Page 115 of Bone Year

But deep down, in the darkest corners of my heart, I think maybe I do deserve it.

I broke him. I made him shut off every feeling he had to survive what I did. This cruelty is what’s left in the hollow space where his heart used to be. My one action made different people out of both of us, and this is our new normal now.

That’s on me. I tried to tell him I didn’t sleep with Malric, that all I let happen was the bite, that I shoved him off the moment he tried to push for more. But Malric got to him first, and Malric was thorough. It doesn’t matter what I say now. The damage is done, his mind has been poisoned by a monster.

I haven’t found the mirror either. Ellavee and Lux have been helping me search for it whenever we have free time, scouring the lower levels of the school, checking every storage room and forgotten corridor we can access, but we’ve turned up nothing and are starting to run out of ideas.

One location keeps getting brought up, the one place we haven’t checked because none of us are brave enough to try. Headmaster Ashmoor’s office. Or even scarier, his private residence.

The answers I’m looking for might be there. I know my mother’s secrets, my father’s lies, the truth about what I am, all of it might be locked away somewhere in those rooms. But breaking into the headmaster’s quarters isn’t merely risky. It might be suicidal. He could easily make up some story about my death.

So for now, I keep searching, keep hoping the mirror will turn up somewhere less terrifying.

This morning, I wake early, my stomach already twisted with anxiety. Today is our midterm for Professor Bale’s class, and I’ve been dreading it for weeks, but not because I’m unprepared. I’ve studied harder than I’ve ever studied for anything in my life. It’s because the midterm isn’t a written exam.

It’s a field assignment at a real fissure site.

And Lux is even more anxious than I am. Her father will be evaluating her performance. The pressure on her shoulders is immense, and I know she’s stressed out.

I take a quick shower and get dressed in my leathers, the ones we were issued specifically for combat situations. They’re stiff and uncomfortable and make me feel like I’m playing dress-up, like I’m pretending to be someone braver than I am.

Poppy lounges on my bed, watching me with those clever dark eyes. I toss her a blueberry muffin, and she catches it in her tiny hands, chittering happily as she tears into it.

I bite into my own muffin and reach for Nella’s journal on my nightstand.

There’s only one entry left, the last thing she ever wrote before she died. I’ve been saving it, rationing the pages because once I read it, there won’t be any more. No more of her voice. No more of her thoughts. No more pretending she’s still here in some small way.

I need to let her go. I can’t keep punishing myself for what happened because it’s slowly killing me from the inside out. I need to read that final entry and say goodbye and find a way to move forward.

I shove the rest of my muffin in my mouth and flip to the back of the journal, deciding now is as good a time as any.

The headmaster took me to the tenth floor today. Didn’t know there was one. Healers I’ve never seen strapped me down. He said he needed samples of the corrupted tissue for research.

They gave me something to sleep, but it didn’t work right away. I heard sounds before everything went dark. Snarling. Screeching. Clicking like teeth snapping together over and over. Not like any animal, like something else.

When I woke up, I was back in my room. I asked about the sounds, but he smiled and said it was the sedative giving me nightmares.

I wasn’t dreaming. Something is up there.

Draven visited tonight, and I finally figured out why he looks so familiar. When I visited my brother at the Vanguard Academy, there was a portrait of Lord Aldric and the royal family.

Draven was standing at his father’s right hand.

He’s the lost prince, the heir who walked away from the Obsidian Throne. Everyone back home knows the story, but no one here seems to know who he is.

I don’t know why he’s here or why he’s hiding, but I’m going to tell him what I heard tomorrow.

I hope I have enough tomorrows left.

I read the entry multiple times and am still in shock.

Draven Aldric. Not Alucard. Aldric.

He’s been using some other last name this whole time.

Holy hell.

He’s the heir to the Obsidian Throne. The prince of Valen. It would explain why the other vampires are always parading around him, why Malric listens to him when Malric doesn’t listen to anyone. Why he has some hidden agenda with the headmaster and how Lux’s father seemed to listen to him too. But Lux doesn’t know. There’s no way she would have kept that from me.