Death's Academy Read Online Free PDF

classes—Death Construction, Animal Languages, the Art of Lightning Strikes—but her favorite was History of Death,” she says with a voice that seems to be carried from far away. “She taught about the first Death and the origin of his power, also about the beginning of Death’s civilization. She loved to teach.”
    Without meaning to, I can feel myself ungluing from the corner of the cell and taking a step toward her.
    She shakes her head as if she is trying to dislodge a painful memory. “She was also vain and sought praise from others. She forgot what she loved most; she forgot about teaching and began only to do research. She scoured the world. She discovered many amazing things from the past, but she also found something else … Something up north …” Her voice trails off to just above a whisper. She raises her head from the iron bar, and her gaze rests on me.
    “What? What did you find?” I ask.
    “I found them,” she says, her eyes unfocused for a moment, and she blinks.
    “Who?”
    “Hundreds of them, hiding, waiting … an entire city. They captured Pandora. Tortured Pandora, made her tell them all about our great secret.”
    “Great secret?”
    “The Scythe of Grim, the foundation of all our powers,” she whispers. “Without it we would cease to be what we are. Without it we would cease to exist. They forced me to tell them where it was hidden.”
    “The Scythe of Grim?” I ask and notice that I have taken another few steps toward her.
    She licks her lips. “It’s here,” she wheezes and stomps her foot on the stone floor. “Below us, locked away. They want it. They want to pay us back, to destroy us all.” Her eyes slip again out of focus, and she wavers on the spot.
    “Who wants to destroy us?”
    “Pandora escaped, but no one would believe me, believe me.” As she speaks, her back begins to curve and droop.
    “Who was it, Pandora?” I ask, grabbing her by the elbow.
    Her glance darts to my face, but I can tell she is looking beyond me, and her expression goes vacant right before my eyes.
    “Pandora?”
    “Unicorns,” she whispers and then laughs out loud, patting me on my head. She turns away and shuffles tothe stone wall and knocks on it. She knocks again and then places her ear up against it.
    “Hello!” she yells and chuckles. “Hello!”
    She turns to me. “I came here last week, last week. We have an appointment. Yes, we do, an appointment. They are home, yep, yep. I’ll wait.” She then flops onto the ground facing the wall and stares at it. Occasionally she reaches forward and acts like she is about to knock again, but stops herself by slapping her hand down and shaking a finger at it. “Don’t be rude.”
    I lean up against the iron bars. Hundreds of unicorns? She really must be crazy. The unicorns have been extinct for at least fifty years. Even I, a hoodie who hasn’t been to Death’s Academy, know that. I smile as I watch her slap her hand away again.
    “Old loon,” I whisper and peer through the bars and down the torchlit walkway.
    She’s got to be making it up. If there were hundreds of unicorns, the Sickles would know all about it … But if they didn’t know and she is telling the truth—well, let’s just say we hoodies would be in real danger.
    “Midnight Smith!” a voice squeaks.
    I turn to see the gargantuan guard Wolf striding down the walkway.
    “Your parents are here.”

six
    A s soon as our car passes through the Lock’s gate and out onto the city street, my mom whips around in her seat. Her face is purple and her eyes are about to pop out of her head.
    “Midnight Smith, you are grounded! No friends, no skull ball, no anything for, for, for—”
    “A very long time,” my dad pipes in.
    “Longer than that!” she barks and turns back in her seat, taking out her frustration on her seat belt.
    “A very , very long time,” my dad says with a nervous glance at my mom.
    “But we have the big skull ball game tomorrow. It’s the