Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(50)

“She’s not coming back,” Ailesse murmurs. We all look at her. A tremor runs through her chin.

Jules’s gaze hardens. “Are you Bone Criers mind readers, too?”

“I’m not what my mother came for,” Ailesse replies on a weak breath. Even her tone has no fight in it.

Jules scoffs. “Then what did she come for?”

Ailesse’s eyes shimmer. She turns her head away.

“Are you going to answer me?”

“Leave her alone,” I mutter.

The look Jules shoots at me is the same look she gives Dovré boys when they leer at her. A split second later, they’re on the ground with broken noses. “Why are you defending her?”

“I’m not defending anyone. I just want a moment’s peace while I figure out how to get the three of us out of this mess.” I jab a page of my book for emphasis, even though I’ve found nothing helpful. Reading isn’t my best talent.

“This is your mess, Bastien,” Jules snaps, “not ours.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re not the ones caught up in a magic spell with a siren. We could leave you to deal with it any time.”

I stare incredulously at her, completely blindsided. From the first moment I met Jules and Marcel, we’ve been in this together, no matter the complications. Don’t they still want revenge for their father? “Go on, then.” My voice shakes with hurt I try to pass off as anger. I make a shooing motion for the door. “I never said you two had to do anything for me.” I just trusted they would, like I would for them.

Marcel raises a finger. “If I may, I’d like to say two things: one, my sister doesn’t speak for me; and, two, for the sake of common decency, Julienne, will you please go easy on my arm? I do have a nervous system.”

She winces and pulls back from punch-cleaning him. She drops her handkerchief in the bowl and sighs. “We’re not going to leave you, Bastien. That’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s just that”— she nibbles on her lip—“we never bargained for you to be the soulmate. That’s knocked everything off balance. I mean, are you two really even soulmates? That was never proven.”

“She has a fair point,” Marcel adds. “We based that conclusion on the fact that no one else showed up at the bridge. Ailesse’s true soulmate could have been too ill to come, or maybe he was farther away and hadn’t made it there yet.”

I gape at them, amazed we’re even having this discussion. “What do you suggest, that we test that theory by killing Ailesse to see if I die, too?”

Marcel lowers his eyes. Jules bites her lip again.

“Bastien is my amouré,” Ailesse says quietly. “If you could feel what he does, you would have no doubt.”

I frown. “You can’t know what I feel.”

“No, but I can see it.” She finally lifts her umber eyes to me, and I swallow hard. I picture those same eyes staring up at me from the pit. She looked terrified and alone, the same way I felt after losing my father.

I slam my book shut. Ailesse isn’t the victim here. “I don’t have any affection for—”

“Affection has nothing to do with it.” Her voice betrays no hint of emotion. She’s listless, almost indifferent. “You were designed for me, and I was designed for you. You feel it as well as I do, Bastien.”

Heat rises in my cheeks.

Jules shakes her head in disbelief. “She’s insufferable.”

Ailesse shrugs and turns away.

I rub my hand over my face. “Can we get back on topic, please?”

“What topic is that?” Marcel leans back.

“What we do now. We need to rethink our strategy.” I don’t mention another plot to bait the queen. I agree with Ailesse that her mother won’t return. “We’ll continue to stay down here—that’s a given—and we’ll make runs for food and supplies. As for breaking the soul-bond, we already have Marcel’s books handy. We’ll comb over every passage a hundred times until we find the answer. Even if it takes weeks.”

“And then we kill her?” Jules crosses her arms.

My pulse jumps. I want to look at Ailesse, but I don’t. Instead, I stare at Jules. For years we’ve been hell-bent on revenge, but the Jules I know isn’t this bloodthirsty. She’s only callous when she’s hurting inside. I have to prove I won’t forget the pact that sealed our friendship.

“Yes,” I reply, though my stomach twists. “Then we kill her.”





21

Ailesse

SABINE LIES BESIDE ME ON her back. We’re in a meadow near Chateau Creux, gazing up at the Night Heavens. The stars are brilliant, the Huntress and Jackal constellations shining down on us in perfect clarity. “It’s the new moon,” Sabine tells me, one arm tucked behind her head. “This should have been your first ferrying night.”

“Yes.” A deep ache rises from the back of my throat. “But no one can ferry now, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Are you sure? Don’t give up, Ailesse. There’s always something you can do.”

“But the bone flute is broken.” I turn to her, but my best friend is gone.