Page 80 of Malcroix Bones Academy

“I said look. I didn’t tell you to go up there yet.” His voice sounded amused. “Although it’s good to know you can. That was going to be next. Can you evenseeit, though?”

I took a deep breath. I let it out slowly.

I focused my attention above my head.

Out of nowhere, a bright, flaming, glowing orb grew sharply visible behind my eyes.

“Yes,” I said, bewildered. “Is that really there?”

He sounded even more amused. “Depends. What do you see?”

“A big, white and gold, flaming ball,” I said, that wonder still in my voice. “I see sky blue kind of… streaks… or lightning, maybe, coming off it…”

“I see green, but sure. I don’t think the exact color matters all that much.”

“Or maybe you’re colorblind,” I suggested.

He snorted, strangely unaffected.

“Sure. Whatever.”

It struck me that his voice sounded nothing at all like it had at any other point that day, in the dining room for any of our meals, or even while he’d had me locked in that closet. I started to try and understand the difference, but felt him push on me in some way, as if telling me no.

After the barest pause, I decided not to press it.

“All right,” he said. “Now you can go up.”

I focused more of my magic on that writhing, burning, sparking sun.

“Not bad,” he commented. “Now ask it if it’ll project a lower-level primal down here for you to use. Something regular Magicals can see.”

I opened my eyes. “What?”

“Just ask it, Shadow,” he said, still oddly patient. “If it gives you a hard time, tell it why you need to do it. Explain that no oneelse can see it but me, and that will cause you problems. Or hell, tell it whatever you want. You should probably say hello first. Don’t be rude.”

Frowning a touch, I approached the writhing ball of light cautiously.

I felt a little foolish, but did what Bones said.

I’m sorry I didn’t see you until now,I thought at it.I’m sorry it took this wanker seeing it for me to even know you were there…

“Nice,” Caelum murmured under his breath.

“Stop eavesdropping, and you won’t hear bad things,” I countered.

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Just get on with it, will you? I need to know if this works before we try something else. And I don’t think you want to spend all night arguing with me, instead of finally talking to the primal you thought you didn’t have.”

Weighing that, I decided maybe he had a point.

Sorry,I thought at the fiercely glowing ball of light.He’s right. I do need a primal down here. I don’t know why he’s right, but he seems to think it’s dangerous for anyone to know about you… or about that black flame and crystal he has. So, like him, I need something to keep people from looking too closely.

I felt a presence there, and jumped violently.

“Calm down,” Caelum said. “It’s just checking you out. As you rightly surmised, it’s been feeling a little neglected. You’ll work with it better, the more you understand one another. That needs to go both ways.”

“What is it?” I asked, my voice a touch nervous.

Without really thinking about it, I’d assumed my primal would be a part of myself. I’d speculated that in part from observing the primals of others.