Chapter 23 Uneasy Allies
Uneasy Allies
You’re the one who made a scene, I snapped back at his mind. I was doing what I was supposed to do… pretending you’re the racist crown prince who hates that I’m sweating all over his private practice space. You’re the one who lectured Draken for acting possessive––
He is a possessive twat, Bones muttered in my mind. I wonder why that is?
I ignored the implication, biting my lip.
I fought to focus on the Dark Rituals quiz on my desk, then, seemingly unable to restrain myself, shot thoughts back at him, anyway.
From the royals’ perspective, why would you be defending me? I demanded. Because it sounded like you were defending me. Are you mad?
Bones didn’t answer, but continued to stare down at his own parchment.
Just… stop being stupid about it, I thought at his silence.
I know you don’t like him. You’ve made it crystal clear you don’t like him.
But don’t use me to needle him in ways that are going to make Voltaire and the others wonder if I’ve got you under some kind of chimaeric spell.
You need to control yourself. How is it you can be so controlled with fighting and school and everything else, and so utterly not in control around Draken Joran?
Are you worried about me, Shadow? Bones asked, amused. I may faint.
You’re the one who got on me about keeping up appearances, I retorted back. If we’re going to try and find out what happened to Alaric, they can’t be looking at you, wondering why you’re acting odd all of a sudden. That’s bad for both of us.
Bones grew quiet at that, but I swear I could hear his teeth grinding in my head. I fought to focus on my test, but again, my annoyance got the better of me.
I just wish you would–– I began sharply.
A different voice cut me off, speaking aloud.
“Whilst it’s against school policy and Magique law for teachers to listen in on adult students’ conversations with one another,” Professor Wragnus intoned, his voice warning as it boomed from the front of the room. “That doesn’t mean we cannot see clearly when such a conversation is taking place…”
I tensed, feeling my face flush red.
Wragnus wasn’t finished.
His voice sharpened in annoyance as he went on.
“There is to be no talking during test-taking, if you please, even if those conversations occur in the aether. Ms. Shadow and Mr. Bones, if you cannot control yourselves, your tests will be forfeit, and you will each receive zeros for today’s grade.
” Folding his arms, and gripping his pipe in one hand, he finished in an irritated mutter.
“I confess, I didn’t think I would have to tell my two best students they aren’t allowed to collaborate during exams.”
Eye of Ra. The entire class was staring at us now.
Luckily, none of Bones’s “bodyguards” were in there, probably because they couldn’t handle the reading load. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t get back to them.
Shoving Bones out of my mind, I forced myself to focus on the nearly-blank parchment under my hands, and re-dipped my quill in my pot of ink.
It took me another few seconds to concentrate well enough to answer the first question.
I answered the one after that a bit faster, and then I was fully absorbed by the material again, realizing that my reading had stuck in my mind better than I might’ve expected, considering the past few weeks I’d had.
I managed to keep my mind entirely silent for the rest of the class, at least.
I didn’t hear so much as a mutter out of Bones, either.
He pulled me into an alcove after our Numerology and Symbology class let out at half-five, after motioning me down a narrow side corridor on the second floor of Osiris College.
Since I’d missed lunch trying to make up reading time for Alchemy, I was starving, and overly-conscious I had to meet up with Forsooth in the Northeast Tower of Malcroix Mansion in just a few hours, which meant I’d need to shower and change early if I intended to do it at all.
Bones threw a chimaera over both of us so we wouldn’t be seen, and hovered over me.
“You can’t possibly need it already,” I whispered fiercely, as soon as the last of our class walked by in the main corridor. “I let you use my magic again on Saturday, and––”
“What?” He stared at me, eyes narrowed, then I saw it click. He threw a second chimaera over us, and the sound around us noticeably deadened.
“No,” he said, visibly annoyed. “Are you going to that meeting tonight?”
I blinked until his words clicked, then huffed, folding my arms.
“I knew you read that note,” I grumbled.
“Of course I read it.” Bones’s mouth twitched. “I’d like to listen in. Would you be adverse to keeping a mental channel open between us while you’re in there?”
I stared up at him. “Forsooth knew we’d been talking in class,” I pointed out. “Not to mention Wragnus caught us today––”
“I got sloppy,” he cut in. “Both times. I won’t tonight. You won’t even feel me there. There’s some chance I won’t be able to get past Forsooth’s protections over the Tower, anyway, but I want your permission to try.”
I folded my arms, thinking, and overly conscious of how close he stood.
“And what do I say, if they catch you trying and ask me if I knew?” I asked.
“Say whatever you want.”
“Bones––” I began, frustrated.
“I was going to propose a trade,” he cut in. “A trade in support of our overall agreement, only a more specific one. Information for information. You’re the one who offered up these meetings as your end of the deal.”
“You don’t trust me to summarize them?” I asked.
“It’s not that. I want to hear it for myself.
There are things you can’t possibly know yet.
I can provide context, and the history of some of the issues they discuss.
I can give you the backgrounds and allegiances of some of the players.
This will help both of us, Shadow.” He hesitated.
“What do you say? You can play dumb if you get caught. Blame it on me.”
I thought about that, biting my lip.
He was right. I’d wanted to know what the royals were up to, so I’d offered him Golden Sun, even knowing it might be utterly insane to trust him with it.
I could also admit I’d likely miss a lot in a meeting where things moved quickly and a lot of different topics and people were being discussed.
It would help to know more about the other members, too.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, refolding my arms tighter. “For your end of things. Are you planning to let me attend one of your regular Dark Cathedral meetings, in exchange?”
I said it sarcastically, but watched his face for a reaction.
Bones’s eyes relaxed slightly, but he didn’t stop watching me, either. His expression grew thoughtful briefly, then close to wary.
“Well,” he said finally. “I still have to keep my father at bay.”
I frowned, confused by how that had anything to do with what we were talking about. Then, all at once, something clicked. Maybe it was just the way he was looking at me.
“You mean with your revolving door?” I asked, a faint scoff in my voice. “Are you proposing I supply you with your next witch to parade around? Which of my friends did you have in mind, exactly?”
“Yes,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “I am proposing that, actually. But I wasn’t thinking about your friends.
” He hesitated. “It occurred to me it might make more sense just to bring you. Disguised, of course,” he added, when I opened my mouth.
“They couldn’t know who you are, obviously.
But I’ve brought enough variety with me to these things, they won’t blink if they don’t recognize you.
Occasionally I’ve brought dates with me who don’t attend Malcroix at all. Not currently, at least.”
I felt my annoyance return sharply, but did my best to keep it off my face.
“Of course you have,” I muttered.
“Are you interested?” he asked, sounding a touch irritated again. “There’s something in a few weeks. The royals are throwing a big party under The Eyrie. The night before Eleusínia Myst?ria. They do it every year.”
I thought about that, and swallowed. “Right.”
“I have to be there,” he added, a touch sharper. “I’ll be expected to bring someone. The others, Maskey, Voltaire, and Panzen, especially, will think it strange if I don’t, and will probably report that back to my father.”
My eyes flickered up to his. I didn’t hide my disbelief.
“Report it to your father? They spy on you?”
“Of course,” he said, like that was totally normal.
At what must have been another incredulous look from me, he shrugged, averting his eyes.
“They won’t much care who it is, although they’ll give me shit about anyone they’ve never seen before.
If you can handle that, and a lot of other crude rubbish, they’ll mostly leave you alone. ”
I thought about that. Why did it feel like he was trying to tempt me?
“Okay,” I said.
My heart was already hammering harder in my chest.
I wasn’t sure if it was fear exactly, or excitement, or some combination.
The truth was, he didn’t have to try very hard to convince me.
I wanted to go. And I did genuinely trust he could keep my identity secret, from Voltaire, Panzen, Maskey, and Warrington, at least. None of them was skilled enough with magic to pose a threat, especially if I wore my mother’s crystal.
Still, of course it was reckless.
Those four wouldn’t be the only Magicals there. There would be older students, students who were smarter, and who knew significantly more magic.
Bones and I trying to eavesdrop on either meeting was reckless.
But he wouldn’t have come to me unless he’d thought it through. He clearly wanted to listen in on the Golden Sun meeting badly enough that he’d decided it was worth the risk. And maybe I’d finally hear something real about Alaric.
A pain hit my chest at the thought.
Had Bones heard anything about Alaric recently? Would he tell me if he had?
Maybe this was his way of proving to me that I could trust him.
I couldn’t help flashing back to how terrified Alaric had been all summer.
He’d been more afraid of being caught by Dark Cathedral than I had, and I’d known what they would do to me.
Maybe the difference was, I’d known that was a risk whether they caught me spying on them or not.
I wouldn’t survive a war won by Dark Cathedral, no matter what I did or didn’t do, whereas Alaric could conceivably hide among the royals and probably come out of this thing alive, as long as he didn’t get labeled a traitor along the way.
“Oh,” Bones said, as if remembering. “There’s a missive by the Priest on Thursday. I thought you might want to listen in.”
“Thursday?” My mind immediately went to the date. “You’re planning to go?”
Bones raised an eyebrow. “Go? Where would I go, Shadow? I’m not talking about a royals party. This is just a broadcast.”
I thought about that, and nodded. “Where do you normally listen? In your room? Or somewhere else?”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t normally listen at all, if I’m being honest. But I was thinking my room, yes.
It’d be less suspicious for you to be in the Mansion at night, and you could disguise your appearance before showing up at my door.
With that and the crystal, no one would blink.
Anyway, almost no one wanders about that part of the castle, especially at night.
” Still watching my face, he added, “The Priest tends to broadcast late. Usually around eleven. Just come to my tower around ten or ten-thirty. That should be plenty early.”
But I was staring at him again.
“You don’t normally listen in?” My lips pursed. “Why not?”
“Why would I?” he scoffed. “I’ve been listening to that rubbish since I was old enough to crawl.
I don’t need to be indoctrinated, Shadow.
That’s been my father’s main purpose with me from the day I was born.
” He studied my eyes. “But I imagine it will be plenty instructive for you. And maybe I can fill in some of the gaps, like I said.”
I gave him another puzzled look, and he rolled his eyes.
“You don’t have to come,” he said, sounding annoyed. “It was an offer. You can stop looking at me like you think it’s some kind of nefarious trap.”
“No, it’s just…” I trailed, staring at him. “Don’t the other royals wonder that you don’t go to listen to the broadcasts with them?”
His expression cleared. He shook his head, once. “No. They generally go to Bonescastle on missive nights. They throw listening parties in a few select places around the city, invite-only. They know I can’t leave campus, so they’re used to me not being there.”
My eyebrows rose higher.
“You can’t leave campus?” He’d said things along those lines to me before, but never so many in the same conversation, and never so unambiguously.
Suddenly, the combination really struck me.
“What do you mean, you can’t leave campus?
” I asked again. “Your friends spy on you for your father. You told me the other day you aren’t allowed to carry money, and now you can’t leave campus?
You mention all that like it’s nothing, and I’m just supposed to, what?
Pretend it’s normal? What the hell is going on, Bones? ”
His jaw ticked, right before he met my gaze.
From his flat expression, it was clear he had no intention of answering that.
“Why are you offering this to me?” I asked, at a loss. “You didn’t even want to share magic a few weeks ago. Why would you do this for me now?”
He flinched, visibly that time.
I watched him hesitate, as if thinking, then slowly shake his head. When he met my gaze, I saw a flicker of that green-gold fire, like a slow-moving wave.
“What makes you think I’m doing it for you?” he asked.