Page 39 of Bone Year

Her fingers stop at a joint halfway down. “Here. The medial humerus is where angels break most often. In battle, they instinctively shield with their wings.” She looks up at Jace’s face. “It’s a reflex, but it means this joint takes the worst of it.”

I’m barely breathing. Jace is standing completely still, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on some point at the back of the room. I wonder if he’s embarrassed. Either way, he looks beautiful, and I think Professor Cane is enjoying this.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Cane asks him softly, pressing gently on the joint. “The vulnerability there. Angels always know where they’ll break. It’s instinct.”

“Yes,” Jace says quietly, “I can feel it.”

She holds his gaze then pats his wing affectionately. “Good boy, you can sit down.”

He folds his wing back and returns to his seat beside me. I want to say something, but the look on his face tells me to leave it alone. I have to chew on the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

Cane turns back to the class, all business again.

“No bloodline can generate current,” she says, pacing slowly in front of her desk. “We all draw from what exists around us. Well, almost all, but blood mages are a topic for another day, and most of you aren’t ready for that conversation yet.”

A few students shift uncomfortably. Cane waves like she’s brushing the thought away, and my mind immediately goes to the headmaster.

“Angels evolved in the Upper Veil, where current is thin. They learned to survive on almost nothing. They have to regulate, contain, and stretch every drop of current until it’s nearly gone.”

She holds up a finger. “This makes them extraordinarily efficient, the best stabilizers on a battlefield. They can hold a wound closed, halt a magical surge, even slow fissure expansion when no one else can. It also means they have no reserves. When an angel burns out, they burn out completely, fast and hard and often permanently.”

Her gaze sweeps across the room, pausing briefly on the few angels at the front then moving on.

“An angel who pushes too far doesn’t just get tired, darlings. They fracture, and I don’t mean their bones.” She says, then lets out a soft, breathy laugh that’s slightly unnerving before continuing. “Now let’s do an in-class assignment labeling angel wing bones.”

The great hall is warmer than anywhere else I’ve been on campus. Massive fireplaces anchor each end of the room, their flames crackling and popping, casting flickering light across the long wooden tables. Frost creeps along the edges of the tall windows, but where Jace and I sit on a bench near the glass, I can feel the heat from the nearest hearth seeping into my bones.

I tear off a piece of crusty bread and dip it into my bowl of beef stew. The meat is tender, the broth rich and peppered, exactly what I need after a morning of hollowstags and angel anatomy.

Jace sits beside me, close enough that his wing occasionally brushes my shoulder. He’s been quiet since Cane’s class, and I’ve been trying to find the right way to ask about it.

“Can I ask you something?” I say finally, keeping my eyes on my stew.

“Always.”

“In Cane’s class, she said angels aren’t emotional creatures, that you have to learn it like a language.” I glance at him. “Is that true?”

Jace turns a chunk of bread over in his hands. “For most angels, yes, emotion doesn’t come naturally. It’s something we observe in others and slowly learn to replicate. Some angels never bother. They go their whole lives feeling nothing beyond duty and instinct.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“It’s not lonely if you don’t know what you’re missing.” He looks at me then, his blue eyes shining. “But once you learn to feel something, you can’t unlearn it, but you can block it out. Turn it off.”

I hold his gaze. “And did you have to learn?”

His jaw works like he’s chewing on the words before he says them. “I used to think I was broken. I felt things other angels didn’t. Worry. Attachment. Fear of losing people.” He shakes his head. “My family thought it was a flaw, something to be trained out of me.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No.” He turns to face me fully, and there’s something raw in his expression. “And when it comes to you, Mae, I don’t have to try to feel anything. It’s always been there, since we were kids. I’ve always felt at ease when I’m close to you.”

My chest tightens. I don’t know what to say to that or what I’m allowed to feel in return.

Before I can respond, a dramatic groan cuts through the moment.

“Move over. I’m dying.”

Lux drops onto the bench across from us, her pink hair disheveled and her face flushed from the cold. She slumps forward, pressing her forehead against the table and I move my tray to make room.