Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(99)

It has to be about a hundred feet tall, where it blends into the cavern ceiling. The wall is pocked with boarded-up tunnel openings. Each marks different levels of the catacombs and mines above us—places that must have been carved out before people realized they’d drop off into this cavern. But the strangest thing is that no tunnel has been carved across the pit on our level.

“I don’t understand.” I scrutinize the thirty-yard-wide pit and the natural bridge that runs across it. “The bridge leads to a dead end.” There’s no wide ledge to stand on over there, like we have on this side. “What about the Gates of the Beyond that you said you have to open?”

Ailesse reverently gazes at the end of the bridge. “They won’t appear until I play the siren song.”

I nod like that makes perfect sense. I guess it will when I see them.

I study the bridge harder. It’s five feet wide—much narrower than the land bridge I caught a glimpse of during the new moon. It’s also five feet thick. Below the bridge is only air. It looks like wind or water whittled the rest of the stone away. Except there is no wind or water down here, and the rock is durable limestone, not sandstone. The thought of Ailesse standing on a bridge so thin and fragile-looking makes my pulse race.

“Do you think it’s midnight yet?” I ask her.

“Almost.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she replies without the slightest tremble. “But you need to stay on the ledge. The Chained could catch you off guard and toss you into the pit.”

I hate the fact that I can’t see these monsters.

“Be careful with that black powder, too, or you might destroy the bridge.”

I nod, begrudgingly removing the two packs from my shoulders. I set them fifteen feet back, against the far wall of our ledge. I hoped blasting the powder could help control the number of Chained on the bridge. I was going to ignite each cask, one at a time, whenever Ailesse called out that a Chained was nearby. But this ledge isn’t far enough back from the bridge to be safe. If I caused an explosion, the bridge would blast apart. “What happens if some of the dead are thrown into the pit?”

She wrinkles her brow. “I’m not sure, but they’d survive the fall. They’d climb back up, no matter how far they dropped.”

That’s comforting.

We walk back to the foot of the bridge, then stop and look at each other. Ailesse’s face is bruised and scuffed up from our fight with the Chained man. Her umber eyes have brightened to amber in the torchlight, and her lips are a darker shade of rose from kissing me. She’s never looked more beautiful.

I cup the back of her head and draw her mouth to mine. I kiss her longer than I should. I know we’re short on time, but I’m reluctant to let her go. An ominous feeling builds inside me, like this might be the last chance I have to hold her.

Finally we break apart. “Be careful,” I whisper, stroking her face. Tears burn in my eyes. I can barely hold them back.

She gives me an encouraging smile. “You, too.” And then she’s out of my arms, and the warmth of her body is gone. I feel like half of myself just walked away.

She steps onto the bridge, walks across it until she reaches the middle, and pulls the bone flute from her dress pocket. She closes her eyes for a moment, then straightens her shoulders and draws the flute to her mouth.

She looks at me one last time, gives me a wink, and starts to play.

It’s a different song than the one that lured me to her, though this one is just as haunting.

My hands ball and flex as I glance around us, waiting for some sign of the approaching dead. “Maybe you can yell ‘Chained’ or ‘Unchained’ when each soul comes, so I’m aware,” I suggest.

Her eyes lift to me, and she nods without a hitch in the song. The music soars on a high note, then lowers as it finishes the melody. Ailesse pockets the flute and stares at the dead end of the bridge.

“That’s it?” I ask. “Don’t you have to keep playing until they come?”

She shakes her head. “This isn’t like a rite of passage. This song has more power, and the dead feel it more keenly. Wherever they are, they’re already coming.”

I gnaw at my lip and stare at the massive wall. “What about the Gates?” Maybe a secret tunnel is about to carve itself out of the stone, or the wall will vanish. But neither happens.

Before Ailesse can answer me, wind bursts up from the pit, and I startle backward. Specks of dust collect in the air. They gather together and form the shape of an arched door at the dead end of the bridge.

Ailesse laughs and flashes me a wide grin. I struggle to return it. The dust of the door is black, not limestone white, and I can’t explain where the wind came from or how the dust continues to hover and swirl in a sheer veil. Everything about this place contradicts logic. I doubt even Marcel could make sense of it.

“Which Gate is that?” I ask.

“It’s visible, so it must be Tyrus’s Gate to the Underworld,” Ailesse replies in a rush of enthusiasm. “The one at the land bridge is supposed to be made of water.”

My brows tug together. I’m still caught on the word “visible.” “So the other one is invisible?”

“Almost.” She lifts on her toes and points to the right of the Gate of dust. “Do you see that silvery shimmer in the air?”