It was later that night when I decided to talk to Russel about wraiths. He knew far more about them than I did. And if I was going to fight one, I needed to know a lot more. Every bit of information could help me.

"Hey," I greeted him. "Can we talk for a second?"

"Sure, what's up?" He was in the downstairs area, rinsing out a mug. He turned around and leaned backwards on the sink.

"Wraiths. What do you think I need to know about them?" I asked. I didn't really know where to start. Anything could be critical in getting rid of what was going to try and kill me.

He was grinning before I was done with the question. A good sign, probably. If he had nothing, he wouldn't be grinning, right?

"Come on, I've got something you should see. I was thinking about showing you this Saturday, but tonight works too."

I trusted him. And followed him upstairs to his room. He kept his door open and I lingered in the doorway. Watching him move about his room in a very focused way.

His room had a layout was very similar to mine. Mirrored, for the most part. The bed was against the opposite wall, there was a trunk under the window which was closer to the edge of the room than mine. There were also skull everywhere. Mostly animals. Osto was on a shelf next to his window.

His trunk was made of thin panels of wood that made it look striped and held together by dull orange leather. The latch on the front was a dull dark grey. He knelt in front of it, opening it gently and pulling out something that looked a little too much like something from a pop-up Halloween store. An oversized tome bound in thick leather that was dark brown and cracked. Bits of paper stuck out of it at all kinds of crazy angles.

He traced his hand over the front, like it was precious. He held it with both arms and rested it on his waist.

He looked happy as he turned around. It was a kind of joy that I recognized as familiar. It reminded me of Dad talking about metals and their melting points. And myself talking about differences between types of crystals.

Even if my life wasn't on the line, I would have listened to him.

"Think we should do this in the attic?" Russel asked.

That was a fair question, and maybe a good idea. On the off chance that someone, namely Vivian, saw whatever conversation we were about to have. "Sure," I agreed.

"Do you got it or do I need to?" He gestured towards the spot on the floor to make the ladder.

The icy pain of the curse wasn't that bad today. The warm pulse of my magic was dull but probably enough to do this. His hands were occupied anyway.

"I've got this," I told him as I put one knee on the floor and put my hand flat on the carving in the floor. It took a moment longer but forcing the pulse to move through my body while avoiding the curse probably took more effort for me than anyone else.

But it worked. Pink crystals grew out of the floor to form a ladder. It wasn't much, but I could still be proud of it and myself.

"Up we go," I commented as I lifted myself up onto the rungs. I opened the hatch and left it open as I stepped into the attic.

The map was still on the floor. I knew it was Jarec's and probably had been stashed in his room until we needed to know where to send Hope to for Death's Echo. Now it lived here, so we could all track Hope's progress. It was more, but still slow. My estimate of it taking two or three months was feeling more real with each passing day. Maybe we wouldn't need to search the whole school, but that would depend on luck.

I avoided it. Not wanting to step on it or cause problems. There would be enough space still.

Russel's book made it up first. It floated up on its own and hovered in the air resting on two orange see-through bones. Russel followed up the ladder and only grabbed the book again when his feet were securely on the wood of the attic floor.

He opened the book somewhere about a third of the way through and then flipped back a couple of pages. "So. Wraiths," he started.

"Wraiths." I tried to keep my heartbeat under control. Even as I could hear it pound in my ears.

"There's a few things about wraiths you definitely need to know. First, wraiths aren't naturally occurring. If there's a wraith, it was made by someone. And that someone is almost always controlling them. I think in our case we can safely assume this one was ordered to attack you specifically."

"Is there anyway to steal control of a wraith from someone?"

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"Technically, yes. But it's hard and requires a lot of raw power. In case you're thinking about it, I don't have enough power to steal one from an adult."

So that idea was out. Good to know though. "Weaknesses?"

"Just one. Fire. So good news for you. All undead are very flammable and burning them breaks the spell that keeps a wraith moving," Russel grinned as he spoke.

That was good news. Fire magic was something I had successfully used before. Doable. But would I have the reserves to cast both a fire spell and a healing one?

I would need to be very careful.

"That is very good to know," I told him. Anything could be the key when it was time for our fight.

"More good news, if we can sever the connection between master and wraith the orders no longer matter."

"What happens then?"

"Usually? They stop in place, sometimes they wander trying to find things they were attached to in life. Very rarely, they disintegrate to dust."

"Maybe that's what you guys are doing, going after the master to stop the attack entirely," I commented. "Certainly sounds like something that could work. In theory."

"Probably. That's the only explanation that makes any sense to me. I don't know what else we could possibly be doing when we know there's an attack on you coming."

"I mean…I have fire magic and I'm working on way to heal my own wounds. Maybe by the time the attack comes I can handle myself."

"I hope so. I hate thinking that we leave you to do die, intentionally or otherwise."

I didn't want to think about Red implying they didn't know that the attack was about to occur. Or how convinced she'd been that she wasn't going to graduate. I was not going to tell them about that. Keeping spirits about this up was hard enough as it was.

"I don't think you guys would ever do that intentionally. I think I know you all well enough at this point to comfortably say that," I told him. I needed him to understand that if nothing else. "I trust you. All of you."

"Thank you," he said.

He flipped the open book around to show me the pages. The picture there was a lot like the wraith I'd seen glimpses of. A twisted and lanky thing that could have almost been human. Something that had been human once.

Maybe still human. But we had no way to know who, or how to warn them about this without risking everything.

We had to stop it from getting to that point. Somehow.

"Anything else? Open ears here, feel free to tell me anything and everything," I prompted as I looked at the pages he was showing me.

"Wraiths were people once. But they're easy to control because there's almost nothing left of the person they used to be. This isn't like M. You won't be able to hold a conversation with it. Orders or not. If they drift towards things from their life, it's not because of any kind of thoughts. It's more like instinct."

That was horrifying.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Please do. Wraiths are dangerous, those claws can cut through stone and they don't care about being stabbed or bludgeoned. They don't feel pain. I assume you've seen a zombie movie, right?"

"Not many, but I know the basics."

Shambling things that only wanted to kill.

"Replace headshot with fire. And they aren't infectious."

"What I'm hearing is that burning it to ashes would be doing everyone a favor. Including the wraith."

"Pretty much. I can almost guarantee that whoever it was, they wouldn't want a fate like that."

That made me almost feel better. That I was ending someone's suffering if I burned the wraith to ashes. As much as I hoped it wouldn't come to that, it was reassuring to think about.

I think I knew why Russel was telling me this. He didn't want me to hesitate that day when the wraith attacked. Hesitation could mean disaster for me. I would need to act right away when the wraith came for me.

I swallowed at the thought. All of this would be the worst-case scenario. We might find a way to avoid all of this. No need for me to fight a wraith if we stop its creation.

"Okay. I understand. If it comes to that throw the fireball right away."

Russel nodded, "Exactly."

I hoped I could actually do that when it came to it. If it came to that. I just needed to focus on what we could do now. Right in front of me.

Ice crawled up my arm. But I could handle it.

Russel turned the book back to himself and flipped a bunch of pages forward in the book. "Because there's a soul trapped in there, it's possible to sense when it's coming."

I knew a bit about hauntings. Mostly from movies. If anyone could tell me the difference between Hollywood and reality, he was standing in front of me.

"The wraith won't be able to communicate like some spirits. But you will get chills. Maybe even sense energy from it. I can, and a lot of others can but with you who knows." He flipped the book around again for me to see a different page.

"So if I get sudden chills from nowhere something undead is near me," I said it out loud to try and get confirmation.

"Basically. We don't get them from M because I think his actual soul is in the dragon statue. Not actually in here with us."

"Any truth to that M?" I asked while looking towards the window.

There was a single shake near the hatch.

"Cool. Good to know, anything else that's going to tip me off?"

"They growl and snarl, mostly when they're near whatever they're ordered to attack."

"So me, in this case." Growling and chills.

"My thoughts," Russel commented, "we'll know from something else. Maybe we find out about a sneak attack ahead of time. I mean…it seems awfully convient that it attacks when the Tower is empty."

That tracks with what I knew too. Red was ready for the attack. Which meant she knew it was coming.

"M," I said as I pondered how we would know something like that. "Would you be able to sense a wraith made from Death's Echo?"

Another single shake near the hatch.

"Okay, that helps," Russel commented. "If the master is near, and the wraith is detectable that's something we can plan around."

It sounded like a plan. One we could maybe pull off. I had no idea how much more time we had before the attack. It could be as little as a few months.

Sixth Dragon. That's when Red said she'd had months. And we didn't have one.

"We can. Still no way to know for sure when this is supposed to happen, but we'll figure it out," I promised him.

We would. I just needed to pay attention to the details around me. I knew the signs. What to look out for. And I would.

I just needed to keep my head and focus on training. The stronger I was when the attack happened, the better my chances of surviving.

But I was almost certain there wouldn't be enough time to break the curse. Red would have talked about that, I felt. Or hinted towards it.

So I had to work around it. And I had been so far.

"Thank you for this Russel."

"No problem. I want you to live through this too. If you ever have any more questions, I'll be happy to answer them," he said as he closed the book.

"Maybe. But we might get lucky and not need any of this."

"I hope so."

Hope was all we really had at that point. And that had to be enough to see us through this. To see me through this.

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