I don’t know what would happen if none of the bones healed, and I’m not sure how long we have. A month? Two? How long can fate stay suspended until it snaps? I dig my fingers into my hair. “I wish I could see what Latham was trying to accomplish in the future by changing the past.”
“So he can see what will happen because he’s a Third Sight Charmer?” Tessa asks. “Or will he need to use your mother’s bones?”
Her question turns a page in my mind. I’ve been going about this all wrong. I can’t just focus on what options were available in the past. I need to see where they lead in the future. If I can see the outcomes, I can predict which Latham will choose. Then we can find a way to heal the bones in a way that preserves this reality exactly as it is before he heals them in a way that will change it.
“Tessa, you’re brilliant. I need to do a Third Sight reading.”
A curtain of confusion falls over her expression. “But can you do that?”
It’s as if the ground beneath my feet has shifted, and I’ve lost my balance. I let my guard down. I said too much. I think of Tessa’s expression when she claimed I didn’t trust her. And with sharp clarity, I realize I don’t. Not entirely.
And it’s because of Jensen. The seed of mistrust that his trial planted hasn’t thrived—not in light of the bone games and all we’ve been through together. But until this moment, I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t entirely dead, either. It sprouted roots that are hard to pull up.
If I tell her the truth, will she turn her back on me?
“Can you?” she asks again.
I bite my lip. “Yes. I can.” Her eyes slide to the spell book and then back to me.
“Then what are you waiting for? Do it.”
Reading the future is far more challenging than seeing the past. Before, I could simply access a reading that Latham had already done. It was relatively effortless, like perusing someone else’s diary. But this—pushing past the point where the path dwindles away and forcing the vision to extend into the future—is more demanding than any reading I’ve ever done.
And it’s not just that it taxes my magical abilities. It drains me emotionally. Every time I start down a path that shows a glimmer of happiness for Latham, my mind recoils. It was one thing to see Latham’s past—as an innocent child or a love-struck new apprentice—but exploring his future when I know what choices he’s already made, when I fully understand his potential for evil, demands a level of strength I’m not sure I can maintain for long. How can I watch him find happiness when I know he doesn’t deserve it?
So I force myself to pretend he’s a stranger. To watch his potential futures unfold as dispassionately as I can. Unlike the First Sight readings, this time certain pathways are more brightly lit than others, so I explore them first. On one path, it’s clear Latham was able to be matched with Avalina, and the two of them fall more deeply in love. I see him move with her to Leiden. They walk along the beach at sunrise, watch the waves lap at the shore, sink their bare feet in the warm sand. The ocean calms him.
He becomes Leiden’s Bone Charmer. It suits him—gently guiding the future of the townsfolk, knowing they trust him implicitly. Avalina brings out the best in him. She tempers his ambition—softens it just enough that it serves him well instead of turning him into a monster. They have a houseful of children—three sons and two daughters—who are treasured and adored. Their home is filled with chaos and laughter and love. He and Avalina drift off to sleep each night with their hands intertwined as if they want to be connected even in their dreams.
But other paths are well lit too, and as I explore them, I find a very different Latham. In some, I watch him take his place on the Grand Council. Other paths keep him teaching at Ivory Hall. I watch as the council members responsible for keeping him from Avalina are punished—disgraced with scandal, put on trial for crimes they didn’t commit, brutally murdered.
I notice a pattern. The paths always seem to branch in two opposite directions: choices that lead to vengeance and choices that lead to Avalina. The two never overlap. Seeking revenge leads Latham further and further from the woman he loves. But choosing her means the members of the council never get their comeuppance.
He can’t have it both ways. He has to choose one or the other.
I have to take frequent breaks. I’m bleary with exhaustion.
“Maybe we should come back another time,” Bram says. I’ve just come out of a vision, and I stretch my arms over my head, knead at a knot in my shoulder. I feel as if I’ve been awake for days.
“I have to keep going,” I tell him. The spell book sits on the table like a warning. Now that Latham is on to me, I don’t know how much time I have. And I shouldn’t leave the bones out of the nutrient solution for too long—if the bone dries out, it will die off and lose its ability to heal. I pick up a sewing needle. “Maybe blood will make things easier.” I prick my finger. Speckle Gran’s bones in crimson. Try again.
I stand at the branch point between two paths. On one, Latham’s father not only succeeds in having Avalina’s parents imprisoned, but manages to secure the same fate for her as well. On the other path, Avalina goes back to Leiden after she’s dismissed from Ivory Hall. I already know what happens on the second path, so I turn down the first.
And I’m suddenly back in Midwood, standing in my bedroom. I hover above the vision and turn in a slow circle. The blood must have connected me to my own future on this path and not Latham’s. I’m just about to pull my fingers from the bone and try again when my mother walks by, her arms full of boxes.
“Saskia,” she calls, “could you come in here and give me a hand?”
All the breath leaves my lungs. My mother. Alive in the future.
I sink deeper into the vision, until I feel as if I’m one with the Saskia who responds.
“Be right there.”
I follow myself into the kitchen, where my mother is carefully placing dishes into boxes.
“I don’t want to go,” I tell her.
She leans across the table and strokes my cheek with the back of her hand. I can feel her fingers against my face, smell the sweet vanilla fragrance that she used to dab behind each ear. My chest fills with an exquisite blend of joy and grief, expanding so quickly, I feel like I might burst. I desperately want to control this future version of myself. To force her to lean in, to fit herself into the hollow at my mother’s side and the safety I always felt there.
But I’m helpless to do anything except watch.
“I know you don’t, bluebird, but it’s not safe here anymore.”
Outside the vision, I want to scream questions. Not safe where? Midwood? All of Kastelia?
“Maybe we won’t have to leave,” I watch myself say. “Maybe the vote won’t go through.”
My mother purses her lips. “It will. It’s a sham vote designed to avoid an uprising. By this time next week, Kastelia will be a kingdom, and Latham will be sovereign.”
The vision ends abruptly, and I pull away from the bones, gutted.
For months I’ve tortured myself with my mother’s death. With what I might have done differently to save her. In moments where I was feeling gentle with myself, I reasoned that there was nothing I could have done to change the future.
But I was wrong. There were a series of events that would have saved her life. That would have saved us both.
Is it possible that Latham can change the past without killing me? And if I let him have his way—allow him all the power he could ever want—will I get my mother back?
I swipe at the tears running down my face.
Tessa’s hand falls on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Could I heal this bone before Latham returns? Could I be the one who chooses the future?
I squeeze my eyes closed, and all I can see behind my lids are my mother’s hands. Her hands cupped around my face as she told me she loved me. Her hands gesturing wildly in the air every time she discussed something that made her angry. Her hands cold aga
inst my skin after she died.
I’ve always thought I’d do anything to have her back.
But would I?
It’s an impossible choice. Latham as king would be disastrous. It would be everything I’ve been fighting to prevent. But my mother would be alive. We’d leave Kastelia—she’d take me somewhere far away—and we would be safe. We’d be together.
“Saskia, you’re scaring me,” Tessa says. “What did you see?”
I turn toward her, ignoring her question in favor of one of my own.
“Do you think you could get me some books on Mending?”
Her expression clouds. “I can tell you anything you need to know.”
“But can you get me a book?”
“Yes,” she says, “I’m sure I could.”
“Good. I’m going to need to learn as much as I can.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m silent on the walk back to Ivory Hall. Thoughts move through my mind like dancers in an overcrowded ballroom—worries rustling against one another like silk skirts—with no space to move freely. It’s suffocating.
“Do you want to talk about whatever happened back there?” Tessa asks once we reach the top of the hill.
I struggle for a way to respond that won’t hurt her feelings. But I can’t find one. “Not now. I think I need to be alone for a while.”
She hesitates, her lips pressed into a thin white line. “Saskia—”
Jacey squeezes Tessa’s shoulder. “Let her be.”
I give Jacey a small, grateful smile and peel off from the others. I wander around the grounds for a while, trying to collect my thoughts. I ache with how much I miss my mother. I ache with what it would take to get her back.
Memories of her blow through my mind, lifting and spinning like leaves in the breeze. I think of her confronting Audra about using bone readings for selfish reasons. Of the way she used to encourage me to remember those who had less than I did. Of how she chose a path that ended her life to spare mine. She would be so angry if I sacrificed all of Kastelia just to save her. And yet the temptation is there just the same.
A noise behind me makes me startle, and I whirl around. But it’s only Rasmus. I had forgotten about him, and I’m not sure if he’s been following me the whole time, or if he just arrived.
He’s unsteady on his feet, as if he’s had too much to drink, but the only acknowledgment he gives me is his usual curt nod. The potion is beginning to wear off then.
I keep walking, and Rasmus keeps a greater distance than normal, as if he senses my need for space.
I find a parapet overlooking the city and sit on top of the cool stone.
I watch the sun move lower and lower in the sky until finally it dips beneath the horizon, streaking the sky in hues of rose and gold. Kastelia City spills at my feet, golden and glittering. I think about the people below, and wonder how many of them are gathered around kitchen tables sharing a meal. How many children are hearing bedtime stories near the glowing fire of a hearth? How many lives would I destroy by letting Latham rob them of their freedom?
A familiar memory nudges at the back of my mind, and it takes me a moment to identify it. But then it clicks into place. I sat in this very spot with Bram on my other path. His cloak and hair were a smudge against the dark sky. My throat was thick with all the things I wanted to say to him but didn’t.
A throat clears behind me, and I turn.
Bram.
As if my thoughts summoned him.
I can’t read his expression—worried? Hesitant?
“I know you said you wanted to be alone.” He says it like an apology. Like a question.
I pat the wall beside me. “I don’t mind.”
He sits and we both stare out over the city. “Will you tell me what happened in the shop?” he asks, finally. “Something you saw obviously upset you.”
I listen to the rush of the Shard. When I was young, we had a flood in Midwood after a season of unusually high rainfall. I remember asking my father why it had happened.
“The river can only hold so much, bluebird,” he’d told me. “And then it spills over just like a bucket that’s too full.”
That’s how my secrets feel inside me—they’ve been pouring down like rainfall for months and I don’t have space to hold them all anymore.
“I saw my mother,” I tell him. “Alive on one of the paths in the future.”
Bram sucks in a sharp breath. “That must have been …” He trails off. Shakes his head. “Actually, I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.”
“Terrible. Wonderful. Confusing.”
“Was it a good future?”
“Not for most people, no.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” I say. “Me too.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. If I could see her again … there are so many things I wish I could say to her.”
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” Bram was so much younger when he lost his parents. He must have a lifetime of things saved up to tell them.
“Watching all of Latham’s paths unfold is exhausting. Even though most of them never happened, once I’ve seen them, they feel as real as anything else, you know?”
“Does your other path feel real too?”
“More than you can imagine.”
“That must be strange.”
I sigh. “To put it lightly.”
Bram shifts on the wall, turning his body toward me, and then away again like he’s not sure where he wants to be. He scratches the back of his neck. “Do you want to tell me more about what happened there? Between us, I mean?”
“Why, so you can laugh at me?”
His eyebrows pull together. “I never laughed at you.”
“You did. When I first told you we were matched on my other path, you laughed.”
“Not at you. The idea seemed so far-fetched then.”
Then?
I trace patterns in the cobblestones with the toe of my boot. “And now?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Do you want to tell me about it or not?”
“We were matched,” I tell him, “and you hated it. You were so angry with me at first.”
“I was angry?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t very kind to you in the beginning. You remember the prison boat from when we were children?”
He nods.
“We each saw that event very differently. It took a while for us to trust each other.”
His expression goes tight, as if he’s remembering that day and the thick wall of resentment that used to be between us. But Bram has been different on this path. It’s as if he’d already let go of his bitterness the moment he came back to Midwood. Is it because he felt sorry that my mother died? Is it because I’m different in this reality? Or did our connection on my other path imprint on us both somehow? Maybe deep in his soul he knows I apologized long ago for how things were when we were children, even if he never heard me say it.
“Is that why you brought up the prison boat before our first task?”
I shrug. “I thought it would make things better between us if you knew how sorry I was. It did on my other path.”
“And then what?” Bram’s voice is husky.
I shoot him a questioning glance.
“You said I was angry at first, and then what?”
I almost don’t answer him. But I’m so tired of being afraid.
“You fell in love with me. And I died in your arms.”
I don’t look at him as I speak. I don’t want to see his face right now. But the words dislodge an old wound from my heart, like removing a stubborn splinter.
Bram shifts in his seat. His hands grip the edge of the wall. And I wonder if I’ve only transferred my discomfort to him.
“The tattoo on your wrist …?”
“Not from Declan.” But he already knew that from our visit to Avalina. I can tel
l he wants to press the point further, but he doesn’t, and I’m glad I don’t have to say it out loud. That I was in love with him once, in another life. That I’m in love with him in this life too. As much as I’ve tried to tell myself the feelings aren’t real, I can’t deny them any longer. Imagined feelings would have faded by now. My tattoo would have faded. Maybe love is love no matter how it begins.
I sneak a glance at him, and he’s looking at me with the strangest expression. He lays a palm against my cheek, his thumb feathering against my skin, and I melt inside.
He leans toward me, so close that I can feel his breath against my face. And then something shifts in his expression and he sits back. His hand falls to his lap.
“Saskia, I need to tell you something.” His voice sounds sad, resigned.
A roar grows in my ears.
“Is it going to break my heart?”
He flinches. “I’m afraid it might.”
I feel my rib cage curl inward, as if preparing to protect my vital organs from a blast. “Then don’t tell me.”
“But—”
I stand and rest my hand briefly on the crown of his head. “Please. Just let it be. I don’t think I can handle any more heartbreak tonight. Good night, Bram.”
And with that, I turn and walk away.
I’ve been trying so hard to protect my heart, to convince myself that my feelings for Bram weren’t real, but I didn’t lie to myself as well as I thought. Somehow a bit of hope trickled in. And it’s been gathering power. A cresting wave of optimism that just violently crashed.
I go straight to my room, but it’s hours before I fall asleep. I vacillate between thinking about Bram, about what we had on my other path—what we don’t have here—and imagining embracing my mother again. Hearing her laugh. Listening to her stories.
There’s nothing I can do about Bram, but I could see my mother again. I could bring her back.
But she didn’t raise me to be that selfish.
I wish I’d never seen that path. Having to make the choice to let her go is like losing her all over again. And I’ve lost far too much. A surge of anger swells in my chest. Latham stole my mother from me twice, and I’m not sure any amount of vengeance I inflict would be enough to satisfy me.
The Bone Thief Page 21
