Every Shade of Shadow: A Dark Magic Academy Romance, page 6
Shame wars with longing whenever those thoughts arise, yet I cannot deny their truth. My attraction to him is juvenile, childish, but I know that if I lean into it, I will be swallowed whole.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe I want to be eaten, to be devoured.
The best I can manage is a shimmering glow from the tip of my wand, but looking around the classroom, this is more than most.
Training wand, my ass, I think, smiling to myself.
The class finishes and students begin filing out, but I wait, near thrumming with need and nerves.
The door closes, muffling out the larger world.
We’re alone once more.
The Professor takes his time, busying himself with his laptop and papers, paying me not a shred of attention.
I wait there, silent, for ten minutes before he finally turns to me.
"You seem distracted today, little lamb," Darkwood comments, rising and pacing toward me. It’s only when he’s close enough for physical contact that I turn to stone. I blush under the scrutiny of his gaze, wondering if he can sense the scandalous direction of my thoughts.
"Is there something on your mind?" he queries.
I swallow hard, avoiding his gaze. "My apologies, Professor. I will try to focus."
He studies me a moment longer before nodding. "See that you do. What I will teach you today is a complex spell—a test, if you will. But know any misstep could have unfortunate consequences. Is that understood?
I nod.
“Follow me.”
I follow the Professor to the back of the room. He lifts his hand and the stone separates, a darker, smaller room beyond lit only by candlelight.
The fuck.
The bricks are mottled and worn with age, hinting at a far more ancient part of the castle. There is a small library to the left, the scent of books mixing with the smell of molten wax. Four candlesticks along the far wall provide the only illumination to the secret room beyond.
We move into it and the stone closes behind us again, the room sealed completely.
I do my best to listen as the Professor paces, a diagram beginning to glow from the floor. This isn’t some cotton candy beginner spell. No, this is something else.
“Focus,” he commands.
I return my attention to the intricate diagram sketched on the floor.
“Have you ever summoned something from the Nether, my pet?”
I shake my head.
“And yet you know how it is performed?”
“I…think,” I offer, but it’s weak. Summoning spells seem universal, as far as I can ascertain. But the Nether? I recall Gran saying it was a dimension parallel to our own, home only to dark entities shrouded in perpetual twilight. You could harness this power, but it came at a price, corrupting those who delve too deeply and turning them into dark reflections of their former selves. But sure, let’s summon something from it.
My chest tightens with nerves and determination, anxious to prove myself worthy of this challenge. Infantile as it is, I want the Professor’s admiration. I’ve been seeking it ever since I stepped foot into his classroom.
Gran would be rolling in her grave right now if she knew what I was about to do. This is exactly what she warned me about. Didn’t stop me dialing up the dark web and researching, though. Everything’s there if you can get past the edgelords and kiddy porn.
Well, almost everything.
The Professor senses my hesitation. “It is power you want, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you must take it, Annabelle. Seize it. It won’t be taken any other way but by force.” The firmness in his tone showcases his conviction.
I nod.
The Professor discusses the intricacies of the spell, the correct intention, the physical manipulation of my fingers…
“Begin when you are ready," he says, folding his arms over his chest as he leans against a bookshelf to observe my efforts.
I take a steadying breath and lift my wand, magic surging through my veins like fire. I’m surprised by how familiar it has become in such a short space of time. The spell tumbles from my lips in a language ancient and powerful, filling the air around us with energy. The diagram begins to glow as I weave the enchantment, intricate lines of power connecting and forming a doorway into the darkness beyond.
It's different, actually doing this for real, but it’s also natural in a funny way, too, as if I’ve been doing this my entire life.
Delight mingles with apprehension, maybe awe, too—I’m not sure. Magic has always come naturally to me, basic magic, at least, but this is unlike anything I have experienced before. This isn’t heating up the bath or perking up a plant. This is practice. This is real.
This is Shadowcraft, I think to myself.
I hadn’t even considered this, but it’s so obvious now.
Why teach me this when it’s outlawed, so dangerous?
The Arcane Oversight Bureau would have a field day with this. It’s their job to investigate magical disturbances, enforce magical contracts, and maintain a delicate balance between the magical and non-magical realms. This is their bread and butter.
But the last thing I’m going to do is argue.
Fuck it. I didn’t come here to daydream.
The air ripples and shifts, a shadow detaching itself from the ether. I falter for a breath, stunned by my own success, before redoubling my efforts. This is the most critical point, where the magic is at its most fragile.
At last, a spirit hovers before us, an eerie chill seeping into the room. I release the final words of the spell with a cry, a rush of power flowing through me as the summoning is completed.
Breathless, I stare at the creature I have called forth. Its form is hazy and ever-shifting, hinting at a malevolent sentience beneath. A strange mix of dread and triumph wars within me, pride in my accomplishment tempered by the knowledge of what I have unleashed. I doubt anyone else in class could have pulled this off.
"Well done," the Professor says, a glint of approval in his eyes as he surveys my handiwork. That praise runs like an arrowhead right to the hot space between my legs. "I think you are ready for the Twelve.”
The Twelve?
I have no idea what that is, never came across it reading through Gran’s grimoire or online, but I don’t want to show my ignorance either.
There’s still that light burn in my veins from the magic, but it’s tempered now, opposed by something cooler and more intoxicating.
Darkwood approaches, the shadow spirit swirling around him, drawn to the immense power contained within. His eyes gleam with dangerous purpose as they meet mine, as if he can sense the hunger I hold for him, for this. The two of us, alone, accompanied by a magical creature, a creature I helped unleash from the Nether.
"There is great potential in you, little lamb," he murmurs, the sound nearly a purr as he examines the spirit. "But we have so, so much we have yet to explore."
A shiver runs down my spine at the implication in his tone. My breaths come swift and shallow, heart thumping like a trapped bird against my ribcage as he draws closer still. I am acutely aware of the spirit's presence hovering around us, a witness to this dance I know cannot end in anything but ruin.
Yet when the Professor reaches out to brush a lock of hair from my face, I cannot find it within myself to pull away.
I want to be ruined.
I want him to hold the knife.
"So much darkness," he says softly, "waiting to be awakened." His nostrils flare. “You’re open, ready.”
He reaches up, thumb gliding over my cheek. His touch ignites my skin, magic and desire intertwining until they become one and the same.
I want him to press me against the wall again, take me with his fingers, his cock…anything to drive off this desire.
“But first, restraint,” he smiles.
He pulls back and the moment is lost, the shadow spirit evaporating and the stone wall opening once more. He gestures back towards the classroom. “Until tomorrow.”
Disappointment unfurls in my chest. I had hoped for more. More attention. More praise. More magic, literal or physical.
But no. I make my way out of the classroom, the door closing more firmly than it should behind me, into the hallway empty, which seems kind of appropriate.
Until tomorrow—what a fucking joke.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Post-dinner I was sitting with Lily in her room, a room that is far more…embellished than my own. There are family pictures, ticket stubs, a Palm Springs poster, which strikes me as kind of funny given we are in the complete antithesis of tropical paradise. The castle seems to be under a permanent veil of cloud, the temperature somewhere between tepid and ‘freeze your tits off.’
There is a decided lack of windows here at the Academy, and when you do stumble upon one, you almost never find sunshine outside. The whole place seems consumed outside by a perpetual, bathetic gloom.
I’m on Lily’s concrete-mattress bed (she was right), my back against the wall, Lily playing Solitaire on her laptop.
“So,” I begin, looking to get a better fix on exactly what is and isn’t kosher around here, “Shadowcraft is taught here, like it’s okay?”
A delicate laugh follows, Lily spinning around to face me. “Taught, yes. Practiced no, and I mean no. Not that it stops anyone. You’ll see students around with cutting marks, pain increasing the power, blah, blah, blah.”
“Cutting?”
She makes like she’s cutting her arm with a razor. “Real Thirteen Reasons shit.”
“Oh.”
“You can waltz into the library and grab a book on it, if you want.”
This strikes me as particularly curious. I intensify my stare. “You’re telling me there are books about Shadowcraft in the library, just out in the open?”
“A whole section of them.”
“And they’re not in a restricted area or guarded by a troll or protected by countless enchantments?”
“Nope,” she says, popping the ‘p.’
She turns completely, hands on her lap like she’s about to deliver the birds and the bees. “Look, things are pretty, how should I say it…loose, here at Lumina. People try Shadowcraft, usually in a sexual way because hey, that’s kind of where the power comes from. So you mix the pain and the pleasure, and woo-hoo, it’s magical heroin, but no one really dabbles in the truly dark stuff. You’d have to go to Darkwood for that, and even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to teach it. That stuff will ruin you.”
I think of the spirit I summoned, that shadowy darkness still swimming in my veins as I take in her words.
“Got it,” I smile, my thoughts shifting once more to the Professor.
*
Later, I decide to explore a little. I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of this place yet. Who knows what’s hiding in the bowels of this place, what’s yet to be revealed.
Kinky shit, by the sounds of it.
I pass a group of boys huddled around a laptop in someone’s room, a brief glimpse of a nudity on the screen. Others eye me warily as I pass. I’ve done my best to dress as innocuously as I can—jeans, waffle-knit shirt in boring-as-fuck gray, but still I see the suspicion in their eyes. It’s like I’ve got a big fat sign planted on my head that reads ‘Not Society! Without means! About to be evicted!’
‘Weak.’
But for all its gloom and sultry students, there is a certain kind of charm to the castle—a kind of gothic opulence.
I loop around the perimeter of the second floor, making my way to the central, spiral staircase and moving down past the first floor into what I imagine to be the subterranean levels where the Headmistress said the elementals hang out.
It’s quieter on this floor. Peaceful.
And that’s when I hear them.
Two girls, in a small anteroom off one of the side halls.
It’s the animation in their voices that draws me closer. They’re giddy.
I pull into an alcove, straining to hear the conversation.
I peer around the corner only to find a blonde and a brunette just a few feet down the hall.
"What a fucking rush," the blonde purrs, throwing her hair back, her blue eyes round as dinner plates in the half-light. She’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over fairly ample cleavage. She kind of reminds me of Sab.
Sabrina. Fuck. She’ll have the whole city searching for me if I don’t get a message to her soon.
"Better than sex. Trust me," the blonde continues.
The brunette shivers, licking her scarlet lips. "Got to be better than fucking Johnathan Tate. He couldn’t get this limp dick inside me. Felt like he was trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.”
“You should try it,” the blonde enthuses.
“Shadowcraft?” the brunette whispers.
“It’s just ‘The Craft,’” the blonde laughs. “No one says, you know, anymore. It’s so…” her eyes roll around, “old.”
The mortal sin: to be old.
But there it is, nonetheless, spoken so openly. The so-called forbidden is being discussed here on Academy grounds. Just like Lily said.
“I don’t know,” the brunette continues, looking for an out.
“Why not?” says the blonde, moving closer.
Are these two about to fuck? I consider, my mind always heading into the gutter when confronted with even the slightest bit of sexuality.
“Ah, because it's forbidden. If Darkwood found out, any of the other professors…" says the brunette.
"They won't." A wicked smile comes over the blonde’s face. "As long as we're, you know, discreet."
A tingle races through me, body tensing.
This is the forbidden fruit I've always craved, dangling before me. Gran was always so cautious to keep it as something taboo and forbidden, never spoken of, which naturally only made me want to find out more. But it’s not like you can pull up Google and become an expert. Even the dark web, fun as it may be, is absent of actual practical advice when it comes to Shadowcraft. A skimming of history and the odd spell to give someone herpes, but no, in the magical world this kind of thing is passed down, shifted with spoken syllables and scratched into parchment. I don’t even know if you could digitize it if you tried.
But its power? That is no secret.
Or so everyone keeps saying, not that these two seem perturbed.
I remember Lily’s words.
But the temptation, much like Darkwood himself, is almost irresistible.
A chance to explore the depths of magic in a way I've only dreamed about.
Gran never overtly taught me how to practice magic, because bad, but she used it plenty when she thought I wasn’t looking. Washing up? Spell. Hangnail? Spell. So I paid attention and picked up what I could, filled in the rest from her books and the web. The innocuous stuff is there right out in the open, but you have to know what to do with it. Gran blabbed on plenty about all that. You could barely get her to shut up half the time about the finer elements of casting. ‘An art,’ she used to call it. But start up on Shadowcraft and those lips would stop flapping fast.
"Well?" The blonde arches a brow. "You in?"
The brunette hesitates, then nods. "Sure. Nothing better to do ’round this tomb."
A surge of longing nearly overwhelms me. I want in.
To my surprise, they seal this pact with a kiss, tongues dancing between parted lips. My sex clenches at the sight, which is weird, because something like this would have never turned me on before, but here at Lumina I’m finding myself caught in all kinds of strange thoughts, my once resolute sexuality oddly untethered here.
When they break apart, chests heaving, the brunette murmurs, "Okay. Let’s Nike.”
“Do it?”
“Yeah.”
Nike? Fuck me I’m way out of the loop on this kind of lingo.
The blonde looks uncertain now, eyeing her with caution. “You’re sure?”
“Just do it already,” the brunette nods.
I grip the wall in front of me. A short whisper from the blonde and they disappear into the darkness, just evaporate on the spot. I'm left alone with my hunger.
Ravenous, insatiable, screaming to be fed.
Rules be damned, I need to go deeper here.
And if I were to get caught, I consider, if Darkwood were to punish me, personally, perhaps that might not be so bad. Maybe it wouldn’t be punishment at all.
I wait until the dead of night when the halls are silent and empty. Slipping from my room, I move through the darkness toward the library—using Lily’s rather ineloquent directions. The hallways are lit only by small running lights. If I squint, I could be on a redeye flying anywhere in the world.
Every step increases the hammering of my heart, part fear of getting caught, part thrill of the forbidden. I haven’t done this kind of shit since high school. There’s a joy in it, in seeking out what you shouldn’t.
I arrive at the library. The heavy oak doors loom before me, an iron lock in the middle, either pane etched with symbols of protection and warning.
So much for Lily’s supposed ‘just waltz on in.’ Maybe that’s true during the daytime, but now, in the witching hour when you think people would be kind of, uh, witching, nothing.
I take a deep breath and place my hands on the wood, whispering a lockpicking spell—a little-known classic Gran taught me for ‘personal safety.’
Joy of joys, I exhale hard as the lock pings. I push, the doors creaking open.
Inside, moonlight filters through towering bookshelves, luminous shafts of white.
Actual windows. Nice.
The scent of aged paper and knowledge lingers in the air, but tonight I seek information of a different sort.
I make my way to the restricted section and find it cordoned off with a spell barrier, Lily’s intel again coming up short. After studying the shimmering ward for a moment, I recognize some of the magic used and undo the barrier with a counter-spell. Practice is proving easier than I thought—natural talent and all. I allow myself a little smile.
