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There was one additional change that came about the minute Headmistress Blackthorn noticed my rather obvious tattoo. She immediately added Familiar Training to my already overloaded schedule.
When I tried to point out that Shadow wasn’t a familiar, but simply my companion, Headmistress Blackthorn gave me one of her looks—the kind that says you’re an idiot—and snapped, “And just what do you think a familiar is, Kasima Smith?”
I sighed. The Headmistress was the only adult who consistently used my full name, refusing to call me Kasi.
“Companions, ma’am?”
“Exactly.”
So that was that.
Since Shadow was made of smoke and mist, she couldn’t show herself in class without the risk of someone guessing my secret.
This meant I had to attend Familiar Training without a familiar, which just made me weirder and more incompetent in the eyes of my classmates.
It also meant I had to attend one-on-one lessons with Professor Dewar. This wasn’t fun for any of us because as it turned out, she had a cat named Verity and Verity was not fond of Shadow Cats.
Anytime she caught sight of Shadow, she would immediately attempt to attack her, which only resulted in Shadow tormenting her.
Sometimes Shadow would go smokier and mistier than ever, causing Verity to slide right through her.
Other times, Shadow would simply disappear from whatever shadow she was standing in and reappear in a different one, causing Verity to bound from shadow to shadow, in a desperate bid to catch the bad kitty.
But what wouldreallyset Verity off was when Shadow would launch herself across the room and up onto my shoulder, where she’d stretch down across my arm in tattoo form.
From there, she would mostly lie dormant except for her tail, which she would drape over the side and occasionally twitch Verity’s way.
If that wasn’t enough to get Verity going, Shadow would slowly peel her head away from my shoulder or my forearm just enough to bare a fang, lay back her ears, twitch her whiskers or any combination of the three before settling down again.
In the beginning, I was sure Verity would attempt to attack Shadow again—and by extension,me—and I’d end up with a shredded arm as a result, but instead, Verity would go on a tear around whatever room we happened to be in.
This usually resulted in a lot of damage as she raced around knocking things over.
Eventually, when Professor Dewar got tired of cleaning up all the damage, we started meeting outside in the professors’ personal garden, a place students were usually forbidden to visit.
It was in this garden I learned how to bring things into the shadows with me, thus instigating my downfall.
It was all Professor Dewar’s fault.
Well, hers and Professor Pulmeyer’s, who taught me how to move from shadow to shadow in the first place, though I’m sure she’d be appalled if she knew.
Personally, I was grateful because it meant I could indulge my obsession with Jahrdran Vilnik, slinking from shadow to shadow until I was close enough to observe him.
Never mind that he always seemed to know when I was near and would almost immediately explode into his beast form as a result.
My fascination might never have fully developed if I hadn’t learned to shadow-hop and Idefinitelywouldn’t have landed in my current predicament if it weren’t for Professor Dewar teaching me how to pull things into the shadows with me.
She insisted Shadow could help me control my shadow monster and that I only needed to work on forging an unbreakable bond with her.
I kind of thought we alreadyhadan unbreakable bond, and the image Shadow sent of her wrapped around my neck, accompanied by the sound of her rumbling purr and an emphatic,We are,let me know she agreed, but there was no convincing Professor Dewar.
We had to prove it.
Which, as it turned out, wasn’t exactly simple.
“I know you can join Kasi anytime you want, Shadow,” Professor Dewar said in her kindest, most patient voice, “but you need to wait for Kasi to call you into the shadows. One day, she might be in trouble and she will need to know how to yank you from wherever you are to wherever she is.”
She doesn’t need to yank me,Shadow said, annoyance in her voice. About a month ago, she’d started communicating in entire sentences and was really getting good at expressing herself.
