Page 16 of Bone Year

Once I’m down the stairs and back outside, I tug my jacket on and start speed walking toward the dormitories, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground. I don’t want to see anyone else and don’t want anyone looking at me.

What about me screams human anyway? How can they all supposedly tell? Maybe they can’t. Maybe I let the headmaster work his way under my skin and now am spiraling for no reason. I try to steady my breathing as I weave through courtyards and cut across several narrow paths, barely paying attention to where I’m going.

It isn’t until the space around me grows too quiet that I realize I’ve wandered somewhere more unfamiliar than the grounds I covered with Elizabeth.

The path opens into what looks like a garden, though it feels wrong to call it that. Snow blankets nearly everything, broken only by narrow stone walkways and clusters of dark, skeletal trees. Most of the branches are dead and brittle, stripped bare by winter, except for the occasional light-blue trumpet flower drooping from frozen stems, their soft glow standing out unnervingly against all the gray. There are no voices here. No movement, as if this part of the grounds has been forgotten.

I slow without meaning to.

Statues line the garden, spaced between the trees and bare hedges along the path, but they are nothing like the ornamental fountains or gentle angels you’d expect to see in a village square. These are grotesque. A winged man bends over a body, stone fingers buried deep inside a cracked-open chest, ribs splayed outward, a heart exposed. The detail is horrifyingly precise, every feather, every tendon, every groove of bone carved so realistically I don’t want to look away.

I turn quickly, my boot sliding on a patch of ice, and I stumble hard, landing on the stone with a sharp gasp as pain shoots through my tailbone.

When I look up, my blood turns to ice.

A massive black wolf stands inches from my face.

Its lips curl back in a low snarl, long teeth bared, glowing eyes locked onto mine with terrifying focus. My heart slams so violently it feels like it might break free from my ribs. I don’t know if it’s a shifter, something like Elizabeth’s bat, or some kind of wild animal that broke in here.

I slowly lift my hands, palms open, afraid to stand or move at all.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for teeth.

Nothing happens.

When I dare to look again, the wolf is trotting away, circling the legs of a man leaning against a stone pillar several yards away. He’s watching me, honey gold eyes stark against warm golden skin. His dark hair falls to his shoulders, half tied into a loose bun, dusted with snowflakes as if he’s been standing here longer than I’d like to think about.

The wolf presses against his side.

My legs feel unsteady as I push myself upright, brushing snow and ice from my clothes without lifting my gaze.

When I finally look up again, they’re gone, leaving an empty garden and a cold, crawling sense that I was never alone at all.

I eventually found my way back to my room. Elizabeth isn’t here, but a neat stack of books is on my desk beside a folded map of the school. I shrug off my coat and cross the room, pulling my schedule from my pocket and smoothing it out across the worn wood.

A small handwritten note is on top of the stack.

“Orientation is at 3 p.m. in the Grand Hall. Don’t be late.”

I read it twice before setting it aside then pick up the map and scan the layout. The Grand Hall isn’t far, two buildings over connected by an enclosed walkway one story up.

That’s something at least.

I glance at the small clock mounted above my desk, and it’s already ten past two. I don’t know where the day went, only that everything here feels like a blur layered on top of another blur. Too many faces. Too many corridors and pathways. Too many things I don’t understand yet.

I don’t want to wrestle with the heavy coat again if I can use the enclosed walkway, so I pull off my shirt and slip into one of the button-up long-sleeve sweaters instead. The fabric is soft, warm enough. It’ll do.

In the bathroom, I run the brush through my hair then pause when I catch my reflection.

No pointed ears. No unusual pupils. No glowing eyes. No wings.

But not all bloodlines have such conspicuous characteristics. The headmaster looked human enough, and so did half the people I passed in the courtyard, even though I knew they weren’t.

What about me makes people look twice? What gives me away as human?

I tilt my head slightly, studying my face the way I’ve done a thousand times before, but it feels different now, like I’m searching for something that’s never been there. My skin is pale, dusted faintly pink across my cheeks. My nose is straight and covered in freckles that fan out beneath my eyes. Lips full enough that my mother used to tease me about them when I was younger, always saying I’d grow into them one day.