Page 166 of Bone Year

“It’s been that kind of year, Lux.”

“Don’t be dark.” She tosses the dress over her shoulder onto the pile. “We are celebrating. Finals are over, and we all passed. We aren’t bone years anymore, guys. After tonight we are blood years. Real, almost respectable, allowed-to-touch-instruments on our own healers. You should be screaming.” She beams at me and Ellavee.

“I’ll scream tomorrow.”

Ellavee laughs.

“You’ll scream tonight, or I’ll do it for you.” Lux tosses another dress aside.

“Technically, we aren’t blood years until we make it back after summer break.”

I’m sitting cross-legged on her bed in my robe. Poppy is curled up in my lap, watching Lux ransack her room. Ellavee is at Lux’s vanity, already in her light-pink dress she had picked out ahead of time. She’s braiding pieces of her blonde hair and arranging it into an updo.

“My final mark in my father’s class was low pass,” Lux mutters, pulling out a pair of sparkly shoes. “He gave his own daughter a low. Tell me how that’s supposed to make me look.”

“It means he’s not playing favorites,” Ellavee says without looking. “Be glad.”

“I want him to play favorites. He gave Killian a high pass, and Killian fights like he’s kicking a wagon.”

“Killian got hit in the spleen during midterms. Bale’s marking on bravery now,” I tell her.

“Bravery isn’t a metric.”

“It is at this academy,” Ellavee mumbles, tucking a strand of hair up and pinning it in place.

Lux grumbles and yanks a hanger off the rack. “What did you get in Cane’s, Mae?”

“Low pass.”

She freezes. “You did not.”

“I did,” I sigh.

“I thought you really liked her class. Why low pass?”

“Probably because she had a weird thing for Jace, and I don’t think it went unnoticed that he hates me.”

She laughs.

“What about Nestor?” Ellavee asks, finally turning from the mirror.

“High pass.”

Lux whistles. Ellavee tips her head. “Of course she did.”

I smile. “What does that mean?”

“He is keeping you close, and a high pass keeps you in his class for next year. He obviously has a thing for Pops.”

I scratch the top of Poppy’s head, looking down at her, because Ellavee isn’t wrong there.

“Okay, how’s this one?”

Lux straightens. She’s wearing a navy form-fitting dress with a deep neckline. She spins around, and the back exposes the long line of her spine. She pulls her light-pink hair into a high knot and lets a few pieces fall along her jaw.

“You look amazing,” I say. “Lyrian is going to be all over you tonight.”

“He is going to forget how to speak,” Ellavee says, and Lux throws a piece of clothing at her.