Page 34 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Classes

“You’re an absolute maniac,” Miranda muttered, staring down at my schedule. “I’m shocked they even approved this. It’s utterly mad. When will you sleep?”

Miranda shook her head, which now had a shoulder-length bob of honey-blonde hair.

Her irises reflected the exact same shade of gold-blonde.

She’d grown bored of the lavender, she told me, and blonde was her natural color, and she hadn’t had it that way in a while.

She’d changed things up by not going back to her natural eye color, which turned out to be blue.

Miranda confided she might go darker with her coloring next, either auburn with dark red eyes, or dark blue with dark blue eyes, or possibly black with obsidian-colored eyes.

According to Draken, she’d changed her hair and eye color constantly since he’d known her. Miranda scoffed that she’d been doing it a lot longer than that.

“What in Hades were you thinking, you nutball?” Miranda asked with exasperated fondness. “You have…” She counted, her eyes growing wider as she stared at the modified map I’d created, after tinkering with a number of spells.

“Is this right?” she demanded, staring at me incredulously. “Are you taking ten courses this term?”

I shrugged, feeling my face grow hot. “Two of them are practicals,” I pointed out. “There’s no real homework for either, and I’ve been told Magical Ethics has next to no homework, either. It’s all ethical thought experiments in class?”

“But you’re taking two electives,” Miranda said.

“No one does that first term. Not even Luc is doing that. And two of these requirements you could have taken in different terms. Most do Flying in Autumn, Magical Ethics in Spring, and the Theory requirement for Magical Combat in Summer term. You’ve got all three of them in Autumn. ”

I could only shrug.

My monocerus primal brandished its horn at Miranda’s corgi and stamped its hooves.

The corgi had been trying to circle around behind it, eyes wide with mischief.

The monocerus held up a back claw menacingly, and the corgi pounced, causing the monocerus to leap in the air, then gallop around first me, then Miranda to get away.

“Stop it, you goof,” Miranda scolded the corgi. “Leave her new, pretty unicorn primal alone! Not everyone wants to wrestle with you, just because Drake’s lion does!”

“It’s a monocerus, not a unicorn,” I corrected. “And what if I want to continue study in Ethics or Combat Theory?” I asked, a thoroughly reasonable question in my view. “Shouldn’t I take them early to determine that?”

“Only Warlocks study combat theory beyond the basic requirement,” Miranda pointed out. “Basically, people going into our Magical military?”

“I need to play catch-up, though,” I explained, feeling oddly defensive.

“I didn’t know that about Warlocks, so you’re only making my point.

I read all summer, and I still feel like I don’t know anything.

” I watched the monocerus charge the corgi with its horn.

“I don’t even fully understand what some of these descriptions mean.

If I don’t learn the basics, how will I know which ones I want to study for real? ”

“Maniac,” Miranda muttered again, back to staring at my map. “Complete nutter.” She looked up from all the grids and different-colored squares, her light eyes serious. “Can you enchant one of these for me, by the way?”

I blinked.

I wasn’t used to being around people who took schoolwork as seriously as I did.

Really, I wasn’t used to being around people who took schoolwork seriously at all.

In Overworld, everyone scoffed at my overly thought-out grids and color-coded calendars and tabs.

Even Archie thought my hyper-organization was an endearingly nerdish quirk of mine.

“Absolutely!” I said, probably a little too enthusiastically. “Lend me your map tonight, and tell me how you’d like it. Or we could do it together, if you’d rather?”

My pretty, now blonde, and very smart friend only shook her head, smiling. “Let’s do it together. I’d like to see how you do it, if that’s okay.”

“Of course!”

The monocerus tossed its horn and stamped when the corgi tried to pounce on it again.

“Stop it!” Miranda stomped her own foot at the corgi. “He doesn’t like hugs!”

As much as I hated to admit it, my first term schedule was proving to be brutal, just like Miranda warned. I also was reluctantly forced to admit, as I neared the end of my second week and after receiving increasingly complex assignments, I might have bitten off more than I could chew.

When I sat down and wrote it all out, it occurred to me that maybe I could have done what most first-years did, and stick to the required courses. I could’ve focused on knocking out one or two flexible requirements, at least until I got my bearings.

As it was, I did technically have ten courses, like Miranda said.

And it did look rather intimidating when it was all listed out, even if actual lectures only took place once or twice week.

Autumn Term:

THEURGY 01 ∞ (Mon/Fri 10:15-11:45AM)

ALCHEMY 01 ∞ (Monday 2-3:30PM)

MAGISTORY STUDIES / MAGICAL PEOPLES 01 Ω (Tuesday 10-11:30AM)

MAGICAL OBJECTS 01 ? (Tuesday 4-5:30PM)

FLYING 01 (practical) ? (Wednesday/Friday 8AM-10AM)

OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE MAGIC (practical) 01 ? (Thursday/Saturday 4PM-6PM)

OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE MAGIC (theory) 01 ? (Wednesday 1PM-2:30PM)

MAGICAL ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY 01 ? (Thursday 9AM-10:30PM)

PRAECUROLOGY 01 ? (Monday 4PM-5:30PM)

SEEING ARTS 01 ? (Friday 1PM-3PM)

COURSE KEY:

∞ required every term/year

Ω required every term/year, but student chooses topic/specialization

? required that specific term/year

§ required for more than 1 term, student chooses which terms/year

? required for 1 term, student chooses which term

? elective (not req’d)

I’d worked out the course key while going through options, just to keep it all straight in my head. Looking at it now, I couldn’t help but feel a little queasy.

Most of the Magicals I’d spoken to were maxing out at six or seven classes, tops, including the required flying course, which would only be in the Autumn term, unless I failed my qualification exam and had to take it again.

If I were at Oxford, or any human university really, I’d only be taking three or four classes per term.

I’d been told that Magicals were expected to take roughly twice that, in part because of the structure of coursework, but also given there were so many magical study aids that reduced the time a human would have to spend learning the material.

Memorization spells were a particular favorite, but most students also used spells that increased their reading speed, and spells that read texts aloud to them while they were doing other things, even sleeping or taking baths.

Most students also used spells that took detailed notes, summarized texts, transcribed their thoughts and ideas word for word, and so on.

I’d been warned it wouldn’t be a good idea to rely on some of those spells too heavily, the summarization spells in particular.

But some, like memorization spells and auto-transcription were more or less expected, as long as the thoughts were one’s own and all sources were attributed.

The professors all warned us in various ways that they had numerous, highly-reliable spells to check that students weren’t using magic to cheat.

I had no interest in doing that, anyway. The whole point was to be able to do the magic myself. But, given my course load, that meant I had to schedule good chunks of my week down nearly to the minute.

Miranda wasn’t the only person who’d commented on this.

During one of our library sessions, Caelum Bones demanded to see my schedule, as well, possibly because we shared a lot of the same classes.

“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?

” he’d demanded, glaring at me like I’d just told him I intended to chew off my own arm.

“Are you trying to make yourself a target? Or are you one of those martyr-types who’s only happy when they’ve driven themselves into complete exhaustion for no reason? ”

With him, it had been a lot easier to get annoyed, rather than defensive.

“How many courses are you taking?” I’d thrown back.

“What possible difference does that make?” he’d retorted.

“I’d just like to know how much of a hypocrite you are,” I snapped. “I already know you’re in at least one of my electives, and you seem to have all the same first-term requirements as the rest of us, even though?”

“I already know how to fly?” he’d cut in coldly. “Yes, Shadow, I know how to do a lot of things you don’t. I’m a bloody warm body in there.”

When I only rolled my eyes, his voice grew biting.

“I know how to fight, too.”

“So I’ve heard,” I snapped.

“I fight well,” he added, darker.

“I’ve heard that, too. Believe me, your reputation as a brute precedes you?”

“So why are you asking me why I can handle more electives than you?” he asked, incredulous.

He hadn’t seemed remotely bothered by my actual remarks.

“You need to be working on the basics, Shadow. You’re leaving yourself too open.

Painting a bloody target on your back, more like.

” He went back to scanning my schedule, his mouth and brow pulled in a hard frown.

“What the fuck are you doing in praecurology? You can’t even go to Overworld legally. ”

“You’re in there,” I reminded him.

“And again, I say… so what? You and I are not the same.”

“My mother was a praecurus,” I said stiffly.

“I’m aware,” he snorted. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”

I’d snatched my map out of his hands at that point, and stuffed it back in my satchel. “How is my course schedule any of your concern?” I’d asked coldly. “I wasn’t aware our agreement meant you got a vote in every single aspect of my existence.”

“Maybe I just don’t like the idea of my little mongrel exhausting herself so badly she can’t handle my magic,” he smirked.

My jaw tightened. “Wanker.”

“Whore.” His eyes darkened. “How’s Hollywood, by the way?”

I’d stared at him, briefly thrown, then huffed and rolled my eyes.

“He’s absolutely fine,” I said.

“Oh, I think you’re only saying that because you don’t know the difference.”

“I thought I was a whore?” I scoffed. “Shouldn’t I know the difference? And this obsession you have with Draken is really boring, by the way?”

“I could say the same.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “And just because you’re a randy little mongrel doesn’t mean you’ve any discernment in who you shag.”

Like always with him, I abruptly lost my temper. “Disgusting, immature, overbearing, control-freak, thinks-he’s-always-right arsehole?”

“Maybe I’m just trying to get your attention,” he’d retorted back.

“Since talking to you like a regular person doesn’t seem to be working.

You know, you might actually try listening to someone other than yourself for a change.

Someone who’s actually lived in this world long enough to know a few things?”

“I’ve got my actual friends for that, thanks,” I’d sniped back.

That, at least, had shut him up.

Temporarily, anyway.

I found myself thinking about his words though, as much as it annoyed me.

When I considered which classes I might drop, however, or might be willing to postpone to another term, or even another year, I came up blank.

The truth was, all of it felt vitally important.

All of it felt useful, if not critically necessary.

I felt an urgency in every subject, every book, every lecture, every ritual.

I wasn’t willing to give up any of it.

Not even if I should.

I certainly wouldn’t give it up because Caelum-bloody-Bones told me to.