Page 108 of Bone Year

Malric spreads his arms wide, that insufferable smirk on his face. “Ladies, looks like you’re lucky we’re here to escort you safely back to your rooms.”

He saunters over to me before I can react and throws his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side. His grip is possessive and invasive and makes my skin crawl.

“I can even sleep over if you’re scared.” He leans down, his lips brushing my ear. “Keep the nightmares away. You know how good I am at that.”

I shove him off me so hard he stumbles back a step. “Touch me again and I’ll cut your hand off.”

He laughs like I’ve told a joke. “Feisty. I always liked that about you, but we both know cutting is the last thing you’ll be doing. You don’t cut, Red. We’ve established that. Don’t make threats your hands can’t keep.”

“Malric.” Draven’s voice is ice. “Shut up.”

Something passes between them. Malric’s smile doesn’t waver, but he takes a step back, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“Fine, fine. Trying to lighten the mood.” He turns and starts walking toward the tunnel entrance. “Let’s go, children.”

Lux and Ellavee fall into step ahead of me. Draven lingers, and his eyes find mine in the dark.

He doesn’t say anything. The look on his face says enough. Stay close. Be careful.

Or maybe I’m inventing it. Maybe I’m drunk and tired and scared and stitching meaning onto a man who hasn’t given me any. Gods know I’ve done it before.

But a student is dead, emptied like a bottle and left somewhere for someone to find, and I am walking into a black tunnel with two creatures who could do exactly that and make it look like nothing.

I don’t know how many things in this world can drink a body dry. I can name two without thinking.

Lux and Ellavee don’t know what I know. They don’t know about the night outside the dorms. Malric with his hands all over Senna and the way I pushed him off her.

I thought Malric was an asshole. I didn’t think he was a killer.

But Draven called him a predator, and he doesn’t waste words, and Malric has motive. They showed up to the bar after us, which means anything could have happened before. Malric could have drained Senna dry and that’s how he got those scratch marks on his neck before meeting Draven for a night cap.

The thought irks me as we reach the tunnel mouth. Draven’s shoulder brushes mine — accident or not, I can’t tell — and then the dark swallows us.

Lux flicks a fae light into the air. It drifts above us, casting a pale wash across damp stone and the black veins of moss running down the walls. Our breath fogs white. Somewhere ahead, water drips in a slow, uneven rhythm, and I count it without meaning to, the way I count a pulse.

Primm pads ahead, low and silent. Draven’s wolf flanks her, scouting, listening for what I can’t hear.

The three of us girls may have overindulged a bit, because we’re all stumbling along like newborn foals learning to walk. We link arms to try to be more balanced and graceful, but it’s not really working. Every few steps, one of us trips, and the other two have to catch her, and we dissolve into muffled giggles that echo off the tunnel. It feels strange to laugh knowing a student has died, but maybe we are starting to get desensitized to death. I think that’s what Ashwell Academy wants…the headmaster certainly does.

Malric leads the way, and Draven walks behind us. I can feel his judgmental eyes burning into my back, but I don’t care. I’ll get drunk if I want and make out with whoever the fuck I feel like. He has no right to stare at me like I’d done something wrong.

I start to relax a bit when we hear other students’ voices echoing in the tunnels, assuming everyone was notified to return at once. Malric leads us back a different way then we came, and we pop out one of the staff passages that opens into the main entry hall near the kitchens.

The noise hits first, voices, boots on stone, the low thrum of a castle that has not gone to sleep yet. Torches blaze along the walls in numbers I’ve never seen at this hour. Professor Cane stands at the base of the wide staircase with a scroll unrolled in her hands and a pen tucked behind one pointed ear, the paintbrush holding her curls up at a precarious angle. She looks unbothered by the chaos.

“Name, darling,” she calls, and I realize she’s working her way through a small line of students who came from town.

We shuffle forward. Draven and Malric have been three steps behind us since we emerged, quiet in that way that feels less like walking and more like following, and I refuse to turn around and acknowledge either of them. Poppy has tucked herself so deep into my cloak that only one ear is visible, but every now and then she pokes her head out to peek around us.

“Lux, Ellavee, Maelis,” Lux rattles off when we reach the front, and Cane’s eyes lift. They linger on me a second longer than the others. She doesn’t say anything and marks the scroll with a flick of her pen.

“Straight to your rooms, loves. No wandering.”

“Of course, Professor.”

“Luxanna.”

Lux winces. “Professor.”