Page 20 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

I turned in time to see it swing roughly open.

A tall mage strode in, wearing dark green trousers made of what looked like some kind of animal skin.

Below them, he wore black boots, and above, a white shirt with a collar that buckled over the base of his throat.

A tailored coat with strange layers in the fabric covered his shoulders and back.

Despite how expensive and formal and obviously new the clothes looked, they looked old-fashioned to my eyes.

He walked like he was in a hurry, or possibly in a foul mood. He didn’t slow his strides until he stood right in front of the counter and stared into the barista’s face.

“Tea,” he said coldly, pulling gloves off his hands, finger by finger. “Oolong. From Kilauea, if you have it.”

The woman stammered back at him, seemingly unable to tear her eyes off his face. “I-I-I don’t think we do?”

“Whatever, then,” he cut in, annoyed. “Black. Whatever’s decent. No milk.”

He stuffed his gloves into his pocket and then, seeming to feel the eyes on him, he turned. His eyes shocked me as much as they must’ve done the barista. They were an odd, inhuman-looking gold, closer to molten metal.

They took in the room in an aggressive sweep.

They eyes stopped abruptly on me.

I stared back at him, feeling caught.

A smoky, black and bone-white primal perched on the mage’s shoulder.

Gods. It looked like… was that really…?

“It’s a dragon,” the new mage said coldly.

His voice was unmistakably hostile.

Made of bones? I wondered silently. A dead dragon? How is that a primal?

The dragon wasn’t truly dead, though. While made entirely of bones, it moved like it was alive. I watched it flap its bony wings and adjust its claws on his shoulder as it stared at me with glowing black eyes.

It wasn’t like any other primal I’d seen.

“Obviously.” The mage’s lip curled. “Unless you’d met someone in my family, you wouldn’t have seen it.” He paused. “Are you expecting an answer to your idiotic questions, witch? When you won’t even bother to voice them aloud?”

I felt some of the blood drain from my face. I was definitely more disturbed by the thought that he’d read my mind than I was by his dead-looking primal. He couldn’t have picked that much up from just my facial expression, could he?

“Do I really need to explain to you what a familial primal is?” the white-haired mage asked coldly. “Where’s yours, witch? Is it hiding? Or were you about to tell me…”

His voice trailed off.

My breath caught as his eyes shifted upward, aiming directly over my head.

It was the exactness of that head-tilt, maybe.

It was the blank look of disbelief that flashed in those oddly-colored eyes.

Maybe it was simply the way he stared straight up, like I had a unicorn horn on top of my head, one that aimed at the rafters of the tea shop.

Or maybe I’d finally noticed the exact texture of his white hair, which was longer than I remembered, but still strangely spiky around his ears and forehead.

His face had narrowed a lot. The youthful roundness was gone, leaving more angles and high cheekbones and a sharp jaw.

He was obviously older, and dressed less like a fae princeling.

But I knew that face.

I bloody knew it.

My chest violently clenched. My heart pounded, lights sparking at the edges of my vision. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Gods, he wasn’t a dream.

All this time, I’d remembered him.

At some point in my wanderings around Magical London, I’d stopped looking for his face, his hair, those shocking gold eyes, but everything came crashing back now. I felt like I’d been punched, hard, in the chest.

“You,” I muttered, fighting to breathe. My chest hurt so badly, I raised a hand to it and pressed. Gods, I was going to have a heart attack.

I was going to pass out, and they’d all think I was mad.

I aimed my eyes upward, maybe in part to get them off his. I looked above the top of his head to where something hovered directly above it. That looked exactly like I remembered, too, exactly like it had in every dream and nightmare I’d had since I was ten.

A black, coiling, living flame writhed and glowed around a smoking black crystal.

The flame rippled as if under a heavy wind.

“You must be the mongrel,” he sneered.

The venom in his words drew my eyes back to his.

I fought to focus once I’d absorbed what he’d said, mostly bewildered.

A few students in my summer bridging course made remarks about my hybrid blood, of course, but even the worst of them, a witch named Elysia Warrington, hadn’t called me anything so crude, not to my face. Warrington mostly just smirked and talked about me as if I wasn’t there, trying to get a laugh.

And no, maybe I didn’t understand the exact connotations of the slur, but it wasn’t all that difficult to puzzle out.

Anyway, the reactions of Miranda, Draken, and Luc made the meaning clear.

All three of them stiffened.

“I know everyone is anxious to see what nifty tricks you can perform, little mongrel,” the disturbingly handsome mage said. “I guess we can’t really call you a witch, can we? Much less a magia. Do you qualify as a magical beast, I wonder?”

Draken stood up.

For the first time, I felt actually alarmed. I watched my new acquaintance, maybe even friend by then, step towards the tall, platinum-haired mage, his shoulders stiff. Their heights nearly matched, with the blond being maybe an inch taller.

“You ought to be more polite,” Draken said through gritted teeth.

The new mage smiled.

“Oh my.” He looked disturbingly pleased with Draken’s reaction. “Did I insult your skanky little half-breed girlfriend, Hollywood?” His lips twitched. “A thousand pardons. I’m sure she’s quite proficient in the uses you make of her.”

At Draken’s stunned look, followed by his disgust, the blond mage laughed.

It was a dark laugh.

“Artemis’s tits, look at the gormless, slack-jawed surprise. Of course I know who you are,” he said contemptuously. “The great Draken Joran. Son to that drunk, overhyped hack, Gragen Joran. I knew you were coming to my family’s school before you did.”

He glanced at me. I was taken aback by the sheer hatred in those gold eyes.

“Cat got your tongue, mongrel?” he sneered. “You need Hollywood here to speak for you? That’s too bad. That tongue of yours must be talented if you’ve got him this wound up, ready to defend your honor already.”

“What an absolute pig you are,” Miranda declared. She sounded almost bewildered. “It’s almost impressive just how unlikeable you’ve managed to be in…” She checked her watch. “…just over a minute, and without even bothering to speak to most of us.”

I noticed the blond mage didn’t spare Miranda so much as a glance, nor look at Luc longer than it took him to catalogue his overall presence.

His eyes returned to Draken. “Well? Are we going to do this or not? All because I dared speak to your sweet little puppy with the impressively large tits?”

Draken’s face twisted in a darker disgust and rage. “Zeus and Hera. You really are a nasty piece of work,” he muttered.

“And?” the blond asked pleasantly. “How about it? I haven’t got all day.” He motioned towards the door leading to the street. “Shall we?”

Draken scoffed. “You want us to brawl like children?”

“I promise not to steal your half-breed from you, Hollywood, even if you lose.” He winked at me, his tongue pointedly pushing out his cheek. “Even if she asks ever-so-politely. Even if she gives me a run on that pretty mouth of hers?”

“You really don’t stop, do you??” Miranda asked in disbelief.

“Apologize,” Draken snarled. “Godsdamnit, you will apologize. Right now.”

Again, I got the impression the blond was more pleased than not with their reactions.

“A thousand apologies,” he sneered at Draken.

“I meant to her, you twat. As you no doubt know.”

“Apologize to the mongrel?” The blond sniffed. “Didn’t realize you were such an activist, Hollywood. That mouth of hers must really be worth defending. Or is it some other part of her that’s got you this worked up?”

Draken lunged towards him, and I stood up.

“STOP,” a loud, ringing voice commanded.

The world seemed to swivel to an odd, timeless stop.

Draken froze.

Much more surprisingly, the blond mage froze, too.

Then, slowly, both of them turned their heads.

They stared at me, wide-eyed, as if I’d suddenly sprouted horns.

I realized only then that the harsh, ringing, commanding voice I’d just heard had come from me.

It hadn’t sounded like me, at least not to my own ears.

Even now, the lingering notes vibrated the air, turning it faintly gold and silver.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like gold butterflies and dragonflies fluttering up to the ceiling and around the walls of the cluttered shop. I didn’t turn to look at them directly.

My teeth vibrated. I clenched them briefly, dialing back the fire I felt leaping and writhing in my chest. Gods. What the hell was that?

When my voice came out next, it was calmer.

It also sounded like mine.

“He’s enjoying himself,” I said to Draken. I nodded towards the platinum blond. “Can’t you see that? You’re only giving him what he wants.”

Draken stared at me, his eyes briefly uncomprehending.

Then he looked at the blond. As he did, his eyes changed.

Draken assessed the other mage openly, his expression harder, more closed.

I watched him look at the blond’s magic, not just his face.

Draken’s expression slowly changed as comprehension dawned around what I was telling him.

By then, I could almost feel my new friend seeing what I’d seen.

He realized he was being toyed with, and his anger returned, although maybe for a slightly different reason.

His face also flushed bright red.

Slow clapping from next to him drew my eyes.

“My, my. You are full of surprises. Very good, mongrel.” The blond smiled, but it looked more like he bared his teeth. His voice dripped with venom. “What a good little bitch you are. Smart, too. I bet you know all kinds of lovely tricks.”

I faced him directly.

The flat, empty look had returned to his molten-gold eyes.

Strangely, though, I saw past it this time.

I saw something else there, beyond the vacant stare, but couldn’t for the life of me define it, or even make sense of how it made me feel.

Before I’d made up my mind, he averted his gaze.

He glanced towards the counter, where the barista had left his tea.

The two people working in the shop had backed away when the encounter started, and were watching the interaction between the five of us with wide eyes.

The blond mage scooped up his tea.

Without another word, he walked out of the shop.

It struck me, oddly, that he hadn’t even paid for the tea.

He didn’t look at any of us as he left. Stranger still, the hatred leeched out of his eyes as soon as they no longer focused on me. What remained appeared entirely, well, blank, like he’d erased himself, leaving nothing but an empty mask.

The bell over the door tinkled melodiously, and he was gone.

The four of us didn’t move at first, just looked at one another in silence.

Then Miranda let out a cynical-sounding grunt.

“Well, boys and girls,” she said, once it was clear the odd encounter had really and truly ended. “I think we just met the class prick.” Miranda glanced at Draken, eyebrow raised, a faint smile at her lips. “That was him, wasn’t it? It had to be.”

Draken grunted, but didn’t reply.

From his eyes, he agreed with her, though.

“Caelum Bones,” I murmured under my breath.

I continued to stare at the door of the tea shop, frowning in puzzlement.