Page 91 of Malcroix Bones Academy

Graham might actually be different.

In any case, he hadn’t seemed overly discouraged by my refusal, and continued to ask me to go flying with him. It turned out he was a seriously big deal on the Skyhunt team, and the Skull’s youngest first-string player. His father owned one of the big teams in Ireland, so he’d grown up around the game; they’d recruited him onto the Skulls before he’d even arrived. He had aspirations to go pro, but in the meantime, he was studying experimental magic to patent his own commercial spells, which he jokingly referred to as his “side” gig.

I absorbed all of this with interest.

I didn’t know enough about the different job categories in Magique to have any idea what I might do myself, but I liked the idea of being self-employed.

Graham seemed ambitious, which I admit, I liked.

He also came from new money, which I suspected had less or different baggage than the older variety that seemed to despise me so much.

Alaric still didn’t acknowledge me when he saw me, not overtly at least.

I tried not to care, but honestly, it hurt.

After being inseparable for most of the summer, it felt like losing my first real friend, and not only in the magical world. Moreover, I’d reallylikedAlaric. He was funny and clever and ridiculous but also incredibly thoughtful, perceptive, and (I suspected) maybe the smartest Magical I’d met, apart from Forsooth.

It hurt that I might’ve been wrong about him. It hurt even more that I hadn’t mattered to him at all. But I had to face facts, and it seemed increasingly likely I’d been the summer friendship fling for a bored, rich mage who happened to live at the Keep the same time I did.

I dreamed about magic now.

I’d woken myself up in the middle of the night, trying to perform spells.

“Hurry now!” Professor Underwood clapped her hands. “We have a lot to cover today! I want to observe your ability to not only read minds, but to shield yourself from penetration… or, better yet, to turn the invasion back on your attackers…”

I started to turn my head, to glance around for a new face…

…when someone sank heavily into the chair across from me.

I looked up to meet gold eyes, an irritating smirk, and an even more irritatingly handsome face. He reallymustuse some magic-infused product on that platinum hair, I thought, maybe for the fiftieth time. No one’s hair had any right to look that perfect.

His smirk widened a touch, almost like he heard me.

“Partner with me, Shadow.”

I started to tell him off, then glanced around to see that everyone else in the room already sat across from someone. I caught Alaric’s eye long enough to see him blink at the two of us, his expression faintly worried.

To hell with pride. I needed to have a little chat with Alaric Greythorne, and soon.

“Fine.” I turned to face Bones, and exhaled. “Get it over with.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Getwhatover with?”

“You and your… just your generalyou-ness,” I said with an annoyed hand-wave. “Your compulsive need to make me feel about a centimeter tall by showing me just how much better you are at everything than I am.”

His eyebrow quirked higher. He tsk’d at me, shaking his head. “I just thought you might want to try pairing with someone who isn’t falling all over themselves to get in your good graces… by which I mean your knickers, Shadow. In case that wasn’t clear.”

My lip curled. “And here we go.”

“What? You’re aseriousstudent, are you not? I’m honoring that, aren’t I?”

I snorted. “Right. Like you don’t read everyone’s mind around you already. You reallydothink I’m an idiot, don’t you? As if I can’t tell when someone’s?”

He snatched my wrist out of the air, startling me.

He leaned closer, until his face was abruptly in mine, eyes hard.

“You shouldn’t make unfounded accusations like that, Shadow,” he said softly, gold eyes flashing. “That kind of talk doesn’t go over well with the faculty here. You should know that, even if you’re new. Aren’t you taking Magical Ethics?”