Page 18 of Malcroix Bones Academy

Right in the middle of my chest, I felt tension, heat, and a clenching that made it difficult to breathe. I’d been feeling it for months. That feeling of a hard glass ball had vanished, but the intensity of that spot hadn’t lessened. Some part of me was holding on for dear life, and had been since I walked through that door.

Maybe I had been since I was a child.

I tried to slow my heart rate, to relax that gripping hold. I tried to breathe all the way into the hot intensity in the middle of my chest, to fill my lungs?

There was a sharp crack.

Gasps rose from the darkness on either side.

“Ah-ha!” The man clapped his hands. He sounded genuinely delighted. “Very good, Miss Shadow!Verywell done! You can open your eyes now, if you wish!”

I opened them.

I felt hotter all over. I felt a little sweaty, and queasy.

Strangely, I also felt better.

I found I was breathing easier. My lungs expanded more with each breath, and my body began to relax. Rivulets of charge ran up and down my arms, through the veins under my skin, but it feltrightthere, somehow, even comforting. Like when that weight had evaporated from around my head, I felt inexplicably lighter.

This time, it felt really good. It also felt like a relief.

I remembered the glass bulb, and glanced at where it had hung in the air.

It was gone.

Glass shards covered the top of the man’s desk, and part of the floor.

Before I could open my mouth, the man with the wild hair and pointed beard waved a hand towards the pile of broken glass, and it vanished.

I glanced around the darkened room.

I very much felt eyes on me from the other side of that darkness. I remembered the gasps at the suddencrack,and the soft murmurs that followed. I also remembered how I hadn’t been able to hear anything as the other children stood in front of their tables.

Was it only the other students taking tests who couldn’t hear?

Movement by Inspector Forsooth’s desk drew my gaze.

Eyes peered over the edge of the wood.

A small brown bear, made of brown and gold light, reared up on its hind legs so it could look at me. Its claws rested onthe desk’s edge. It peered at me curiously, and something in the kind, gentle gaze resonated so much with the man sitting there, I smiled.

“Let’s try something else,” the man said, sounding excited now. “Can you aim that feeling up here, Miss Shadow? At the object above my head?”

My eyes rose, following his pointing finger.

Another glass ball hung there, maybe a foot and a half wide, and roughly ten feet in the air. Again, it dangled without any visible wires, without anything holding it up.

I frowned up at it, then looked at the man with the bushy brown hair and kind eyes. The glass looked significantly thicker than what had been in the first bulb. It also hung directly over him. If it broke, wouldn’t it rain glass chunks down on his head?

He seemed to guess my thoughts.

A sly smile formed at his lips.

“Do not concern yourself on my account, Miss Shadow,” he said warmly. “Evenyoucannot break this one.”

A few chuckles and titters grew audible outside the light.

Before I could react, his voice reverted back to serious.