Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(71)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

“No, that’s the weird part,” he said. “It didn’t sound like they were rummaging around, and they weren’t holding anything as they came out. All I heard was the sound of stones shifting.”

 

“Were they building something?” I asked, touching the dusty top of the nearest trunk. Silver stars were inlaid in the wooden lid, but it was otherwise in shambles. The damp air was drowning in the stench of rot.

 

“Or they were moving something out of the way,” Emrys said, scratching at his chin. “I think there could be another passage or doorway hidden in here.”

 

I whirled around. “A doorway out into the forest?”

 

Now I understood his request to bring Ignatius.

 

Putting my flashlight between my teeth to free up my hands, I retrieved the bundle of purple from my bag. Darkness wove through my thoughts like ink in water.

 

Clutching the Hand of Glory in one fist and returning my flash-light to the other, I asked, “Are we even outside the tower’s walls?”

 

“That’s the question,” Emrys said. “It feels like we should be, right?”

 

“Let’s hope not.”

 

“And why is that?” he asked.

 

“Because why would someone need secret access to the forest when it’s overrun by Children?” I said. “There’s nothing out there—no crops, no fresh water, no animals—that they would need to risk their lives to get, especially while it’s dark out.”

 

“You never disappoint, Bird,” Emrys said, shaking his head. “You always find a way to make things even more terrifying.”

 

I ignored him. “I think we can all agree that what’s happening here is some kind of curse, but why did it only rear its head two years ago?”

 

“It might have been cast to start on an anniversary of something,” Emrys pointed out. “Or someone might have accidentally triggered it.”

 

“Accidentally?” I scoffed. “What’s more likely—that, or this curse being an inside job?”

 

“You think someone in this tower cast the curse.” Emrys turned toward me fully, all traces of humor gone from his expression.

 

“Don’t tell me that thought didn’t cross your mind,” I said.

 

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” Emrys said. “But what’s missing is the why—because they were sympathetic to the druids? Or secretly worship Lord Death? We don’t really have proof of that, do we?”

 

“There is one thing,” I said, surprised at how easy it felt to bounce theories off him. “I didn’t notice it the first night—”

 

“That tends to happen when you’re running for your life,” Emrys said magnanimously.

 

“—but the creatures,” I continued sharply, “seem to work together to hunt. And look at how they’ve coordinated themselves around the moat. I don’t think they have enough sense or awareness to function as a pack, you know?”

 

“So you think someone is controlling them,” he finished.

 

I set Ignatius down and pulled out my lighter.

 

“Hold your breath the first few seconds,” I warned Emrys. “Unless you want to fill your lungs with the smell of burning hair.”

 

He did as I suggested, his face a mixture of alarm and curiosity as Ignatius cracked his stiff knuckles and the skin over his eye slid open. It gave a bleary look around before narrowing as it fixed on me.

 

“I’m just staying alive to spite you at this point,” I told him. “Come on, time to earn your next lard bath.”

 

The Hand of Glory cast a halo around us. Picking him up by the handle, I wondered how I had ever been satisfied with the glimpse of the hidden world of magic it had given me.

 

“We’re looking for passages to unlock, Ignatius,” I said.

 

“You . . . named that thing?” Emrys stayed a step behind me, watching the Hand of Glory from over my shoulder. “Does it actually understand you?”

 

“As much as anyone can.” I brought Ignatius to the nearest wall, letting the light fall upon the stones and slowly walking the length of it.

 

“I always wondered how you managed to work without the One Vision,” Emrys said. “I guess I just assumed that Cabell was very careful about telling you where to step. Obviously, you have it now, even if it meant almost recklessly killing yourself in the process.”

 

I did have it now. It was strange to have Ignatius’s light reveal nothing more than I was already seeing. The gloom of our situation was clearly getting to me, because I felt the first stirrings of fond nostalgia when Ignatius rolled his eye at me.

 

“It did change your eye color, though,” Emrys said, still searching the wall.

 

My face scrunched. Granted, it had been a while since I’d seen a mirror, but . . . “No, it didn’t.”

 

“They used to be a darker blue. Like sapphire,” he said, still running his hands over the stones.

 

I slowed, chewing at my bottom lip as I tried and failed to figure out how to respond. He looked back and our gazes clashed in the soft, warm light.

 

“That thing’s a bit peevish, isn’t it?” Emrys said, turning away quickly. “He looks like he wants to strangle me.”

 

I hissed as Ignatius dripped hot wax on my hand. “You don’t know the half of it.”

 

We went over the walls twice, but if there was a doorway, either it wasn’t locked, rendering Ignatius useless, or the cloaked figure had been extremely careful in disguising it. Eventually, the call of the scavenge became too tempting for two Hollowers to resist, and we turned our attention to the room’s waiting treasures.

 

“I can’t get over the fact that you’ve been using a Hand of Glory this whole time,” Emrys said as he flipped a trunk’s lid open. “Those things are incredibly rare. Sorceresses find them so abhorrent, they don’t make them anymore—and believe me, my father has asked. Many times.”

 

“Nash gave it to me when I was little,” I said, something in me bridling at the memory—at the fact that I was even talking about this, and to Emrys. “And before you ask, I don’t know who he stole it from.”

 

Emrys set the decomposing blankets he’d pulled out back in the trunk. His forehead creased. “Why do you always do that?”