Page 150 of Serpent and Shadow

It took another second for my mind to flip from everything he’d just said back to the stone stairs from which he’d just collected me.

“No,” I admitted. “You couldn’t see them with your magic?”

He shook his head. “I felt your alarm. I also tied my magic to the amulet Blackstone gave you.” He grunted a little. “At least he did that.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn’t.

“Should we try to find out who it was?” I asked instead. “In the tower?”

“Blackstone is looking into that now,” Bones said, his voice dismissive. “He seems to think they’ve already gone, though. He guesses they went out to find you on the staircase after you’d already left, and got out of the tower before Blackstone or Forsooth could get past their shields. Whoever it is, they’re likely in one of the dining rooms now, blended in with everyone else. Even with Forsooth’s help, it would’ve been a needle in a haystack once they got outside my chimaeras and into the general population of wizards and witches.”

I frowned at that, but I understood.

Whoever had done it had expert-level shielding skills.

There’d be no way to follow them once they got out of the tower to see where they reappeared. It would be sheer luck to see them when their magical signal popped back into existence, especially since wizards and witches shielded and unshielded in big and small ways for all kinds of reasons. Still, it struck me as odd.

“Even Forsooth couldn’t see them?” I asked.

Bones shook his head slowly, his eyes back on the burning town. “No. He thinks it wasn’t a student. Or that it was a Resurrected only pretending to be a student.”

I felt a shiver go through me at the thought.

It was easy to forget that some of the students at Malcroix may not be students at all.

I looked back at Bones to find him looking at the burning skyline again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

He turned to stare at me. For a few seconds, his face didn’t move, then he let out a hard scoff.

“No,” he said coldly.

I watched him look at me, his jaw hardening slowly.

Then, abruptly, he began walking towards me. He unfolded his arms as he walked, and motioned me closer as he closed the gap between us.

“Let me help,” he said, once stood right in front of me.

I stared up at him, bewildered, and a little startled as I remembered how different he was now. He really was bigger than I remembered from before, when he was still at school. His shoulders stretched broader and were noticably more muscular. His chest, even his arms looked different. He gazed down at me and I wondered if he’d even grown taller over those months. Somewhere in my appraisal, his words clicked, and I met his eyes.

“Let me help with your magic,” he clarified, gruff. He reached up, and brushed the back of his glove-clad fingers over my cheek. “I can help you. Let me help.”

It didn’t come out like a question, but I felt the question there, anyway.

I nodded slowly, and he began pulling off his glove, finger by finger.

Nerves rose in me at the intense look in his eyes, almost like they had when he appeared in my closet that night. It was hard to believe that had only been few days ago.

“Don’t be rough,” I blurted.

I still felt fragile, I guess, from what happened outside Valarian.

As soon as I said it, my face grew hot. “Sorry. I only meant––”

“It’s fine.” He hesitated, meeting my eyes. “I won’t be.”

His fingers wrapped carefully around the base of my neck, just above the chain of the necklace I wore. Something else occurred to me, and I looked up at his face again.