I reached out, trailing my fingertips over the engravings. The moment my skin touched the stone, the carvings shifted, glowing faintly as they rearranged themselves into words.

My throat went dry.

“If you can read this,” I murmured aloud, the words forming in front of me, “a soul of a necromancer is trapped within this stone. To release it, spare just one drop of blood.”

I froze.

Necromancers weren’t real. At least, I didn’t think they were. But then again, most people didn’t believe in ghosts either, and they haunted me every single day. After what I’d just seen in the forest—burned spirits with horns and cat ears and snakes for hair—I wasn’t sure what counted as “real” anymore.

I hesitated. If I thought about this too long, I’d talk myself out of it.

That’s when I noticed the sting in my palm. A scrape, shallow but bleeding faintly from my earlier fall. Adrenaline had numbed it until now.

Almost before I realized what I was doing, I pressed my palm flat against the glowing words. The sting flared sharply, but I held it there, watching as my blood smeared across the stone.

It was more than a single drop, but somehow I didn’t think that mattered.

The carvings shifted back into their original form. The glow dimmed. For a terrifying moment, I thought I’d done it wrong.

And then the air above the stone rippled.

A figure rose from it, ghostly and luminous. A woman.

She looked barely older than twenty-five, her figure sharp and defined in a way no ghost I had ever seen was. She wore trousers and a crisp shirt, her raven-black hair twisted into a neat bun with pencils stabbed through it. Her dark green eyes—startlingly alive for someone who was not—locked on me.

Not just locked. They studied me.

I stiffened.

She wasn’t ragged or broken like the others. She was whole. Composed. Put-together in a way that made her feel more like a person than a spirit.

And the strangest thing? She and I shared the same eyes. Dark, stormy green.

“You look just like my daughter,” she said, her voice calm, steady—too steady for a ghost. “But you don’t share the same soul. Similar, yes, but not the same. Are you her child?”

I gaped at her. Not only because she spoke full sentences—something most ghosts couldn’t manage beyond a single word—but because of what she had asked.

“I… I wouldn’t know,” I stammered. “I was given up as a baby.”

The woman tilted her head, her expression softening with something that almost looked like sorrow. “Then you cannot be my daughter’s child. She would never have given up her own.” Her gaze sharpened again, focused and intent. “But you are something else. I see it in you. Another necromancer. Thank you for setting my soul free.”

“You think I’m a necromancer? I can just see ghosts. That’s it. Actually, that’s how I ended up here—I was running away from the hundreds of them swarming the forest.”

The lady ghost tilted her head back and let out a laugh, low and smooth, like it had been years since she’d found something amusing. “A necromancer running away from ghosts—that’s quite a joke.”

I opened my mouth, ready to argue again, to tell her as firmly as possible that I was not a necromancer, but she’d already drifted farther into the shadows of the chamber. My words stuck in my throat as the creak of an ancient door echoed through the room. A moment later, the heavy wooden door groaned open, spilling a flood of dusty light into the dark. The woman’s figure glowed faintly in front of it, her green eyes locked on me with an expression that said, clear as day: Well? Are you coming, or not?

I hesitated, staring. “How… how did you do that? You’re a ghost.”

“We prefer to be called souls,” she corrected smoothly, brushing an invisible wrinkle from her blouse. “Well, at least I do. Most ‘ghosts,’ as you call them, aren’t really aware enough to care. Yes, to answer your question, I am one, but I’m also a necromancer. And we, child, are the controllers of death… not the other way around.”

Her words sank into me like ice, but before I could form a reply, she was already drifting through the doorway, the faint shimmer of her form brushing against the air as she moved.

I didn’t trust her—every instinct screamed at me not to—but staying in the dark chamber wasn’t much of an option. Hoping I wasn’t making the stupidest decision of my life, I stepped forward. The instant I crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind me with a finality that made my skin crawl.

My head snapped around at the sound. The door had no handle on this side, just smooth, worn stone. My pulse quickened.

“It won’t open,” she said in a tone that carried a smile. “Not after you’ve already walked through it.”

I spun toward her, snapping, “And why exactly didn’t you tell me that before I walked through?”

She gave a little shrug, the kind someone might use after lying about something small and meaningless. “Because you wouldn’t have stepped through if I had told you. And besides, there’s nothing to fear, girl. We don’t even have to go through the maze to get you back to Maze Academy. I just need to find the right trap door.”

“And if you don’t find it?” I asked, though dread pooled in my stomach at even asking.

“I will find it,” she said with airy confidence. “Don’t you worry.”

I wanted to scream that I was already far past worrying, but I pressed my lips together and stayed silent. She began gliding down the right-hand corridor, her form casting strange shadows against the stone. I followed close behind, trying to keep my steps exactly in her wake.

Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t trigger anything.

That hope shattered quickly. About halfway down the passage, the heel of my boot pressed against a stone that sank down half an inch. The soft click echoed like a death knell.

“Oh dear,” the ghost said lightly. “You might want to flatten yourself on the floor.”

I didn’t waste time questioning her. I dropped flat, my chest smacking the cold stone just as a row of metal spikes shot out from the roof with a sharp, mechanical hiss. They stopped only a handspan above the ground, gleaming cruelly in the dim light.

For a breathless second, I stayed there, frozen. If I had been standing, those spikes would have skewered me straight through.

When they retracted back into the roof with a slow grind, I pushed myself up, shaking. My jacket hadn’t fared as well—I counted six new holes torn through the back fabric.

I glared at her.

She gave me a sheepish smile, hands folded neatly in front of her like a schoolteacher caught in a mistake. “I’m so sorry, dear. Just follow my instructions, and you’ll be fine from now on.”

I bit down on the sharp fuck off that burned my tongue and forced myself to follow.

Despite her earlier claim that we wouldn’t need to go through the maze, she led me down hallway after hallway—left turns, right turns, straight stretches that looked identical to the last. My legs ached, my throat felt dry, and the oppressive silence pressed in. Finally, after what felt like the tenth corridor, I couldn’t hold my tongue.

“I thought you said we wouldn’t have to go through the maze,” I said flatly.

She didn’t even look at me. “Didn’t I mention? I realized the trap door I’m thinking of is on the other side of the maze. So we’ll have to go through after all.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. “No. No, you didn’t mention that.”

A sigh slipped out of me, too tired to summon anger. “Fine. Are we at least close to Maze Academy?”

Her lips curved faintly. “Yes, of course. Just a few more turns and we’ll be there.”

“Good,” I muttered, lowering myself to the ground. “I’m just going to sit for a second, then we can continue.”

She opened her mouth—probably to warn me—but I was already down. The stone beneath me shifted with a click. My stomach dropped.

Before I could move, something sharp punched into my back. I gasped, jerking to my feet, hand clawing behind me until I pulled a short, narrow dart from my jacket. My fingers trembled.

My vision wavered. The world tilted.

“Oh dear,” the ghost said softly, almost amused. “You’ve been hit with a poisonous dart.”

“Poisonous…” The word tumbled from my lips as I staggered, trying and failing to force my body upright.

But my body betrayed me, heavy and unresponsive. I sank back down, fighting against the blackness curling at the edges of my vision.

Her voice floated above me, smooth and unbothered. “Don’t worry, dear. I wouldn’t let the one who freed me from my prison die here. Besides, there are already enough dead necromancers rotting in this maze, don’t you think?”

She laughed lightly, the sound echoing through the corridor as my vision finally went black.