Page 13 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Neighbor

Ankha left not long after she finished her meal and a second cup of tea. She didn’t say where she was going, but instructed me to remain in the room, and to not wander anywhere by myself, even inside the hotel.

I didn’t argue.

I had more questions, of course?a lot more questions, and now no one to ask.

I also couldn’t stand the idea of fidgeting in the room for hours, so not long after Ankha left, I ignored everything she’d said, and walked out, the bronze key stuck in a different sweater pocket than the one still holding the green crystal necklace.

I only hesitated a few seconds before I walked purposefully to the opening in the bannister where the rug first dropped us off.

Like I’d hoped, I stood there less than a minute before a new rug rose into view, hovering right next to the opening. A bored-looking bellhop stood on one side, a hand perched on his hip. From the way his jaws moved, he was chewing a thick wad of gum.

“Is there a restaurant in the lobby?” I asked. “Or a bar? Somewhere I could get a drink?”

He blinked, like I’d demanded he hand over his gum.

“There’s the wall,” he blurted out.

“The wall?”

“Dispenses stuff,” he explained. “‘Course, you could also just call down,” he offered. “They’ll bring you anything you want.”

He popped a blue gum-bubble at the end of his words.

“No.” I stepped purposefully onto the rug, clenching my jaw and my fists. “No. I’d like to go down myself, please.”

“Sure thing.”

The rug dropped without warning.

I managed to stay on my feet, but my stomach lurched more going that direction than it had on the way up. It lurched more than on any roller coaster I’d ridden, too. From the way the bellhop stared at me, I was probably a little green.

“You can’t fall off, you know,” he assured me. “There’s a chimera around every rug.” At my blank stare, he couched a bit in his hand. “Fields,” he clarified, then motioned around us, like that explained it. “You can’t fall. Won’t let you.”

That was reassuring, I supposed.

We touched down on the ground floor a few seconds later.

“Wall’s over there,” the bellhop said.

He motioned with his jaw towards a blank stretch of?

Well, wall.

The bellhop seemed to mean the area just past the fireplace, and I noticed that section of wall shone a faint gold color, like a mist shimmered over its surface. A young man stood right in front of it, frowning faintly, as if trying to make up his mind about something.

I walked unsteadily off the rug. I tried to control the roil in my stomach, even as I focused on not walking like I was drunk.

A few seconds later, I stood near the wall myself, a little ways back, and to the side of the young man standing there, who I now saw in profile.

He was tall, well over six feet, roughly my age, and startlingly handsome.

“You can go ahead,” he said absently, fluttering his fingers.

He didn’t look over, but continued to frown at the shimmering gold surface.

“I don’t actually know how to use it,” I confessed.

He froze at that, then slowly turned around from the waist up, his hand still supporting his beard-dusted jaw, his brow crinkled.

His stunning, pale, multi-colored, hazel eyes met mine, made all the more startling by their size and the darkness of his skin.

I noticed a two foot tall centaur stood by him.

Its eyes were the exact same color and shape as his.

“You don’t know how to use it?” he asked, baffled.

“No.” I shook my head, now wondering if it was a mistake to admit that. “Could you show me?”

His lips twitched. “What is it you want?”

I thought about that. “Can I get bottles?” I asked first.

“Absolutely.”

“Lager?” I ventured. “And maybe a big bottle of water?”

Those perfect lips lifted in a sideways smile. “No wine?”

“I’d take wine, too,” I admitted.

He lowered his hand for the first time, and pulled out a gold pocket watch, making a show of checking it. “I like a woman who drinks early,” he said, snapping the gold casing shut around the blue face. “Care for some company? Or are we drowning our sorrows in solitude today?”

I stared back. “Drowning sorrows? No.” I thought about that. “Not really sorrows. It’s definitely been a strange day. I may not be entirely good company.”

“I promise to behave,” he assured me. “I’m just bored out of my mind, living here. I’m stranded for the summer, not exactly penniless, but definitely observed and constrained outside those doors.” He waved in the vague direction of the main lobby entrance.

At my rising eyebrow, he smiled.

“My point is, I could use any company really, good or bad. Otherwise I’ll wander the streets of London like a sad sack, at least until my friend comes to collect me for tonight.”

“Friend?” I mused.

He waved that off, a glint in his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry your head about him. He’s a prick, or tries very hard to be. Hopelessly Sad King Caelum, I call him… and yes, to his face, as I have those sorts of privileges. He’s definitely not good drinking mate material, like me.”

I snorted a laugh, and the handsome man with the stunning eyes smiled.

“You live here?” I asked. “At the hotel?”

He nodded. “Temporarily. Just for the summer, as I said.”

I thought about that, and about all the questions swirling in my head.

“Okay,” I said. “We could have a drink.”

He snorted a laugh. “Your name’s Shadow?

Seriously?” He covered his mouth with a hand, his eyes faintly apologetic as he laughed into his palm.

“You’re our brand-new, incessantly talked about hybrid, and your last name is Shadow?

The gods really decided to take the piss with you, didn’t they, love? ”

I blinked at him. “Why is that funny?”

“Shadow is what we call Overworlders here,” he explained, taking a sip of wine.

He’d found us thin-stemmed wine glasses in a cabinet by the fireplace of my and Ankha’s suite. He’d found us comfortable cushions to sit on, too.

I stared at him now, still not quite getting it. “So it’s a slur?”

“Well… no. Not exactly.” My new friend pondered the question.

“I mean, there’s not a word for Overworlder that’s got a particularly positive meaning,” he admitted.

“But there are certainly much worse words. It’s really just shorthand.

Like calling Magicals ‘magi’ or ‘mages’ or ‘magias’ or ‘witches’ or ‘Ancients.’”

“You call yourself ‘Ancients’?” I scoffed, just buzzed enough that I couldn’t help it. “Not at all pretentious, that.”

Oddly, an enthusiastic light grew in his eyes.

“Oh, there are much more pretentious names, Leda,” he said eagerly, leaning towards me where we sat cross-legged on the carpet near the fireplace.

“Ancients isn’t even close to the worst. Some of the bigger idiots among our kind have whole lists of ways to describe those born of Magical blood.

First Race. Verus Sanguis. Sanguis Regum.

The Lux. Of course, they haven’t had actual hybrids to be prejudiced against in at least a thousand years, so a lot of that prejudice was theoretical.

Most of those terms I just rattled off were primarily meant to distinguish the rabble from those among us who are ‘better bloods’?”

“Like yourself?” I snorted.

“Exactly like me,” he grinned back.

In the past two hours, I’d learned the man sitting across from me was Alaric Maxmillian Greythorne, from one of the “old families” of Magique, and that he even had a distant blood relationship to the Magique royal family.

He’d also told me, with an extravagant bow and mock aplomb, that he placed on the royal succession line somewhere, although very far down, he assured me with a grin, kissing my hand.

I had no idea if half of what he’d told me about himself was even true.

I honestly didn’t care. He was funny, and ridiculous, and happy to order us a large variety of drinks and snacks. He was exactly what I needed right then.

He was also generous with information.

I’d already learned that “primal” was the name for the roughly cat-sized, made-of-light, translucent creatures that lingered around every adult and teenaged Magical. The name came from a shortening of prima lux, or “first light.”

He’d informed me loftily that the definitive book to read on the subject was Magical Basics, by Fortenz J.

Spright, a theurgist from Ireland and one of the first to map primals by family and hierarchy.

When I showed enthusiasm for that information, he proceeded to write out a whole list of books for me to read, and promised to lend me any of his that I wanted.

“Of course, you can always ask old Forsooth all of this,” he’d added with a smile.

“Forsooth?” My eyebrow lifted.

“You said he was decent to you, at your test?” When I nodded, Alaric poured me another glass of the red wine.

“He’s the Theurgy Master at Malcroix Bones.

Has been for something like forty years.

” He set the bottle on the stone hearth a foot from his knee.

“He’s written loads of books on the subject, including the standardized textbooks for most age levels.

He’s supposedly got a positively uncanny ability to access aetheric beings…

including incredibly rare ones, and even deliciously dark ones.

He’s kind of an institution around here. A legend.”

He nudged my knee. “You should write him. I’m sure he’d tell you anything you wanted to know. He’s a good old chap. I’m looking forward to studying with him in the fall. Assuming I pass my bridging course, that is.”

At that, I’d stuttered. “Oh. Oh… no. I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” His eyebrow rose. “I would make friends where you can, love. Forsooth would be an extremely useful friend to have.”

I nodded, not fully acknowledging the subtext there, but definitely hearing it.

He’d already implied there would be a fair bit of prejudice against me here, if I ended up staying.

Hardly surprising, given what Ankha had said, but still daunting.

That was one issue I’d never had to deal with before.

I wasn’t entirely sure how well I’d handle it.

“Uh-oh. You look scared now.” He nudged me again. “You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t even know if I’m staying?” I reminded him.

Just then, a sharp, clear knock came at the door.

Alaric and I exchanged looks.

“The infamous Ankha La Fey?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Infamous?” I smiled. “Is she? And I doubt she’d knock.”

“Ah. Of course. And yes, she’s famous. Didn’t anyone tell you?

You’re half like me, darling.” At my puzzled frown, he grinned, eyes glinting as he winked.

“The La Feys are blue-bloods, sorry to say. They were considered eminently respectable before the scandal with your mother, and your great-grandmother before her.”

“Really?” I said skeptically.

“Really,” he smiled. “I know all about your family, love. They’ve some absolutely fantastic stories of decadence and betrayal and black spells.

You might want to look it up, purely for entertainment’s sake, of course.

All the best gossips among the royals will likely give you an earful, too, if you suck up the courage to ask. ”

“The royals,” I scoffed.

Still, I thought about his words. Ankha was always so snotty about every mention of “the family,” and her “heritage.” Honestly, Greythorne’s words rang largely true.

“Genetics aside, are you going to answer the door?” Alaric took another long drink of wine. “Or leave your poor auntie out there all alone?”

I pulled my weight off the carpet with a snort.

I still had strong doubts it was Ankha. Even if she’d had to resort to knocking, she certainly wouldn’t be that patient or gentle about it. She’d likely be yelling and pounding by now, if I’d truly left her out in the hall.

I walked to the suite’s door anyway, and jerked it open to find myself face to face with a young woman in one of those red and gold bellhop uniforms, complete with tightly-fitting round hat.

The new bellhop stared at me, wide-eyed.

She had a very, very freckled face, and almost comically large blue eyes.

“Yes?” I said. “Can I help you?”

She thrust her hand forward, into the opening of the door. I noticed only then that she held a thick piece of yellow-tinted parchment. It looked like an old-fashioned scroll, rolled up tightly in her hand.

I took it from her carefully.

I felt a wax seal under my fingers, and looked down to see the emblem of a lion with spread wings, objects clutched in two of its claws. One of those objects appeared to be a book, the other a glass ball. The lion had been stamped in gold on black wax.

When I focused on the symbols inked around the seal, they rearranged themselves into English.

“Magical Examiner’s Office,” I muttered.

“It’s the office that ranks a Magical’s potential,” a voice supplied eagerly.

I looked up.

The bellhop continued to stand there, and now she looked excited.

“I don’t have any money,” I said, apologetic.

The freckled bellhop blinked. Then her face slowly reddened.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” she urged me. “The scroll. It’s yours, innit?”

“What is hers?” a deep, very male voice drawled. Alaric showed up in the doorway behind me, his voice lazy.

I glanced back at him, then looked back at the bellhop. She was staring at Alaric like he was already the king of Magique. He gave her one of his charming smiles back.

“Hiya, Red,” he said in a friendly way. “Got any mail for me?”

“No!” she blurted awkwardly.

I waited another second, but she didn’t stop staring at Alaric.

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “We’re a bit engaged?”

“Horribly busy,” Alaric seconded with a wink to the bellhop. “Can’t spare a single instant of our time right now, Red, sad to say. I’m busy courting her as my new best friend, you see.”

The bellhop’s mouth only fell open more, her eyes riveted to Alaric. She certainly didn’t seem any closer to leaving on her own.

Finally, I backed up into the hotel room. The fingers of my free hand found the edge of the door and swung it carefully closed. The freckle-faced bellhop continued to stare at us both eagerly, her head craning right up to the moment I shut the door in her face.