Page 19 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

“Only one time.” Seeming to think about that, Miranda choked out a low laugh.

“It was a disaster. I wouldn’t have done it at all, but my cousins were all making fun of me, and since they’re all, like, ten years older, I blame them, not me.

” Smiling in some embarrassment, she shrugged.

“I talked my parents into getting me wings for my birthday last year. I thought maybe if I’d got my own, it wouldn’t be quite so traumatic. ”

She nudged my arm. “My birthday’s in October, by the way.

Just so you know when to buy me presents.

Drakey’s a few months younger. He turned nineteen in February, but they didn’t offer a flying course at our old school, so we decided to wait on getting licensed until we got here.

We were both traveling all summer anyway. ”

I knew she was teasing about presents, but I made a mental note of both months.

“Technically, you’re not allowed to fly outside a class environment until you pass your exam,” Miranda explained. “But it’s no secret a lot of parents teach their kids on the sly.”

“What happened?” I asked. “With your first attempt?”

Miranda let out a giggle, her cheeks turning pink.

“Oh, it probably looked quite humorous from the outside, which is why my stupid cousins will never let me forget it.” She snorted a laugh.

“I flew sideways, then up, then bumped along the ground for a bit… then up again… then straight down when I panicked. Coming down, I slammed into the upper branches of my uncle’s Jacaranda tree…

aaaand broke my arm and started screaming bloody murder. In my defense, I was twelve.”

Draken rolled his eyes, but from his expression, he’d heard the story before.

“Dingbat,” he said fondly.

Miranda bought us cappuccinos, and we took them to a window seat with large, comfy cushions so we could watch the street outside. Another two-story carriage drew up as we got situated, and, pretty soon, more students began popping into existence, which meant they must be first years, like us.

“How many are in our class?” I asked. “Total, I mean?”

“No idea.” Draken shrugged. “I didn’t see that written anywhere, did you, Mir?”

“No.” She shook her lavender head, blowing on foam and chocolate. “I suspect they keep the numbers vague on purpose.”

I frowned, wondering why they would do that, but before I could ask, Miranda lowered her mug and nodded at the window.

“There’s Luc. You want to get him, Drake? Or should I?”

The lanky, black-haired mage got to his feet without complaint. He exited out the door of the coffee shop, causing another tinkle of the overhead bell.

I watched as he loped towards the square. He paused to let an older witch walk by with a magically-powered shopping cart with a pink poodle primal perched on the handle, then waited again for a mage in a tall hat, which had a purple penguin perched on top of it, to pedal by on a bicycle.

Draken then walked up to someone roughly our age with long, shaggy, auburn hair and shocking blue eyes. He smiled at Draken, shook his hand, then both were headed back.

“You’ll like Luc,” Miranda told me confidently. “He’s a giant nerd. We had to physically drag him out of the library half the time in secondary school, or he might have turned into some kind of subterranean creature.”

I smiled at that, and sipped my cappuccino as I studied the primal perched on the red-haired mage’s shoulder. It peered around with round eyes, clinging to him with long fingers. A striped tail made a question mark in the air by its head.

“What is that?” I asked. “His primal?”

Miranda looked at her two mage friends and laughed. “It’s a ring-tailed lemur. It’s really cute. My primal never knows what to do with it, though. My corgi is feisty, and the lemur only wants to pet it and follow it around.”

I quirked my eyebrow at that, but didn’t comment.

The door opened, ringing the bell again, and the two mages joined us.

“I’ll get you a coffee,” Draken offered Luc. “Meet our new friend. This is Leda Shadow, our one and only hybrid…”

I winced at his bluntness, but the lanky mage in the rumpled suit only looked over with an expression of curiosity. He held out a hand, and I noticed he wore a number of rings, some of which looked old, like real antiques.

“Lucifer Ryan Mocking,” he said.

“Lucifer?” I smiled as I took the offered hand. “Really?”

He shrugged as we shook. “Everyone calls me Luc. But yeah. It’s a family name.”

We dropped hands right as Draken came back with the magically-prepared cappuccino. He plunked it down by a chair he’d dragged over to our table.

My eyes fell to where Luc’s lemur appeared to be stalking Miranda’s corgi. Like Miranda said, her corgi crouched down playfully and barked, clearly wanting to wrestle, but the lemur only reached out to gently stroke one of its ears.

The lion tackled both of them then, and the three primals tumbled over the floor.

“You don’t have a primal?” Luc asked politely.

I looked back at him, and realized Miranda and Draken were listening avidly too, although pretending they weren’t.

“I don’t,” I said, exhaling.

“Can you still do magic?” Miranda asked.

“I can,” I acknowledged. “Maybe not as well as I would be able to, but I managed to pass the bridging course.”

“And got the best score on the Magical potential test in something like a hundred years,” Draken muttered under his breath.

I glanced at him. I’d read that, of course, but hadn’t paid much attention. For one thing, I figured the papers were only being dramatic because of who I was. Also, Ankha had seemed more irritated by that fact than impressed, and implied it was probably an error.

“Do you know why you don’t have one?” Luc asked me.

I looked back at him.

I didn’t sense any ulterior motive in the question, or hear it in his voice. When our eyes met, I saw only sincerity in his steady gaze, and a kind of burning interest that struck me as academic rather than judgmental.

“No idea,” I said, exhaling. “Entwhistle, my Theurgy professor over the summer, even brought a relatively well-known Seer into class, and tried to turn it into a lesson. He’d hoped she might be able to give us an idea of what a primal for me might look like.”

“And did she?” Luc asked seriously.

I frowned, thinking.

“Not in a way that made sense,” I admitted.

“She went into a kind of trance, started speaking in tongues… then waxed on about ‘god-suns’ and ‘binary stars’ and something to do with black holes. When she came out of it, all she’d say is that I already had what I needed, if only I knew how to look.

” I scoffed, remembering my extreme annoyance at the time. “Bloody useless, really.”

“Bloody useless, indeed,” Draken agreed good-naturedly.

Miranda laughed.

I looked between them and smiled. “Any insight from any one of you would be very welcome,” I added. “I plan to ask Professor Forsooth, of course, and take advantage of what I’ve been assured is the best occult library in Europe.”

Luc continued to stare at me, his gaze narrowed to a pinprick focus. “I don’t see any residuals,” he said. “It’s odd. Your magic is really clean. Really, really clean.”

He trailed, brow furrowed.

“Clean?” I blinked. “What does that mean?”

Luc’s irises seemed to click back into focus. His blue eyes met mine.

“When children are first developing their magic,” he explained.

“They tend to have pretty muddy, messy, and chaotic magical auras, Leda. Everyone’s like that in the beginning: just a mess of out-of-control, unstructured, magical power.

When we start to develop a relationship to our own primals, we transition to a phase where we get what are called residuals…

ghost-like echoes of the various beings we’re connecting to, as we attempt to use our magic and connect with whatever will let us. ”

Luc took a sip of his cappuccino, and continued in that serious voice.

“Sometimes a specific residual will stick, and become a Magical’s actual primal. Oftentimes, it won’t. Usually there’s a period where we just have a lot of fuzzy impressions going in and out of our magical auras… unless we’re extremely lucky and find a primal early.”

I nodded with more understanding, even excitement.

I knew what he was talking about.

I remembered seeing that exact phenomenon in the gymnasium where I took my first magical test. A number of kids had those “residuals” in their auras, multiple creatures that swam in and out of their magic without fully solidifying.

I rubbed that lava-like burning in the center of my chest, and nodded.

“I’ve seen that… those residuals,” I said. “What do you think it means, that I don’t have residuals? Does it mean I’m further away from having my own primal?”

“Well, no.” Luc’s lips pursed in puzzlement as he went back to scrutinizing me. “That’s the odd thing, really. Your magic looks like you have a primal. I’ve never seen magic like yours that doesn’t have a primal.”

My brow furrowed all over again.

“Go on,” I prompted.

Luc motioned towards my face. “Your magic, it’s quite beautiful, really.

It’s clear, yet obviously structured… which is another way of saying it looks functional, as well as clean.

I’m not surprised you can perform magic.

It looks like you can perform magic. Only…

” He motioned around me vaguely, yet gracefully, a second time. “…No primal. You see?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Draken laughed. It was a deep, warm laugh.

Luc glanced at him and smiled, then returned his attention to me.

“Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.” A thoughtful look returned to his blue eyes. “I can’t honestly say that I understand it, either, Leda. But it’s interesting. I imagine Forsooth will find you quite the puzzle. Nothing like the usual sprawl of astrals and familials.”

“Familials?” I pounced, enthusiastic again. “I’ve seen that referenced in a few places. But what does it mean, exactly, when a primal is called?”

The bell tinkled melodiously over the door, interrupting my train of thought.