Page 102 of Malcroix Bones Academy

“He didn’t give me a real answer,” I admitted. “Something about ‘paranoia’ and not wanting to make me even more of a target. A bunch of nonsense, if you ask me. But heissweet, Alaric. He’s nothing like that moron… his friend…” I motioned towards my own hair, scowling. “Stupid perfect hair guy with his dumb sneers and stupid everything…”

Miranda broke out in a snorting laugh.

Draken still sounded sulky.

“So Alaric Greythorne’s decided, in all hisnoblesse oblige,to be friends with the lowly hybrid, despite his grand misgivings due to her precarious social position?” he asked, annoyed. “His parents will probably pull him out of Malcroix if they hear about it. His father’s rumored to be the bloody head of the Dark Cathedral.”

I squinted up at him, fighting a wave of dizziness. “Dark Cathedral?” Draken caught my arm when my legs didn’t fully cooperate. “That sounds familiar. What is it?”

“A stupid rumor,” Miranda said firmly. “No one even knows if it truly exists. It’s like a boogeyman to scare us lowlys into thinking the royals are more powerful than they are.”

“It exists,” Draken insisted.

“But whatisit?” I asked.

Miranda raised her hands level with her face and waggled her fingers at me menacingly. “A super-secret cabal of dark magicians plotting to take over Magique…” she said in a mock-ominous voice. “…led and funded by the richest and oldest families in Magical civilization. Infiltrating every Magical government across the world, with their tentacles in all levels of society, spying on light magicians and scholars, recruiting and knocking out the enemies to theSanguis Regum,meeting in dark, smoky rooms plotting to kill race traitors and wipe out humankind… MUHAHAHAHAHAHA…”

She lowered her hands, and broke into a real laugh.

“It’s utter nonsense,” she declared. “A bunch of paranoid hoo-haw.”

I smiled back. Even so, a shiver of unease went through me at Miranda’s casual use of the termSanguis Regum.Hadn’t Alaric said some of the “bigger arseholes among our kind” called themselves that? He’d definitely made it sound like those beliefs were still around.

“We had conspiracy theories in Overworld, too,” I said only.

“It’s real, though,” Draken muttered under his breath.

“How would you know that?” Miranda shoved at his muscular arm.

He stumbled sideways then caught himself, and gave her a drunken stare. “My dad runs into them now and then,” he countered. “They’ve tried to recruit him. Numerous times. Hegave me a whole speech about it again this summer, warning me to steer clear of them. Apparently they’ve been getting more aggressive.”

“With him?” Miranda asked, blinking in surprise. “Or in general?”

“Dunno,” Draken said. “Either? Both?”

“Why do they want to recruit him?” I asked, fascinated and a little horrified. “Just because he’s famous?”

“That, and, well, it’s not that well known, but he’s actually quite good at magic,” Draken confessed. “Better than it says in his press releases. He made the decision a long time ago to keep that aspect of himself quiet.” He looked between me and Miranda. “He’s got a high magical rank. Higher than it says in his bios. Higher than most Magicals.”

“How high?” Miranda asked.

“Promise you won’t tell?” Draken slurred. “He’d kill me.”

“Promise!” Miranda and I said together. I crossed my heart with a finger.

“He’s a nine,” Draken said, his voice a little smug.

I had no idea what that meant, but Miranda’s jaw dropped. Her blonde-colored eyes went comically wide. “You’re lying,” she accused.

“I’m not.”

“That’s like… almost unheard of.”

“Three-point-six percent of the population,” Draken agreed.

“And they let him be anactor?”Miranda demanded, like she thought that was an unholy travesty. “He could have doneanythingwith a score like that!”

“Let him?” Draken scoffed. “Hewantedto act.”