Bone Crier's Moon

by Kathryn Purdie

  She shakes her head. “I’ll explain later.” We weave around a large tree.

  “Psst!” Marcel waves both arms at us. He’s behind a rocky knoll to our right.

  I look at Ailesse. She casts another quick glance around us and nods. “Hurry, before they see us.”

  We bolt for the knoll. On its other side is an overhang with a shallow cavity of earth beneath. Marcel ducks into it, and we tumble in next. Jules is down here, too. I end up wedged between her and Ailesse.

  The horde of the dead grows louder. Ailesse holds a finger to her lips. We wait in tense silence as they rush past us. Female voices soon follow, shouting as they chase after them. Another long moment passes, and then Ailesse gives a reassuring nod.

  Marcel heaves a sigh. “Well, that was exciting.”

  “Too exciting,” Jules says.

  “You saved us back there,” I tell Jules, jostling her with my shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong; I hated it. Promise me you’ll never do something like that again. I thought those dead were going to run both of you through. But it took a lot of spine. It was very Jules.”

  It’s dim under the knoll, but I catch the corners of her mouth lift. “You’d do the same for me . . . wouldn’t you?” Her voice wavers with uncertainty.

  I snort. “Do you even have to ask?”

  It takes her a moment to reply. “You can let go of Ailesse’s hand now.”

  Ailesse and I glance at each other. Our hands break apart at the same time. Mine is suddenly cold.

  “Where’s the flute, Jules?” Ailesse asks.

  “It’s . . . safe,” she replies.

  My gut twists. Something is wrong. I see it in the desperate but determined look on Jules’s face. “What are you doing?”

  She swallows. “What you can’t do, Bastien.”

  “Jules . . .” Ailesse’s voice trembles dangerously. “That flute is the only real weapon my mother has against the dead. Give—it—to—me.”

  “I will.” Jules takes a steeling breath. “Once you give me all your grace bones.”

  “What?” Ailesse’s leg muscles tense up against mine. “You can’t be serious. The dead will attack Dovré next if they’re not stopped. Give me the flute. Now.”

  “No.”

  In a flash, Ailesse pulls into a crouch and lunges for Jules.

  Jules anticipates her and jumps out of the hollow. Ailesse bounds after her. Marcel and I share a wide-eyed glance and scramble to intervene.

  Ailesse is already on top of Jules, pinning her down. “Where did you hide it?” She shakes her, but Jules stubbornly mashes her lips together. Ailesse turns furious eyes on Marcel. “Tell me where it is!”

  He freezes, halfway out of the hollow. “I . . . promised not to.”

  Ailesse’s lip curls. She springs off Jules and pounces for Marcel. I jump between them, and Ailesse knocks into me instead. We both topple to the ground. She jerks up to her knees, and I pull up and grab her shoulders. “Wait!” I’m well aware she has the strength to break free anytime she wishes. “We can talk this through.”

  “We don’t have time!”

  “Then give me your bones.” Jules sits up, forest mulch in her braid.

  Ailesse’s eyes narrow. “That’s like asking me to cut out my heart.”

  “I understand.” Jules spares me a pained glance. “But it’s the only way to protect Bastien from you.”

  I stare incredulously at my friend. “Ailesse could have left me in the middle of those invisible monsters back there. She just rescued me!”

  “So she can kill you on her own terms—on a bridge or with a special knife or whatever ritual she requires.”

  “She does need a special knife,” Marcel concedes, brushing dirt off his clothes.

  Ailesse flinches and glances westward. “One of the dead is nearby.” She shifts protectively in front of me.

  I can’t see or hear anything unusual, but I believe her. “Jules, give her back the damn flute.”

  “And then what?” Jules hisses. “Do you really think Ailesse will willingly surrender?”

  “I don’t know!” I whisper. “Everything is different now. We can’t be rash about a new plan.”

  “Our plan has always been revenge.”

  A fierce cry of rage splits the air, maybe fifty yards away. Ailesse freezes. “He’s seen us.”

  Merde.

  Ailesse rushes to Jules. “Please. I’ll take the flute and run far away from here. The soul will follow me, and Bastien will be safe.” Her brow twitches. “All of you will be.”

  “For now, anyway.” Jules holds out an open hand. “The flute for your bones,” she tells Ailesse. “I’ll give them back after we figure out how to break the soul-bond.”

  Ailesse ignores her. She darts back to the knoll and scours the hollow beneath it.

  The dead man shouts again. Thirty yards now. I pull out my knife. “We have to go! We’ll come back for the flute later.”

  “No!” Ailesse keeps searching for it. She digs through the wild grass beside the knoll.

  Two more shouts. From the east this time. My pulse races. “They’re surrounding us!”

  “I can’t leave it!”

  The dead roar closer. Jules moves defensively toward Marcel.

  Ailesse kicks at the grass and releases a cry of frustration.

  Jules points to a spot between her and Ailesse, twelve feet away. “Throw your bones on the ground there, then I’ll fetch your flute.”

  Ailesse purses her lips. She glances east and west. The dead will be here any second. “No one touches my bones until I have the flute in my hands. Agreed?” I can almost see her thinking, I’ll get them right back. She might have a chance. She’s still fast without her graces.

  “Agreed,” Jules says quickly. “Now, throw them!”

  Ailesse squeezes her eyes shut. Whispers something about Elara. Yanks the small pouch off her neck and tosses it on the ground. At once, she’s noticeably weaker. Drooped shoulders. Strained brows. But she still holds her jaw stiffly. “The flute. Hurry!”

  Jules whips it out of her boot. My eyes widen. Ailesse blows out an enraged breath. Jules had it on her the whole time.

  A ragged shout blasts into my ears. The dead man. He’s right here. I leap in front of Ailesse and slash out with my knife. I strike nothing. She wildly swings her fisted hands at the air. They connect with an invisible force, but it doesn’t stop the dead man I can’t see. Ailesse is hurled on the ground like a cloth doll.

  I rush over to her. She’s flat on her back. She blinks at me, eyes dazed. “I can’t see them anymore.”

  “The dead?”

  She nods.

  She needs her bones, as well as the flute. I spring for the pouch, but it’s already gone. Jules slips it over her own neck. Her chin quivers. “I’m doing this for you, Bastien.”

  “Doing what?” I frown.

  Ailesse cries out. She’s thrashing on the ground. The dead man is on top of her. My chest tightens. I race over and grab blindly at the man. I manage to shove him off, but a moment later he jabs me roughly in the gut. I double over, coughing.

  Jules backs away, her hand on her brother’s arm. “Marcel and I will figure out how to break the soul-bond.” She bites her lip and glances at the flute in her hand. “I’m sorry, but he said we might need this.”

  I gape at her. “Jules . . .”

  “This is the only way to save you. You’re too smitten with her, Bastien.” Her brow furrows. “We’ll find you when it’s done.”

  I throw a desperate look at Marcel, but he only lowers his eyes.

  They both run away.

  I struggle to my feet. “Wait!”

  Someone barrels into me from the other direction. Invisible. Another of the dead. I grapple with it—him, her, I can’t tell—and slice my knife across its arms. It shrieks and lets go.

  “Leave both of them alone!” Jules shouts at our attackers. Several yards away, she waves the flute as she races off with Marcel. “It’s me you wa
nt!” Footsteps pound after her. A spike of adrenaline hits my veins. Not again. She shouts over her shoulder, “Go, Bastien! Take her and run for the catacombs!”

  Ailesse stops moving. Her eyelids flutter and close. She lies lifeless on the ground.

  Merde.

  I bolt over and fall to my knees, gathering her up in my arms. Her head flops against my neck, and her breath warms my skin. I release a shaky exhale. She’s alive, but she has a large lump on the back of her head. The dead man must have bashed it on the ground.

  I stand and heft her up with me. Cradling her close, I run as fast as possible—painstakingly slow—but at least no more eerie cries come from the forest. For the moment, the dead are gone.

  I rush after Jules and Marcel, but quickly lose their trail. I don’t stop. And I don’t run for the ravine catacombs entrance. My friends won’t be there, and I won’t take Ailesse where Jules can find her. If Jules does find a way to break the soul-bond, she’ll come after Ailesse.

  I square my jaw, inhale deeply, and take the path that forks to Dovré.

  What are you doing, Bastien? This is the girl you wanted to kill.

  I don’t know what I want anymore, but it’s not harming Ailesse—not in any way.

  The city is still dark by the time I stumble in past the walls. My muscles burn, but I’m driven onward with almost manic energy. Ailesse is still limp in my arms, but she’s becoming coherent. She mumbles, “Chazoure . . . can’t see it.” The word has something to do with the ghosts we fought tonight. I still haven’t processed all the surreal events.

  I race through alley after alley. Every rustle and whisper makes me jump. I keep tensing for an invisible enemy to attack. I have to get Ailesse well out of sight.

  In one of the poorer districts, the crumbling spires of Chapelle du Pauvre struggle to reach the sky. The church for the poor is in a state of near ruin and hardly used anymore. I adjust my grip on Ailesse and hurry inside. In one of the alcoves behind the altar, I yank a moth-eaten rug off the floor. Beneath it is a hatch. I flop it open on its hinges. I set Ailesse on her feet, my hand on her waist to support her, and guide her down a rickety ladder.

  “What’s going on?” Her legs wobble. It’s like her body didn’t feel the toll of all her fighting tonight until she lost her graces. “Is Jules down here? I need the flute. My mother . . .” She clutches her head and staggers to stay standing.

  We reach the cellar, and I help her sit on a crate. “Jules ran off with the flute and your bones,” I reply, and my jaw muscle hardens. “Marcel is with her.”

  Ailesse gasps. “But the dead—”

  “We’ll figure out what to do about them later.”

  “I can’t hide down here while innocent people are in danger.” She makes a break for the ladder. I grab her and pull her back. She tries to fight me, but her strength is spent. I push her down on the crate again.

  “You’re hurt, Ailesse—and you don’t have your graces anymore. For tonight, we rest. I promise to look for Jules tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m sure the other Bone Criers are doing something about the dead. It doesn’t all fall on you. Can’t they pen the dead in somewhere?”

  She sits back. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She buries her head in her hands. “This has never happened before. At least not in my lifetime.”

  I try to think of something comforting to say, but my mind runs blank. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before either.

  I feel around in the dark for the tinderbox I’ve stashed down here. I finally find it at the back of a dusty shelf and light a lantern. The candle inside has already melted to a stub. I’ll have to get more soon, along with other supplies. I can’t remember how much I’ve stored in my hideout. I spent so much time here as a child, back before I met Jules and Marcel. This is the one place I never told them about, and here I am, about to show a girl I’ve only known for a couple weeks. A girl I’m desperate to keep alive.

  I open a door leading off the cellar. Ailesse stiffens as I reach for her. Her pupils flicker and reflect the candle’s flame. “Does that lead to the catacombs?” she asks.

  I nod. This entrance beneath Chapelle du Pauvre was built long ago for families who couldn’t afford burial plots above. Here, they were able to carry down their departed loved ones and place them in unmarked graves below. “Can you think of any safer place from the dead?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “The dead don’t want to believe they’re dead. The catacombs are a reminder.”

  I lean against the doorjamb. “They won’t stop chasing you, you know. You’re like a beacon to them.”

  She twists her hands in her lap and gives me such a long look that my ears prickle with heat. “I won’t go in there as your prisoner,” she says, her voice iron.

  I could make her. She’s lost her strength. It would be easy to bind her up again. “And I won’t show you the hidden place in there if you try to kill me,” I counter.

  “I’ve proven I’m not going to kill you.”

  I sigh. “I’m not going to take you prisoner again, Ailesse. We’re just going to have to trust one another.”

  She shifts on the crate. Her dress and the ends of her hair are still caked with gray silt mud. I’m coated in a good layer myself. We’ve brought the old catacombs with us. “Why are you helping me?” she asks.

  I give a little shrug, averting my gaze. “If you die, I die, right? So I figure we need to stick together.”

  “And you promise to search for Jules?”

  “I promise. I know everywhere she’d think to hide.”

  Ailesse exhales. “Everything you saw tonight—all the chaos and danger—happened because my mother played the siren song on the wrong flute. I have to get the right one back to her by the next new moon, or else—”

  “I know.” I want the ghosts of the dead ferried, too.

  Ailesse bites her lower lip. It’s cracked and parched. Did I give her enough water to drink in our old chamber? I glance at her wrists, raw and bruised from the ropes I tied her up with.

  She has every reason to hate me.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll go with you.”

  A rush of coolness washes through my chest. Relief? I don’t understand myself. “Can you walk now?”

  “I think so.”

  I flex my hand and reach for hers. As our palms slide together, my heart gives a hard pound. I briefly meet her umber eyes. They’re uneasy, but also warm.

  They’re also damn gorgeous.

  I swallow a lump in my throat and guide her past the door, then into the tunnel toward my secret hideout in the catacombs.

  30

  Sabine

  AILESSE, WHERE ARE YOU? I’VE recovered my bow and quiver from the shore and have an arrow drawn as I pretend to hunt the golden jackal. I follow Ailesse’s and Bastien’s tracks as far as a knoll in the forest, where they meet up with other tracks—no doubt, her other captors—but then the tracks diverge and Ailesse’s are lost.

  “Stay where I can see you, Sabine,” Milicent says, her voice firm though not unkind. “I may have vulture vision, but I can’t see through a thick copse of trees.”

  I weave out of the copse, where I’ve found no sign of Ailesse, and mask my resentful glare. Odiva assigned Milicent to accompany me, while the other Ferriers were allowed to set off on their own, in order to gain more ground on the hunt for the jackal. The matrone is having me watched. She wants to ensure I don’t risk my life by trying to rescue her daughter. Isn’t Odiva worried about risking Ailesse’s life?

  “It’s almost dawn.” Milicent sighs and looks up at the sky. “We need to turn back. Hopefully the others had better luck.”

  Yes. Vain hope fills my chest. Maybe one of them found Ailesse.

  We return empty-handed to the meeting spot Odiva designated—the cliffs over the submerged land bridge. Several Ferriers are already here. But no Ailesse. A painful lump rises in my throat. She was so close after all these days we’ve been apart. How did I let her get taken again?
>
  Milicent and I near the other Ferriers, and their whispers reach my ears.

  “Where have the dead gone?”

  “Toward the city, of course, where the most people are.”

  “They want Light.”

  “What are we going to do about them?”

  “Yes, Ailesse is alive.”

  “Why hasn’t the matrone sent us to find her?”

  Because the matrone has secrets. I don’t know what they are, but they have to be the reason she’s failing her daughter again and again.

  The sun rises, casting a blade of light across the plateau, and Odiva finally rejoins us. Without the golden jackal. Claw marks scrape along the right side of her face and neck.

  “Matrone.” Giselle gasps. “Are you all right?”

  Odiva holds her head high and wears a reassuring smile. “I came this close to the jackal,” she tells all of us, gesturing to her wounds like they’re tokens of honor. “Tyrus is almost ready to give him to me.”

  I frown, examining her scrapes closer. The lines are grouped three scratches wide, not four like the front claws of a canine. Plus, there’s a white feather with an amber edge caught among the eagle feathers of Odiva’s epaulettes. I know which animal it belongs to—the same animal whose talons match the marks on Odiva.

  The silver owl.

  “We will retire to Château Creux and offer prayers to Tyrus,” Odiva says. “Tomorrow, we shall begin the hunt anew.”

  “What about Ailesse?” I blurt.

  Pernelle looks at me like she’s wondering the same thing. She fidgets with her fox vertebra pendant and steps closer to Odiva. “I can lead another search party, Matrone. We might have better luck this time.”

  Odiva takes a moment to respond. Her eyes are on Pernelle, but the noctule bat skull on her crown seems to stare down at me. “No one is more concerned than I about my daughter,” she says carefully. “But we must place our trust in the gods. If Tyrus has shown us the sign of his sacred jackal, we can rest assured he will protect Ailesse until the beast is ours.”

  My teeth set on edge. Maybe my faith is weak, but I don’t trust the god of the Underworld to safeguard my friend. Odiva has been praying to him in secret, murmuring of the sacrifices she’s given him and something she wants brought back in return. Whatever it is, it means more to her than Ailesse.