Page 42 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

We soared back over the forest, making a swooping arc.

Then, suddenly, we plummeted.

It happened fast… mind-numbingly fast.

It felt nothing like the numerous jumps I’d now made from The Eyrie, where gravity alone caused me to fall until my wings flung themselves out, catching me, then guiding me over a smooth pocket of air.

In the time since my first leap off the edge, Quicksilver had been teaching us how to turn, how to slow to a near-hover, how to bank and reverse, how to do gentle rolls and how to fly upside down.

He worked with us up on The Eyrie platform, teaching us all the different wing positions and what they did, how to refine those movements to get precise effects.

But we’d never done anything like this.

There was nothing methodical or technical about this.

This was pure insanity.

My stomach lurched violently as my throat froze on a scream.

The ground rushed towards me, aided by hard, muscular flaps of those black wings. We were pushed faster by the wind, by will, and eventually, a drawn-in wing position… turning us into a bullet streaking through the sky.

My kidnapper aimed for the tops of the trees, and I choked out a strangled sound.

Whoever he was, he was going to kill us both.

The black wings drew in even more, surrounding me and parting the canopy like a knife. He threaded the two of us between branches without slowing.

I fought to suck in breath, to force out a cry as the ground rushed closer?

And then my captor changed the wings’ orientation, and tilted me up, his legs pointed down. He landed with a grace that shocked me nearly as much as the dive.

He set my feet on the ground, and I let out a shocked breath, lungs burning as I gasped in more air and nearly choked on it.

Then he released me and stepped back.

I fell, face forward, crumpling at the base of a tree.

I turned around as soon as I could make my limbs work, still gasping in hard breaths. I crawled over a few feet of wet earth and sat up against the damp trunk.

I started to get to my feet, once more reaching for my magic, but he stepped towards me, a black-gloved hand held out in an unambiguous warning.

“Stay,” he growled, his voice distorted through the mask.

I bit my lip, but didn’t let go of my magic.

I watched him as he stepped back and shrugged off the wings.

I waited until he had them all the way off. They folded up magically on the leaf-strewn ground, making themselves compact, so they could be carried more like a backpack, or else thrown over one’s shoulders and reengaged as magical wings.

I took that moment, when he wasn’t looking at me, when he no longer had the wings attached to his back, to throw my magic at him, giving it everything I had.

I didn’t think about particular spells.

I didn’t try to remember the defensive shields we’d worked on during my first few weeks of magical combat practicals, or the handful of offensive spells I’d made myself memorize that summer.

I put my presence into the glowing, white-gold sun and threw my will behind it, aiming a hard, raw burst of pure magical charge.

I wanted to knock him down.

I at least wanted to slow him down.

For the same reason, I didn’t hold back.

He flew backwards, moving fast. A low grunt of surprise left his chest.

His limbs seemed to pinwheel as his hands sought a hold.

I didn’t wait to see where he’d land.

I scrabbled to my feet, using the tree, and heard a crash in the woods, like a broken branch.

I didn’t look back, but pushed off the trunk I’d been leaning on and darted in a zig-zagging run through the trees.

The alcohol seemed to have mostly leeched out of my system by then, or converted into adrenaline maybe, in terms of its obvious effects, but the shock of the flight, of the landing, of my body feeling like it had been locked in a clothes dryer with the machine on high heat, still made my steps half-stumbling.

I managed to get a little momentum and increased my speed, until I was running as fast as I could towards the brightest part of the trees. I glimpsed moonlight on the grass between the trunks, Vulcan Lake sparkling in the distance.

I was still too far from the castle.

My mind paused on that. I wondered if running out into the open was the best idea. I dismissed the thought when I realized he’d find me faster if I remained in the trees.

My best bet was the lake.

I might not be able to get to the castle before he got his wings back on and came after me, but I might be able to disappear into the lake.

I could hide in the reeds until he gave up, use a spell to allow myself to hold my breath for longer, or keep diving to where he couldn’t fly after me as easily, not without getting waterlogged.

It occurred to me then, I had to get word to the castle.

I concentrated without slowing my pounding strides.

I ran headlong into a tree when I let my vision blur for too long, and gasped in pain.

Screw it. I’d get in the water first.

Once there, I’d conjure something that could take a message back to Mir and Draken. They had to be frantic already. They might’ve already gone to the administrators, telling them someone had kidnapped me right off the Promenade.

I burst out from between two large elms and flung myself into the tall grasses of the field. I broke into a harder run, no longer caring about using up my reserves.

The lake was only maybe twenty meters away.

I pushed myself even faster, focusing everything on that one thing, listening for the sound of wings, looking for shadows across the grass that might give me some forewarning?

A hard body collided into me from behind.

I tumbled forward, unable to compensate.

Both of us landed hard in the wet grass, and I fought him before we’d even stopped rolling. He hadn’t bothered with the wings, the bastard. He’d simply lit after me on foot, and run me down like a wolf dragging down a deer.

I beat at him with my fists, swinging at his face.

He cursed, and I heard a sharp cry of real pain.

“Gods-damn it! Stop! You maniac! Stop!”

The voice shocked me into brief stillness. It didn’t occur to me until that second that he hadn’t been hitting me back. Or that neither of us had spoken other than that one, harsh word he’d said when we first landed, distorted through the metal mask.

Now, my eyes refocused, and I found him half-lying on me, his hands gripping both of my wrists, his lip bleeding down his already-bruised and swollen jaw, another trickle of blood coming from his hairline, possibly from when I’d thrown him across the clearing.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, I thought, staring up at those furious gold eyes, the white-blond hair, now speckled with blood, and the taut, pained expression on his face.

It was Caelum Bones.