Read an Excerpt From A Door in the Dark

We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Scott Reintgen‘s A Door in the Dark, a fantasy thriller that follows six teenage wizards as they fight to make it home alive after a malfunctioning spell leaves them stranded in the wilderness. A Door in the Dark publishes March 28th with Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Ren Monroe has spent four years proving she’s one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, he’d already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays—Theo’s punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kids. Which doesn’t sit well with any of them.

A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the school’s campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.

If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves it’s Ren. She’s been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for what’s following them through the dark woods…

The portal spell set Ren Monroe down in the same way a child would discard a toy. She came gasping back into the world on all fours. There was pain. Far more pain than normal. She reached up and used two fingers to loosen the collar of her shirt, because it felt like she was choking. Opening her eyes brought on a wave of vertigo. It took a moment to get her bearings.

A forest. Great trees with sprawling roots. The air was notably cooler than on campus. She tried to push up to her feet and stumbled back to her knees. Her mind and body were struggling to reconnect. Ren realized she wasn’t alone.

Dark shapes were scattered around the forest floor. As she squinted, they became people. Ren heard one of them groan. Someone else started heaving for air on her left. Ren’s own breathing came in shocked gasps. Five other figures were in the forest clearing.

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A Door in the Dark

That’s not possible.

Everyone who’d been in the portal room was here. That meant something had gone terribly wrong. They should have appeared at their own destinations. In their own neighborhoods. But this wasn’t the Lower Quarter. It wasn’t Kathor. Looking around, Ren wasn’t even sure if these were the same trees that marked the bordering forests of their city.

“Where are we?”

Her words came out as rust. No one answered. Another groan nearby. Ren recognized the beautiful silver-white hair, streaming ghostlike down slender shoulders. The fashionable shirt was now covered in dirty streaks. Timmons was here too. No, no, no…

Ren started crawling toward her best friend. As she did, she noted the group was in the same pattern they’d been in back in the portal room. Exact distances and relative positioning. Her fogged mind struggled to process that fact. Avy Williams was flat on his back, breathing in thick and slow. Poor Cora was trapped beneath him, working to pry herself free. Ren’s eyes circled to the right.

The two heirs were there: Clyde Winters and Theo Brood.

“What the…”

She watched Theo shove to his feet, curses rattling out as he stumbled sideways into the nearest tree. He pointed down at Clyde before retching on the ground. Ren stood, her head still spinning, and saw the reason for Theo’s reaction.

Clyde Winters was a husk.

There was no other word for him. It looked like he’d been cooked from the inside out. Every vein had burst. His eyes bulged and popped. She saw blackened scorches underneath the skin. Almost as if the magic flowing through his body had boiled, hard and hot. Even his clothing looked burned. There were dark streaks across his cardigan and his trousers. Ren thought she could handle it. Cadavers had never bothered her before, but then the scent of burning flesh hit her nostrils with full force. She turned in time to retch on Timmons’s shoes.

“Hey! That’s disgusting, Ren! Why…”

And then her friend saw the body. She let loose a scream.

For a few seconds Ren stood there, bent over, her chest heaving. Even the smallest motion threatened to rock her stomach. She waited until she was certain she wasn’t going to throw up again. Then she pulled her scarf up over her nose and turned back to face the dark scene.

Timmons looked like a dying flower. She was kneeling in the dirt, face buried in her hands, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. Theo stood with one hand pressed to the base of a giant tree, struggling to keep his feet. He’d turned his back to them. Anything to avoid looking at what was lying on the forest floor between them. Ren’s eyes skipped over that same spot.

She looked at Avy instead. He was on his back, staring up at the thick canopy. His chest rose and fell, and she remembered he’d been hit by a stunner before the portal spell activated. Likely its effect had amplified. She suspected the magic felt like a two-ton anvil now.

Only Cora remained calm. Of course. The medical student would know what to do when everyone else was panicking. Ren watched her navigate through the maze of bone-thick roots. She knelt down to take vitals and announced unhelpfully, “He’s dead.”

Those words finally brought the image back into focus. Ren couldn’t ignore it now. Clyde Winters was sprawled at a strange angle on the forest floor—and he looked very, very dead. Cora was fishing through her bag. She unpacked a small medical kit. The sound of her tools clinking together finally forced Theo to turn around. He wiped his mouth with one sleeve.

“Knock it off. That’s an heir of House Winters. He’s not a test cadaver.” Cora paused in the middle of her preparations. Even though the forest was thick with shadows, Ren saw the girl’s expression clearly. She looked like she wanted to tell Theo that was exactly what Clyde was now. Instead she offered a begrudging nod.

“You’re right. It’s just… unlike any death I’ve ever seen… knowing the cause.…”

Ren saw the sharpness in Theo’s expression. She decided to intervene.

“Not now, Cora. We need to figure out where we are first.”

Avy finally sat up. He blinked a few times. When he saw Clyde’s body on the ground, both hands went up defensively. “I… I didn’t do that. I swear! There’s no way.…” For some reason his denial dragged Timmons back into the conversation. “I told you not to do magic in there. Look at that. Look what happened to him!”

Avy shook his head. “I didn’t even cast a spell. That’s what I’m saying. It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t use any magic…”

There was a moment of silence. No retching or heaving or sobbing. It was just long enough for the forest to press in around them like a shadow. branches, clacking them together like spears. Ren heard dying birdsong and the distant shuffling of larger creatures. The group looked around, unnerved. The quiet was a reminder that this place—wherever they were—was also a threat to them. She’d never felt so exposed. It didn’t help that one of them was already dead. That thought was followed by a darker one.

And one of us killed him.