Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(69)

I feel like I’m already in a cage, unable to run from her presence. By now, Ailesse could be anywhere in South Galle. I’m frantic to give her back her ritual knife. The more desperate I become to save her, the easier it is to stomach the thought of her killing Bastien.

“I feel your disappointment,” Odiva says. My skin crawls when I meet her probing black eyes.

“I had such high hopes for your first experience at the soul bridge. It should have brought you joy, not grief.”

I don’t know how to respond. “Joy” is the last word I’d have used to describe ferrying.

“I would like to think that even Ailesse would have been happy for you when . . .” A faint blush sweeps across her pale skin. She looks radiant for a moment, warm and full of feeling.

“When what?” I ask.

Her raven brows pull inward as she searches my eyes. Her mouth opens, struggling to form words, then shuts tight again. She exhales through her nostrils and walks onward, looking away from me. Her ceremonial dress trails through the wild grass. “When you would have seen the great Gates of the Beyond,” she finally answers, a forced lightness in her voice.

Another lie. Another cover-up for secrets. My throat burns, but I’m tired of swallowing down the bitterness. I’m done shrinking from my matrone and accepting every excuse that falls from her lips. “Does that necklace you wear help you ferry the dead when the Gates do open?” I ask, my pulse racing from my boldness.

Odiva touches the three rows of her grace bone necklace and frowns. “Which bones do you mean, the bear’s or the stingray’s? They both help me ferry.”

“I mean your other grace bone—that bird skull you keep hidden under the neckline of your dress.”

Odiva freezes. Any color that remained in her cheeks drains away. “Go,” she tells the Ferriers following us. Her voice is strained, though she affects a calm smile. “We will meet you at home shortly.”

As they walk past, Odiva moves off the path and wraps her arms around herself. Pernelle shoots me an inquisitive look. Maurille squeezes my hand. I shrug at them like I don’t know why Odiva wants to talk privately with me. Like I didn’t just confront her with the crime of owning another grace bone. She already has five. A sixth is an offense to the gods and the sanctity of an animal’s life. Still, my limbs shake when Odiva returns to me after the Ferriers are gone. Her expression is eerily calm and resigned.

“This is not a grace bone.” Odiva withdraws the hidden necklace, and the ruby in the mouth of the bird skull glints in the sunlight. “It was a gift from my beloved.”

My lips part. I take a closer look at the skull. The bill is black and a little smaller than a raven’s but stouter than a rook’s. “Why would your amouré give you a crow skull?”

She grins at me, and my scalp prickles with uneasiness. “I see nothing escapes your notice, Sabine.” Her feather epaulettes rustle as she lifts a shoulder. “I suppose my love knew I had an affinity for bones.”

“You didn’t hide them from him?” A Leurress is supposed to put away her grace bones when she spends a year with her amouré.

“He was exceptional. He accepted me for what I was. He loved me without fear.”

I eye the ruby again. He was also wealthy and clearly powerful if he could be that kind of match to Odiva. “Then why do you keep his gift a secret? Ailesse would want to know that her father—”

“Enough about Ailesse,” Odiva snaps. I stagger back a step at her burst of frustration. She shoves the crow skull back under the neckline of her dress. “Not everything must be divulged, Sabine. Love is sacred. Private.”

I stare incredulously at her. She was the first to mention Ailesse a moment ago. But all Odiva’s warmth is gone now. I suddenly recall what she confessed after I killed the nighthawk. I was too distraught to give her words much weight, but now they tear through my mind: That does not mean I loved him. She was speaking of her amouré.

But then who gave her the necklace?

A small movement draws my keen eye to where the forest meets the plateau. There, perched on a lowlying branch of an ash tree, almost as if she’s heard my thoughts, is the silver owl.

A breath of hope fills my chest. The owl is a reminder of Ailesse. Odiva may have turned her back on her daughter, but Elara hasn’t forgotten.

The owl will lead me to her, just like she led me to the catacombs.

Odiva turns to follow my gaze. Once she sees the owl, she stifles a gasp.

I dash away toward the forest.

“Sabine,” Odiva calls after me. “Where are you going? I have told all the Ferriers to return to Chateau Creux.”

“I’m not a Ferrier,” I shout back. “But if you want me to be, you’ll let me hunt.”

“You need your rest.”

“I need a third grace bone. I’ll come home once I have it.” And once I’ve saved Ailesse.

I cast a fleeting glance over my shoulder, but my matrone isn’t racing after me. She stands frozen on the path, one pale hand on the claw marks the owl gave her.

When I reach the tree line, the owl flutters away. I pursue her deeper into the forest. Just like before, she lands within sight, and once I catch up, she flies off again. I grin, running faster.

We play this game, mile after mile. I pay little attention to my surroundings; I focus all my attention on keeping the owl’s gilded feathers in sight. But once I cross a thoroughfare to Dovré and spy a bridge twenty feet ahead, I stumble to a sudden stop. This bridge is made of stone and has a high arch and a dry riverbed beneath. It’s within view of Beau Palais, which looks down on the bridge from the highest hill in Dovré.