Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(82)

Birdine looks down and rubs the callus on her finger. She gives me a slow nod. “Will you do me a favor, too, whenever you do see Jules again?”

“Name it.”

She tucks a frizzy curl behind her ear. “Ask her to give me a chance with her brother.” Birdine’s brows lift shyly before she lowers them in a firm line. “I’m not another flighty Dovré girl from the brothel district. I love Marcel. I would do anything for him.”

The earnestness in her voice makes me pause. Birdine’s only sixteen, but she knows her heart. More than that, she’s willing to fight for her chance at happiness.

I can’t help thinking of Ailesse. I hate being away from her when I’m searching for my friends every day, and once I am back with her, it takes all my energy to resist touching her—and everything else I’d like to do when I find myself staring at her lips. I hold back because . . . I don’t know why. It seems selfish, I guess. Our fates are stacked against us. There’s also the part of me that wonders what my father would think.

But maybe . . . just maybe my father would want me to be happy.

At least for as long as I can be.

“Marcel’s lucky to have a girl like you,” I tell Birdine. “I promise to say so to Jules.”

Her face lights up. “Thank you, Bastien.”

I give her a parting nod and stride outside. I set a quick pace for the castle district. I’m going to comb the cellars, sheds, and stables there one more time in search of my friends, in case Birdine doesn’t get a chance to talk to Marcel today. Then I’ll hurry back to Ailesse. Tonight is the full moon. Being stuck in the dark will be miserable for her—maybe even deadly.

I’m going to find a way to help her, whether or not I get her bones back.





37


Sabine


THE SILVER OWL STARES AT me from the stone parapet of Castelpont, but I refuse to set foot on the bridge. I understand now what I didn’t when the owl first asked me to dig up the golden jackal. And tonight it will be possible.

The sun is setting, and the full moon above me grows sharper and brighter. I have my three grace bones ready. I even have Ailesse’s ritual knife and a new bone flute. I spent most of the last three days hollowing it out and carving the tone holes. I’ve left the instrument simple, no engraved embellishments like the original flute. It should be enough that the flute is made from a true golden jackal bone.

Everything has fallen into place for my rite of passage.

Everything except my courage.

“I can’t,” I tell the silver owl. I can’t kill a human being, even though the Chained are on a rampage in Dovré. Even though the Leurress need all the Ferriers they can get, and the savage graces of the jackal are diminishing my reservations to shed blood.

The owl drags her claws across the stones, and screeches.

“Why me?” I ask, even though some of the answer is obvious. As the heir to the matrone—as blood of her blood—I can open the Gates to the Underworld and Paradise. But to open the Gates, I need to be on the land bridge. And to be on the land bridge and survive the dead and the lure of the Beyond, I have to be a committed Ferrier. I have to complete my rite of passage.

The owl doesn’t move while the thoughts chase through me. It’s like she can read my mind and is waiting for her turn to speak. She stands taller on the parapet and spreads her wings open. A translucent and silver-tinged image shimmers before me. My pulse quickens.

Ailesse.

She’s lying on her side on quarried limestone, which means she’s underground. That’s all I can make out of her surroundings. She’s clean and wearing a new green dress, but her drawn expression says she’s suffering greatly.

My heart rises up my throat. “Ailesse.”

She doesn’t look up or even bat an eye. I don’t understand. Last time I had a vision of her, she saw me, but now her gaze is fixated on the ground. Maybe she’s too starved of Light to sense me. I’ve never seen her so terribly weak before.

She holds a piece of chalk in her shaking hand and sketches a shaded-in circle. “New moon . . .” she murmurs on a hoarse breath. “Bone flute . . . bridge over water . . . land bridge . . . ferrying night.” She draws another circle, but doesn’t shade it in. “Full moon . . . bridge over earth . . . Castelpont . . . rite of passage . . .”

My mouth slowly falls slack. Ailesse can’t know I’d consider my own rite of passage tonight. Unless the owl has somehow been communicating with her, too.

“Ferrying night?” she whispers, and traces the second circle again. She drops the chalk and painstakingly rolls from her side to her back. Pinched lines form between her brows as she stares up at a ceiling I can’t see.

Then her image starts to ripple and fade.

My breath hitches. “No, wait!” I haven’t had a fair chance to catch her attention. I haven’t even assured her I’m doing everything I can to save her. “Ailesse!”

She flickers out. The silver owl closes her wings.

I stumble backward and steeple my fingers over my nose and mouth.

The owl rasps at me, but I shake my head. Ailesse knows I’m not ready to do what it takes to become a Ferrier. She wouldn’t ask me to complete my rite of passage. She’d know I’d never go through with it unless I had no other choice.