Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 3

Somewhere between the twentieth and thirtieth minute of Chancellor Carmichael’s speech, my heart rate slows down just enough for me to actually listen. His voice, unwavering and cold, drones on about the legacy of the previous students here, what it truly means to be a Sorrowsong graduate, and how slips in academic performance will be severely punished.

“This institution is not struggling financially. Harsh as it may sound, I do not need all of you here. I will not mourn the loss of one, two, or even ten of you. If you do not prove to us the reasons why you are here, then you will simply cease to be here.”

His voice trails off, my focus firmly on the sports team sign-up sheets at the front of the room. There are four new places on the swimming team available, and one of them is mine. I need it far more than most of these trust fund kids. It’s the first rung on the ladder to actually graduating here.

As Carmichael finishes, he reminds us that we’ll shortly be met by the Heads of Houses to be shown to our dormitories. Then, in a flash of silver-gray hair and well-tailored Brioni, he leaves behind a room charged with rivalry and ambition.

I make a beeline for the sports sign-up sheet on the pulpit at the front. When I flip to the swim team page, I’m pleased to only see a handful of names down.

I reach for the pen, but it freezes in midair, another hand gripping the opposite end. A familiar gold pinky ring glints back at me. God, give me a break. “Drop the pen.”

“You’re a real ray of sunshine, Ophelia. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Drop it.”

Alex’s face dips an inch closer to mine, green eyes alight with amusement. I’m close enough to smell his aftershave. Close enough to notice a small bruise decorating an old scar on his eyebrow. Close enough to see his playful mood fizzle out. “Not very good at making friends, huh?”

His remark brushes over a sensitive wound. I used to be good at making friends. Not so much nowadays. My finger tightens around the silver pen. It’s petty. I’m petty. But I won’t let that family take one more thing from me. “There isn’t a sports team for being a spineless nepo baby.”

He rakes his spare hand through his hair and flashes me a fake smile. I’m sure it works on most women. Not me. Not now that I know there’s nothing but evil in his blood. “Carmichael’s been ignoring my emails about adding being a spineless nepo baby to the syllabus for weeks.”

“I’m serious.”

He stifles a yawn, the heat of his skin reaching mine. “You know, I was going to sign up for rugby, but I’m suddenly remembering I’m actually a really good swimmer.”

I edge closer, almost nose to nose. His pupils dilate, but I practically feel mine constrict with disgust. “Don’t you dare. You’d never get in.”

A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Yeah? And you sure looked athletic when you stood still and invited me to mow you over with my car earlier.”

“I think anyone would consider ending it all if they had to face three years in present company.”

He lets out a dark chuckle and releases the pen, his large hand curling my fingers around it. “We could recreate Romeo and Juliet.”

No, no, no. I press the tip of the pen into the center of his muscular chest, rising and falling as hard as mine. I channel all my hatred, all my loathing for his family through the tiny but scorching point of contact between our bodies. “I see through your act, Alex. If you think I can’t see that you’re decaying from the inside out, you’re sorely mistaken. Stay away from me and I’ll return the favor.”

I go to write my name for the swim team, but as the nib makes contact with the parchment, I catch the name at the very top of the list, written in different colored ink and messy handwriting. Ophelia Winters. I wipe my clammy palms on my skirt, uneasy. “Did you write this?”

Alex looms over my shoulder, the heat from his body thawing my frozen skin. “Looks like your bright and cheery disposition has earned you a secret admirer.”

My patience wears to dust. “Did you do this or not?”

“You’ve not really given me anything to secretly admire.”

It’s a harmless prank, or even a favor, but just like my intuition with Alex in the car, there’s a big, neon sign flashing the words bad news at the forefront of my mind. Even with my bag at my feet, the odd sensation of being watched has burdened me since the taxi dropped me off at the edge of Sorrowsong Valley and refused to come any nearer.

It doesn’t make any sense, but I have a feeling I’ve made an enemy here already.

While Alex scribbles on the ivory paper, I turn on my heel and join the back of the small group of Nightshade students, staring at me as if I’ve grown a second head in the last two minutes. Alex joins the students at the front of the group with a casual bump of shoulders and a cold laugh that echoes around the chapel.

He settles into place beside a towering figure whose face is a maze of far more scars than one should have at our age. The two of them slip into easy Italian conversation that I can’t understand, but when Alex mutters something under his breath, they both turn to stare at me for an uncomfortable minute until a beautiful, dark-haired woman beckons Nightshade out through the side doors.

I scoop up my bags and follow them, pausing at the doorway when the stained-glass window catches my attention. It isn’t like the churches where I grew up. There is no biblical depiction in the window. It’s Achlys, again, glowing in muted shades of green and brown. It seems I’ll never escape her watchful eyes.

Without Achlys turning the tranquility into eerie silence, it would be peaceful here now that it’s empty. Even the dust is still, suspended in time amid dull rays of sun.

“Do you dislike this artwork, too?”

I look up to follow the voice, Chancellor Carmichael looking down at me from the mezzanine above. A breeze of cold air licks the goose bumps on my arms, and I half wonder if this man is an apparition. I don’t entertain his line of conversation. “I belong in Hemlock, sir. Surely you must see that.”

“If you think there has been a mistake, you are more than welcome to report it to the board.”

I drag a hand down my face, my sigh filtering through my fingers. It wouldn’t matter if it didn’t mean being so blatantly confronted with the cause of my parents’ death every day. I glance back up and meet Carmichael’s watchful gaze. I cannot get a hold on this man. I’m not sure if he’s out to help me or break me. The gentle smile on his lips doesn’t match the venom in his eyes.

“One of them will probably kill me.”

He checks his pocket watch and snaps it shut, shattering the stillness in the chapel. “Disrupt or be disrupted, Ophelia. The choice is yours.” He turns away from the wooden railing, but hovers there for a silent second. “I see you’ve made yourself known to Cain Green’s son.”

My stomach roils. “What about him?”

Carmichael doesn’t turn around, but I can almost see the unsettling expression on his face. “I would be very careful around the Corbeau-Greens.”

What? “Why? What do you know?” I take several steps back to see more of the balcony, but the chancellor is nowhere to be seen.

With Achlys’s haunting sneer on my back, I hurry through the chapel door and into a gloomy tunnel. I’m lost in a creepy castle, but it’s the least of my worries. What did Carmichael mean? If he knows something, is he just being cryptic to torture me?

The Corbeau-Greens played a heavy part in my parents’ death, of that I am certain. Somehow, someday, I’ll make that public knowledge. I’ll bring their dynasty to its knees. I just need one final piece of proof.

Forty-five minutes into the most confusing campus tour in the history of campus tours, we’re finally led out of the maze of poorly lit tunnels and hallways and into the courtyard to the north of the castle. Our tour guide, and the Head of Nightshade house, is a tall, Italian woman named Belladonna. She’s wearing a sharp suit and black stilettos, navigating wonky staircases and cobbled paths with a deftness and lack of sprained ankles that I can only dream of.

She’s in her fifth and final year of a medicine degree, and in her third year captaining the swimming team. This means I need her to like me, and as she snaps her scarlet fingernails in the face of a student on his phone, I know it may be a challenge. A challenge Alex has no issues with, it seems. I watch Belladonna break her steely demeanor to bundle him into a rough hug, joining in step beside him and his friend.

The courtyard smells of rain and chimney smoke. The storm has calmed somewhat, but a biting wind still whips my drying hair around my face. I glance down at the map on my phone, which is even harder to make sense of than the castle itself. I’ve marked out the dining hall, two different libraries, a small student shop and pharmacy, and the psychology wing, but the rest looks like spaghetti at this point.

My phone flies from my hand abruptly as I’m pushed against the trunk of a beech tree by two of the other Nightshade students. Judging by the deathly pale skin, black hair, and frosty blue eyes, I’d guess they’re twins. My bag breaks most of the impact, but the air whooshes out of my lungs as two identical pairs of lips curl into menacing snarls. “Don’t wanna be in Nightshade, huh?” says the guy, a hand around my throat.

My eyes flick back to the group moving farther and farther away. No one has noticed my absence. “Not particularly.”

“Too good for us?” Asks his sister, flicking her slick, black ponytail over her shoulder.

“I didn’t say that,” I manage, as her twin tightens his grip on my neck.

His eyes narrow and he releases me with a violent jerk. “Watch your step. Wouldn’t want to fall into the lake, would you?” They both laugh, turning and sauntering off toward the group with a venomous look back in my direction.

Great. I’m zero days in and I’ve got a few bruised ribs and a bad reputation. I pick up my phone from the wet tile. If it’s cracked any more than it already was, I can’t tell.

A pretty, petite girl drops back from the group when she spots me. For the first time since I got here, I’m on the receiving end of a comforting smile. “Ignore Kirill and Sofia. They’re just defensive because their father’s territory in New York is receding faster than Principal Carmichael’s hairline.” She extends her hand to me. “I’m Divya.”

Russian Mafia. That adds up. Christ. One day you’re tearing a fifteen percent off fabric softener coupon out of a magazine and picking noodles out of your sink drain, the next, you’re fighting for your life inside an Al Pacino movie.

I shake Divya’s hand. “Ophelia. You’re in Nightshade too?”

“Sadly. What sins did your parents commit to get you here?”

A sad laugh slips between my lips. “I‘m still working that out. Yours?”

“My father has a monopoly on most of the insulin in India.”

I grimace as we catch up with the others. “That’s a bad one.”

“Yup. Loves to drive up the prices for the hospitals. He actually studied medicine here, too.”

It doesn’t make sense. “I don’t know why anyone bothers to come here.”

“For the sun and sandy beaches, of course,” she quips, before shaking her head. “It’s well respected. I think most people here are trying to put as much distance between themselves and their messy home lives. We’re all rich, and nothing turns families sour quite like money.”

We stop in the center of the courtyard. The spire of the chapel looms behind us, thick stone walls dotted with arrow loops stand on each side. The space is sparse, lined with tiles that are a glossy shade of charcoal in the rain. It’s the same muted palette of gray and brown as the rest of the castle, but there’s the occasional tree or bench scattered around. I suppose if this valley ever managed to escape the perpetual storm that swirls overhead, it might be a nice place to sit.

We’re led beneath the razor-sharp portcullis and out of the main castle grounds. From here, I can make out forested mountains and valleys as far as the eyes can see. The tops of pine trees pierce through a thick sheet of mist, straining to reach the heavy sky above. It’s not yet midday, but it seems to be getting darker and darker out. I spare a thought for my vitamin D pills, abandoned in a cold, dusty cupboard back home where I didn’t think I’d need them.

We approach a huge, Elizabethan-era manor house a few hundred yards away from the castle. I’ve seen it online a hundred times. The Nightshade Halls. Two deep purple banners fall from the top floor windows, embroidered with the Nightshade motto in gold thread. Facilis descensus Averno. I didn’t really brush up on my Latin before coming here, but I’m sure it’s something about death being the easy part.

As I stand in the drizzling rain and wonder why I didn’t just take up a minimum wage job in the café in my parents’ small town, Kirill engages in a fight with Alex’s Italian friend. Nightshade is a sausage fest. Fantastic.

Cheers erupt from the group as Alex’s friend pins the other one to the floor, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little glad.

I spin around, taking it all in. We’re quite isolated over here. If something happened to me…I shudder. I was joking when I said I just have to survive three years, but it doesn’t feel funny now. I gather my thoughts and square my shoulders. I’m in Scotland. It’s the twenty-first century. Laws exist. No one is going to kill me, no one is going to die.

Belladonna swipes a black keycard at the purple front door, informing us that the first-year residences are on the fourth floor of the mansion. The brass hinges creak open as though protesting my arrival as bitterly as I am. We file into a foyer dimly lit by candles on the wall, casting shadows on old portraits sitting in ornate gold frames. Faded patterned wallpaper sinks below wooden paneling, dotted with unlit sconces. It’s like something from a horror movie. “What’s wrong with lightbulbs?”

Divya snorts beside me. “Power is terrible out here. There are lights, they just break every time there’s a storm, which…”

“Is all the time. Brilliant.” There’s something eerie about this mansion. Even the rowdy ones at the front seem a little quieter. The hardwood floor creaks underfoot, illuminated by thin slivers of light that escape through swathes of rich red drapes.

Belladonna points out the door to the Nightshade library and I sneak a peek around. It’s a scene straight out of a Brontë novel. Rows of classic books separate crimson chesterfield sofas and mahogany desks. Classic banker’s table lamps cloak the dark room in a warm glow, turning the spider webs into threads of delicately spun copper. A bar sprawls across the northernmost wall, lined by bottles of whisky with the sort of price tags my parents and I would point and laugh at on the menu.

The next door in the foyer houses a gym so dark it’s almost pitch black. Rows upon rows of weights sit at the base of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The sharp smell of metal is jarring compared to the oddly reassuring musk of well-read books in the library. Belladonna states proudly that Nightshade gets the biggest gym, biggest bars, and least supervision.

There’s another warmly lit bar in the eastern wing of the mansion, this one with dart boards, poker tables, and billiards. Polished brass beer taps sit atop a lacquered mahogany worktop, lined with upholstered bar stools. Other than the Sorrowsong sports memorabilia and the stain under the pool table that’s almost definitely blood, it looks like every other pub. It’s oddly comforting.

This house is like a maze, each dark corridor paving the way to one that looks the same. The handle on every heavy door is a flower crafted from brass. It’s a deadly nightshade flower. The rational part of me knows they’re metal, but I don’t touch them. Who knows what poison lurks between these walls?

Belladonna swipes another keycard in the foyer and leads us to a dark, spiraling stairwell. The stone steps are smooth and bowed slightly under the heavy weight of time. Even the walls seem heavy in a way I cannot explain. Like they’re bursting with stories and secrets they cannot tell, aching to give way and crush anyone who dares stand between them.

Aside from the odd, overly rough shove and unintelligent insult, I’m largely left alone by my housemates. They haven’t taken kindly to the fact that I wasn’t stuck up Alex’s ass in the chapel, but no one has stabbed me yet. It’s a miracle I’m grateful for as we arrive at our halls of residence. There are sixteen rooms for the first years, four in each corridor.

I swipe my keycard at the entrance to my hallway, stopping outside the room with the gold number four on the door. It’ll be nice to have my own space. When the grief is all too much, I’ll just hide in here all day. My sanctuary. I push the door handle down and step inside.

I’m pleasantly surprised. The room is large, far bigger than any room I’ve ever had before. Two generous single beds, two large wardrobes, and two bedside tables are arranged in a perfectly symmetrical layout. Except my desk has found its way over to the opposite side, the newly fashioned double desk already set up with makeup, skin care, notebooks, vodka bottles, and study material. Is that a fucking knife on the bedside table?

My idyllic dreams of roommate movie nights and female friendships wither away before me. Even my pillows are on the other bed, for heaven’s sake. And pinned to my headboard is a strip of paper, torn from a page in a book.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

I know the Hamlet quote immediately. My mother named me after a character in the book, and my father sat on my feet at the end of the bed and read me the book more nights than I can count. It feels like my name at the top of the swimming team register. It feels like Carmichael’s strange tone in the chapel.

It feels like a threat.

“Hey, roomie.” A Russian accent accompanies the sound of the bathroom door opening, and I swivel to face the source.

My stomach plummets fifty feet.