Some portraits showed witches dressed in deep charcoal robes threaded with silver embroidery. Others wore entirely darker colors, black and midnight blue, with sharp collars and heavy, jewel-toned stones around their throats. A few paintings had been slashed through, the canvas hanging in curled strips, while others appeared untouched, save for layers of dust.
One portrait in particular caught my attention.
A woman stood beside a window overlooking a garden filled with silver flowers. Her dark hair spilled over one shoulder, and though the style of her clothing was centuries old, there was something strangely familiar in the shape of her eyes.
It wasn’t the Priestess exactly, but close enough that my stomach tightened.
The plaque beneath her portrait had blackened with shadow mud.
Interesting.
I stepped toward it instinctively.
Barlen made a distressed sound behind me. “Must you touch everything?”
“I’m gathering information.”
“You’re disturbing things.”
“Honestly, that also sounds like me.” I smiled at him. “That’s how I do things. I’m a very tactile witch.”
The woman’s painted gaze in the portrait followed me as I approached.
Wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful.
The feeling she planted in me was similar to the Mona Lisa.
I brushed my fingers lightly across the plaque, but unlike the sign outside, the shadow mud didn’t dissolve. It tightened instead, darkening beneath my fingertips until the mark along my side pulsed sharply.
The woman in the portrait smiled, and I decided not to bother.
The Academy groaned softly overhead, the sound rolling through the ceilings and walls like old wood settling around us. But it wasn’t wood. It was stone. Massive black pillars stretched upward toward shadowed balconies where torn banners hung limp from rusted poles.
As I looked around, I wondered if students had once walked these halls without choosing a side. The realization sent something piercing through my chest.
What had happened here?
And why had no one truly talked about it?
My gaze drifted farther into the foyer, where two corridors branched in opposite directions. One curved downward into dim torchlight, while the other stretched long and straight with tall windows lining the wall.
There was no doubt in my mind that shadows lingered in both.
They didn’t seem to be waiting to attack. No, these just liked to watch and make me paranoid.
The shadows moved along the ceilings and corners in long, drifting ribbons, occasionally pausing. But I spotted the one I had followed through the village, which hovered halfway down the long corridor.
Barlen saw it too and muttered something under his breath.
“What exactly are they?” I asked quietly.
“The shadows?”
“Yes.”
“They’re…complicated.”
