Page 12 of Malcroix Bones Academy

“That is absolutely ridiculous, and you know it!” Ankha retorted angrily. “You’re deliberately sabotaging this, Horace. Youwanther to fail?”

“Pish-posh.” The red-nosed man waved a dismissive hand. “I merely want an objective, unbiased assessment, Magus Ankha.”

I heard nothing but satisfaction in his words.

That, and the word “Magus,” which again made me blink.

Horace gave Ankha a deeply unconvincing look of sympathy.

“Would you really have her thrust into a world where she doesn’t belong, solely because she is family?” His smile reflected that false concern. “How wouldthatnot be ‘sabotaging’ her? And in a much more damaging and permanent way?”

Ankha’s face turned bright red as a vein throbbed on her temple.

I didn’t know my aunt well, but I knew her alittle.

Ankha hadn’t even looked that angry the time Archie burnt one of her antique rugs so badly, imagining he was a wilderness explorer in the deep arctic, I’d disposed of it in the weekly rubbish collection. During her next “inspection,” Ankha noticed the missing rug immediately, claimed it had been “rare and valuable,” and formed an equally fast (and, unfortunately, accurate) opinion about who was responsible. She fumed and muttered coldly about her “mind-addled nephew” for the rest of her blessedly short visit.

Now, she looked even more murderous.

“She’s already showing,” Ankha returned coldly. “If you push her out and she’s one of us, the consequences will be far worse. You can’t possibly be this determined to keep me confined in your petty little prison forever.” She warned, louder, “Suppression won’t work on a fully matured Magical. Eventually, she’ll do more than show?”

“No one is pushing her out,” he cut in, his face reddening. “You are paranoid.”

“Am I?” she sneered. “Are you forgetting the outcry around my precious sister? The scandal that got us here in the first place? Do you really want to be in the same position as your predecessor, only due to her offspring?”

“No one has forgotten anything, Ankha. Least of all me.” He gave her a harder, more warning look, his voice openly annoyed. “Now will you instruct her to come forward, or not?”

“Can I accompany her inside?” Ankha demanded.

“No,” he said, all trace of faux sympathy gone. “That much is out of my hands. If she can’t pass even the basic skills test qualifying her to live in our world, I doubt anything you could tell her in a handful of minutes would help her, Magus La Fey. Now step forward, candidate. You are already late.”

I realized with a start he meant me.

He’d transitioned so smoothly from talking to Ankha to talking to me, I’d missed the change. Now I jerked forward a step, my heart thrumming in my chest. He motioned to me again with a thick hand, clearly wishing me to go through the open door ahead of him.

“Come, miss,” the man said, a little more kindly. “Do not be afraid. If you are meant to be here, that will certainly out itself. In one form or another.”

I took a breath, resolved myself, and walked towards the door.

“She won’t be able to do this,” Ankha muttered angrily as I passed.

“Which is why we are testing her,” the man warned, making it clear the subject was closed. He waved at me again. “Please,” he said politely. “I am sure you’ll do just fine.” He aimed his next words at my aunt. “There’s no need to be so dramatic, Ankha, not until we’ve seen what she is capable of. We won’t unfairly mark her. There will be witnesses?”

“But not me,” Ankha said.

“No familyorsponsors are allowed,” the man said with exaggerated patience. “They aren’teverallowed. Only objective observers. You aren’t being singled out.”

“Yet you allow the press.” Ankha glared at the woman with the orange quill.

The man dropped the hand he’d been using to gesture me forward, and stared openly at my aunt. “Are you refusing to test your ward? Because she is a legal adult in our world, even withher blood. We have the right to askherwhat she wants, and transfer her guardianship to the Council of Ancients, or even tome,if your answers differ.”

Ankha’s lip curled.

She looked at me, eyes blazing.

“Go on, girl. Do as he says. Once you’re inside, follow every instruction. No matter how it sounds to your stupid, Overworld ears.”

I bit my lip. I wanted badly to hiss something back, but another part of me told me she wasn’t worth it. Whatever this was, Ankha was the least interesting part of it, and I wasn’t particularly enjoying being spoken to and about like I wasn’t there.