Page 30 of Malcroix Bones Academy

I pushed my plate away, losing the last of my appetite. My eyes returned to the view over the stone balcony, but I struggled to focus.

Ankha cleared her throat.

“I will say this,” she added. “No one could ‘lure’ Clotide unless she allowed herself to be. Your mother was a lot of things, but stupid was never one of them. I don’t know what brought my sister back to England, but she would have known the likelihood of a trap waiting for her. She came, anyway. She even brought her children.” Ankha shrugged. “Whatever her reasons, they must have been important.”

I stared at her. “So who do you think?”

“That’s enough on this,” Ankha cut in. “I’ve said all I plan to say on the subject.”

I bit my tongue.

After a few seconds of silence, I forced myself to let it go.

It was the most my aunt had ever spoken to me on any subject.

It was definitely the mostrealinformation I’d ever gotten about my parents’ deaths.

8

Neighbor

Ankha left not long after she finished her meal and a second cup of tea. She didn’t say where she was going, but instructed me to remain in the room, and to not wander anywhere by myself, even inside the hotel.

I didn’t argue.

I had more questions, of course?alotmore questions, and now no one to ask. I also couldn’t stand the idea of fidgeting in the room for hours, so not long after Ankha left, I ignored everything she’d said, and walked out, the bronze key stuck in a different sweater pocket than the one still holding the green crystal necklace.

I only hesitated a few seconds before I walked purposefully to the opening in the bannister where the rug first dropped us off.

Like I’d hoped, I stood there less than a minute before a new rug rose into view, hovering right next to the opening. A bored-looking bellhop stood on one side, a hand perched on his hip. From the way his jaws moved, he was chewing a thick wad of gum.

“Is there a restaurant in the lobby?” I asked. “Or a bar? Somewhere I could get a drink?”

He blinked, like I’d demanded he hand over his gum.

“There’s the wall,” he blurted out.

“The wall?”

“Dispenses stuff,” he explained. “‘Course, you could also just call down,” he offered. “They’ll bring you anything you want.”

He popped a blue gum-bubble at the end of his words.

“No.” I stepped purposefully onto the rug, clenching my jaw and my fists. “No. I’d like to go down myself, please.”

“Sure thing.”

The rug dropped without warning.

I managed to stay on my feet, but my stomach lurched more going that direction than it had on the way up. It lurched more than on any roller coaster I’d ridden, too. From the way the bellhop stared at me, I was probably a little green.

“You can’t fall off, you know,” he assured me. “There’s a chimera around every rug.” At my blank stare, he couched a bit in his hand. “Fields,” he clarified, then motioned around us, like that explained it. “Youcan’tfall. Won’t let you.”

That was reassuring, I supposed.

We touched down on the ground floor a few seconds later.

“Wall’s over there,” the bellhop said.