Music blared from the door down the hall, which had been propped open. Now that we were near other people, my demonic buddy had to do his vanishing act. He gave my hand a parting lick and disappeared.
I pushed open the door to the ballroom. In the middle of the room, students danced. Off along the edges of the room, seers sat at different booths, offering to read palms, scry the future, cast runes, perform psychometry, deliver messages from the departed—I was going to steer clear of that one—or give tarot card readings.
Next to the Witches Festival, the Seer Club threw the biggest Samhain party on campus. And by the crowded atmosphere of the room, not many students were willing to miss it.
I wound my way through the ballroom. Only a month ago I’d been in here with Caleb for our last dance. Funny how much could change in such a short period of time.
As soon as I got close to the dance floor, I felt a set of eyes on me. I turned towards the source and met eyes with Caleb.
Speak of the devil. He danced with a pretty blonde, but his gaze was on me. If this was his attempt at making me jealous, or just a way of getting my attention, he shouldn’t have bothered. I was relieved to see Caleb with someone else.
Next to the punch bowl—which was spiked from the smell of it—Leanne chatted with a group of girls. I waited for the conversation to finish before I pulled Leanne away.
“Hey!” she said when she saw me. “This is awesome, isn’t it?”
“Definitely!” I shouted so I could be heard over the music. To be honest, I would’ve preferred being back in my room, curled up with a book, but I’d never admit that to Leanne, who’d been helping plan this for weeks now.
There was a moment of silence, and then I blurted out, “Why have you kept your premonitions from me?”
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure she’d been having all that many premonitions that concerned me. But after her warning yesterday, the lingering worry that something bad was going to happen to me wouldn’t go away.
Leanne, whose eyes had been wandering over to a cute guy working at one of the booths, now snapped back to me. That answered my question. She had been keeping her premonitions from me. I could smell her guilt.
The skin around her eyes tightened and a line formed between her brows. She took a long swig of her spiked drink and pulled me to the edge of the room, where it was a bit quieter. “The last time I told you your future I misinterpreted it and you almost died.”
Something about her statement made me think that wasn’t why she was withholding her premonitions from me, but I addressed that concern of hers anyway. “Leanne, I didn’t almost die because you misinterpreted it. Someone would’ve tried to kill me either way. I think you saved a lot of lives that night.”
She put her thumb and forefinger to her temple. “That’s not my point. I can’t usually make sense of the images I see—not until the events have come to pass.” Leanne dropped her hand. “And the things that seem to involve you . . . they seem more like nightmares than reality.”
***
I stayed at the party for a little over an hour. Just long enough to show my support and to get dragged to the dance floor by Oliver, but not long enough to get cornered by Caleb or for my presence to cause widespread panic.
I began to leave when I heard familiar lines murmured.
“… If you walk the old corpse road where the dead ley, sprites and devils might snatch you away.” A dark girl with sparkling, unfocused eyes recited the lines.
The poem rested on my desk back in my dorm, but the girl behind the booth spoke as though she’d memorized the lines. “Go to the Braaid and you’ll lose your soul; for an entrance into hell, such is the toll.”
Once she finished, her eyes focused on me. “It’s a riddle.”
I nodded, my mouth hanging slightly open. “Uh, thanks.”
I began to stride away. At my back I heard her call. “Solve it and you’ll save some lives.”
Chapter 10
I left the ballroom and wandered the halls, ready to leave the party but not quite ready to go back to my room. I decided to get to know my school’s layout a little better. Heaven knows I needed some alone time to think. My thoughts were still trying to piece together all the cryptic warnings I’d been given within the last couple hours.
The castle’s demonic dog saddled up next to me, his tongue lolling out. His paws clicked against the stone floor as we walked down two flights of stairs. The air here was damp and it smelled like mildew.
The subterranean section of the castle seemed older and eerier than the warm atmosphere two floors above. It gave me the chills to think that somewhere around here was that hall of skulls.
Torches lit up as I strode down the hall. At the end of it, the hallway split off. Next to me, my furry companion sped up and turned the corner to the right. A few seconds later I rounded the same corner and blinked. The dog was gone.