Page 17 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Friends

Ibit into my peach, listening avidly as Miranda continued to talk, more or less conspiring with the two of us from Draken’s lap.

“So don’t tell anyone,” Miranda said now with a smirk. “But Drakey here is the son of a bonafide movie star.” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then whispered softly, “His last name is Joran.”

Miranda clearly expected a reaction out of me from the whispered name.

I smiled politely, and nodded.

“As in Gragan Joran?” Miranda prompted.

I continued to smile, but could only shrug, waving the peach a little.

“Seriously?” Miranda gaped at me, then shut her mouth and grinned. “Wow. You really weren’t kidding when you said you hadn’t followed a lot of popular culture since you got here. I guess you haven’t seen any movies since you got here, either?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not a one. I hadn’t even gotten to the point of wondering whether you had movies here.

I’ve not really gotten out much, apart from school, and to study with friends.

” That was a bit of a fudge. It’d really only been one friend.

“And book stores.” I added. “And clothes, since I had nothing, and other shopping things.”

Alaric had been absolutely invaluable in the clothing department, too.

Not to mention lending me about thirty books over the course of the summer.

Miranda laughed. “Oh, boy. You’re in for it, then.

Once people start to recognize him, there’ll be a feeding frenzy.

Probably media trying to spot him in Bonescastle, too.

His parents kept it quiet where he was headed for university, and Malcroix is discreet, but sooner or later it always comes out.

And it’s always chaos around Drakey once he gets recognized.

” She patted her friend’s arm and Draken rolled his eyes.

I couldn’t help noticing he looked embarrassed, and distinctly uncomfortable.

Miranda must be used to that, too, because she ignored it.

“Given you don’t get the whole hype thing with his dad,” she added with a grin. “It’ll probably seem totally batshit to you.”

The pretty witch with the unusual eyes propped her forearms on Draken’s thighs and smiled at me in a friendly way. Draken didn’t seem to mind, or even notice really.

“We can get you up to date on all the crazy Hollywood stuff later. Suffice it to say, his father’s a big deal in Magique,” she went on conspiratorially, still in a near-whisper.

“We figure it’ll probably be twenty-four hours before someone figures out who he is…

forty-eight, if he’s really lucky. Then he’ll start getting mobbed for autographs and probably have to deal with bizarre stalking behavior from his father’s obsessed fans. ”

She glanced up fondly at her friend. “Drake looks just like him, poor bastard, which doesn’t help. Although I think he’s even prettier than his dad. He doesn’t have his father’s blue eyes, so we’re stuck with the puppy eyes, instead. Far more devastating?”

Draken smacked her lightly on the shoulder and flushed red, and I smiled.

“What kinds of movies is your dad in?” I asked Draken.

“Action, mostly,” Draken answered, matter of fact.

“He’s dabbled in ‘serious’ acting, here and there, but he makes most of his money doing action pictures with a lot of magic and effects and big explosions.

In his most famous series of movies, he plays a half-god, half-wizard who works as a praecurus in America. ”

I swallowed as an unwelcome image of my mother intruded behind my eyes, but to Draken, I only nodded.

“So you grew up in Scotland?” I asked.

He nodded. “Edinburgh, mostly. But I spent a fair amount of time in L.A. and in Japan, like Miranda said. Dad’s kind of a workaholic, and I went with them until I got old enough for boarding school.”

I strongly got the impression Draken was both used to talking about his famous father, and pretty bored by it. Even as I thought it, Draken shoved Miranda’s shoulder, clearly wanting to shift the focus off himself.

“Mir’s even more of a Hollywood kid than I am,” he said. “So don’t let her fool you. Her mother is Monique Rook. As in the Monique Rook. She’s basically an institution there?”

Miranda smacked his arm, which seemed to be another thing with the two of them. “If she hasn’t heard of Gragan Joran, do you really think Leda’ll have any idea who in the gods Monique Rook is?” she scoffed.

He frowned. “Your mum’s as famous as my dad.”

“Only to film nerds and Hollywood kids like us,” Miranda scoffed.

She looked back at me. “My mom’s a director, mostly,” she explained.

“But he’s right… sort of. Miranda Rook is a bit of an institution there.

She’s one of those directors who writes her own movies and does a lot of the artistic design.

She conjures her own sets and so on. She’s an ‘artiste,’ as dad would say.

Which is just fancy talk for a complete control freak. ”

Miranda rolled her eyes, but it struck me as affectionate.

I couldn’t help the simultaneous flickers of warmth and envy towards the other witch.

Miranda obviously liked both of her parents.

“It can be exhausting, really,” she added. “Especially when she’s in the middle of something new, or if a project isn’t going how she wants, or it’s past deadline…” Miranda shrugged. “But she really is quite good,” she admitted. “A bit of a genius, annoyingly.”

“She’s definitely more Hollywood than I am,” Draken repeated to me, nudging Miranda and smiling.

“Only because your mom shipped you off to Scotland and Japan when you were a kid, and then shipped you off to boarding school when your dad got too famous,” Miranda retorted. “I went to the same boarding school as you, if you’ll recall.”

“Still more Hollywood,” Draken said to me behind his hand. “Get her drunk, and she starts name-dropping like a reporter for Hollywood Faere?”

Miranda slapped him, and sat up from his lap, and Draken smirked.

I’d closed my book a while ago.

I was still a little bewildered by how friendly they were to me.

“Why’re you studying so hard?” Draken asked, nudging my arm.

“Didn’t anyone tell you classes haven’t actually started yet, Shadow?

We have two whole days to screw around once we get there, and run around that invisible city that’s supposed to encircle the grounds of the school.

” His eyes lit up as he smiled. “You should come with us!”

“You have to come with us,” Miranda corrected.

“The queen has spoken,” Draken said, smirking back at me. “You’re stuck with us, I’m afraid. She’ll be insufferable otherwise.”

“Invisible city?” I asked, puzzled. “I knew it was a hidden city, but how can a whole city be actually invisible?”

“You can’t see it, or pass through the magical shields, until you’ve been personally invited by one of the city’s official welcomers,” Draken explained.

“They have this really clever split-dimension thing going on that no one knows how to duplicate, apparently. It keeps tourists at a minimum, although every alumnus can go there, of course, as well as anyone who’s ever worked there. ”

“Yeah, it’s totally famous,” Miranda said, leaning on Draken’s lap again.

“Filled with a bunch of magi-scientists and esotericist nerds, of course… not to mention magistorian nerds and magi-sociology nerds and magi-juris nerds and cryptozoologists and whatever else. It’s the foremost research and academic center in Britain?”

“If not the world,” Draken amended.

“This is Bonescastle, right?” I asked, fascinated.

“Of course,” Miranda said, laughing. “Is there anything that family touches that they didn’t put their name on, given the chance? They’d rename Magique itself to ‘Bonesworld,’ if they could. They likely will do it, if they ever figure out how to bribe enough people.”

“She’s not wrong,” Draken grunted. “Bloody Bones family and their spawn think they own all of magic itself, and likely all of us. They put their money into academia and the arts to cover up the fact they own half of Magical Europe, and got there by pretty shady means. Not to mention all the atrocities they’re rumored to have orchestrated over the centuries. ”

“One of those spawn will be joining our class this year, you know,” Miranda said, her voice conspiratorial again.

“He’s older, too. Twenty-one, I think? Twenty-two?

Maybe even older. Supposedly he almost died of some disease when he was a kid, so entered school late.

I read that it took an entire team of magi-physicians just to keep him alive.

Likely on the blood of infants culled from the lesser classes?”

Draken snorted, and I laughed, in spite of myself.

Miranda added, “Anyway, he wasn’t well enough to go to school until he was older, and never bothered to skip for some reason, although, supposedly, he could have.” She rolled her eyes. “Not like it matters. He’ll never work a day in his life. He’s the direct heir of the current Bones patriarch?”

“Oh. I did hear that.” Draken made a face. “Malefic’s son. He’s supposed to be a right prick, isn’t he? A veritable clone of his father? My dad’s had a few run-ins with the elder Bones. He didn’t exactly have good things to say.”

“Smart, though,” Miranda conceded reluctantly.

“He might be an utter bastard, but he’s reputed to be the one to beat in the core courses.

” Her lip curled. “And he’s apparently sheer hell in practicals for magical combat.

The rumor is, he put a few of his classmates in the hospital, back when they still let him duel with students.

Most of his class in secondary school wouldn’t go up against him at all.

He had to spar with teachers after third year, and got such a high score in exams, they accredited him for adult combat by the time he was fourteen. ”

Draken looked deeply unimpressed.

“So he likes hurting people,” he said, grunting. “Hardly something to be proud of. Anyway, he must’ve had private tutors in every subject before he could walk. His father likely hired a Class-6 Warlock to teach him to fight, starting when he was two years old.”

“Probably,” Miranda agreed.

I was focused on something else by then. Alarm prickled through me as the full implications of their back and forth really hit me.

“We have to fight at this school?” I asked, looking between them. “Each other, I mean?”

They both looked at me, blinked.

“Of course,” Draken said. “Magical combat is a requirement. Two years minimum, or until you pass your adult exams.”

I swallowed, not thrilled to have a new thing to be anxious about.

I’d seen that on the schedule somewhere, of course, like flying and magistory and alchemy and telepathic studies and magical botany, but it hadn’t fully sunk in that we’d be fighting-fighting.

With magic. In a way that got people seriously injured, even sent to hospital.

I’d been picturing something more like demo matches with stationary targets.

To actually fight other Magicals seemed, well… reckless.

Bloody dangerous, really.

“What’s his name again?” I asked. “The scary one? You said his last name is Bones?”

Miranda nodded, that mischievous glint back in her lavender eyes.

“I keep forgetting you don’t know anything yet.

We’ll have to get you up to speed on absolutely everyone and everything so you can gossip with us properly.

Anyway, you have to know the Bones family, and not only because you’ll be attending the world-famous university one of their matriarchs founded.

They’re practically the ruling family in Magique.

Particularly here, in England. Really, in all of the United Kingdom and Europe. ”

Miranda paused, obviously thinking.

Her eyes rolled up as she pursed her lips.

“Caelum,” she declared, a few seconds later. “That’s the son’s name. I’m pretty sure Caelum Bones is the new heir. Of course, he’s probably got six other names and a Roman numeral behind it somewhere. They switched to full-blown sole-male-descent somewhere in the 15th Century.”

Draken snorted. “Figures.”

I was frowning, though, eyes unfocused.

Caelum.

Hadn’t Alaric mentioned having a friend named Caelum?

Alaric had called him a prick, too, hadn’t he? He’d said he tried to be a prick, anyway.

But who would try to be a prick? Other than an actual prick?