“The dead are drawing out their Light.” My skin prickles as I think back on what my mother taught me before I attempted my rite of passage. If the Chained aren’t ferried, they’ll seek vitality from the living. And if they steal enough Light from a person, they’ll kill them, body and soul. “I wish I could be out there with you, helping you find the flute.”
“You need your grace bones first,” Bastien replies in a soothing voice. “I can manage to avoid the dead, but you . . .” He rubs the back of his neck.
I nod listlessly and look into the black space where the quarry is. It isn’t fair that I’m able to hide to protect myself when innocent people can’t do the same. “What did you bring this time?” I ask, struggling to lighten my tone. I’m tired of talking in circles about an impossible situation.
He shifts into a cross-legged position and pushes his satchel toward me. I pull away from the relief of Château Creux, flushing from the effort that even that small movement takes me, and peek inside. I can’t refrain from smiling as I withdraw another lantern and several candles. I look up at Bastien and find he’s watching me carefully. “It’s not the Night Heavens,” he says, “but two lanterns are better than one.”
Warmth streams inside my chest. He’s doing everything he can to make this place welcoming. “Thank you.”
He holds my gaze a long moment, and my warmth spreads, radiating to my fingertips and the ends of my toes. “There’s some food in there, too.” He points at the satchel.
Food, I expected. I’m more curious about the cloth-wrapped bundle. “What about that?”
His brows rise when he sees where I’m looking. “Oh . . . that’s, um . . . well . . .” He clears his throat. Scratches his arm. Pops a knuckle. “Really, how much longer can you go around wearing that ragged thing”—he waves a hand at the general direction of my body—“before it falls off you completely?” He winces. “Before it tears to shreds, I mean.” Is he blushing? I can’t be sure in the light of our one glowing lantern.
“You got me a dress?” My own cheeks warm.
He swallows and nods.
We’re both quiet for a moment. “Can I see it?”
“Um, sure.” He slowly passes over the bundle.
A whirlwind of butterflies dance inside me as I unwrap the cloth and see the fabric of the dress within, fine and woolen and fern green. My fingers run over its smooth weave, and I softly smile. “This is Sabine’s favorite color.”
“Your friend from the bridge?” Bastien asks. I lift surprised eyes at him. “Sometimes you call out her name while you’re sleeping,” he explains.
“Do I?” My throat constricts. I wish I remembered those dreams. I haven’t had a vision of Sabine since before I saw her at the land bridge. It makes her absence all the more difficult. “She’s one of my sister Leurress,” I say. “Not my real sister—each Leurress only has enough time to conceive one child before . . .” Before the child’s father must die. I bite my lip and chance another glance at Bastien. He doesn’t look angry or resigned or even accepting. Maybe he’s still trying to process the fact that a year after meeting me he’ll die, whether or not my knife is in his heart. “Sabine is my best friend.”
“You must miss her,” he murmurs.
The deep ache in my chest rises. It feels like a lifetime ago since Sabine and I walked the forest path to Castelpont, our arms linked as she asked me to dream of who I wished my amouré to be. I never imagined someone like Bastien—not fully—but now I can’t imagine anyone else. “You must miss Jules and Marcel,” I counter.
He looks down and rubs a scuff on his boot. I pick at my fingernails, watching him. How much does he miss Jules? She’s like family to him, that I know, but do his feelings for her run any deeper? He rolls out the muscles in his back and shoulders and stands. “Want to have a bath?”
My brows shoot up.
“Alone, I mean.” He cringes at himself, and I suppress a smile. “I’ll walk you down to the pool, if you want. You can change into your new dress afterward.”
“All right.”
He lights the second lantern, and I pick up the other. I move slowly, careful to pace out my waning strength. He guides me down the scaffolding and onto the floor of the quarry. One of its tunnels leads to a pool of clean groundwater. I’ve bathed here twice already, but when I have to put on my tattered rite of passage dress afterward, I feel dirty again.
“Do you need help coming back?” Bastien asks. “I can wait outside here.”
I clutch the fern-green dress close to my chest. “I’ll be fine.”
Bastien nods. Twice. He runs his fingers through his hair and tries to pull an indifferent expression, the same one he mastered in our old catacombs chamber. It doesn’t look so masterful now. He keeps taking deep breaths and avoiding my eyes. “See you soon,” he finally says, and strides away. I stifle a laugh.
The water is warm and divine. I languidly scrub my hair and body until every speck of limestone dust vanishes, then I comb my fingers through my hair while I sit at the edge of the pool. When all the tangles are gone, I slip on the fern-green dress and leave my ruined rite of passage dress behind. A deep calmness settles over me as I make my way back to Bastien’s room. I feel lighter than I have in days. My skin doesn’t itch, finally able to breathe. I’ll never take clean clothes for granted again.
My leg and arm muscles shake as I climb the scaffolding. At the moment, I don’t mind the effort. Bastien’s back is turned when I step into the room. He’s lighting a candle he’s placed on a shelf ledge. My lips part as I glance around me. At least ten more candles are lit within and perched on various places along the floor and walls. The flickering amber glow against the limestone is beautiful. I could grow accustomed to this place, if it always looked this way. “I thought you’d ration those candles for the lanterns,” I chide him gently.
He turns his head partway and smiles. “For one night we can afford more light.”
This is another gift for me, I realize, and I find myself gazing softly at him. The smallest tremble runs through his hand as he closes the lid of his tinderbox. He’s still acting nervous, which is adorable because it’s so unlike his usual confidence. “There’s food if you want it.” He angles around, but only far enough to tip his chin at the food he’s laid out on a blanket for us. He hasn’t looked at me directly since I came back from bathing.
“Thank you.” I linger a moment longer until I feel a splash of water hit my feet. My dripping hair is forming a puddle around me. I move to the edge of the pit and lean over to wring my hair out. It’s then I catch Bastien finally looking at me. I freeze and hold my breath. His eyes are timid, almost fearful, as they sweep over my dress and gradually lift to my face. My chest flutters, and I straighten, smoothing out the folds of my skirt. “The dress fits perfectly,” I say.
He swallows. “I noticed.” The tinderbox rattles in his hand as he places it on the ledge. He releases a steadying exhale and goes to sit on the blanket. He plucks a small red fruit from a clay bowl.
“Wild strawberries?” I grin and come to sit across from him. So far we’ve subsisted on a diet of bread, cheese, and dry strips of salted meat.
“I found them growing along the road. I thought maybe you’d like them.”
I take a few from the bowl and bite into one. A moan of pleasure escapes me at the burst of flavor after such bland food. “That’s probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
A smile teases the corner of Bastien’s mouth.
I chew and swallow two more strawberries. “I’ve been thinking about the engravings on the bone flute. They might help us break our bond.”
“How?” He sits up taller. We’ve been doing our best to find a way, but we don’t have Marcel’s books or his brilliance, and nothing I’ve shared about my famille has gotten us any closer.
I tuck a lock of wet hair behind my ear. “Well, each side of the flute has slightly different symbols. Look.” I reach for a stick of charcoal in a little tin against the wall, the
n scoot beside Bastien. I pull back a corner of the wool blanket. On the limestone floor beneath, I sketch an arch that looks like an upside-down crescent moon, and then draw an inverted triangle on top of it.
“That represents water.” I point to the triangle. “All together, this is the symbol of the soul bridge—the land bridge that emerges from the sea. I told Marcel that much, but he didn’t notice the corresponding symbol of the new moon—a solid circle. It’s above the tone holes, not below them.” I draw the circle and space the symbols apart. “I think the new moon is engraved on the flute to show what time the soul bridge can be used, which makes sense, because that’s when the Leurress ferry.”
Bastien chews on his lip. “And that’s connected to our soul-bond?”
“Not exactly. But the symbols on the back of the flute might be.” I sketch the symbol of the soul bridge again, except this one has a horizontal line running across the middle of the inverted triangle. Above that, I draw a circle that’s not shaded in and set my finger on it. “That’s the symbol of the full moon.”
He nods. “When a Bone Crier can summon her soulmate with the flute, right?”
“Yes, but what’s strange is that this segmented triangle means earth.” I point to it. “How many bridges can you think of that have earth beneath them and not water?”
Bastien’s brow furrows. “Only Castelpont.”
“Exactly. And I chose that bridge, out of all the bridges in South Galle, for my rite of passage. I didn’t realize it had any special significance, but it must have if it’s engraved on the bone flute.”
Bastien scratches his head. “I’m still not sure how any of this is connected to our soul-bond.”
“Why? Castelpont is where our soul-bond was formed.”
“But does that mean the bridge is what formed it?” He studies my confused expression. “Think about the land bridge, for starters. From what you’ve told me, the dead are lured there because that’s where the siren song is played. You also said the reason the dead are lured to you is because you were the one to play the song—at least with the more powerful bone flute.”
I nod, wondering what all of this has to do with what I’ve been talking about.
“Have you considered that what really forged our bond was also the song and not the bridge?” He spreads his hands open. “Maybe the bridge wasn’t essential to the magic.”
I sit back and drop my stick of charcoal. “I don’t know. Bridges are deeply sown into everything it is to be a Leurress. They symbolize the connection between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and Ferriers are a part of that link. They’re just as important as the bridge itself in taking souls to the Beyond. Bridges even represent our bodies during rites of passage. That’s why a Leurress must bury her grace bones at the foundations of a bridge so the gods can channel her energy to match her to her amouré—and that’s why her amouré comes to that same bridge to look for her.”
“But it’s still not the bridge that ultimately cements the bond, right?” Bastien gestures at my drawings. “You’re saying the bone flute has these symbols on it to show what times it can be used—either to ferry souls or to call a soulmate. But if a Leurress can use any bridge for her rite of passage, why would the flute depict a bridge over earth? That would mean she couldn’t use the flute anywhere else except Castelpont. But the Leurress do use the flute at other bridges—bridges over water. At least the bridge my father was on was over water when I saw him . . .” Bastien’s voice cracks, and he masks it by coughing.
I start to reach for him, then draw back. I want to offer him comfort, but how can I? It was a Leurress, like me, who killed his father. I tighten my hand into a fist. For the first time, I’m bitterly angry with whoever it was in my famille that hurt Bastien so badly.
He rubs his fingers across his lips and takes another moment to compose himself. “What I’m saying is Castelpont can’t be significant to all the Leurress.”
“But could it be significant to us?” I lean closer, my pulse surging faster with hope. “Maybe if you and I return there on the next full moon, we can break our bond.”
“How?”
I shake my head, trying to find a reason. “Different songs make different things happen. The song I played near the soul bridge isn’t the same song I played to lure you to Castelpont. Maybe there’s another song that can help us.”
“Do you know any different songs?”
I sigh. “No.”
A nearby candle flame quivers as we grow quiet. The wick needs trimming. On the floor between us, Bastien’s fingers subtly bend and straighten. He takes a tremulous breath and slides his hand over mine. He gives it a gentle squeeze. “We’ll figure it out, Ailesse.”
Warmth shivers through me. I shouldn’t allow his touch to affect me like this. Not when our fates are so bleak. But I can’t help it. I tentatively turn my hand over. Our palms meet, our eyes connect, and I curl my fingers around his. My heart gives a hard pound, reminding me to draw breath. “Bastien,” I whisper. There’s so much I want to say, but I can’t find the words to express how much I’m coming to care for him. “I . . . I don’t want you to die.”
He doesn’t look away from me. Any trace of his earlier shyness is gone. “I don’t want you to die either.” The candles shimmer in his eyes, and he brushes his thumb over mine. “There’s an Old Gallish phrase my father used to say whenever he’d have to leave for a little while. He’d hold my hand just like this and whisper, ‘Tu ne me manque pas. Je ne te manque pas.’ It means ‘You’re not missing from me. I’m not missing from you.’”
I smile softly, committing those words to memory. “I like that.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Ailesse.” Bastien’s gaze is earnest and tender and deeply affectionate. It’s like Elara’s Light shining down on me. “We’re going to stick together, all right? No one’s going to die.”
I nod, trying my best to believe it. I lay my head on his shoulder.
No one’s going to die.
35
Sabine
I RUN OUT FROM THE catacombs tunnel and roughly extinguish my torch on the grass. With a furious cry, I hurl the torch across the ravine floor and dig my fingers in my hair. I still haven’t found Ailesse.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve ventured here, finally daring to enter the catacombs with the help of my three grace bones. Now I resent them. If my muscles ached or I was short of breath or my fatigue felt unendurable, I might feel like I was working hard enough to save my best friend. Instead, I’m growing so agitated and angry that I want to claw anything in sight. I don’t know if it’s an effect of my new golden jackal grace or my own frustration with myself.
Eleven days have passed since ferrying night—twenty-six since Ailesse’s failed rite of passage. She must think I haven’t even tried to help her. I won’t return home until I do, although I’m avoiding home, anyway. No one knows I killed the jackal.
I shake the silt mud from my hunting dress and hear the swoop of the silver owl before she lands on the ravine floor. I glare at her heart-shaped face and lovely eyes, glinting in the afternoon sunlight. She tilts her head, rasp-screeches, and flies to the top of the ravine, waiting for me to follow. I place a hand on my hip. “Are you going to lead me to Ailesse this time?”
She flaps away, and I lock my jaw, racing after her. I’m careful to run light on my toes and keep under the tree cover, but the miles pass without any cries from the dead. Lately, I’ve spied Ferriers trying to herd them into an abandoned prison near Château Creux, but they have to guard them constantly. Some souls have inexplicably escaped the iron bars, and the last time I checked, only twelve or so are still there—nowhere near the number that came to the land bridge.
I chase the silver owl another mile until I’m standing at the foot of Castelpont. Again. A low growl rumbles in my chest. The last few days have been a maddening circle of running in and out of the catacombs and back and forth to Castelpont. And I have nothing to show for it.
The silver owl blinks from her perch on the center of the bridge’s parapet. She might as well roost here for how often she brings me to this place. “If Elara sent you, she’s going to have to teach you how to speak,” I snap, although Ailesse would call that blasphemy.
The silver owl scratches her claws on the mortared stones, emphasizing our location.
“That doesn’t help.”
She spreads her wings, flies in a circle, and lands on the opposite parapet.
I throw my arms in the air. “What do you want? I already killed the golden jackal, which isn’t the fiercest predator, by the way.” The best graces he gave me are more strength, greater endurance, and excellent hearing. Good, but not remarkable. A common wolf has more. So much for my last grace bone.
The owl screeches and hops along the parapet.
I shake my head. “Don’t come back for me again unless you’re not going to waste my time.”
I steal a glance at the walls of Dovré as I leave the silver owl behind. The glow of chazoure hangs over the city like an eerie mist. Souls are continuing to gather here. Since ferrying night, I haven’t overheard any travelers on the road mention obvious attacks from the dead, but maybe leaching Light from the living is quiet work. I pray it’s long work, too, and no one dies before I find Ailesse and the bone flute. The constant gnaw of guilt inside me sharpens to a bite.
I hurry back to the hollow where I buried the golden jackal and take even more care to be covert. So far no one in my famille has tracked me here, and I want to keep it that way. I’ve been retreating to this place when I force myself to rest and eat.
I kneel beside a trickling stream. The water weaves down moss and rocks and forms a small waterfall. I check my trap, and a silver flash of scales greets me. My stomach pangs with ravenous hunger. Since I claimed the jackal’s graces, I’ve developed an intense craving for meat, which I’m trying to satiate by eating fish. The old Sabine would shudder at that, but now my mouth waters instead.
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