A Shade of Vampire 87: A Shade of Mystery by Bella Forrest

Author:Bella Forrest [Forrest, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Nightlight Press
Published: 2020-03-21T18:30:00+00:00

Thayen

By the time the psychiatrist was done, we still didn’t know what was wrong with Isabelle. He’d promised to get back to us once he had a conclusion, estimating a delivery of his report for the next morning. Soul and Kelara’s advanced tests didn’t yield anything useful, either. The more we sat on this issue, the more frustrated we all became. I’d gotten sucked into this, and my nerves were stretched beyond the limit as an earlier doubt wormed its way back into my head.

No one dared say it aloud, but I could hear it in my head, echoing like a damn nightmare on repeat. This was the epitome of a mystery.

I sat in one of the empty chairs for a while. Voss had returned to his parents to update them on the recent developments—or lack thereof. Chantal and Dafne had been summoned back to the training hall by Rose and Caleb, who were digging through the surveillance footage in hopes of finding anything they might have missed about Isabelle’s behavior. Hazel and Tejus were seated across from me, next to Draven and Serena. Lumi and Corrine were talking in hushed voices by Isabelle’s door, while Richard was exchanging messages with his parents. Soul and Kelara were quiet, still in Isabelle’s room. Their ghouls settled in the corner and watched them with big, curious eyes.

It didn’t seem like progress at all. On the contrary, the longer I sat here, the more I felt like we were sinking in quicksand, flailing to no effect.

Kelara shook her head. “Everything Isabelle is doing and saying is of her own volition. We’ve already eliminated spirit-bending, since Thayen tried, and it didn’t even work on her. Any other Reaper involvement would leave slim traces of death magic. We’re pretty much stumped, and I don’t like it.”

She looked at Isabelle again, as if trying to see right into her core. But Isabelle was an unsolvable enigma, and none of us were ready or willing to accept that she had been, in fact, the one to do evil, uncoerced by anyone or anything. It just didn’t fit her character or our world.

“Thayen, it’s going to be okay,” Serena told me, smiling gently.

“To be honest, I would’ve preferred it if you were the one responsible for this. You know, if you’d accidentally glamored her or something. At least we would’ve known something concrete,” Draven said, a dark line drawn between his eyebrows. “Even if you didn’t mean to do it… we would’ve had a cause identified. We could’ve worked toward a solution.”

“And I would have helped. Gladly, if that were the case,” I replied. “But it’s not the case.”

He nodded slowly, despair finally sinking in.

“Nightfall is fast approaching,” Soul interjected. “I suggest you all head to your homes and rest. You’re of no use to Isabelle exhausted, and I’m sure this entire incident has drained the life out of you.”

“I agree,” Corrine said. “We should all leave Isabelle here on her own. Maybe she needs more time to think about what she’s done.

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