Page 7 of Malcroix Bones Academy (Bones and Shadow #1)

Then, swiftly, it began to break apart. My skull throbbed and ached as it crumbled and fell, but my whole head and body also felt increasingly lighter… and lighter.

And lighter.

I soon felt so light, I felt off-balance.

The ground felt unsafe.

It felt like if I took a step, I might fly up and hit the ceiling.

All of that happened in maybe three seconds. I stood there, gasping, as a feeling of fizzy liquid poured over me?a vibrating, buzzing, shocking, alive feeling that enveloped me from head to toe, made my ears ring.

Then someone close to me cleared their throat.

Breathing hard, still half-crouched, one hand pressed against the wall, the other out from my body, I raised my eyes.

Two people sat there, behind a table covered in purple cloth that stood just inside the door.

A tall, beehive-like hairdo rose up from the head of one, dyed a paler shade of purple than the tablecloth.

She stared at me through cat-shaped glasses covered in pink rhinestones.

“Name?” the woman inquired.

Her voice sounded bored, strangely bureaucratic.

“L-Leda,” I stammered.

“Full name?” the man sitting next to the woman enunciated in a nasally voice. He held a dark quill in one hand, and leaned over a piece of paper.

“Leda Rose Shadow,” I recited.

I knew I should let go of the wall, lower my arms and hands. I probably looked crazy standing there, but I waited until the man finished writing before I slowly straightened the rest of the way up, and cautiously lowered both arms.

Like the others I’d seen, the man and woman wore suits and shirts that looked like overly-colorful versions of dated business and formal-wear, with elements thrown in that didn’t match or correspond to any time period I could identify.

The man had a bright blue handkerchief in his pocket, and a monocle in one eye with a blue-tinted lens. His hair was waved in that perfect way I associated with old movies, and looked to be filled with some thick, greasy product.

Both wore double-breasted jackets with large buttons and embroidered edges.

Neither their clothes, the quills, nor their odd hairstyles were what made me stare the most, however.

Each of them had strange creatures hanging around them, seemingly made of light.

Neither reacted to the creature of the other, nor seemed to pay much mind to the creature that hung around their own person.

A large mouse sat on the woman’s shoulder, the same lavender color as her hair.

Its ears and nose twitched as it stared at me curiously.

The man with the wavy auburn hair had a duck standing on the table next to him, the same color as his bright blue pocket square.

Every few seconds, the duck peered down at what the man was writing, and tried to bite his feather quill.

When the man addressed me again, I jerked my eyes off the duck with an effort.

“Shadow, you say?” He peered at me through his monocle. “As in, Clotide La Fey Shadow? The praecurus?”

I didn’t know what that last word meant, but I nodded.

“She was my mother,” I said, a little stiffly.

“The praecurus, Clotide La Fey?” the woman clarified.

“Shadow,” I corrected, feeling that my father should be included. “But yes.”

My mother’s maiden name was La Fey, like my aunt. For the same reason, I only gazed back at the woman with the lavender beehive, my stare defiant.

“Well, that explains your age,” the man muttered.

He exchanged meaningful looks with the woman, and her eyebrows rose all the way to her hairline. Then, the woman seemed to realize I was just standing there, and scribbled something on a piece of paper with her quill.

“Inspector Forsooth,” she said, her mouth slightly pursed.

She continued to stare at me with her orange-tinted eyes, but now the interest on her face was tinged with the faintest amount of disgust. “Number Thirteen.” She handed the slip of paper to the man next to her, and he made an obscure mark on one side, with red ink.

He held out the piece of paper, his own mouth pursed.

I reached back for it. “But what do I?”

“Inspector… Forsooth,” the man enunciated loudly. “Number… Thirteen.”

He spoke as if he thought I was hard of hearing.

Or, more likely, as if I were extremely slow-witted.

I nodded, once, and took the slip of paper from the man’s fingers.

He jerked his hand away as soon as I gripped it between my thumb and forefinger. I very nearly dropped it as a result, but managed to keep hold of the slip as I stepped back. I still felt off-balance, but relief washed over me when I could move my legs and feet normally.

I stood there another few seconds, the paper gripped in my hand.

Both people behind the table blinked when I still hadn’t left.

“Proceed into the testing chamber,” the man said sharply. He sounded uncomfortable now, like he couldn’t figure out why I was still there, and wasn’t sure how to get rid of me. He aimed his quill sharply to his right. “That way. Walk.”

He motioned again in the same direction.

“Now.” He seemed to have decided a harsher tone was required. “You are the last to arrive. If you are not there when they call you, it is an automatic fail.”

I turned my head, following the direction of his quill.

A curtain covered a tall opening in the wall.

That feeling of liquid falling over my head had grown less shocking in the past few minutes of adjusting to it, but it hadn’t stopped. The faint buzzing in my ears remained distracting, along with the feeling of subtle vibrations all over my skin.

I forced myself to take a step, then another.

I took a third step, then a fourth, and suddenly, I could breathe again.

My legs continued to obey my commands.

Gravity kept my feet firmly on the dark stone floor.

I walked to the opening, and lifted my hand to part the curtains carefully when I got near enough. I took another deep breath, and slid through.

Another cavernous, architecturally-improbable space greeted me, this one eerily dark across the majority of its floor. Despite its vast size, the cloying darkness, and the lack of lines or shapes that would indicate a court of any kind, it reminded me most of my school’s gymnasium in Winchester.

Truthfully, that passing similarity didn’t have much basis in reality, though.

Here, apart from the area by the wall where I stood, the only illumination in much of the cavernous space came from round spotlights that dotted the polished hardwood. Rather than from above, those lights seemed to glow up from below.

A single, school-aged child stood in the center of each spotlight.

Across from every child stood a plain table, manned by one adult.

I counted over thirty kids total standing on one of those lights, some of them so far away, it was difficult to see the desks and the adults sitting across from them. More kids stood in single-file lines by the wall, not far from the curtain and me.

When I looked up, I couldn’t see the ceiling.

Every child, both in line and on the floor in one of those circles, looked approximately nine or ten years old. I glanced around, looking for anyone older. I looked for someone my age, or at least close to my age taking the test, but found no one.

I didn’t even see anyone as old as my brother.

The adults sitting behind those tables ranged from middle-aged to downright old, with grey to no hair, and often heavy wrinkles.

Those animals made of light were everywhere I looked.

A woman walked briskly up to me and held out a hand.

A bone-white, translucent crow sat on her shoulder, preening its feathers. Her irises looked nearly white, too. If the woman knew the crow was there, she didn’t pay it any notice. I was still watching it curiously, when the woman cleared her throat.

I jumped. Then, realizing what she must want, I handed over the slip of paper.

The woman read what had been scrawled there, nodded once, then motioned for me to follow. I wordlessly shadowed her high-heels to what must be the correct line, the very furthest from the curtained door.

She handed the piece of paper back to me, and walked away.

Unlike the man outside the curtain, the crow woman didn’t seem squeamish about touching me, at least. Then again, she barely seemed to register me at all.

With her gone, there was nothing to do but wait.

I stood silently in my line, towering over the young children.

I considered asking them questions, but none of them were talking either, and as most looked anxious to the point of nearly vomiting, I didn’t.

I did field a number of stares.

Most of those stares came from the children standing in line, but I saw the occasional flash out of the corner of my eye, and when I glanced left, the woman with the orange eyes and quill and the man with that odd camera stood maybe ten yards away.

They must have come in through a different door.

Another flash made my vision go white. I looked away when I saw the woman with the orange quill staring at me and writing furiously.

I tried to see what was happening at the tables on the gymnasium floor, but they were all too far away. I couldn’t hear anything anyone said at those tables, either. It was as if every spotlit circle in the room had been soundproofed.

I did notice all the young people in my line walked to the exact same table when it was their turn. The spotlight would switch off, there would be a few seconds’ pause, then the adult at the head of our line motioned the next child forward.

I never saw where the previous children went.

I felt more and more eyes on me, the longer I stood there. Children from the other lines gradually began to notice me, along with more of the adults. I ignored it as best I could, but something about those stares both annoyed and unnerved me.

More than half the kids in line had their own animals loitering around them.

A puppy frolicked around the legs of one boy, while a parrot perched on the head of a girl standing next to him.

A gecko adorned the arm of a different boy with dark brown hair, and a rabbit scratched its ear with a hind foot on the floor by a red-haired girl.

A badger snuffled at the pockets of a boy wearing a long shirt and knee-high boots.

If I was expected to show up with my own animal, this would be a short test indeed.

The adults sitting at the tables on the gymnasium-like floor all had animals, too, although it was difficult to make out what most of them were. Glowing forms sat or perched on some part of their body, slept at their feet, or stood on top of the table itself.

I did see a few kids who didn’t have an animal, or who had several, not very clear animals. Others had animals so pale and blurry I couldn’t identify them. Two had animals that seemed to wink in and out of existence.

I went back to trying to see what was happening out on the testing floor, but apart from kids raising their hands here and there, or moving their arms in strange ways, I couldn’t make anything out.

My sense that the whole test area had been soundproofed grew even more certain.

I would occasionally glimpse adults’ lips moving, but I couldn’t hear a thing, not even distant murmuring.

It felt like I stood there forever.

I shuffled my feet forward along with everyone else, each time the next child in line got called. I’d begun to wonder if I was dreaming, if I might wake up soon, maybe to Archie jumping up and down on my bed.

Then, suddenly, I stood at the front of the line.

Seemingly only a few, short-feeling minutes later, a hand sharply nudged me.

“Go on,” the woman standing there said primly. “Table thirteen.”

I still didn’t see any numbers. By then, I’d watched so many others walk to the same spot on the floor, I simply followed their path.

It would be over soon, I told myself.

Whatever this was, wherever I was, based on the other kids and their tests, it shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.

Tonight, I’d eat cake with my brother and tell him every detail.

I’d also give him the bookshelf model I’d picked up for him last week, after setting aside grocery money for a few weeks prior. It depicted a tiny, magical library with dragons and crystals, scrolls and books, runes and wizards, magic wands and velvet, wing-backed chairs.

Arcturus would adore it.

Even as I thought those things, however, a nagging voice in the back of my mind told me I didn’t really believe any of it.