Present Day
October 17th
Malcroix Gardens
Malcroix Bones Academy
Eye of Ra,why had I agreed to let Graham come along with us to this stupid thing?
Saying yes to him had mostly been reflex, and part of my poor attempt at camouflage, as I’d been trying very hard to convince him I was fine, everything was fine, and I was reacting to the news about Alaric completely normally. It was also because, I realized later, I’d been trying desperately hardnotto talk to Bones.
I’d been less successful at controlling that impulse the following morning, when, at roughly seven-thirty in a different class, something possessed me to try and talk to him again. I tentatively reached my mind for his in the early part of our Ancient Rituals class, one of the many electives I shared with him for some inexplicable reason.
I can only excuse it by saying that one, I hadn’t slept, and two, I’d spent the entire previous day and night trying to find out anything I could about Alaric, and I’d come up with exactly nothing.
Well, notnothing,but nothing that told me anything about how much danger he was in, where he might be now, or what his father or others in Dark Cathedral might be doing to him.
I mostly heard gleeful speculation around his mental state, rumors of a death in the Greythorne family, whispers that he’d done something illegal and gotten himself expelled, gossip about a witch he’d supposedly gotten pregnant, a sexually transmitted disease, and a possible drug problem. I even tried reading a number of people, in addition to eavesdropping and asking questions. I used a few spells I’d practiced with Alaric over the summer, specifically those for concealing mind-reading and mental pushes.
Unfortunately, those hadn’t yielded anything, either.
No one seemed toactuallyknow anything, not even the other royals.
That left Bones.
Even so, I don’t know what possessed me to go there with him. It’s not like I hadn’t tried a few dozen times after the night of Eleusínia Myst?ria.
Is he all right?I’d whispered nearly silently at his mind.Do you know what really happened? Why his father came for him?
Silence.
Bones sat two rows ahead of me, back straight, his face as pale and gaunt-looking as it had been since that day on the carriage. If anything, he looked significantly worse. It was like something was slowly consuming him from the inside.
Bones,I sent next, exasperated.Can you please just talk to me for two seconds? You know I care about him. Can’t you tell me anything?
I waited for a few more beats of my heart, holding my breath.
I have no one else to ask. If you knew enough to tell me not to react, then you must know––
A hard, glass-like shield slammed down over my magic.
I sucked in a shocked breath, and the sound fell on deadened air, even inside my own mind. It was the absolute strangest feeling I can recall magically, at least up to that minute. It felt like someone had dropped a soundproof shell over my entire body, leaving me inside to rail against the thick walls, unable to hear even myself.
The shell remained all through class.
I could listen to the class lecture, and to the other students ask questions, but I couldn’t talk. Professor Wragnus, whom I normally watched in fascination as he worked, partly due to the bizarre symbols that flickered in his magical aura, looked as two-dimensional and flat as a cartoon character.
I couldn’t even smell his pipe, which was both a blessing and a curse. Wragnus was known for that pipe. It positively reeked. He regularly smoked it all through class, and it emitted thick, dark-green smoke that dribbled off the edges and pooled below his desk, usually choking out the first few rows of students by the end of class. It was why no one sat there, no matter how interested they might be in seeing the details of his precise ritual work up close.
Bones had cut me off from my magic totally.
Moreover, he’d silenced me with the same spell.
I had absolutely no doubt that it had been him.
I doubted anyone else in therecouldhave done it, apart from maybe Wragnus himself.
When the professor finally wrapped up for the day, knocking his pipe against a large clay ashtray and grinning at us from behind his long, wavy black hair, Bones immediately rose to his feet. I stared at him, half in disbelief, as he scooped up his notesand two ritual textbooks, stuffed them into his bag, slung the strap over his shoulder, and walked out without giving me so much as a glance.
