Spycraft Academy by B. Miles (little readers .txt) 📕

Talk about the cipher had quieted after a few days, and the students' torn bedding had thankfully been replaced hours after the raid. It was like nobody remembered it happening, or maybe it was just a rumor and nothing serious had actually been nabbed. It didn't feel right to him, though. Not morally, but instinctively. Even if such a thing had been stolen, it was something serious, or else the dorms wouldn't have been destroyed in order to find it—whatever it was. And if it was something of a classified nature, their entire country could be in danger. Sam didn't consider himself especially patriotic, but after he graduated, his job would literally be shielding the country from Meeran agents.

From the sweltering villages in the south to the mining towns in the north, Varins everywhere would be relying on him to keep their homes and families safe.

If he didn't do his part, he would fail, and Sam did not stand for failure.

Even though it wasn't his official job to stand with his peers and protect the nation yet, he couldn't ignore the itch to do what he could now. It was inconvenient, dangerous, and not his problem, but the stone in his stomach filled him with a thick black dread and he found himself unable to sleep most nights. When he dreamed, it was of fire and screams and the deep purple banner of the Meeran Empire flying high, signaling the presence of its proud conquerors.

It was bloody hard to do anything, though, when the damned thief hadn't shown his face again. Maybe he got what he wanted, maybe Sam would be fruitlessly keeping vigil all semester because doing anything less would make him feel miserable.

He looked up at the black sky and sighed through his nose. One more hour, then he would head back to his room. Hilda had put them through hell that day, so maybe he'd be worn down enough to actually sleep.

The administrative building was only a few yards away from his post underneath a generous oak tree. He curled his fingers absently and the shadow near his feet stretched high and thinned until it looked like a needle impaled in the ground. The shadow book from the library hadn't said anything more about what Sam did to Delcan, only that incomprehensible spell, but it did have plenty of other useful information.

As it turned out, The Sheet wasn't completely mad. According to the shadow book, meditation was the best way to expand power wells, though it took a lot of meditation before it made any great impact. What The Sheet didn't consider was that maybe not all of his students could follow along with his particular brand of meditation.

The book pointed out a meditative exercise that worked the first time Sam tried it. Hold a shadow's shape and stare at it. So simple. So effective. He stared at his needle until everything around him fuzzed out of existence until no one item had any meaning at all, not even the shadow.

And then something moved.

Sam snapped a cloak of shadow around him on instinct, balling him into a world of black nothingness. He thinned the veil before his eyes, casting the world outside of his in a film of dull grey. A figure bound from the closest corner of the castle in all black.

It was about damn time.

Sam stood up when the thief flattened himself against the office wall, sliding against it until he reached the window. He passed right by Sam.

The thief didn't have a problem picking the window, which was insane. He didn't go for Mode's office this time. Maybe the rest of the windows were simply ignored. It was still ridiculous. After he stole the first thing, all the windows should have been securely locked.

The thief dove through the now-open portal and Sam dashed from his hiding spot, keeping his shadows clamped around him. He waited near the window and strained to hear the thief's soft feet pitter-pattering down the polished stone hallway.

He would grab the man, trap him in shadows, then drag him to Mode's bedchamber to make sure he was both in custody and unable to tell that Sam had been the one to give him up.

The sound of the thief's feet vanished. Now or never.

Sam took a deep breath, dismissed the shadows, then pulled himself through the window, landing on the other side without a sound. He crouched under the window for a few moments. He was in a round lobby, two halls branching away from it in an L-shape. A long counter was immediately in front of him, and healthy green plants dotted the edges of the room. Nothing looked disturbed.

Sam was sure the thief had gone down the left hallway.

He stood up and silently picked his way toward his destination, but before he made it past the reception area, all of the air left his lungs. Something big and heavy pressed into his middle, forcing his feet off the ground and his whole body into the air.

It lasted all of a second, and then he was on his back, wheezing and fumbling for the dull knife strapped to his calf.

"A little past your bedtime, Croft." Apelles' raspy voice appeared before he did. Sam's hand stilled at his leg; his fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his knife.

I knew it.

Apelles' face loomed above him and Sam controlled the urge to scowl at the spymaster—at the traitor.

"A little past your bedtime as well," Sam said evenly, then added, "Sir."

Apelles didn't verbally respond, but he did grab Sam forcefully by the arm and haul him to his feet. Sam withdrew his knife subtly. The spymaster's eyes flicked to the blade and he cocked an eyebrow.

"I'll give you a chance to make up a good excuse as to why you're here in the middle of the night without express permission. And if you don't come up with a good one, I'll drag you to my office and