Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(125)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

Caitriona raked a hand through her tangled mass of hair. “But we have no way of echoing—not with the vessel in pieces.”

 

The Bonecutter did love a challenge, though I wasn’t sure what they would make of this one. “We’ll start with finding the person I think can mend it, and then we’ll warn the Council of Sistren.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure they already know,” Neve said. “The eruption of magic was telling enough, but even sorceresses get cable news.”

 

“Are we all in agreement?” I asked, a strange, trembling feeling in my chest at that word. We. At the thought of us facing this together.

 

“And until then?” Caitriona asked, returning to her seat at the table. Olwen leaned forward, resting her head on her crossed arms.

 

“We rest,” I said.

 

In the exhausted silence that followed, the news anchor’s voice bled through the wall again. “We go now to Downing Street for a live statement about the events at Glastonbury this morning—”

 

Neve reached down into her fanny pack and pulled out the old, battered CD player inside. Flipping one of the earphones toward me, she pressed the other to her ear and turned the dreamy music’s volume up and up and up, until the anchor’s voice faded and there were only the delicate, cosmic waves of sound, the pearly dewdrops the woman sang about.

 

And, for a moment, even memory released me, and receded.

 

 

 

After charging my cell phone, I searched my bedroom for cash, then made my way to the alcove that housed our desks.

 

I slowed as I approached them, my eyes widening as I took in the acrylic drawers Cabell used to organize his crystals. With the One Vision, I saw what I hadn’t before—several pulsed with absorbed magic, like flame trapped within stone.

 

I didn’t want to look any more after that. Not at the crystals. Not at the crusted stain remover on the rug covering my dried blood—the last evidence of the fight with my brother I’d barely survived.

 

Digging around in my own disaster of a desk drawer, I found enough singles to order us a pizza. As I waited for my cell phone to turn on, I listened to Caitriona cursing and sputtering at the shower faucet on the other side of the wall.

 

Neve and Olwen had already scrubbed themselves clean and changed into some of my and Cabell’s clothes. While they chatted quietly on the couch, I returned to the kitchen to clean up the mess I’d left.

 

I retrieved the broom and dustpan, sweeping up pot shards, soil, the shriveled remains of Florence, and what looked like a trail of dead ants. Nearly three months of mail had piled up by the door, but the stack from my last night here had also fallen as I’d come in, along with my purse and my tarot deck.

 

Griflet batted at my boots’ laces as I gathered everything into my arms. I started to rise, only to spot a card I’d missed. It was partly hidden beneath the refrigerator. My breath caught as I turned it over.

 

The Moon card.

 

That feeling was back, churning in my stomach, turning my head light as air. I brushed a thumb over the image—the moon, the towers, the blue hills. The wolf, and the hound.

 

As I touched the card, a different image swept through my mind, thrumming with darkness. A different moon, a mere sliver of a thing, was swallowed by the growing black of a starless night. Beneath it, a pack of black dogs tore through a field of mist, howling to the shadowed figure that waited ahead.

 

Say my name.

 

The answer was the whisper of an unfamiliar woman’s voice, a song that faded to silence.

 

Lord Death.

 

“Tamsin?”

 

I startled at the sound of my name, breaking the horrified reverie.

 

“Tamsin?” Neve said again, leaning around the doorframe. “I think someone’s at the door . . . ?”

 

Another knock sounded.

 

“Oh—it must be the food,” I said, shaking myself out of my daze. “That was fast.”

 

I rose, brushing my hands against my already filthy jeans, wondering if Neve could hear the way my heart was still pounding as I passed her.

 

Sliding the cash out of my pocket, I unlocked the door. “Sorry about that—”

 

The bills slipped from my hand, fluttering to the floor.

 

The man standing there was dressed in a rumpled suit. He fiddled anxiously with the brim of the hat in his hands, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his face.

 

“What . . . ,” I whispered, unable to catch my breath. “What are you . . .”

 

He looked younger than I remembered. The lines on his forehead had smoothed out, and his many scars were gone. His skin had a healthy glow, rather than the red of too much sun or the pallor of someone who had locked himself away in a dark room with a bottle of rum. And his eyes—a silvery blue, sparkled with humor and emotion.

 

Neve and Olwen hovered protectively behind me as they eyed the stranger.

 

Not a stranger—Nash. Alive.

 

Nash.

 

“Tamsy,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “My gods, you’ve grown.”

 

If my shock had been any less palpable, if I’d been able to move even an inch, I would have slammed the door in his face.

 

“What are you doing here?” I asked faintly. “You’re dead.”

 

“Yes, about that—may I come inside?” he asked, casting a wary glance up and down the street. “I need to speak to you. It’s important.”

 

“The time to talk to me was seven years ago,” I bit out. “Before you abandoned us.”

 

His eyes shut as he drew in a breath. “I was trying to find the Ring of Dispel.”

 

“I know,” I cut in, my hand squeezing the door. “To break Cabell’s curse.”

 

When they opened again, the glitter in his pale eyes was gone. They were graver than I’d ever seen them.

 

“No, Tamsin,” he said. “To break yours.”

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

 

After this story took its time simmering on the back burner of my brain for years, letting me slowly season it with strange family history, dark folklore, and uncanny little ideas that sprouted up like mushrooms, I’m so grateful to have this book finally down on paper and out in the world.