Page 77 of Bone Year

Draven is looking at me.

Those amber eyes catch mine across the crowded hall. His expression gives nothing away, but his wolf’s tail twitches once, twice, before going still.

Then he looks away, turning back to Malric like I don’t exist.

I keep walking.

The library. The records. The name I’ve been hoping to find and terrified to find in equal measure. I’ve been avoiding this for weeks now, making excuses, telling myself I wasn’t ready, but I can’t keep running from the truth.

My father walked these halls.

Time to find out who he really was.

The library is different at night.

During the day, students crowd the first two floors, hunched over texts and whispering to each other across study tables. But now, an hour until midnight, the space is almost empty. The current-powered lamps have dimmed to a faint glow, and shadows pool between the shelves like dark water.

The entrance opens into an atrium that stretches up and up and up. I count the floors as my eyes climb. Five. Six. Seven. The spiral staircase winds around the edges like a metal spine, and the railings of each level crisscross above me like a web.

A desk curves across the entrance like a barricade. Behind it sits a tall and thin woman. Her silver hair covers the desk in front of her, and her pale eyes fix on me without blinking.

“Name,” she whispers.

“Maelis Rose.”

She writes something in the ledger without looking down. Her eyes never leave my face.

“The records you want are on the fifth floor.” Her voice is a whisper that seems to come from everywhere at once. “But the answers you need may be higher.”

I open my mouth to ask what she means but she’s already gone.

I stare at the empty space where she sat for a long moment, my skin prickling with unease. Then I turn toward the spiral staircase and begin to climb. How does she know what I’m looking for?

The higher I go, the quieter it gets. By the third floor, I can’t hear anything but my own breathing. By the fourth, even that sounds too loud. The fifth floor is dark. Only a few lamps are lit, and they flicker like they’re fighting to stay alive.

I find the records section in the back corner. Rows and rows of leather bound ledgers, organized by year. Student enrollments, graduation lists, and death records.

So many death records.

I pull the first ledger from fifty years ago and start to search.

After over an hour of searching student records as far back as my dad’s been alive and not finding anything I feel a little defeated. Charlie Rose never went to Ashwell Academy. And if he did, he went by a different name.

I must be missing something.

Maybe I should write my mom or Briana and see if they know anything. I mean, I doubt my sister knows anything, and I can’t bring myself to write my mother after what happened.

I venture down two floors and find a book on eidolons then head over to the fireplace and get comfy in one of the wide-cushioned chairs, throwing my stack of books on the side table. The fire crackles softly, and Poppy chooses now to appear and lays on her belly in front of it watching me. Or watching my back. Either way, I’m grateful. I glance around and don’t see anyone. The library is eerily quiet, nothing but the occasional pop from the fire and the distant creak of old wood settling, but I’m glad I have Poppy to keep me company.

I crack open the first book. Eidolons: A Comprehensive Study of Soul-Bonded Companions at Ashwell Academy.

The title has me thinking of the other academies. Do they get eidolons as well? Are they the same three animals Ashwell has?

The introduction is dry, and I skim past it looking for something more useful.

The bond between a bloodline individual and their eidolon is forged during the Mirror Ceremony. Other academies across Valen have their own bonding rituals, and not all grant eidolons. Ashwell is unique in that its mirror bestows one of three forms: wolf, serpent, or bat.

So Draven got his eidolon somewhere else, probably the Vanguard academy. That explains why his wolf looks nothing like the ones I’ve seen here. Larger. Darker. Built for war instead of healing.