Page 124 of Malcroix Bones Academy

I flipped through the thick pages, pausing on photos and drawings of old palatial estates in France and England, portraits of vaguely familiar faces, some painted and some caught in time by light and photographic plates. It still felt unreal that this was my family. My mother always called herself an “orphan” when I was young.

I stopped on an image of a woman who looked a bit like Ankha, only much more beautiful and even more terrifying.

She had the same cold, forbidding face, the same iron-grey hair and intense blue eyes, but somehow those features came together very differently on her. The painting made me think of wicked witches from old children’s tales I’d grown up reading in Overworld.

She wore a deep black crystal around her neck on a familiar, antique chain.

The caption read:Morticia Ankha La Fey, depicted here in 1888 wearing the La Fey Stone, after the death of her husband, Argus Mephistopheles La Fey.

Two pages later, I stopped on another image of the same woman, only young, maybe in her early twenties. The clothing style reflected the earlier period, as did her softer features. She was positively stunning at that age, with a perfect, oval face and calmer, happier eyes. She sat in a throne-like chair. Her hand rested easily on the fingers of a dark-eyed man with a handsome but scowling face who must have been her husband.

These were my great-great-grandparents.

It was a strange thought.

My eyes caught something else.

A gorgeous, green crystal hung from a bronze necklace around Morticia La Fey’s neck. The crystal glinted, touched by abeam of sunlight captured by the painter’s careful strokes. The familiarity of the stone, of the exact shape and size of it, where it hung on its setting to touch the top of her cleavage, startled me. I flipped back to look at the black version of the stone, on the more aged version of my great-great-grandmother, and frowned.

The stones were identical, apart from the color.

Alaric had said it was family jewelry, didn’t he?

And wasn’t this the generation Caelum said had a falling out with the Bones family?

I skimmed through what the chapter had to say about Morticia La Fey.

A few paragraphs discussed the rift between the two families, which had been a huge scandal at the time. Not a single word suggested any ideological disagreement between them. Instead, they implied the fight had been personal. Press clippings from the time speculated whether Morticia La Fey and Valefor Bones, the Bones patriarch, had been having an affair.

Dark Cathedral wasn’t mentioned, but maybe that wasn’t a surprise. After all, if itdidexist, they’d suppress any mention from the papers, wouldn’t they?

I wondered if Caelum would give me more information about the relationships there if I asked him.

Thinking about Caelum had me grimacing again, though, and closing the book with a snap. I checked my dad’s watch, and it was nearly five o’clock.

Time to head back.

The rest of the school would be waking up soon.

“Ugh, not that again.”I pushed it away when Draken set it down on the table in front of me. “Why are they even printing that photo still? Isn’t there any real news in the Magical world, that they have to constantly recycle idiotic gossip?”

“Maybe this sells more papers?” Miranda teased. “You do look pretty hot in that photo, Leda, you have to admit.”

I gave her a flat look. “Not helping, Mir. Anyway, it was over amonthago now. Why is this still a thing?”

My friend only smiled wickedly. “And here we were, thinking Drakey would hog all the press attention in our little group.”

Draken rolled his eyes, but smirked at me. “I’m not complaining.”

I scoffed back. “I bet you aren’t.”

I glanced a few tables over, and saw Alaric staring down at what had to be the same front page of the same newspaper, which happened to beThe London Twilightthis time. Whoever took that photo in the Kink-Tailed Cat must’ve made a fortune selling it to every paper in Magique England.

Caelum, who sat next to Alaric, legs sprawled under the oak table, was cutting up eggs and toast on his plate. I noticed that in the barest glance, but jerked my eyes back to Alaric when Bones felt my stare and glanced in my direction.

I was still watching Alaric when I saw Bones frown in my peripheral vision, right before he leaned over behind Alaric and stared down at the paper with him.

There was no mistaking the harder look that came to his eyes.