Page 63 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Dark Ritual

Imanaged to spit out one word as I stared at my aunt’s back, even though I already knew the answer, the important parts of it, at least.

“Why?” I gasped.

My arm wrapped tightly around my belly. I watched Ankha wave a hand at the gates, and the gates screeched, opening in a shower of red sparks. The sound wouldn’t bother anyone. We’d had no real neighbors the entire time I’d lived there.

Ankha caught my arm, and yanked me through the opening. She began dragging me up the driveway towards the house.

“Aunt?”

“Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll remove it,” she hissed.

Even drugged, I hadn’t expected a real answer. I couldn’t help trying to wrap my mind around everything, anyway.

Ankha had done this. My mother’s sister.

Had she killed my parents, too? Her own sister? She must have, mustn’t she?

I’d known, always known, that Ankha despised Arcturus and me. She’d never hidden that fact from us, never tried to hide it. Yet I’d somehow never believed she actually wanted us dead. She’d always seemed more indifferent to our existence than actively murderous.

But if she killed her own sister?

My chest burned painfully at the thought.

Why had she waited so long for me and Archie? Why not simply kill us when we were children? Why all the song and dance to get me tested and into Magique?

I fought to make it all make sense, but couldn’t.

My mind had cleared enough to know how futile making a run for the mirror would be, at least without a real opening.

To get to her mirror, I’d need to fight free of Ankha’s magic.

I’d need to make it to that part of the garden without her stopping me.

I’d need some way to break the lock, assuming that was even possible. I’d need time.

And then there was my brother.

“Archie?” I managed. “Arcturus. Is he all right?”

Ankha yanked on me harder.

I got slammed with the magic behind the pull, and stumbled. I nearly fell into one of the garden’s odd statues of fauns, but my aunt’s firm grip kept me mostly upright. I focused all my attention on the gold-white sun over my head.

Whatever I ended up doing, I’d need my magic. I needed that working again, well enough to knock her out, or at least slow her down.

“Archie,” I repeated thickly. “Where’s Arcturus?”

Ankha dragged me up the stairs of the old, half-falling down Victorian.

At the top, she yanked a key out of her pocket, the same, old-fashioned, brass key I’d used thousands of times myself.

She unlocked the sticky lock and shoved open the door on its rusted hinges, pushing past the stained-glass windows into the foyer.

She dragged me in after her, half with muscle and half with magic. She slammed the door and brought me into the parlor before releasing my arm. I managed to catch myself on the back of the old, flower-patterned sofa before I would have fallen to the floor.

My head had definitely cleared somewhat, because I could see again.

Ankha never had mirrors in this house, never allowed them to remain more than a few hours, but now a full-length, gold-framed, antique mirror, which looked to weigh a good twelve or thirteen stone, leaned against the fireplace mantle.

I lunged for it without thought, but my aunt muttered guttural words before I’d made it halfway across the distance. Writhing, silver snakes wrapped around my legs and chest, stopping me in place, pinning both arms to my sides.

I struggled to free myself, but couldn’t move. I stared at the mirror, only a few yards away, panting as I continued to fight to break free. It was maddeningly close, but completely out of reach. That time, it struck me that it was the same mirror from the stone structure outside.

Why had she brought it in here?

My reflection showed someone unrecognizable from earlier that night.

My headdress was gone, all of Jolie and Miranda’s careful work had been undone.

The gold makeup remained smeared on part of my neck, chin, and forehead, but had mostly left my face.

Thick, black kohl ran down my cheeks. Both earrings were gone, along with one of my gold arm-bands.

The braids Jolie spent so much time on had unraveled, leaving my hair wild, wet, and curlier than usual, hanging in my face and down my back.

I still wore the gold bodice, skirt, and sandals, but the room was freezing, bringing up goosebumps on my bare arms and mostly-bare legs.

I stood there, breathing hard, fighting to think.

Ankha must have found some way to drug my drink, just like she must’ve been the one to poison me during that first banquet in Worm Hall.

But why had she brought me here? Why not kill me there?

Or in Bonescastle? Or in Southhampton, in that pub?

Wouldn’t any of those places be harder to trace back to her?

Why would she drag me all the way back to her own house?

“Why?” I asked again, my voice thick.

My eyes followed as the older witch walked to the center of the room.

I looked down to see a pentagram drawn in green powder on the threadbare, Asian carpet between the fireplace and the couch.

Black candles sat at each of the points, along with dark blue crystals, and in the center, someone had placed a yellowed skull.

They’d covered the skull in dark, red liquid, like old blood, and all around it had been dusted with a fine, gray powder that looked like ash.

An oil painting of a familiar-looking witch with long, black hair had been propped against the skull.

The painting was speckled with more ash and blood.

Staring at all of it, watching my aunt walk around the circle to light each of the candles, I got a very bad feeling.

Why was there a picture of Morticia La Fey inside that circle?

That’s when I noticed the black crystal hanging from my aunt’s neck.

Every facet of the black stone mirrored that of the green crystal my mother had once worn.

I’d held that exact shape in my hand. It hung on the same age-darkened, bronze chain.

I remembered the crystal glinting in the California sun, catching the light and refracting it in emerald green from around a slimmer, prettier neck.

“That’s mine,” I spat coldly, finding my voice. “You stole it. You stole it from my room like a common thief.”

For the first time, Ankha turned.

Her dark blue eyes focused viciously on mine.

“Yours?” she hissed. “I’m the thief?” Her voice darkened with barely-restrained rage. “You disgusting filth who dared wear my family legacy around your neck? You have the audacity to call me a thief? When you hid my birthright from me, right in my own home?”

Ankha gripped the black stone, hatred burning in her eyes.

“You don’t even have the magic to understand what this is!

” she snarled. “It was always mine! I was the only one ever worthy of it! I searched for it for nearly twenty years, and only discovered my darling sister stole it from me when she married your beast of a father and disappeared off the face of Overworld!”

I glared back at her. “It belonged to her! What makes you think?”

“Silence, you puffed-up, ridiculous little fool!” Anhka cut in furiously.

“The idea that you could even comprehend the legacy of our family, or the travesties that have been visited upon us, first by my great-grandfather and then by your revolting, traitorous whore of a mother… it would be laughable if it wasn’t so obscene!

Clotide destroyed what little was left of this family after our great-grandfather betrayed us!

She destroyed our mother… nearly killed our father.

The gods only know what else she might have done, had I not intervened! ”

Her blue eyes blazed with silvery-blue magic, ignited by her hate.

“But I couldn’t find the stone,” she hissed, baring her teeth.

“Clotide was gone, and I knew she’d had it, but I still couldn’t find it!

I spent close to ten years in this foul place, searching all over the globe, going to every place she’d ever been.

I ripped apart that hovel in Santa Monica.

I found everyone she knew, every person she’d ever trusted, anyone she might have left it with before she came to London.

I went through every article of clothing, every piece of luggage you brought with you from America.

Only to discover, mere months ago, that you had it the whole time…

that she’d given it to her half-breed spawn, like some cheap trinket. ”

She stepped closer, eyes blazing. “Where was it?” she snarled. “Where did you hide it while you lived here, girl? In the garden? In the walls? In one of the statues?”

I stared back at her, biting my tongue.

When she stepped closer, I tried to lean away, but still couldn’t move.

Her eyes blazed hotter. “I had to find out from the newspapers, like everyone else. I had to discover the truth like some filthy commoner, all while watching them leer at your indecent photo on every newspaper and magazine!”

She held up the black crystal in her fist.

“But this solves everything,” she said coldly, leaning into my face.

“I couldn’t touch you without it, or G.O.R.E.

would’ve known in minutes. Without the stone, I didn’t dare harm either of you, or I would have ended up in a dungeon for the rest of my life.

Thanks to your mother’s friends in the Praecuri, they watched everything I did. Especially here, at this house.”

I remembered what my mother had written about the necklace in her journal. I remembered what she’d told me, all those years ago, on the plane still making its way across the Atlantic. As long as you wear it, you’re a ghost, little rabbit.”

The necklace had kept me alive. My mother had used it to keep us hidden all those years, and it somehow kept me alive even afterwards. She was right, I didn’t know how it worked, or even what it did precisely. But I knew I owed it, and my mother, my life.

Ankha’s dark blue eyes narrowed to slits.