Page 25 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)
I heard murmurs from other tables, and glanced around.
I couldn’t help noticing that Caelum Bones looked bored.
Elysia Warrington looked nervous, and I couldn’t help remembering that the other witch hadn’t done very well in our summer course, although she’d obviously done well enough to make it here. I might’ve even felt sympathy for her, if she’d been anyone else.
The headmaster’s words made me slightly nervous, too.
Almost like he’d heard me, Draken scoffed.
“Wipe that look off your face, Shadow,” he said, loud enough that a few people glanced over. “You’re not fooling anyone, Miss ‘Highest Score on the Magical Potential Test in One Hundred Years’…”
I felt my face burn, but only smiled and flipped him the bird.
Luckily, the gesture translated. I heard a number of people laugh, including Draken.
When my gaze drifted back by the table nearest to ours, I saw Caelum Bones glaring at Draken like he wanted to rip off his head and play football with it.
Gods. What was his problem?
Headmaster Darica Voltaire cleared her throat to quiet the room.
The murmurs petered off.
I looked back to the podium, along with just about everyone else.
The Headmaster’s iron-gray, flyaway hair picked up the light from peach-colored lanterns that hung behind the faculty tables.
Three of those tables took up most of that end of the room.
The podium stood behind the furthest one, on a rise so that everyone in the room could see her, including the other professors.
Everything about the headmaster looked shriveled, including her bony hands.
Her thin lips pursed as she stared down at all of us.
She wore black robes, and a large silver chain adorned with the Malcroix Cross.
It looked more like an Iron Cross on her, with four, thick femurs making up the arms, and six finger bones in a ring.
A large, amber-colored stone dominated the very center.
“Being here is a privilege, and a responsibility,” she intoned. “I know you will do your very best to live up to it… and to honor our shared bloodline.”
Was it my imagination, or had Voltaire looked at me when she said that part?
No, I realized, when the witch at the podium continued to stare at me. It hadn’t been my imagination. I felt my jaw harden when a few others around the room noticed and glanced at me, too. A couple of those faces smirked.
I tilted my chin higher, refusing to lower my gaze.
From either side, Jolie and Miranda each gripped one of my arms and squeezed.
“Fuck her,” Miranda hissed viciously in my ear.
“Fuck her, indeed,” Jolie seconded, her voice quieter and colder than I had heard it. “What a sad, sorry, little hag she is.”
I felt something deep inside me let out an exhale.
Even so, I found myself tuning out the rest of the Headmaster’s speech.
Maybe for the same reason, I blinked in surprise when the room suddenly filled with uniform-clad attendants carrying large platters of food. Voltaire had sat back down, and was leaning towards a shorter witch to listen to something she said.
A plate materialized in front of her as I watched.
I looked down and saw an empty plate in front of me, as well.
Utensils appeared on either side and a serviette in the center, even as attendants began placing platters at regular intervals along tables. Glasses appeared next, and more attendants appeared with pitchers, bottles, and carafes filled with water, wine, and what looked like mulled mead.
“They serve us alcohol here?” I asked, surprised.
“Who wouldn’t need it, after that speech?” Luc grumbled in an annoyed mutter as he reached for the nearest container of red wine. He poured a generous helping into his own glass, then, feeling my eyes on him, offered some to me.
“Sure,” I said after a pause, sliding my glass closer. “Why not.”
He poured me a generous half-glass with a grin, and did the same for Jolie and Miranda before dusting off the last of it in the thin-stemmed glass in front of Draken.
The six of us all relaxed as we ate and drank, and I managed to shake off the worst parts of the headmaster’s speech by the time I was halfway through my first course.
The food was shockingly good. There was walnut and apple salad, Beef Wellington, asiago chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls, butter, gravy, greens, pasta with salmon and broccoli, grilled mushrooms, and butternut squash.
I tried to manage a few bites of each, ran out of room by the time I got to the squash, and only tried the chicken on Jolie’s urging.
It was better than the food at the hotel, which had been better than anything I remembered eating in Overworld. Of course, this was a special meal, a banquet, and they were clearly putting on a show of being the elite institution they were.
No wonder Ankha liked this place.
I’d only just finished supper and leaned back, groaning a little, when my plate vanished and more attendants came out to remove platters and replenish carafes of wine, mead, and water.
They set down small glasses of some alcoholic digestif, what smelled a bit like brandy to me, and generous dishes of crème br?lée.
I stared at both things.
I was already the slightest bit tipsy.
I loved crème br?lée, at least decent crème br?lée, but I was so full I risked physical injury if I indulged now. In the end, I couldn’t resist having one bite.
My eyes practically rolled up in my head. I let out a small groan.
Draken heard me and chuckled.
“Oh, my,” the dark-haired mage teased. “No one bother Shadow right now. I think she’s having an intimate moment with her pudding.”
“It’s bloody orgasmic,” I admitted, scooping up an even bigger spoonful of the dessert. “You five might have to carry me back to Grathrock after. Fair warning.” I picked up the delicate glass filled with my brandy-like drink, and downed it in one go.
I gasped a little, started to laugh…
…then abruptly couldn’t breathe.