“Holy shit.”
“You will live to be my age,” he said gently. “At least, if everything goes well.”
“Holy shit,” I said again, the weight of immortality finally hitting me. I'd been riding high on a cloud of love, ignoring the fact that I had done something I didn't want to do. Ignoring the ramifications of my actions.
“Shane, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I'm fine,” I whispered. “I just . . . holy shit. I just realized that I'll likely bury my brother.”
“But you'll also be able to promise him that you will look after his children and his children's children,” Tae said as he took my hand. “What a gift that will be to a parent, don't you agree?”
A shiver coasted through me. “I hadn't thought of that. I could become the family guardian.”
“In a way.” He nodded. “You can become whatever you wish, Shane. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Immortality gives you the freedom to work on your dreams until they become reality.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek. “I feel much better now.”
“Good.” Tae grinned and looked out the window. “Because it's time for your first day of school.”
I followed his gaze to a grand set of stairs leading to an even grander door—single, not double, with golden hinges and a central point. Our driver folded down the carriage steps and opened the door for us, and Tae waved me out ahead of him. I climbed out and stepped forward to stare up at the soaring edifice of the Falcon Academy. Two wings stretched off the main keep, curving out like real wings to surround the roundabout we'd parked on. Towers crowned the keep, that central building rising many floors higher than the wings, and bridges arched from tower to tower. Falcons jumped off those bridges to glide above me in complicated patterns, their massive bodies spotting the pale sky.
“Whoa,” I whispered.
“Yes, whoa.” Tae took my hand and led me up the stairs. “I'll see you settled, then I have to leave for the Royal Palace. But I shouldn't be long. I'll come back and take you to lunch.”
“All right,” I said distractedly.
Taeven opened the door for me, and we strode into a cathedral-like entry hall whose soaring, steepled rafters were home to crossbeams, upon which Falcon Faeries perched—some in Sidhe form, naked, with their legs dangling over the sides, casually shooting the breeze with their friends. A skeleton of a Falcon hung from one thick beam in the center of the hall, its giant wings outstretched to show off every bone. Beneath it, robed scholars hurried by us with imperious expressions while younger Sidhe congregated in groups. They hardly noticed us, but I hardly noticed them too; I was too busy staring up at the skeleton.
“Someone you know?” I asked Tae.
Tae tried to hold in his laugh and ended up snorting. “Actually, I do know who that is, though I wasn't personally acquainted with him. That's Gerhan Unvellor, the first Headmaster of the Falcon Academy.”
“And you guys stuck him up there because . . .”
“Because it was a way to honor him and, more importantly, he asked for it. Not only asked for, but also provided the spell to shift his body back to falcon form after death,” Tae said. “Now, he's forever watching over the Academy.”
“I suppose it's similar to the way they have human skeletons for medical students to study. It's kind of incredible and kind of morbid,” I murmured, still staring at it.
“I think it leans more toward incredible,” Tae said firmly.
“It leans more toward the left.” I cocked my head to appreciate the angle of the wings that really brought the skeleton to life—as much as that was possible.
Tae snickered. “When I went to school here, there was a running dare for someone to steal one of the bones.”
“It doesn't look as if that would be too difficult. What with all the students flying around it.”
“It has a protection spell on it.”
I finally looked away from the bird to lift my brows at him. “They actually thought to protect the skeleton from theft?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes. “The protection is against the ravages of time. Without the magic that inhabited those bones when Unvellor was alive, they'll eventually decay. It just so happened that the preservation spell is also useful to preserve the bones against tampering. Any attempt to remove one bone from the rest causes a defensive reaction.”
“And you know this how?” I smirked knowingly at him.
“Thankfully, I was not the unlucky fool who attempted the theft, but I was with him.” Tae snickered in memory. “It knocked him onto his feathered ass.”
“Did you try it in the middle of the day?”
