Page 47 of Bone Year

He leans in close enough that I can feel the cold radiating off him. I catch his scent for the first time. He smells like winter. Cold air and whiskey and something I shouldn’t want to lean into.

I hate that some part of me files it away.

“No.”

A shape emerges from the darkness behind him. Massive black fur and gleaming eyes.

His wolf.

I tense but don’t look away from Draven. I won’t give him that.

“Your dog is showing.”

“He’s not a dog.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The wolf growls low in its throat. Draven doesn’t call it off or even glance at it.

“You should be afraid,” he says quietly.

“Of what? You? Your oversized pet?” I force my voice steady even though my heart is slamming against my bruised ribs. “I’ve had much scarier things happen to me. You’re going to have to try harder.”

“This isn’t a joke, Maelis.” His shoulders square. “Being a Veilguard requires great sacrifice. You don’t even know what sacrifice is in your small human life. You don’t belong here, and you’re going to get someone killed if you don’t die first.”

He presses his hand against the wall above my head, peering down at me. I really need to start carrying a weapon around this place.

“You don’t know me.” I stare right back up at him even though my pulse is racing. “I know what sacrifice is, but I don’t need to explain any of that to you. Get out of my way, Draven. I’m going to be late.”

I don’t want to argue with him. I’m tired of these threats.

“Humans don’t get eidolons. You’re useless here.” His amber eyes start to bleed red at the edges. So that’s what a vampire looks like when they’re really angry. Good, let him be angry. “You froze during the autopsy. You froze on the field today. And you’re going to freeze again when it matters, when it’s someone’s life on the line.” His eyes bore into mine. “Maybe the mirror will save us all from your incompetence tonight and you won’t make it back out.”

He pushes off the wall and starts to walk away.

I stand there for a moment, catching my breath. Hands shaking at my sides.

“Fuck you, Draven,” I yell it at his back, wishing I had something clever to say that could hurt him. “I’m going to the ceremony.”

He doesn’t turn around.

“Your death wish.”

And then he’s gone, swallowed by the dark blizzard beyond the alleyway.

I stand there, his voice echoing in my head.

But he doesn’t get to decide how my story ends.

I kick the pile of snow in front of me, my face heating despite the cold. I don’t know why he’s got it up his ass to come after me. Our team won the stupid keys. I may have frozen when it was my turn to cut, but I helped our team win. I don’t know what I did to make him hate me this much, but he’s not going to scare me into leaving.

He thinks I’m soft because I’m human. He doesn’t understand that soft things learn to survive in ways hard things never have to.

I don’t scare easily, and I don’t fucking quit.

“Hey, I was starting to worry about you,” Jace says, hurrying toward me.

He opens his cloak and pulls me into him, his arm and wing folding around me like my own personal cocoon of warmth and safety. I sink into it without thinking.