That night was a complete disaster. Ghost didn’t approach him, and Lady disappeared somewhere, probably sensing his foul mood. He was now alone in a dark room, trying to fall asleep. The quicker the better. Faye and Ron couldn’t even know that something was wrong.

  The last words Iza directed at him, before floating somewhere away, still rang in his mind. “Don’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong!” It was like a blow in the groin.

  He tried talking to her. He used his usual gentle, casual tone, the one he always saved for important talks. It didn’t work. He made sure not to blame her for not telling him anything; he may have sounded a little more bitter because of it, but nothing he said could be taken as offensive. Are we really friends? Aren’t friends supposed to share secrets? – he thought, burrowing his face into the mass of soft pillows.

  He understood that everyone has their fair share of secrets, that they don’t want to share, even with friends and family. But to give as much as he did and receive the answer like that in return was heartbreaking. She knew his every secret, knew his childhood, and much more. Did she really mean it? If she didn’t want to talk about it, she could have just said so… – he should probably stop overthinking. She would talk to him when she’s ready.

  In the end, he got very little sleep. The way to the academy was quiet this time. Faye smiled softly, but said nothing. She could feel that Dante wasn’t his usual self. His coldness felt hollow this time, not calm. She didn’t know him well enough to talk about it, so she could offer only a smile. A smile that was meant to put him at ease.

  Until walking inside the building, he still hoped that Iza would wait for him there. She wasn’t, and it stung. The walk to the class felt longer than usual. It was the first time in a long while that silence wasn’t peace. It felt empty.

  He was so lost in thought that he couldn't see that Kelit hesitated before approaching. Dante didn’t see that, but Peter did. And he looked at his room-mate confused why his usual confidence wasn’t there.

  Both of them, in the end, approached Dante. Peter more reluctantly than Kelit, but the cookies he was given might have warmed him up to the young lord. He greeted him and didn’t look for any excuse to leave. Though his eyes were darting around. Apparently, his problem from yesterday wasn’t resolved, whatever it was still haunted him.

  “I decided we are going on a monster-hunt!” Kelit’s cheerfulness was sickening. Both men looked at him like he was crazy. His smile didn’t wither and even rose. From his half-empty bag, he dug out an old scroll that Dante could swear he’d seen yesterday.

  “When did you...?”

  “Stole it?” The white of his grin made it even more irritating. “I don’t know, somewhere between when the librarian brought them and Miss Captain's return,” he shrugged playfully. “We will have to miss lectures, though. Can you handle that, Pete, Frostling?” The addition of another new nickname made Dante smile slightly. This was so ridiculous.

  “Do you have a whole lexicon with nicknames like that?” he asked. Maybe that’s it. I need a distraction…Kelit makes a perfect one. – his thought betrayed him. Even if he was to lose his perfect attendance, it was worth it to stop thinking about his argument with Iza. And with those two, he strangely didn’t feel lonely anymore.

  Kelit chuckled, caught red-handed, while Peter stammered. The man was obviously uncomfortable and scared.

  “I can’t…I…I have to go…” and with that, he rushed to the lecture hall. Dante looked at Kelit, but he only sighed and shrugged, not playfully this time. More like he didn’t understand either.

  “Let’s not dwell. I’m sure he will be alright,” Kelit said while unrolling the map. Putting his arm on Dante’s shoulder, he made sure that the young lord was actually looking at it. Today, Dante decided not to complain. The map showed four different levels of the building, when now only three were used: ground, the first, and the second floors. Why in the world one entire level was unused? Dante could only wander. “I was hoping to check the west corridor.”

  Dante, for a moment, wandered where the entire corridor disappeared, when he suddenly remembered that a few years ago, the headmaster had an idea to size up dormitories. It ended in bricking up the unused corridor and connecting it to the dormitories. The project still wasn’t finished. Now, students use that corridor mostly as a place to fool around.

  “Are you sure you wanna go there?” Dante asked, realising what kind of gossip would catch up to them if anyone saw them going there.

  “Yep, see this here,” he poked the map right in the middle of that corridor. “These stairs lead down, not up, like those in the east. They are also the only ones that probably still exist.” He must have already checked other places.

  “Okay, but let's wait for the first lecture to start. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea if they see me going to the dormitories with you.” Dante agreed with a sigh, which made Kelit beam.

  “Would it be so bad?” his smile was meant to be innocent, but this man was nothing but innocent.

  After what seemed like an hour, they found themselves standing face to face with a wall. Kelit knocked on it, but the sound wasn’t hollow. It definitely wasn’t thin.

  Dante looked at the blond man unamused. He dragged him all that way, playing spies to avoid house directors, and both of them at that exact moment when they were sneaking around decided to walk around, only to be faced with a wall.

  “The map must be seriously outdated,” he cleared his throat. If his eyes could throw daggers, the wall would be a hedgehog.

  “Or maybe the navigator is just stupid. Give me that,” the young lord groaned, taking the scroll out of Kelir’s hands.

  “Hey!” he protested, but didn’t make any move to stop Dante.

  When the map was finally in his hands, he wanted to roll it back at smack Kelit right in the forehead. This man’s navigational skills were shit. Dante rolled the map back and walked a little bit to the left, where the doors were.

  “Kelit, what is usually behind the doors?” he asked with tied lips.

  “A room?” the lavender-eyed man guessed, trying to connect the dots.

  “The stairs are in the room.”

  “Are they?” Dante couldn't take it anymore and smacked him with the map. Although it didn’t hurt, Kelit still touched his cheek looking dumbfounded. He never expected to be even lightly smacked.

  “I’m taking the lead. I can’t believe it! If you can’t navigate, you could have just told me.” Kelit looked to the side, not wanting to admit that he needed help. He decided to check if the doors were open. Of course, life wasn’t that easy.

  Before Kelit could do anything, Dante knelt on the floor and took a paper clip out of his bag. He always carried something small for that purpose, because an actual lock-pick would be too big of a blow to his noble standing, at least in his father’s eyes.

  “You can pick a lock?!” The blond man was clearly surprised. It didn’t fit his idea of a noble.

  “Yeah, my brother always hid my toys in his room when we were younger,” he wouldn’t admit to a real reason, that as a child, he was locked in a dark room as a form of bullying, and a ghost taught him. The bullies were so sure that he wouldn't get out without magic which could break the door. “It may take a while, better than breaking them with magic.”

  Kelit reluctantly agreed and leaned on the wall. He observed his moves, like he wanted to get answers out of them or maybe learn just from looking. After a few minutes, Dante snapped:

  “Stop looking at my hands so intensely!”

  “Sorry, I never could have guessed that your hands could be so skilled.” It was so cheesy and shameless that the young lord started to question his sanity when he agreed to go with Kelit.

  Thankfully, the lock gave up soon. The door opened with a creak that could have woken up the dead. It kind of did, because the ghost of the teacher Dante thought they'd lost before came floating their way. The ghosts were usually ignoring him when he didn’t talk to them first, but this one had a really strong sense of duty and the Death Week probably made him restless. He wanted to give them demerits; if Kelit wasn’t with him, Dante would inform the ghost that the merit system was no longer used in the academy, as all students were already adults.

  “You two are supposed to be in lectures!”

  Ignoring the ghost’s screams, Dante looked inside the room. It was dark and dusty. He sneezed.

  “Do we have a light?” Kelit grinned and blew him a kiss that turned into a small glowing ball. Light magic was hard, or so Dante had heard. Little mana, my ass! – He didn’t comment on that out loud, only said: “Show off.”

  “For you always, Blizzard.” The young lord rolled his eyes at yet another nickname, but for a second he wondered if it was another joke or something has shifted. Kelit’s tone sounded different, but it was no use in guessing why.

  “Can’t you settle on one?”

  “Only after it will fit,” he winked at Dante, though his tone was serious. He bypassed him at the doorstep. “Come on, let’s go!”

  When the door closed after them, the ghost refrained from pestering them any further as he realised it was no use when Dante ignored him completely. It must have once been a storage room: full of old boxes, with a thick wooden hatch in one corner. Kelit lifted it surprisingly with ease, as if it weighed no more than his own bag. Dust burst into the air, making them both cough. The stairs from the map appeared to be a metal ladder.

  “Noblemen first,” Kelit made an inviting motion. Dante snorted with laughter.

  “Oh, no, no. Gentlemen first.” They looked at each other for a moment. Then Dante smirked: “Didn’t you say you're my bodyguard?” He spat Kelit’s words back at him. The blond man snickered and gave up.

  “I’ll catch you if you fall,” Kelit grinned and stepped onto the ladder. The blob of light was divided into two. One was left with Dante, the other followed Kelit into even more darkness. Little mana, he said! – The young lord sighed in annoyance. “You can go!” He called up. “But don’t step on my hands!”

  To his surprise, Kelit really did catch him. Dante had guessed that he intentionally didn’t tell him about one loose rung that broke under his weight. If he had fallen, nothing would have happened as he was less than a meter above ground, so he landed in Kelit’s already orchestrated arms. His back barely brushed the man’s chest. It felt more like tripping than falling down, so the intervention was really unnecessary. The young lord gritted his teeth, feeling Kelit’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Careful there,” he whispered into Dante’s ear. A faint blush rose to his cheeks, though irritation won out over shyness.

  “Take your hand off my hip before you lose it.” Kelit took a step back with his hands raised and a grin that wasn’t sorry at all. Soon his curiosity took over him, and he started looking around.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  From where they stood, it looked like a normal dark corridor. The air was heavy and still, their footsteps dull against the stone. Kelit made a few more blobs of light and sent them ahead. Across the corridor, there were many rooms; some had doors, others didn’t.

  “Do you know the academy's history?” Dante asked, wondering if Kelit had a plan at all.

  “I read yesterday that it used to be a mansion of some guy who invested in a crystal quarry underneath. He went bankrupt, the quarry was closed, and the academy was built,” he answered, poking the moss on the wall.

  “Right, what do you hope to find? Do you have any plans?” To get something out of this man was a struggle, when it didn’t come to teasing.

  “Monsters,” Kelit answered like it was obvious.

  “And them?”

  “Just take a look at it. If anything, I can use magic, and you have that gun of yours,” he shrugged. “I’ve never seen a monster up close.” It was such an obvious lie, as he didn’t even bother to change his tone, and Dante just let it slide.

  “Do you actually think they would let me carry a loaded gun?!” Dante reached for the revolver to show that its cylinder was completely empty. Kelit looked surprised at that, he probably thought that the Duke’s son could do anything. “I just knew it was a bad idea following you. I wish we at least won’t get a badly written coroner’s report.”

  The blond man let out an amused laugh upon hearing his dramatic regret; it lasted a few seconds, but it sounded genuine.

  “Don’t be so pessimistic. We are not going to die here,” he sounded so sure of himself that Dante really did believe him. “It’s an adventure!”

  “I tell you what it is: it’s stupid, reckless and…”

  “Fun.” Kelit cut him off with a shit-eating grin. “Or maybe you just don’t know that word?”

  It wasn’t mocking, just teasing. The kind friends share. It was the first time Dante had seen the blond man do that. The young lord rolled his eyes and, putting his gun back into its place, he decided to look at the map.

  As far as he could see, it was useless. It showed all the rooms, but no description of what their purpose was. A blind leading the blind, that's what it is, not an adventure. – Dante thought.

  “Any plans?” he asked again, this time hoping to get an answer that would actually erase his doubts. Kelit shrugged again.

  “Let’s keep close as you’re completely defenceless,” it sounded like he was only stating the obvious, not picking fights, so Dante only sighed. “You can stay VERY close if you want to.” He winked. “Come on let’s look for an entrance to the quarry.”

  Kelit started leading the way further, because he was the one taking the lead, they visited every room possible. The closest ones to the ladder were full of completely random stuff, like desks or chairs. Most of which was in parts as if someone was lazy enough to just throw them down the hatch and then stuff the bits and pieces in a random room, preferably the closest one available. It meant that the academy administration hadn’t fully forgotten about this place.

  The mess, spiders, and all that moss on the stony walls were normal for this kind of environment. What was really disturbing was that this place hadn’t had any ghosts. It was natural for ghosts to stay in places with many living people, in their place of rest or where they died. Some ghosts preferred quiet and dumpy places that were perfect for haunting; those ghosts usually had very strange ideas of fun. This underground corridor was perfect for exactly this kind of prankster. It was the same as in the west corridor, where only one ghost followed Dante and Kelit out of some undead sense of duty.

  Are they avoiding those places? Maybe there really is something here. – Dante thought, while nearly bumping into Kelit’s back, who suddenly stood abruptly. They were now in a room that finally didn’t look like someone had just dumped their trash there. The dim light from the blobs hit the rotting shelves on which stood everything that one could think of. From books to strange-looking bottles.

  The blond man threw all caution out of the window even before coming down there and was now opening every cabinet in the room. Dante was curious too, but he at the very least refrained from touching.

  “Fancy a wine or something stronger?” Kelit took out one slim bottle of dark liquid that probably was wine, while on the other hand he held another bottle wider and more round with amber, but not clear liquid – probably an old whisky. “I think it was a contraband room. There’s even a pile of books that looks like smut. To think that these kinds of books are now openly in the library.”

  “Alcohol is banned even now, and years ago, sex was a taboo.” Dante took the bottles from Kelit and put them back in their place.

  “But the alcohol is still good! Why do you want to leave it here? It’s such a waste. I’m taking at least some wine.” Thankfully, his attention was quickly captured by a strange, small container with something that looked like fuzzy blue liquid inside. Whatever it was, it must have already fermented. That little glass container looked like something from an alchemical laboratory. Alchemy wasn’t practised anymore, at least it wasn’t as popular as it was fifty years back.

  “Don’t even dare to poke it, it looks like it’s gonna break any moment,” Dante warned.

  Of course, Kelit didn’t listen. The moment his fingernail touched the thin, old glass, it broke. Half of the fermented liquid became a cloud of smoke, which made them both cough.

  Suddenly, the room spun for the young lord, and he needed to lean on the cabinet before he would fall to the floor. Kelit looked like he had experienced something similar, but he managed standing straight. Other than that moment of dizziness, nothing happened. Dante wanted to scream at him about how reckless and overconfident he is, but what Kelit unexpectedly said made him freeze:

  “You looked lonely this morning.” The blond man looked dumbfounded after those words left his mouth.

  “I was,” Dante answered right after, like something made him do that. He would never admit to anything like that.

  “I don’t know why, but I kinda hate when you look like that.” At that moment, Kelit clasped a hand to his mouth to make it stop spitting weird stuff.

  For a longer moment, they just looked at each other, verbally agreeing to forget about this situation. In the end, the silence lasted longer than it should. It was like both of them were afraid of speaking or rather of what could have come out of their mouth. Kelit was the one to break it. He cleared his throat:

  “I think it was a truth serum in gas form…” It all suddenly made sense. Thankfully, it was out of date, so the effects didn’t last long. Usually, it would take a day to get rid of it.

  “Don’t touch anything else, please.”

  “Yeah, I won’t.” That quick moment of seriousness must have scared him so much that it only took a second for him to agree.

  They were so absorbed in their own worlds that they didn’t hear the quiet rattle that came from somewhere deeper in the corridor.

  After a second to regain composure, they decided to move on to another room. Suddenly, Dante felt like they were in some horror novel. The room was, in fact, a fully equipped classroom, left to rot with some prankish drawings still on the chalkboard. If this really was a horror story, Kelit would be the first to die. That was, oddly, reassuring

  Kelit let out a yelp when he walked straight into a big spider web. He cursed more than he was scared, apparently, even spiders couldn’t shake him.

  “Please tell me there are actually none of those stupid eight-legged creatures on me,” Dante looked him over. He wasn’t scared of them, small or big, but only when they were far away from him. When he was six, Edward put him through many traumatic experiences with spiders, which is probably the reason why he now finds them disgusting. And the only trauma that he have because of his brother.

  “There is a big one,” he said, taking a step away from the blond man.

  “Can you take it off me?”

  Dante let out a quiet ’nuh-uh’. Kelit groaned loudly and struggled to take the insect off his back. When he finally caught it in his hands and wanted to say something, probably teasing, a growl came from the corridor. He tossed the spider aside and dimmed the light. It was only enough to see where the entrance was. He caught Dante’s elbow and led him there.

  In the corridor, a blob of light was avoiding a dark mass in the form of a really big hedgehog. More on point was to name it a bear-sized hedgehog. It was just a dark, dense mass that flickered with colour when light shone on it. The monster’s body was round; it didn’t have visible eyes or any face at all. It was its own mouth itself. Monsters could sense magic and had excellent, almost bat-like, hearing. Yet when something caught their attention, the rest of the world simply ceased to exist for them. Long spikes rose out of that round body. From what Dante had heard, these kinds of monsters could manipulate the spikes like they were their limbs. Limbs that had no bones. The monster’s body twitched when the light flickered, as if its mind could follow only one thing at a time.

  “I didn’t know hedgehogs could exist somewhere other than Mist City.” he was usually pale, but now he was as white as paper.

  “Apparently, they can,” Kelit whispered back. He didn’t look scared, like he faced monsters like that more than once. He looked ecstatic about that discovery. He is exactly the archetype that dies first in horrors. -– Dante thought. “Let’s get back before it sees us.” Kelit must have taken into consideration that his companion was less than equipped or skilled to face it.

  “I would agree, but there’s a tiny problem. It’s blocking the damn way.” Kelit looked at him, realising that the situation was grim.

  “I’ll distract it…”

  “Don’t say stupid things,” the young lord hissed. “I don’t care how much mana you have. You are not fighting that thing.”

  The blond man was taken aback by the sudden command in Dante’s voice.

  “You worried?” A small smile quickly appears on his face.

  “Yes, anyone would be,” the fact that Dante deadpanned like it was a universal truth, made Kelit take a step back. The young lord didn’t know why those words made him do that, but he didn’t question them. That was no time nor place for that.

  He needed to think of a plan to get the monster’s attention elsewhere. Then he remembered that round bottle of whiskey in the room on the other side of the corridor. He quietly stepped out of the room when the monster’s attention was still completely captivated by the blob of magic.

  Kelit tried to stop him, but his reaction was too late; Dante was already in the other room. And only then did he realise that he had overlooked one important aspect: light. He couldn’t see in the dark, but that didn’t stop him from feeling his way along the cabinets for something glassy. To think he scolded Kelit for touching things before. Finally, he grasped something.

  He tossed it far into the corridor and quickly hid behind the wall when the glass loudly broke. The monster instantly lost interest in the light. It moved like a snail or snake, as it didn’t have any legs. For some reason, it wasn’t as interested in the sound as it was in the room Dante was in. He wanted to swear so badly in that moment; thankfully, Kelit’s quick thinking rescued him.

  More blobs of magic, light, and fire rushed past the hedgehog and snatched its attention back. After it started following the magic, Kelit tiptoed quietly like a mouse to Dante’s side. He didn’t say anything, just grasped his hand and started leading him towards the ladder through the darkness. He was paying close attention to where the monster was. Sadly, it wasn’t as oblivious as they wanted it to be. It roared, spotting them. The sound vibrated through the floor, more felt than heard.

  “Run!” Dante didn’t have to be told twice.

  Thankfully, they managed to escape. When Dante hurriedly closed the hatch, Kelit put one of the heavier boxes on it. After that, the stress that must have caught even him made him sit on the ground in a dusty storage room.

  “You’re fucking insane!”

  “Take one to know one,” Dante retorted, leaning on the wall. The blond man burst out with a laugh.

  “Don’t put it back on me, Trouble.” The new nickname sounded easy on his tongue and also kind of respectful and affectionate. Dante dismissed that thought. After knowing Kelit for just a month, he already knew that the man wasn’t affectionate.

  “Do I have to remind you whose idea it was, huh?”

  Both of them looked like they had just gone through hell. Sweat clung to their foreheads, wetting their hair; clothes were dusty and full of spiderwebs. In the end, they didn’t find the entrance to the quarry, but Kelit looked content with just meeting a hedgehog. For now, at least.

  “We have to tell Alera,” Dante mumbled.

  “I agree, but we have to change clothes or else she will know where we were, and that would be problematic. I’ll give you something of mine,” he said as he stood up.

  In the end, Dante wore Kelit’s best clothes, which still didn’t meet a noble standard, and the young lord could feel it in the material. He didn’t complain. Clothes were just clothes, but those smelled like a sweet bakery got combined with a storm. They went straight to the library, lied about their speculations that half of the corpse was found in the quarry that was connected to the academy’s undergrounds. But even after a change of clothes and tidying up, Alera still caught on. She didn’t give them any lecture or reprimand. She wasn’t paid that much, or maybe she simply didn’t really care or knew they weren’t completely hopeless in dangerous situations. She only asked what kind of monster it was. After hearing it was a hedgehog, she rushed to gather her best people and deal with the threat, but not before she sent Kelit and Dante back to the lecture personally. It must have been her idea of punishment for them. It kind of was, considering that Dante wore the other man’s things.

  Peter still looked bad, but their return made him smile a little. After the end of the lectures, he rushed out of class, quicker than they were running from that monster. Something was seriously wrong with him. Kelit rolled his eyes, but went after him, saying quickly:

  “See you tomorrow, Trouble!”

  After that Dante found a notebook on the ground. Peter must have lost it. He doubted that Kelit had any with him that day. He took it, planning to give it back the next day.

  Faye was waiting for him near the carriages, and when she realised that Dante was in much better humour than in the morning, she became excited. She yapped about her day the entire ride back home, and Dante even asked her some questions.