Page 71 of Malcroix Bones Academy

“I have trouble controlling… that,” he said, his words holding distaste.

It occurred to me that the hand he’d been wiping off with that grimace was the one he’d wrapped around my throat. He’d just donethatto me, and he was still worried about me contaminating him with my hybrid germs?

Disgust made my lip curl. What kind of a mental case was he?

“What did you do to me?” I asked.

He shoved the handkerchief back in his pocket, and his hands with it. He stared down his nose at me, his eyes cold, unreadable.

“That would be difficult to explain,” he said. “But it’s what I want from you. I don’t have an easy way to deal with that on my own.”

I frowned, now back to being confused. “Deal with what?” I asked, letting annoyance reach my voice. “You still haven’t explained?”

“I don’t need to explain anything to you,” he cut in. “And part of the deal is that I won’t. And you won’t tell anyone that I come to you for this.”

I stared at him, now utterly incredulous. “And if I tell you to shove it up your?”

“I don’t expect you to do it forfree,mongrel,” he sneered. “I’m willing to negotiate. And be generous. But part of the dealon my end is that no one knows. That’s non-negotiable. You don’t agree to that, and our negotiations end here. I erase your memory of this little event, and life goes on as before.”

I stared at him. Now I found myself fighting to sort through not so much what hewassaying, but what he wasn’t.

“But you need this?” I clarified.

Discomfort flashed in those gold eyes. “Yes.”

“And anyone else you’ve tried it with, you’ve hurt?” I pressed, wary. “But it doesn’t hurt me. And you think itwon’thurt me, because we have those… things, in common…whatever it is you see above my head and I see over yours. You think that makes me different.”

Irritation flashed in his eyes, but I got the impression it was because I was right, not the opposite. Before I could press the point, he nodded, once.

“Yes,” he said.

“And no one else can know because…?”

“That’s not important,” he said.

“Obviously, it is,” I observed.

“It’s not important foryouto know that,” Bones said. “And I have no intention of telling you my reasons, so I don’t much give a fuck if you agree with them or not.”

I weighed that, and decided we could come back to it.

“You came to offer me something in return,” I reasoned. “What was it? Money? Gold? That seems the obvious thing for someone like you.”

I didn’t want his money. I didn’t even need his money, not now that I had the inheritance left to me by my mother, as well as my grandmother, who’d surprisingly left me nearly as much as gold as my mum. It just struck me as logical, I suppose, that someone like him would assume he could buy me.

But he surprised me.

Discomfort flickered through his expression. “I can’t offer you gold.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” A slight scoff reached my voice. “You’re positively rolling in it, aren’t you?”

“I can’t offer you gold,” he said, colder. “I was going to offer to help you with your primal problem.” His eyes shifted meaningfully above my head. “I can teach you how to project one. So it’s not so obvious you’re a freak.”

“I’ma freak?” I scoffed for real. “You just dragged me into a bloody broom closet to expel magic into me, like some kind of human drug addict. ButI’mthe freak?”

“I’ll help you find out who’s trying to kill you,” he offered next. “I would think that might be worth something to you.” He stared at me, his gold eyes flat. “You can’t possibly think I mightn’t be of some use to you, given how new you are here.”

“Not enough,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest.