Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(52)

I nod. “When the symbols are placed together like that it means the soul bridge.”

“Soul bridge?”

“The bridge the dead must cross to enter the Beyond.”

“Ah, where you Bone Criers do your ferrying.”

“Yes.” Bastien must have told Marcel what I told him.

“Not on Castelpont, obviously. No water in that riverbed.” He sits beside me and taps on the inverted triangle of his picture.

“The soul bridge is beneath the Nivous Sea.”

“Beneath the sea?”

My mother would disown me if she heard me now, revealing the mysteries of the Leurress. But then I remember she already gave me up. I have tried, Ailesse. This is the only way. My chest pangs, and I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “The soul bridge is a land bridge.” I pause, concentrating on the effort it takes to slide my legs off the slab to make more room for Marcel. He scoots closer. “It only emerges from the sea during the lowest tides.”

“So during the full moon and new moon?” he asks, once again impressing me with what he’s stored in his mind.

“Yes, but the Leurress can only ferry on a new moon.”

“Tonight?”

I nod. “That’s when the dead are lured to the soul bridge. The bone flute . . . it was used for more than luring amourés to bridges. It also lured the dead to cross the soul bridge.” I sigh. My mother must be beside herself with worry. If the dead aren’t summoned tonight, they’ll rise from their graves on their own and feed off the Light of the living. They’ll kill souls. Eternally.

“A soul bridge that’s a land bridge . . .” Marcel shakes his head. “Fascinating. Do you think that’s what this means?” He reaches into his pocket, and my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.

He’s holding the bone flute.

It’s whole. Intact.

He turns it over to show me a symbol, but my vision rocks with dizziness. “How did you . . . ?” A flush of adrenaline seizes me. “That was broken. I watched Jules break it.”

Marcel chuckles. “Oh, she told me about that.” He bats a dismissing hand. “She was just trying to rattle you. What you saw her break was a random bone from the catacombs. The flute was in my pack the whole time.”

“What?” My mind reels as I think back on my first terrible day down here. I never really saw what Jules was holding—not in detail. She said it was the flute, and I believed her, but in the dim light of her oil lamp, I only made out that she was holding a slender bone.

I’ve been such a fool.

“So is this a symbol of the soul bridge, too?” Marcel points at the side of the flute without the tone holes. My mind finally clears enough to register it. This symbol has a horizontal line carved through the middle of the inverted triangle—the symbol of earth, not water.

“Um . . . yes,” I mumble, just to say something. I’ve never thought much about the small difference between the symbols, and it still seems unimportant. All I can picture is my mother’s amazed and grateful face when I set the flute in her hands. She’ll welcome me back. She’ll smile one of her rare smiles. She’ll touch my cheek and say, “Well done.”

A riptide of clarity flashes through me. I have to escape. Tonight. At midnight, the Leurress must ferry the dead, and my mother will need the bone flute.

“I had no idea there was a land bridge around here,” Marcel says, still caught up on that fact.

My gaze strays to his cloak, but it’s not parted wide enough for me to see if any knife glints within. “No one knows but my famille. It’s off a shore that’s hard to access.” I’m blurting now, telling him anything I can to keep him captivated. “The cliffs above the land bridge are impossible to descend unless you know where the hidden stairway is.” I shift to directly face him.

“Oh?” He mirrors my movement, and his cloak opens farther. My pulse races. I see a knife on his belt. It’s small, but that doesn’t matter.

“And that place can’t be used as a harbor; the water is ridden with sea stacks and jagged rocks.” I’m going to have to be quick. Grab the knife—which will be difficult with my wrists tied; threaten Marcel so he stays silent; cut my own bonds; grab the flute, and then my grace bones. Bastien hid them in a chipped pitcher when he thought I was sleeping. “The most hallowed part of the land bridge is what’s at its end,” I say, casting my final lure. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. This knowledge is sacred.”

Marcel leans closer. “You can trust me, Ailesse.”

“Can I?” My body thrums with nervous, almost frenzied energy. I grasp his cloak and pull him nearer, as if to search his eyes. He gulps, but I don’t let go. The hilt of his knife is a fingerbreadth away from my hand. “You must swear an oath never to share what I’m about to tell you,” I say, though this secret isn’t any more significant than what I’ve already revealed.

“All right. I—I swear.”

I bring my mouth to his ear. I curl my fingers around the fabric of his cloak. “A pair of Gates divides the mortal realm from the eternal.” I close my hand around the hilt of his knife. “They aren’t made of wood, earth, or iron.” I carefully withdraw his weapon. “Tyrus’s Gate is made of water, and Elara’s Gate is made of . . .” I really don’t know, except it’s unearthly and almost invisible.