Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(93)

He gulps. “It might not even work,” he says optimistically.

Every muscle in my body tightens. Every nerve stretches and frays. Ailesse wouldn’t attempt something this reckless unless she’d given up hope that we could break our soul-bond.

I grab my pack, dump it out, and hurry to the wall where Jules and Marcel have been stockpiling black powder. I stuff two small casks inside. That won’t be enough. I grab Jules’s pack and shove two more in there, as well.

Marcel fidgets, watching me. “Do you plan to blow up something?”

“How many dead people would you like to fight at once?” I ask.

He frowns at his sister. “None.”

I grab my lantern and heft the packs over my shoulders.

“Keep your lantern away from those,” he warns.

I nod. “Will you be okay in here with Jules?”

“Unless she learns how to breathe fire, which is highly improbable.”

“All right.” I walk over and open my hand. “Let’s see that map you made.”

“Map?” Marcel shrinks back. “Oh, that . . . well . . . I gave it to Ailesse.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and groan. “Marcel.”

“I thought of it as a going-away present,” he says sheepishly.

I run my hands through my hair and take a deep breath. There’s no time to argue. “Tell me how to get to that bridge.”





42

Sabine

THE SILVER OWL IS WAITING for me when I arrive at Castelpont, her wings iridescent in the light of the full moon. She doesn’t interfere when I remove my three grace bones from Ailesse’s shoulder necklace and bury them beneath the foundations of the bridge. It’s a sign that what I’m doing is right. Ailesse would do the same herself if she had her graces back.

At the center of the bridge, I clasp the necklace back on and kneel, spreading out my skirt. I didn’t think to change into a white dress, but I can’t see why it should matter. I remove Ailesse’s hairbrush from my hunting pack and pull out the last strands. Next, I withdraw her bone knife from my sheath. With a deep breath, I slice the blade across my palm. I welcome the pain. It’s been twenty-nine days since my friend was abducted, and now I’m finally doing something that will really help her.

I drip my blood over her auburn strands. “This is my hair, Tyrus. This is blood I share with my sister.” I pause, wondering why Odiva didn’t pray to Elara, too. I glance at the silver owl. She’s perched very still on the stone parapet, her head slightly bowed to her chest, her knowing eyes fast upon me. “Hear my voice, Tyrus, my soul’s siren song,” I continue, deciding I must pray to Tyrus alone. I can’t chance compromising the ritual. “I am Ailesse, sister of Sabine. Tonight, I finish my rite of passage.” But this isn’t my rite of passage; it’s the end of Ailesse’s.

Tonight, I’ll lure Bastien, instead of my own soulmate, and kill him to save my sister.

I wrap my bleeding hand with a cloth from my hunting pack and push my belongings into the shadows of the bridge. Except for the bone knife. That I sheathe under my cloak. I remove the new flute, hoping the simple instrument I carved will be enough to play a true siren call. I already know the song. Ailesse and I practiced it together on wooden flutes before the last full moon. She’ll never get the chance to finish this ritual for herself, but at least she’ll be a Ferrier. That was always her dream, not what it took to achieve it.

I pull the flute to my mouth and tap the pattern of the melody over the tone holes before I lend my breath.

The song of love and loss cries above the night breeze. Bastien should feel its call right away.

I’ll fight him one-on-one, hopefully without his friends’ interference this time.

The silver owl watches as I keep playing. She might as well be carved of marble. She doesn’t rasp or screech or even flutter her wings. A quarter hour passes, and Bastien still hasn’t come.

Don’t worry, Sabine. This will work. He only came so fast last time because he was already waiting for us. Tonight he has to leave wherever he’s been hiding with Ailesse, and who knows how far away that is?

My chest strains as I play on and on, not for lack of air, but my growing anxiety. At least another half hour goes by. I’ve been here too long. I keep glancing behind me at Beau Palais over the walls of Dovré. Someone must have seen me by now through the windows of the white stone castle.

The song trips faster now. My hands grow wet with perspiration. My fingers slip off the tone holes more than once. If the siren song needs to be played flawlessly, Bastien will never come tonight.

Just when I’m ready to give up and toss the flute into the dry riverbed, my jackal grace picks up the sound of scuffing boots on the road. My heart pounds. The footsteps are coming from the road leading from Dovré. Is that where Bastien has been holding Ailesse captive?

I keep fumbling through the melody, waiting for him to emerge around the curving city wall.

Now that he’s close, my insides roil. What if I’m wrong and this ritual only works for mothers, not sisters? If Tyrus doesn’t allow me to act in place of Ailesse, then when I kill Bastien, I’ll be killing my best friend, too.

I look at the silver owl. You would warn me if this could kill Ailesse, wouldn’t you?

As if she’s heard my thoughts, she lifts off the bridge, circles once overhead, and flits away to a discreet location at the far end of the bridge. I really wish Elara would teach her bird to speak.