Page 178 of Serpent and Shadow

“They’re doing the ritual tonight… and they have Leda. They have her. Right now. She’s a part of whatever your psychotic father has planned.”

Bones’s jaw gradually tightened as he listened.

“…I only have Wraith with me because I couldn’t leave her behind,” Alaric went on, waving a hand as he stumbled even faster over his babbled, half-panicked words. “I brought her with me to the Sanctum. I couldn’t just leave her there, so I brought her here, but we really can’t stay, don’t you see that? It’s only a matter of time before someone comes down here and then we’re all just so royally fucked… so can we just hurry along now, please?”

Wraith let out another series of articulate meows. She purred and rubbed her face against Caelum’s hand, almost like she was telling him to hurry, too.

Caelum glanced at the kid.

He was staring between Bones and Alaric, his eyes wide.

“Arcturus,” Bones said, motioning between them with a hand. “This is Alaric, one of your sister’s closest friends. He’s a bit of an idiot, but also mostly a genius.” He nodded at the cat, without stopping his stroking of her ears and back. “This is Wraith.”

Arcturus’s eyes widened in understanding. “Are we leaving?” he asked.

Caelum scarcely hesitated.

He nodded, his jaw slowly firming as he climbed to his feet.

“Yes,” he said coldly as he straightened to his full height. “We bloody well are.”

38

Collar

“Where is this?” Arcturus whispered, jogging out of the mirror quickly behind him and compulsively grabbing Bones’s shirt when his balanced wobbled. Even after he’d gotten his footing, he didn’t let go of Bones right away.

“Where are we?” he repeated.

“A pub.”

“Yeah, okay. But where?”

Caelum brushed himself off, doing his best to look unbothered and ignoring stares as well as he could. He walked further out of the mirror and towards Alaric, who had already gone through and stood by a wooden beam that held up that part of the roof.

“What does it matter?” Bones asked, his eyes still scanning the room. “You have pubs in your world. I know you do. Now stop talking.”

It felt faintly bizarre to be there now, barefoot and only wearing a black satin shirt and thin trousers at roughly ten o’clock at night. He was also conscious of the gold collar around his neck, which had already gotten a few double-takes and stares, in addition to his bare feet.

He growled out of the side of his mouth to Alaric.

“We need to find someplace else. Not here.”

“I know a place,” Alaric said, pausing to push Wraith’s head back inside his satchel so he could refasten the top flap. “It’s not far.”

“So we made it, then?” Arcturus pressed. “This is that place you both told me about? The invisible city outside your school?”

“Yes. Stop talking.”

Caelum had formally invited Arcturus to Bonescastle before they’d walked through the mirror. He wasn’t entirely sure what would’ve happened if he hadn’t remembered the kid would need an invite from a resident to be able to see the city at all.

It seemed unlikely Arcturus would have exploded, or even gotten sick, but he might have found himself standing in a field somewhere, with no way to talk to them, or even see them. The official Bonescastle greeter, the elderly mage who’d invited all his classmates when they arrived here for the first time, used a special spell that made him visible in both dimensions.

“Go that way,” Alaric whispered. He pointed to their right, nudging Bones’s arm. “Take a left when we get out the door. It’s only a few blocks––”

“Greythorne!” a voice said loudly, from the other side of the pub.

Voices quieted around the nearby tables and booths.