Page 15 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Carriage

“It’s our family’s heart,” the achingly familiar voice whispered. “It’s our magic. It tells us if our hearts are sick, or if we walk in the light.” She stroked my hair and leaned back to wink at me. “Also, as long as you wear it, you’re a ghost, little rabbit…”

Lightning flashed in the background, a rolling cloud of purple and green smoke. I tried not to look at it. I tried to pretend I didn’t see it, that it wasn’t coming. I heard the thunder soon after, but it was too soon. I wasn’t ready. It was too soon.

It was always too soon.

“Wait,” I told her. “Wait, please, Mom?”

I reached for her as the screams filled my ears. My mother’s face was already disintegrating, eaten away as I watched, her hand outstretched, her eyes terrified.

Darkness descended, and then…

The boy was there.

Always him. Always alone.

He stood under the London Underground sign, head tilted.

Gold eyes. Spiky, platinum-blond hair. Dressed like a little prince, with a cream cape and green pants and a tailored black vest with a diamond at the throat of his high collar.

I studied the distinct shape of his mouth, his long-fingered hands, adorned with heavy rings, too heavy for his age.

A storm of emotions flashed in his odd-colored irises.

A black, coiling, living flame writhed and glowed around a smoking black crystal over his head. It floated there, without strings, but no one else seemed to see it.

A flush came to his cheeks as he stared back at me.

Then, his eyes angled higher. He stared at the space above my head, too.

He could see me.

I could see him.

We were the only ones who could.

Before I could warn him away, tell him he wasn’t safe, that he had to run… the cloud of smoke enveloped him, and pulled him into darkness.

I jerked awake.

Panting, lying on my back in the dimly-lit, shuttered room, I fought to focus, to bring my mind back online. Urgency lived in my breaths, my fast-beating heart, my sweat-dampened hair, but I couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

I was late. I had to be somewhere, didn’t I? Wherever it was, it felt vitally important, but my mind couldn’t comprehend what it was.

The bridging course had finished. It wasn’t that.

Alaric wasn’t expecting me. He’d returned to some palatial mansion on the south coast of France a few days earlier, summoned by his father for the week before the autumn term began at Malcroix Bones?

Malcroix. School.

I sat up, and stared at the room around me.

My eyes fell to the iridescent green clock, and the strange, curved arrows that served as hands. I threw back the duvet and blanket, and hopped to my feet, wearing silk pajamas I’d purchased a few weeks earlier. I padded to the door of my bedroom, opened it, and walked into the sitting room.

Something had changed. I could feel it.

I’d been alone in the suite at the Dragon’s Keep since the day I got my scrolls telling me I would be staying in Magique, and attending Malcroix Bones.

Ankha had left that very night, only a few hours after she opened them.

Before she went, she informed me I had the suite at the Dragon’s Keep for the summer.

She told me which Magical bank held my money, wrote down where to go for my citizenship papers so I could access it and establish credit, and showed me on the second, thicker scroll where to go for the bridging course the following week.

Since then, apart from Alaric, no one but me had been in my rooms, so the feeling that someone else had been inside while I’d been sleeping unnerved me.

I reached the center of the suite before I saw it.

A note had been left propped on a glass vase full of pink and red sunflowers. I flashed to the envelopes of cash that appeared on the kitchen counter every few weeks since I’d been ten years old. This note felt about as personal.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also originated from the same hand.

She didn’t bother with any sort of greeting for this, either.

I’ve told the hotel staff to leave this for you. I received notice that you passed your course. The carriage will pick you up this morning for the trip to Malcroix. You’re to be out in front of the Keep at 7AM. DO NOT BE LATE!

Ankha didn’t bother to sign it, not like it mattered.

Luckily, I’d already known I’d be leaving today. I’d packed almost everything the day before. Even so, I glanced at the clock again, cursed, and sprinted for my bedroom. I yanked off my pajama top as I ran, calculating just how much time I had to shower without slowing my steps.

I stood in the bright sunshine on the curb in front of the Keep, a little bleary-eyed, but showered, and reasonably awake. I’d come outside early, thank goodness, because my transport arrived exactly on time, down to the very second.

“Are they… unicorns?” I stared at the sleek black beasts curiously. “Is that what they’re called here, I mean?”

It was the first time I’d seen any up close.

Usually they ran by so quickly on the street, all I glimpsed was a black blur.

The onyx heads tossed impatiently, brandishing equally black horns, which grew out of the middle of their foreheads. The horns ended in points that looked razor-sharp, and extended over two feet past where they broke the skin.

No one answered me, and I glanced over my shoulder at the uniformed mage standing in the doorway of the carriage.

He frowned back, visibly puzzled. From his expression, he found me and my questions much more exotic than the horse-like creatures pulling the carriage, with their horns, talon-like back claws, and obsidian-scaled, snake-like tails.

I heard a clattering noise and glanced down at where a second mage in the same, dark-blue uniform, shoved my rather large trunk into a lower compartment under the carriage. My suitcase, which was almost as large, but significantly lighter, soon followed.

The mage by the open door finally spoke.

“They’re monoceri.” His voice sounded as incredulous as his expression looked. “You really don’t know that? Unicorns are a different breed entirely, and can’t be used for this kind of work. Not to mention it’s completely illegal.”

“Illegal,” I muttered. “Right.”

“They’d be entirely worthless for something like this,” the man added, his voice still puzzled. “Monoceri are faster, stronger, easier to reason with. They have entirely different temperaments. They’re motivated by different things. In fact, don’t do that…”

I’d been walking closer to one of the coal-black beasts.

I froze at the man’s words and withdrew my hand.

I’d been hoping to get a closer look, maybe even to touch a glossy neck or nose.

Now, as I walked around the harnessed animals, giving them a wider berth, I saw their tails writhing and coiling around their flanks, like they were annoyed.

Those tails had to be six feet long, and were as pitch black as the rest of them.

Their black manes were long and wild, half-covering dark red eyes.

“Would it bite me?” I asked the man.

“Aye. Bite you. Stab you with the horn. Break your leg with its tail. Maybe just stomp you, or claw your face for good measure.”

A hint of amusement lived in his words.

The one packing up the carriage chuckled as the two mages exchanged looks.

I swallowed, unsure if they were messing with me, but guessing they probably weren’t.

“Right,” I muttered.

Not a fairy tale, I reminded herself. You’re not in a fairy tale, Leda. These are real animals. Dangerous, obviously insurance-claim-nightmare, living creatures.

As I walked towards the carriage entrance, I mused about how strange it was, that I’d already been here three months.

The summer had flown by, with one of the only truly bright spots, apart from the magic itself, being Alaric, who’d been in every one of my bridging classes.

Between Alaric, the classes themselves, not to mention the positively insane number of books I’d read that summer, trying to catch up with everyone else in my courses, I barely had time to think about how different my life was now.

I still didn’t have my very own light-animal, or “primal,” as Magicals called them.

Without a primal, I had only what Forsooth taught me during the Magical test. I used that fiery, buzzy, liquid feeling in my chest for performing magic, the same as I had in that early exam.

It seemed to work with most spells and rituals I’d attempted, which irritated the hell out of a number of my teachers for some reason.

On days where I used that part of me a lot, it felt like a pool of lava under my ribs.

Sometimes it seemed to have a life of its own.

I’d honestly wondered if my primal might actually spring out of my chest at some point, fully formed, but when I aimed magical rituals I practiced there, it only seemed to create geometric shapes.

Those shapes faded as soon as the ritual ended, melting back into that lava-like heat in the center of my chest, so I was no closer to a primal than I had been.

A primal was supposed to stay.

A primal was supposed to be permanent.

Thinking about that, a sharp pang of missing my brother hit me.

I hadn’t had one that bad in a while, but he would have loved all of this.

He would’ve been absolutely fascinated by the monoceri, not to mention by primals themselves.

He would have loved the little fiery people, the draka, which passed messages throughout much of the Magical world.

Knowing him, he’d already be plotting how to obtain one as a pet.

I pushed thoughts of my brother aside with an effort.

It had been a relief to get my grades back from the summer bridging course, with high passing marks in every subject, along with a letter from Malcroix Bones Academy confirming that the conditions of my acceptance in the fall had been completed in full.

Ankha must’ve gotten a letter as well, given her note.

It was the first time I’d had any communication from her all summer.

“Upper level’s full,” the uniformed mage by the door told me.