Page 56 of Malcroix Bones Academy

He’d called Caelum a friend, and I felt certain Alaric would be exceedingly loyal to his friends, deserved or not. A small voice in my head also whispered I couldn’t tell him that I’d seen Caelum on the streets of Overworld London when I was ten. I especially couldn’t tell him I’d seen Caelum Bones the day my parents got murdered. I may not know much about this place yet, but that definitely struck me as dangerous.

As much as I liked Alaric, and I liked him a lot, I couldn’t risk that the story might be so big it could slip out of control, or out of Alaric’s ability to keep quiet.

Worse, if they were close enough, Alaric might confront Caelum.

Which meant I would need to tell Alaric a different story. Maybe a partial story, one that would convince him to help me without giving it all away.

By the time I got that far in my thinking, the four of us were passing through the tall gates that formed the boundary between Bonescastle and the grounds of Malcroix Bones.

A violent shiver ran through me as I crossed that line.

Stone towers on either side of the main gates had gold pyramids on top, crowned with sharp points that looked like onyx, or obsidian. The gates themselves were elaborately wrought in whatlookedlike gold and silver, with massive golden snakes coiled around and through the center, and gold and silver roses and vines wrapped around the frame. Gilded butterflies and what looked like tree roots adorned the bottom supports. The roses and butterflies flashed with twinkling lights as I passed onto the grounds.

That cloying feeling of magic pulled me out of my mind, and out of the problem of Caelum Bones.

For a few seconds, I struggled to even breathe.

The air felt electrically charged, yet strangely soft, as if a billion tiny feathers whispered over me, making my personal acquaintance. The sensation lit the flame in the center of my chest, making it burn hotly, like a white brand. It also reminded me of the last part of my first magical test, in that dark gymnasium.

I rubbed the spot where it burned, and glanced at my friends.

Their eyes appeared to be glowing.

They all seemed to be breathing strangely, and walking strangely, like me.

“I feel drunk,” Miranda proclaimed.

“Your eyes,” Draken said to me. He glanced around at all of us. “All of your eyes… do mine look like that?”

“Yes,” Luc said simply.

“Did you feel that?” Miranda murmured as we walked deeper onto the grounds. “That field we just walked through? It waslike… I feel like something got dumped on my head. Or maybe like an ‘on’ switch got flicked inside my magic.”

Luc and Draken nodded enthusiastically.

“I think ‘walked into’ is more accurate than walkedthrough,”I offered.

We were all speaking quietly, as if we were in a library, or a cathedral.

“I still feel it,” I added, soft. “I read somewhere that the mages who control the protection fields here tune them to amplify certain magics for whoever lives or works on the grounds, but it’s a lot more intense than I…”

I trailed as my eyes got pulled to the changing view. My mind blanked as the landscape abruptly reformed in front of us.

Before the change, I’d seen a long line of mown grass and dark, precisely-cut shrubs leading to a stone building that looked a bit like Oxford or Cambridge, or any other old English school. All that got wiped away once we passed through what felt like a second layer of the magical field around the grounds.

Suddenly tall, blooming trees lined the path on either side. Softly glowing lanterns hung from smooth, white branches. Statues and stone benches scattered along a wide, shaded avenue that led to what could only be described as a castle in the near-distance.

“The entire thing is illusioned,” Draken said in awe. “The whole grounds.”

“But which version is the illusion, I wonder?” Miriam asked quietly.

“This one is real.” I spoke with a certainty I didn’t think to question.

Luc glanced at me. “Those magical fields you mentioned? We call themchimeras,by the way. I read they use all five main chimeric types extensively on campus, but the outer perimeterappears to be mostly shielding and tripwire… and illusion, obviously,” he added, glancing around at where we stood.

I’d stumbled across the term “chimera” a number of times in my reading, but realized now, in listening to Luc, that I hadn’t fully understood it, or read deeply enough on the subject. I nodded anyway, and made a mental note to ask Luc more about that later. I already had a feeling I’d be bugging Luc a lot over the next few days.

I also made a mental note to look up “chimera” when I ventured into Bones Library.