Page 158 of Bone Year

I take a breath. “You told me once to check the library records to see if my father ever went to Ashwell. I did but couldn’t find anything. His name was Charlie Rose. I thought maybe you have access to records I don’t.”

“I have looked, Miss Rose. After what I said to you that first week, I went looking. I didn’t find Charlie Rose in any class list of the last fifty years. I didn’t find him in the visitor logs. I didn’t find any reference to a healer of that name at this academy.”

It makes me a little uncomfortable that he’s taken such an interest in me, but something about Nestor has always seemed kind. I don’t get the same feeling from him I get from the headmaster.

“That’s disappointing. Maybe you’d recognize my mother’s name. Someone at the local tavern thought I was her, and I found out she studied corrupted polar bears here before I was born. I don’t know if she went to Ashwell, but anything’s possible. Her name is Helena Raven.”

He clears his throat and pushes his spectacles further up on his nose.

“Helena Raven.”

“Yes, sir. Have you heard the name?”

He narrows his eyes slightly. “It doesn’t ring a bell, but I’ll look into it for you.” He presses his hands to his knees and stands. “Now let’s get started before the others get restless next door.”

I force a smile and nod, noting how quickly he wanted to be off the subject of my mother.

“This room is shielded,” he says. “The walls are warded against current bleed. What happens here won’t be felt outside it. Use as much of yourself as you need. I won’t assess you on restraint.”

I scrunch my eyebrows. “But I don’t know how to use current.”

“That doesn’t mean Poppy can’t.”

He has me there. I’m constantly learning new things about her and this bond.

“Six objects have been placed in this room. Some are visible. Some aren’t. Some emit smells, and some have texture you’d only notice if you ran your fingers along them. Some are emitting a sound. The exercise is to identify all six through your eidolon’s senses only.”

I open my mouth to ask half a dozen follow-up questions.

He hushes me before any of them get out.

“You’ll be in here.” He opens the closet door beside the gurneys. There’s a single chair inside with a pen and a stack of parchment on the seat. “Poppy stays out with me. Begin when you’re ready. Write down whatever you can. Knock on the door when you’re done.”

I look at Poppy.

She is sitting on her haunches next to the bench, her round dark eyes tracking the closet door with what looks suspiciously like amusement.

“Be good,” I tell her.

She chitters at me, and I step inside.

The door closes behind me, and I’m swallowed by the dark except for a thin sliver of light under the door, just enough to see the parchment and the pen on the chair. The closet smells like old wood and dust and the faint medicinal tang of whatever Nestor stores in here when it isn’t being used as a sensory chamber.

I sit down. I’m not sure where to begin, so I close my eyes.

I reach for her.

I have been reaching for Poppy since the Mirror Ceremony. The bond opens. It isn’t a door anymore. It hasn’t been a door for weeks. It’s a wide room with no walls, and Poppy is at the center of it, and the moment I step inside, she lifts her face to me and offers everything.

Her senses flood mine.

I feel the exam room through her. The faint dried-herb scent of Nestor’s coat. The residue of cleaning solution on the stone floor. A thin sweet trace in the air that doesn’t belong in a windowless room. The metallic tang of the door hinge. The slow steady rhythm of Nestor’s breathing beside her. A muffled hum from the lecture hall on the other side of the wall. A small scratching sound from inside the cabinet to her right.

She turns her head, and the room turns with her.

I can see what she sees. The cabinets, the counter, the gurneys folded against the wall. Sharper at the edges than my own vision. It’s too much, and my head begins to throb.

Poppy is calm, waiting for me. I try to focus again and picture her.