Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(51)
I’m staring into the eyes of the silver owl.
“Ailesse.”
Someone nudges my arm. My eyes crack open. Jules leans over me. “I’m heading out on another supply run. You want me to take you to the privy first?”
The thought of that reeking corner of the catacombs isn’t what startles me wide awake; it’s the tone of Jules’s voice. Calm and straightforward. No temper. It reminds me she and I have come to a gradual acceptance of each other over the last few days. It reminds me I’ve been a prisoner down here for more than two long weeks. And my mother never came back for me.
“No, I’m fine.” I slowly pull up into a sitting position on the limestone slab while Jules watches, unconvinced. Even that simple movement takes muscle-cramping effort. My captors have been feeding me and giving me water, but I’m almost completely starved of Elara’s Light.
“Marcel?” I call over to him. My weak voice is barely loud enough to grab his attention. He looks up from the wreckage of books he and Bastien are poring over on the overturned cart table. “When is the new moon? Have you been keeping track?”
“Yes, in fact, I have.” His grin is lazy with delight as he digs underneath his books and pulls out a sheet of parchment, marked up with his scribbles. “I’ve been charting the days by the hour down here. Whenever one of us comes back from our trips to Dovré, I compare what time it is outside to my calendar, and so far it’s been accurate.” He taps twice on the parchment. “The new moon is tonight.”
Bastien looks from Marcel to me. “Is that significant?” His gaze roams over my face, and I try to smooth away any trace of anxiety. “What happens on the new moon?”
I shake my head. “Nothing . . . I just . . .” I glance away from him. His concern confuses me when I know he plans to kill me. “I had a bad dream, that’s all.” I can’t hold myself upright anymore, so I scoot back to the corner wall of the slab and lean against it.
Now Jules stares at me with worried eyes, too—which is even more disconcerting. “How much strength do you have left?” she asks, and lowers her voice. “Does it run out on the new moon?”
I have no idea. “I’m fine,” I reply, though I know it’s really Bastien that Jules is distressed about. Who knows how much longer I can stay alive once my last spark of Elara’s Light is gone?
She shifts her weight onto her left leg. Her knee has finally healed. “You should rest while I’m gone, all right?”
I give her a halfhearted nod. That’s all I do, anyway.
She grabs her empty pack and heads for the door, stopping when she reaches Marcel. “We’re running out of time,” she murmurs to him. “You need to figure out how to break the soul-bond now.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do every day?” He gestures at his piles of notes and books all over the table.
“Well, try harder,” she snaps. He frowns, and she drops her head with a sigh. “Sorry, just please . . . try harder.” She kisses his cheek, then turns pained eyes on Bastien before she ducks out of the chamber.
Try harder. Her words remind me what Sabine said—or what the silver owl said—in my dream: Don’t give up, Ailesse. There’s always something you can do.
What does it all mean? Am I having visions? I brushed off the flickering image I saw of Sabine two weeks ago as a hallucination brought on from my head injury. I haven’t seen another one since.
But now I wonder . . . has she found a way to communicate with me? Hope sparks in my chest.
Bastien walks over with a tumbler of settled water. His footsteps are cautious, his gaze averted, his expression blank. It’s how he usually handles being this near me. He passes me the tumbler, and our fingers graze. My skin prickles with warmth, and I release a shaky breath. Being this close to him is no small task for me either. I balance the tumbler between my hands—a tricky endeavor because they’re still tied—and drink until the water runs dry. “Thank you.”
Our eyes collide. He looks startled, questioning. I’ve never thanked him for anything, not directly.
I give him back the tumbler, and this time when our hands touch, it’s Bastien who shivers. “Do you want more?” he asks. Before I have a chance to answer, he adds, “I can get you some more.” He walks over to the water bucket and peeks inside. “Oh. Empty, too.” He shoots me a nervous look.
“That’s all right.” He wags his thumb at the door and walks backward toward it. “I’ll just— I won’t be long.” I suppress a smile as he trips out of the chamber. He’s never this awkward.
It’s almost adorable . . . for someone who wants me dead.
Marcel lifts another piece of parchment from the table and mumbles something about moons, earth, and water.
I tilt my head at him. “It’s strange . . . I didn’t think anyone knew about the Leurress, until I met you three.”
He turns around and blinks twice, still half lost in his thoughts. “Some people do. There are legends, superstitions, the occasional folk song . . . but not really much to go by.”
“Yet you know so much.”
He gives a modest shrug. “It’s a bit of a hobby, really. I’m restless unless my mind has something big to chew on.”
Marcel, restless? My shoulders tremble with stifled laughter. He grins, unsure why I’m amused. I can’t help warming up to him. Unlike Bastien and Jules, Marcel doesn’t seem to have a natural prejudice against me. “What if I told you that you didn’t know enough?”