Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(30)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

“We’d chased down every other lead at that point,” I said faintly.

 

“Normally she won’t help Hollowers find treasures they’ll only sell, but he said he needed it for one of his children, so she agreed,” Neve explained. “Nashbury gave his address as your guild library, so I kept an eye out for you there and you actually showed up, allowing our destinies to collide once more.”

 

“So what was all that stuff in the tarot shop about?” I asked. “Just to toy with me?”

 

“I was trying to feel you out,” Neve said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Which I did. And now we’re here, hiding in this shed. You, confused. Me, with an offer.”

 

“Yeah, about that,” I began. “Could you at least put the wand away first?”

 

“Oh—yeah, of course.” She glanced down at it as if surprised she was still gripping it, then unzipped her fanny pack, somehow managing to slip the wand inside. It had to be spelled to hold more than it was meant to.

 

“Okay, seriously, what’s the deal with the bag?” I asked when I couldn’t stand another second of staring at its terrifying cats.

 

“Isn’t it so cute?” she said brightly. “It even came with a hat that I think would look really good on you if you want to borrow it for a disguise.”

 

Neve retrieved a dark bundle from the depths of the fanny pack and shook it out, a black baseball cap with two green-lined cat ears attached to the top of it and the words FELINE SPOOKY! embroidered between them.

 

“She absolutely wants to borrow that,” Emrys said, delighted.

 

“Your proposal . . . ?” Cabell prompted. I felt his hand shift from my shoulder to grip the back of my jacket, clearly afraid I might launch myself at our smirking rival.

 

“Yes, proposal. Right,” Neve said. “Here’s the thing—I think we should work together.” She glanced at Emrys. “Not you. I don’t know you.”

 

“Emrys Dye, at your service,” he offered wryly.

 

She sniffed a bit at that, and I warmed to her, just a little, for having no reaction to his family name.

 

“I can use my magic to help locate your father—Nash—and you can use the ring on whatever curse you may need broken,” Neve said. “Then I can claim it for the Council of Sistren.”

 

The name of the governing body of sorceresses always made the hair on my arms prickle.

 

“Do you know what they want it for?” I asked.

 

“I have no idea why they want it.” Neve shrugged. “I only know they do, and I’m going to be the one who brings it to them. It’s the only way I’ll be assigned a tutor and progress with my training.”

 

“You don’t have a tutor?” I asked. That tracked with her being raised by one of the Cunningfolk, not her mother or another sorceress relation. “Then how are you able to cast?”

 

“Um, hello,” she said, clearly annoyed. “I taught myself.”

 

I exchanged a look with Cabell, who only raised his brows in reply. I’d never heard of a sorceress who hadn’t been taught by another sorceress—usually one of her own blood relations.

 

“Ah, so they won’t accept you into their ranks because you don’t have formal training,” Emrys said. “But the only way for you to get formal training is to be accepted into their ranks. That’s utterly maddening.”

 

“I’m beginning to like you,” Neve told him. “You can stay. For now.”

 

“Good,” Emrys said, “because I have an offer of my own.”

 

“Can’t wait to hear this,” Cabell muttered.

 

“We all want the same thing, and we all have a piece of the puzzle that will help us get it,” he said. “Neve has her power, of course. Tamsin knows where Nash has gone. And I think I know how he got there.”

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“What?” Cabell echoed. “Tams, you know where he went?”

 

“Oooh,” Neve said, looking from one to the other of us. “This sounds promising.”

 

I glanced at my brother, flashing him a meaningful look. “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”

 

He obliged, following me out and shutting the door behind us. We walked a few paces away.

 

“What exactly are we doing?” I whispered.

 

“Prague-ing,” he answered simply.

 

The Prague job had been Nash’s first and only time voluntarily working with a sorceress, long before he found Cabell and me. The sorceress had been a novice, new to her craft, and had hired Nash to retrieve a rumored vial of ichor—the divine blood of gods—from the tomb of her ancestor. Ultimately, he’d used her inexperience against her. The tomb had a rebounding curse so that whoever broke the curse at the entrance could not enter without falling dead. There’d been no ichor inside, and he never had to worry about her coming after him.

 

I blew out a harsh breath through my nose. “That’s not going to work. She may come off inexperienced, but she’s way too smart and way too knowledgeable about magic to not figure it out eventually. And as you know, withholding information only works for so long.”

 

Cabell winced at my tone, running a hand through his shaggy dark hair. He looked to me again, his expression twisting with regret. “What I said at home—”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

 

“It does,” he pressed on, leaning back against the rock beside me. “I shouldn’t have kept the information about the ring and Nash from you, but I promised him.”

 

“Cab, I do get it,” I said. “For my part, I’m sorry I didn’t see how much you were struggling with everything.”

 

He was silent for a long time, working his jaw as if fighting the words he wanted to say. There was a hardness to his face that had never been there before, a new piece of armor to hide his feelings behind. “I shouldn’t have walked away,” he began hoarsely. “I should never have let you leave to do this on your own. I really had my head up my ass about the whole thing. It’s just . . . hard to hope.”

 

“The only thing that really matters to me is that you’re here,” I said. “Took your damn time with it, though.”

 

He let out a rueful laugh. “And my punishment was getting caught by some of the stupidest Hollowers in our guild.”