able to get through some of those challenges. And you would’ve knocked out four, not three, if it wasn’t for that ambush yesterday, which was...”

His words died away.

“What did your father really say about it? Not what you told everyone in public, but what he really thinks?” I finally asked as a gap in the stone came into view on the right, draped in fuzzy lines of deep shadow. A familiar warning vibrated through my body, slowing my forward progress.

“He’s looking into it. No one knows who is behind it, which usually points to one person.”

“Who?”

He made an exasperated sound. “You really don’t know anything about this world, do you? We’ll just say, a very bad dude.”

“A very. Bad. Dude.” I nodded sarcastically, which was probably lost in the dim light, as I pulled my knife from its sheath, not having done so before now because Ethan had been leading and I hadn’t wanted to accidentally stab him. Which would’ve happened when I’d fallen.

“The Shadowkiller.” He breathed the name and it ghosted down my spine like cold fingers. Shivers ran through me, and I had to work to force my body to stop.