Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(40)

My eyes lift and fall on Bastien. The expression on his face treads some middle ground between confusion and anger and, perhaps, ever so fleetingly, his own sorrow.

I tense and look away. My bruises remind me he can’t be pitied. I offer Marcel a gentle smile.

“At least you were blessed to know your father for a few years.”

Bastien stands. “You’re outright appalling, do you know that? You think Marcel’s luckier than you?”

I recoil and meet his glare head-on. “I’m only saying I lost my father the same as you did.”

“Oh, yes?” He stalks closer. “Tell me, did you love your father before you lost him? And when he died, were you left with nothing?” I swallow, resenting the heat flushing my cheeks. “Did you have to beg from strangers and learn to steal when their charity ran dry? Do you know what it’s like to spend cold nights in the alleys of Dovré, huddled in garbage just to get warm?”

I shift uncomfortably. “I’m not the woman who killed your father, Bastien.”

“No.” His voice sharpens to a deadly point. “You’re just the girl who’s sworn to kill his son.”

“I’m trying to spare you from a more painful death! Do you want to end up like Marcel’s father?”

Marcel winces, and I immediately regret my words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Why am I apologizing to one of my captors? Because Sabine would. She’d extend thoughtfulness to someone mourning a loved one. “I’m only trying to say I’d never want anyone to suffer like he did.”

Bastien scrubs his hands over his face, so frustrated he can’t even speak for a moment. “Do you hear yourself? You cause the suffering!”

My hackles rise. I’m not like Sabine. “I can’t help the fact that the gods chose you for me, or that you’re destined to die the way you will. Why can’t you understand that?” I blow out an exasperated breath. The sooner I kill Bastien, the better I’ll feel. We can work out our differences in the afterlife.

The door to the chamber slides open. Jules ducks in. She eyes all of us suspiciously. The tension is so thick it sticks to my lungs. She limps over to Marcel and breaks the awkward silence, saying, “We better eat this bread before it turns to mold.” She presses a round loaf into his hands and drops a heavy bag of books at his feet. “I carried all that weight on my head through the water.

You’re welcome.”

He inhales deeply and smiles. “You’re a goddess.”

“I’m better than a goddess. Those books weren’t the only things I kept dry.” She hefts another pack off her shoulder and hands it to Bastien. “Keep that away from the oil lamps,” she warns.

He gives her a quizzical look and pulls out a small barrel from the pack, no longer than the length of my forearm. “I’m guessing this isn’t ale.”

She grins and leans on her good leg. “It’s black powder.”

Black powder? What is that?

Bastien’s eyes widen. “You’re joking. How did you break into Beau Palais?”

“I didn’t get it from the castle.”

“But Beau Palais has the only cannons in Dovré.”

“Not for long. At least fifty powder casks were carted from the king’s alchemists to the royal shipyard today, and let’s just say His Majesty should have sent more than four guards on the journey.”

Bastien stares at Jules, and then bursts into warm laughter. “You really are a goddess.”

A pretty flush dusts her cheeks, and she rocks back on her heels. Black powder must be a weapon of some kind.

“Anyway, we need to hurry.” Jules crosses her arms. “Night has fallen, and one of the Bone Criers—that witness from Castelpont—is already lurking outside.”

My stomach tenses. Sabine. She shouldn’t come in here. She only has one grace bone.

“Found it,” Marcel says around a mouthful of bread. He’s already sprawled on his stomach with three of his four books open. “It’s from Ballads of Old Galle.”

Bastien carefully sets the cask of black powder on the ground. “Go on.”

Pushing his floppy hair out of his eyes, Marcel reads: The fair maiden on the bridge, the doomed man she must slay, Their souls sewn together, ne’er a stitch that will fray, His death hers and none other ’cross vale, sea, and shore, Lest her breath catch his shadow evermore, evermore.

Marcel rolls into a sitting position and sets the book on his crossed legs. “There, Bastien. That should comfort you.”

He frowns. “It should?”

“‘His death hers and none other.’” Marcel taps the words on the brittle page. “Because Ailesse summoned the magic on the bridge, only she can kill you, or she’ll die with you.”

My muscles go rigid. Jules steps forward. “Where did it say that?” She steals the words from my mouth.

“Her ‘breath’ is her life, and his ‘shadow’ is his death,” Marcel explains. “I never read it like that before, but now it’s obvious. Ailesse will ‘catch death,’ like you’d catch a cold, if someone other than herself kills Bastien.”

Bastien rubs his jaw. “But . . . I still die?”

“Yes, but that isn’t the point,” Marcel says. Bastien doesn’t look so sure. “This is one less thing you have to worry about when the queen comes tonight. She won’t dare to kill you. She isn’t going to risk her daughter’s life.”