Page 149 of Malcroix Bones Academy

Caelum?My mind reached out. His name drifted away like smoke in my head. It swirled into my magic, billowed around me.Caelum? Can you hear me?

No one answered.

The wind cut into my bare skin now that I’d been torn away from that gold-painted body. My braids slowly unraveled until my hair whipped at my face. I’d lost at least one earring. I had no coat, nothing but a filmy skirt cut up to my hips and the gold bodice. The air felt wet, but I couldn’t be sure if it was fog, or just my own magic turned into a blinding cloud.

The robed figure dragged me into the trees.

Everything got dark.

My legs forcibly moved in a marching, trudging walk, like a puppet being controlled by someone else. I tried to fight back once I saw that much, but between whatever was wrong with me and the unyielding strength of that alien magic, I was entirely unable to disobey the pull on my muscles, bones, and blood.

We walked through the forest in silence.

I slipped on wet leaves, but remained upright from the iron grip still clamped around my bicep. When we stopped suddenly, I stood there, gasping.

A stone structure with rounded, dark walls, broken by three blue doors, loomed over me. I recognized the detailed carvings from photos in theMalcroix Bones Campus Orientation ManualI’d finally acquired a few days after starting school, but I’d never seen it in person. White, marble wings, delicately detailed, reflected moonlight. Stern stone faces stared down, their expressions so lifelike, they looked like real people.

The fingers holding me half-threw me into the wall by one of the blue doors.

“Put your hand there,” the hooded figure hissed.

I looked down.

A glowing blue spot throbbed on the stone, near a lock made of black onyx. A wrought-iron, curved handle stuck out above the lock, matching the wrought-iron hinges.

“Put your hand there, or I’ll cut it off, and put it there myself.”

I struggled instinctively, not wanting to obey.

I fought to push myself back from the stone, to get away from the building, away from that glowing blue spot. A second hand joined the first on my arm, and magic rippled into me, forcing my heart to a standstill in my chest.

I fought to breathe, couldn’t. Pain blanked my mind.

Soon, my chest hurt so badly I couldn’t move.

The hooded figure dragged me the rest of the way to the door. They gripped my wrist and slammed my palm over the glowing blue spot. The blue glow spread, until the entire door began to pulse with light. Light poured out through the cracks between the wooden planks.

The door flung itself open.

The opening grew brighter and brighter, flashed white, with a glint of glass?

Hands shoved me viciously through.

I lost track of myself.Darkness fell over my eyes, over the stone building and the moonlight and the wings and the surrounding forest.

I… disappeared.

Then, with no warning or preamble, I was someplace else.

My breath rushed back into me, hurting my lungs.

I stood in a dingy, off-white space, colored sickly green by blinking, florescent lights.

Briefly, I could see again.

Before I could get my bearings, a toilet flushed near me, and a metal stall door opened inward, revealing startled, widening eyes, dyed red hair, smeared lipstick. The forty-something woman gawked at me, looking over the remains of my Bastet costume.

“Hey, dearie, where’s the party?”