Page 82 of Bone Year

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t concern you.” His jaw tightens. “Because I’m trying to⁠—”

He looks away from me for the first time since I pinned him here.

Trying to what?

I wait for him to continue, but when he speaks again his voice is different, stripped of its usual edge. “Go inside, Rose. It’s late.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a warning.” His eyes meet mine again, something tired behind them. “Not everything that follows you in the dark wants to hurt you, but some things do.”

“And which one are you?”

He reaches up slowly and pushes the blade aside with one finger, like it’s nothing. Like I’m nothing.

“Next time,” he says, leaning close enough that I can feel his hair brush against my cheek, “aim for the heart. That’s the only way to kill a vampire.”

He melts into the shadows like he was never there at all.

I stand in the falling snow, scalpel still clutched in my hand, heart pounding.

What was he about to say?

And why do I care?

I’ve been in Rot, Ruin, and Putrefaction for the last three hours listening to Professor Rowan lecture us about different infections, wounds, and ways to combat them in the field.

Actually, I haven’t been listening. I’ve been tuning her out while reading, too focused on one wound that I thought might be getting better.

I’ve made it a point to stop by the patient wards every day for the last two weeks, even when I didn’t have a shift, to check on Nella and let Poppy hang out with Cael while he tells me insane battle stories that are almost too wild to believe.

I’ve gone to the library at least five times in the last two weeks and tried a couple different things on Nella’s wing. The binding wraps soaked in purging solution slowed the spread but didn’t stop it. The extraction method—cutting away the corrupted tissue layer by layer while still trying to salvage the wing—seemed promising until the decay crept back within days, angrier than before.

Venom therapy worked the best.

I convinced Senna and her serpent eidolon, Zee, to help me. She was hesitant at first, worried about getting in trouble for administering an unauthorized treatment, but I begged, and eventually she said yes. I think it’s because she felt she owed me that after I saved her that night from Malric, but neither of us brought it up.

The venom attacked the corruption aggressively. Within hours, the rot started to recede. Nella cried when she saw it, happy tears streaming down her face as she watched the blackness retreat from her wing.

For four days, I let myself believe we’d done it. That I’d saved her.

Then yesterday the decay started spreading again, faster this time.

I’m running out of options, but there’s one thing I haven’t tried. I read about blood mages in an old text buried in the restricted section, healers who could follow corruption into the blood and burn it out from within. They could cure what no one else could because their blood was current itself.

I’ve also learned blood mages truly are practically extinct. I thought maybe the others were exaggerating when they said so, but it’s in the text. They were hunted to death centuries ago, feared for the power they could wield.

But the headmaster is a blood mage.

Maybe he can help.

It’s possible he knows how the blood mages did it. Or knows someone who does. Or has some text, some record, some secret tucked away in that office of his. Or maybe he will be willing to try it himself.

It’s a long shot, but Nella is running out of time.

So after classes today, after my shift in the patient wards, I’m going to the headmaster’s office.