Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(87)

Jules’s chest rises and falls more shallowly. Then it stills.

Marcel covers his mouth. Bastien’s shoulders hitch up. He buries his head in her stomach. I step closer, my throat aching. I want to fold my arms around him.

Just as I reach out to touch him, Jules’s eyes fly open. She inhales a ragged breath.

I flinch back. Bastien jolts upright. Marcel’s head sags forward in relief.

“What are you all staring at?” Jules asks, her voice frail.

Bastien bursts into warm laughter. He kisses her three times on her forehead.

I grin, though a stitch of pain forms in my chest. Their deep affection makes me miss Sabine even more. I place a hand on Bastien’s shoulder. “I’ll find something to dress her arm with.”

He tosses me a grateful smile.

I walk to the wall of shelves and look through the supplies. A roll of clean fabric is tucked behind a small pot of crushed herbs.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Jules murmurs to Bastien.

I smell the herbs. Yarrow. Good for wounds.

“Tu ne me manque pas. Je ne te manque pas.”

I freeze.

My heart thuds slowly as I turn around.

He’s holding Jules’s hand the same way he held mine when he spoke those same words to me.

The words his father said to him. I thought they were sacred, a gift Bastien only shared with me.

He brings Jules’s knuckles to his lips and kisses them. “You were never missing from me, Jules.”

A rush of weakness trembles through my knees. I have to sit down.

I stumble to a corner of the room. Then I realize it’s the corner with the limestone slab. My chest tightens, and I move to sit at the table instead. I set down the fabric and yarrow and take steadying breaths.

Bastien and Jules fall deep in conversation. He laughs at something she says and smooths her hair off her face. A hollow ache carves through me.

You’ve been deceiving yourself, Ailesse. He could never love you as much as he loves her.

I should be used to feeling second best; my mother always favored Sabine.

Marcel wanders over and sits across from me with a lazy smile on his face. “Can you believe we’re all back together again?” he asks, like I’m a tight-knit part of their family, and the three of them never abducted me. “Too bad Jules and I haven’t found a way to break the soul-bond yet, but we’ve had a real adventure all these days without you.”

“Oh, yes?” I absently flip through one of his books, trying to keep my eyes off Bastien. Now Jules is laughing with him.

“We found all sorts of new and interesting hideouts in Dovré. Bastien almost found us one time, so Jules and I decided to move back down here. We’ve been in this chamber all this last week.”

“Clever,” I reply. Bastien told me he checked here once, and when he found it empty of their belongings, he never came back.

Marcel nods, his lackadaisical enthusiasm on point. “We’ve got it all stockpiled with food and black powder again. I’ve been making some of the runs myself.”

I spare a glance at a dozen or so small powder casks stacked against the wall. “Eager to blast my mother into a pit again?” Or me?

He snorts. “Something like that.”

I force a grin and pass him the rolled fabric and yarrow. “Could you give these to Bastien?”

“Sure.” He gets up and swaggers over to his friend. Bastien covers Jules with another blanket, taking extra care to tuck it tightly around her.

My eyes sting. I look back down at Marcel’s book. A corner of a sheet of parchment sticks out from beneath it. My gaze lands on a small scribbled drawing labeled “bridge.”

I frown, scooting the book aside so I can see the whole sheet of parchment. It’s covered in a labyrinth of more scribbles. “What is this?” I ask Marcel when he returns.

He sits down again. “Oh, I updated my map of the catacombs.”

“There’s a bridge here?”

He nods. “Remember that tunnel I exploded? The bridge is nearby it, beneath the mines. Turns out there’s a vast network of caves down there.” He leans back and laces his hands behind his head.

“I discovered a shaft leading to the bridge. It was a bit tricky to navigate, especially on the way back up. I thought a different path would be easier, but the hatch at the top was impossible to pry open, even with my knife.”

My brow furrows as I try to follow him.

“Merde! ” Bastien says. He stands and grips the empty sheath at his belt.

It takes me a moment to understand what’s upset him. I gasp. “Your father’s knife.” We left it behind in the quarry. The Chained man threw it out of reach just before Jules fell unconscious. “I’ll go back for it, Bastien.”

He blows out a tense breath and rakes his hands through his hair. “No, you can’t be exposed under the dome again.”

“I have my falcon grace.” I rise from the table. “I’ll be quick.”

“And if you’re attacked?”

“I have my tiger shark grace.”

“That’s not going to cut it if a horde comes after you.”

Marcel waves a sluggish hand. “I’ll go.”

The look Bastien gives him says that’s the worst idea yet. “I’m going,” he says adamantly.