Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(31)
Author: Alexandra Bracken
I tried to summon a smile, but it wouldn’t come. After a moment, Cabell looked down, hugging his arms to his chest. Up close, he looked terrible. His pale skin emphasized the dark, heavy circles beneath his eyes. He’d lost some weight in recent weeks, and it had left a hollowness in his cheeks I hadn’t seen since we were children.
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. This was what we always did after we argued: kept things light so we could float above the dust settling between us. When you only had each other in life, no fight was worth the risk of shattering that bond. It should have been enough that he’d changed his mind and come; that was its own apology.
But it wasn’t. Something ugly had been revealed the last time we’d been together, like overturning undisturbed soil to find worms and bones hidden below. And now, having seen the truth of it, I didn’t know how to go back—that was what scared me the most.
“You’re with me on this, right?” I asked, feeling myself choke up. Feeling that searing desperation again. It had to be fine. We had to be fine.
“All the way,” he said. “I want to find the ring, and I want to know what happened to Nash, and I really don’t want you to get yourself killed stumbling around without the One Vision.”
“About that . . . ,” I began.
Cabell’s face fell. He leaned in closer, studying my eyes until I turned away. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
Of course he’d figured it out—I’d spent the better part of a year begging Nash to find the venom for me.
“I did, and I have no regrets because it worked.”
Cabell swore under his breath. “Where did you even get the basilisk venom?”
“Where do you think?”
“What was that about not taking on any more favors?” Cabell shook his head. “I swear to every god in the sky that if you ever do something this stupid again, I’m going to kill you myself.”
“Noted,” I said, quickly turning us back to the matter at hand. “You’re sure about working with a sorceress?”
“She doesn’t know the ring has to be claimed through deadly force,” he said, his voice low. “I grilled her on it while we were looking for you.”
“She could have been lying,” I pointed out. “Playing us.”
“Like she played you back in Boston?” He arched a brow at my scowl. “Oh, come on. It happens to the best of us. As Nash used to say—”
He stopped himself, his gaze drifting to the ground.
“Mistakes are like wasps,” I finished quietly. “They’ll keep stinging if you let them.”
Cabell let out a soft sigh.
“Look,” he began, “you may be right and Neve will put all the pieces together on her own. But I know we can get to Nash and the ring first. I know we can. Keeping her and Dye close is the best way to stay one step ahead of them.”
“Fine,” I said, relenting. “We’ll Prague it and deal with the fallout later.”
He put a comforting hand on my head, drawing me closer for a brief hug. “Man . . . after all this time . . . I can’t believe Nash might be in Avalon. Maybe he got trapped there. That would explain why he never came home.”
The mention of Nash’s name reminded me of what else we’d found hidden with his note.
Taking Cabell’s arm, I led him back to the shed and fished out the tarnished coin to show both him and Neve.
“Do either of you recognize this or know what the engraving means?”
Cabell smoothed a thumb against the words. “I am the dream of the dead,” he read. “I’ve never seen anything like this, but there is magic attached to it. It feels cold. Neve?”
She shook her head. “No clue.”
Emrys had been so quiet and still, leaning against the wall of the shed, that I’d nearly forgotten he was there until he spoke. “There’s no need for it to remain a mystery, folks. The note said to bury it with ash and bone if he didn’t return.”
Cabell blinked. “Does anyone just happen to have some bone on them?”
I shook my head.
Neve let out a happy hum. “You are all in luck . . .”
The sorceress went to work pulling out an array of small bones and skulls from her pack, setting them on the ground. When she finished, she waved her hands over them, as if presenting her very own dead-animal petting zoo.
“Doesn’t it creep you out to collect bones like this?” I asked.
“Why would it creep me out?” Neve asked. “Death is beautiful, and people only fear it because they see it as an end, not the beginning it is. Also, I think the little ones are kind of cute. I mean, look—”
She selected a tiny bird skull with a jagged beak and, pitching her voice higher, said, “Hellooo, Tamsin. Pick me for your oh-so-mysterious coin and I will be your grim companion on this dark journey of discovery.”
Cabell laughed. I didn’t.
Neve put the skull back down and picked up the bone beside it. It was in a glass case edged with gold and shaped like a foot, complete with empty sockets on the toenails, where jewels had likely been.
“This may be an even better option,” Neve said. “It’s part of the foot of Saint Henwg.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Well, exactly,” Neve said. “It’s not like the bones of well-known people are easy to come by. I borrowed it from Auntie.” She sighed. “Okay, no, I stole it.”
The sorceresses loved few things more than revenge, even if that revenge waited centuries. From what I’d read, they took considerable pleasure in using the bones of those whose burgeoning religion had violently destroyed the ancient pagan faiths.
“And then here we have—”
“Let’s just use the saint’s bone,” I said, cutting her off. I dug a small hole in the dirt floor with my collapsible axe and gave the coin one last look before tossing it in. Neve opened a flap on the bottom of the foot, and a miserable, yellowed bone the length of a finger dropped beside the coin. All four of us leaned in, staring at it.
“Huh,” I said.
Emrys lit a small branch with his lighter, then passed it to me. As it burned down, ash and embers drifted into the hole.