Page 35 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

The Eyrie

“Please do not remove your uniform shirts in here.”

The tall, dark-haired, scarred, and disarmingly handsome, middle-aged mage scowled around at us. His sun-beaten skin made his scars stand out, but it still evoked “hot pirate” to me, more than, say, “battle-scarred professor at least twice your age.”

I’d heard a number of female students whispering about him, along with a few of the mages. Even so, I flushed when he aimed his light-brown eyes directly at me.

“I’ve already had three students try to strip half-naked in here,” he said, his stare holding mine before sliding away.

“Don’t let’s have a fourth. And while I understand some of you hired private instructors and are already licensed, this is still a required course, and you’re not at home now.

There’s absolutely no need for bare skin to establish a wing connection.

The connection is magical, not physical, so clothing’s got no bearing.

You’d be seeing a lot more naked idiots careening into buildings in London, if that was the case. ”

A few students chuckled, exchanging amused looks.

I glanced down at the cream and brown-streaked wings I’d borrowed from the sets on the wall as we climbed the steps of The Eyrie.

He’d told us to grab whatever we needed, waving at the sets hanging from hooks as he led us up.

Unlike Miranda, I still didn’t have my own.

I hadn’t wanted to buy any until I had some idea what to buy, and Drakken and Miranda made it sound like a lot of the variables had more to do with individual taste.

For the same reason, my wing choice today had been pretty random. Not having any idea what I should be looking for, I just grabbed a set I thought looked pretty.

Now I was very glad I didn’t have to get half-naked in front of the hot pirate teacher, much less twenty of my classmates.

I was even more glad I didn’t share this class with Bones.

The sheer number of classes we shared already disturbed me.

For the past three weeks, I’d seen him in Theurgy, Alchemy, and Praecurology. I knew from his grumbling as he glared at my schedule that we also had Seeing Arts together on Fridays, even though he hadn’t bothered to show up for the first two weeks.

But at least I wouldn’t have him sneering at me in here, where there was a good chance I’d fall on my face, and possibly in a way that could have me tumbling off the side of The Eyrie and plunging into the river below.

The last two weeks had been all safety lectures and theory, plus a few short practice sessions on how to control the wings.

This week, Quicksilver told us to meet him here, at The Eyrie.

Miranda and Drake said The Eyrie was part of the Skyhunt course, but as I’d never seen a match, and hadn’t asked anyone to explain it to me yet, I had no idea what part The Eyrie played in the game.

Sports with wings, bows, arrows, and spears were the least of my priorities at the moment, even knowing that Skyhunt was yet another thing that set me apart from Magicals who grew up in this world.

Personally, I was a lot more interested in learning magical combat outside of a game.

My Flying class was the earliest of the day, so it was cold on top of the Eyrie.

It was also foggy, windy, and intimidatingly high.

A round, jagged, stone wall surrounded us on most sides, with one flat opening overlooking the valley.

From there, I had a stunning view of the river’s curve, the forest, and the three, angular temples in the distance.

I’d crossed the river for the first time that morning, using Faerie Bridge.

The wind had been biting and cold there, too, but the view from the bridge was beautiful, with wildflowers, ferns, and rose bushes growing all over the banks, interspersed by tall, graceful trees. A green field with thigh-high grasses rippled to the north.

From the bridge, The Eryrie rose stark and visible beneath the mountains.

Further back, I’d seen Devil’s Falls, the massive waterfall in Bonescastle Nature Preserve that fed into the Faerie River.

I’d already been warned to stay out of the water, even in the summer months: the river was cold, deep, and had treacherous currents.

I hadn’t missed how fast-moving the water looked as it flowed over the colorful stones and through the openings under the bridge.

Now, staring down at it all from the rooftop of The Eyrie, including a distant view of the east side of Bonecastle City on the other side of the wall, the campus looked absolutely enormous. From up there, the river looked like a gently twisting snake.

“With your back turned to your equipment, if you please, Miss Shadow.”

Quicksilver’s voice broke sharply into my thoughts.

When I glanced at him, mortified that my mind had been completely elsewhere, he surprised me with a smile and a cheerful wink.

“It’s easier, at least until you get the hang of it.”

I flushed again, and turned so that my back was to the large, chocolate brown and cream wings. He’d had us spread out to give one another space, and my wings lay on the stone a few feet from Miranda’s, who stood next to me.

“Focus on your primals,” Quicksilver said. He paced in front of us like a lion with a flicking tail. His eyes ran up and down the rows of students, eagle-like. “For this first time, ask them to make the connection for you. Put intention into the request… if you haven’t done it before, especially.”

His eyebrows rose humorously at me again.

“…They’ll know if you’re afraid.”

I looked at my foot-and-a-half tall, pitch-black monocerus, but focused my magic on the sun-like flame over my head. Without realizing it, I’d already grown accustomed to getting my magic directly from there; I could just see it now.

Would you mind attaching those brown and white wings to my back? I asked, in what I hoped was a polite and not-at-all terrified request. The wind whipped through me, and I wrapped my arms around my torso, looking out through the opening in The Eyrie’s jagged wall.

Preferably, could you do it tightly enough, I don’t plunge to my death when he tells us to jump off this bloody thing? I added.

The monocerus stared back at me unblinkingly.

Over my head, I felt sparks of magic ripple down my head and spine.

They grew stronger at my shoulder blades and in a line down the muscles of my back.

I could feel the curiosity there, the interest.

“Pay attention to how your primal operates,” Quicksilver said, his voice still booming and clear above the high wind.

“Watch how it threads the enchantment built into the wings into your own magic. Let it teach you.” His voice grew a touch of menace.

“You won’t always have time to ask your primal to do this for you, not in the real world.

You’ll need to know how to do it on your own, and quickly.

Magicals have died because they took too long to attach.

The goal is to have this process be as fast as a thought.

For now, let the primal show you how the magical resonances work together… ”

I watched on the backs of my eyelids as my primal felt over the wings, pulling at threads of the enchantment built into the hollow, gold “bones” that held the feathers together.

I’d not even noticed the metal there until it began to glow.

I wouldn’t have guessed gold wings could be so light, but now I saw it was molded so delicately, into such thin, perfect, hollow shells, it barely weighed anything.

They’d also been spelled to be even lighter, I realized, when my primal showed me a new set of symbols etched on the gold.

“Remarkable,” I murmured under my breath.

I knew I’d probably be one of the slowest in here, but I tried not to care. Like Quicksilver said, a handful of the other students turned nineteen long enough ago that they’d gotten private instructors, and were already licensed with their own wings, like that blond prat?

My thought was interrupted by a strange sensation on my shoulder blades.

My bones and spine grew hot briefly, making my heart beat faster.

Then a weight hung there.

My primal urged me to flex, and I did, feeling the muscles under my skin enjoy the sensation.

“Oi!” a voice next to me shouted. “Watch it, Shadow! You nearly knocked me down!”

I opened my eyes, startled. I saw a flushed, dark-haired mage with a black goatee glaring at me, a pair of reddish-brown wings on his back.

“Fold ‘em in, you hybrid freak!” the mage snapped. “What’s wrong with you? And why’d you have to get such an enormous pair, anyway? You trying to show us all up, again?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and saw the chocolate brown and cream wings extended most of the way out.

I instinctively pulled on the muscles there, and the wings drew in a corresponding amount.

When I moved away from the angry mage with the goatee, however, I heard a squeak and a cry from my other side.

“Leda!” Miranda’s voice protested with a giggle. “You really are a menace!”

I pulled on those muscles more, and glanced back to make sure my wings had tucked all the way behind me. Only then did I glance at Miranda, embarrassed, and now flushed.

“Sorry!”

Unlike the angry mage, Miranda let out a delighted laugh.

“Figures you’d figure it out in under five seconds,” she teased.

I glanced around at the others only then.

More than half were still working on getting the wings attached to their backs.

A few pairs hovered in the air by shoulder blades, and one witch had them hovering upside down, where gold threads in the wings were weaving into iridescent blue threads in the brunette witch’s aura.

I watched curiously as both sets of threads began to tie the deep blue wings into her muscles and bones.

When the process had finished, it looked like the wings grew straight out of her back.

Her clothes hung the same, as if the wings had punched holes in the witch’s pink hoodie and white button up blouse.