Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(100)

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?”

I focus, and a slight haze appears, like a smudge on a pane of glass. “A little.”

“That’s Elara’s Gate, and the twirling shimmer above it is the spiral staircase to Paradise.” She smiles even bigger. “Paradise, Bastien,” she says again, like maybe I didn’t hear her.

“Oh.” That’s my best response at the moment. My mind can’t wrap around any of this.

My eyes travel to the high stone ceiling as I strain to see the shape of the stairs, but then I catch sight of something mysterious that I can see: a strip of dried clay that runs across the center of the ceiling. It’s identical to the shape and size of the soul bridge directly below, but the clay has crumbled away in a few spots and reveals tight rows of wooden planks and dangling roots in the spaces between them.

I frown. Plants don’t grow in the mines or the catacombs. Which means right above this cavern is the outside world—dirt, sky, fresh air. Someone’s patched up a natural opening in the ceiling.

Ailesse clutches the pouch of grace bones around her neck and shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’m here—that I’m actually seeing these Gates with my own eyes. They’re even more wonderful than the ones I imagined at the land bridge.”

I don’t know what to say. I wouldn’t call them wonderful. My father had to pass through a Gate like one of these.

She stiffens and gasps. “Do you hear that?”

I whip out my knife. “Where are they?”

“No, not the dead.” She smiles. “Another siren song. It’s coming from inside the Gates.”

I lean a little closer to the pit. “I can’t hear anything.”

She blinks slowly, her gaze lost as she listens to music that doesn’t reach my ears. “The deeper melody comes from the Underworld, but the descant rises above it from Paradise. Each part is so different, but they perfectly complement each other—one dark and one hopeful.”

I watch her as she stands, listless like she’s caught in a daydream. I clear my throat. “I’m sure all of this is amazing, but you need to get ready. A Chained soul could fly in here any moment.”