Ailesse kneels on the bridge, closes her eyes, and lifts her cupped hands to the Night Heavens. She murmurs a prayer to Tyrus’s bride, Elara, separated from him at the dawn of time by the mortal world that formed between their kingdoms.
I steal a glance at Elara’s milky veil of stars and offer up a prayer of my own. Help me endure this night. I rush away, fumbling with Ailesse’s shoulder necklace. All three of her grace bones are tied onto it with waxed cording. I feel none of their power.
I unravel the knots, remove the bones, and I climb down the steep bank of the riverbed. The soil at the bottom is cracked and dry, so I grab a jagged rock to dig the first hole. I bury Ailesse’s first bone, the wing bone of a peregrine falcon, then hurry to the second foundation corner. I’m grateful I don’t have to get wet. If Ailesse had chosen a bridge over water, I’d be swimming right now. I’d have to tie her bones to the foundations beneath the waterline.
Every flutter of the wind makes me flinch and scan our surroundings. If anyone other than Ailesse’s amouré comes this way and grows suspicious, Ailesse might not be able to defend herself—not until I’m finished down here and she plays the siren song. She can’t wield her graces until then.
I bury the second bone and rush to the other side of the riverbed to bury the third bone. Each hole is shallower than the last, but I don’t trouble myself to dig any deeper. I leave the fourth corner undisturbed, reserving that spot for the man Ailesse will kill. It will be his grave—the last honor he’ll receive in this life. Yet another reason to be grateful this isn’t a bridge over water. Casting a dead man in a river, to be washed up who knows where, seems a poor form of thanks after taking his life.
“I’m finished!” I call, and throw one more handful of earth over the last grace bone. “You can begin.”
“I’ll wait until you’re back up here.” Ailesse’s clear and relaxed voice echoes back to me. Her prayer must have calmed her. “Otherwise you won’t be able to see me.”
I stifle a groan and start climbing the riverbank. “It’s not as if your amouré is going to materialize when you play the first note. He could live on the other side of Dovré for all we know.”
She lets out a loud sigh. “I didn’t think about that. I hope this doesn’t take all night.”
As much as I want her rite of passage to be done with, part of me wishes her amouré never comes. The gods demand enough of a Leurress over her lifetime. They shouldn’t ask us to make a sacrifice like this, too. But Tyrus is said to be exacting. His cape is made from the smoke and ash of oath breakers and cowards, the worst sinners in the Underworld, those caught in the eternal fire of his wrath. Even murderers suffer a better fate on the Perpetual Sands, Tyrus’s scorching desert where thirst is never quenched.
I finally reach the top, panting, and brace my hands on my hips. “I’m here. Go on.”
Ailesse rolls back her shoulders. “Let’s see if I can kill a man without getting his blood on my dress.” She winks. “That will show Isla.”
My stomach folds on itself. I don’t smile back. This is really happening. Ailesse is going to meet her match, only to slaughter him. “Be careful,” I say, even though her promised lover is the one who’s in danger. Still, I can’t shake my sense of foreboding.
“I’m always careful.” Her daring grin betrays the very opposite and doubles my worry. A little fear is wise.
Resigned, I retreat to the nearest tree and stake my place behind it. I’m partially hidden, but I can still see my friend.
Ailesse brushes her hair over her shoulder, neck tall like a swan, and brings the bone flute to her mouth.
5
Bastien
TONIGHT I’LL HAVE MY REVENGE. I feel it deep inside, past the jittery energy that’s kept me awake the last twenty-four hours. After tonight, I’ll sleep in peace.
I tighten the strap of the sheath harness on my back. Both my knives are hidden there. The Bone Crier will ask me to dance—part of her twisted cat-and-mouse game—but I won’t reveal I’m the cat until the time is right.
“I still vote we attack from the trees,” Marcel says, the last to crawl out from the cellar tunnel of La Chaste Dame. The brothel is near the south wall of the city. We could have taken the path through the catacombs, but this tunnel—the one Madame Colette turns a blind eye to if I toss her a coin—leads out of Dovré on the way to the bridges we’ll scout tonight. Last full moon, Jules, Marcel, and I started west and worked our way east. This time we’ll travel down from the city to the royal shipyard on the coast. South Galle is webbed with water and bridges.
“No, we’re going to do this properly, face-to-face.” I’m clean for the first time in weeks. We snuck into the Scarlet Room of La Chaste Dame, where Baron Gerard likes to slum around. Jules scrubbed my hair with his soap and used his razor on my face. She even gave me a splash of the baron’s fragranced water. Now I smell of licorice, watercress, and cloves. It’s enough to make me sneeze, but Jules promises the scent is enticing. When the Bone Crier plays her song, I should pass off as the fated boy she lures. Whoever he is.
“How do I look?” I ask for the first and hopefully last time in my life. Lunge, strike, parry. I practice my formations in my mind as Jules fusses with the cape I “borrowed” from the brothel. It’s fastened across my back and one shoulder, the same way upper-crusters from the noble district wear them. We’ll return it to the Scarlet Room once we’re done tonight. Madame Colette will poison us in our sleep if she learns we’re thieving from her regulars.
“Almost perfect,” Jules replies. “The only flaw is your breath. The sausage was a mistake.”
“You’re the one who pilfered it—and ate the other link.”
“I’m not the one trying to impress a demigoddess.” Jules turns away and rummages through the underbrush.
“Bone Criers aren’t immortal.” Marcel wipes his dusty hands on his trousers. “They live as long as we do. The old songs perpetuate that myth, but if you look closely to their source, specifically the epic poem Les Dames Blanches by Arnaud Poirier, you’ll see where the confusion began,” Marcel divulges in a lazy drawl. He isn’t trying to impress us, and he isn’t worried much about changing our opinion either. He speaks like he always does, sharing whatever pops into his head and turns the cogs of his mind. “‘With divine gifts, they lure, they kill,’ Poirier says, but of course he means Bone Criers derive power from the gods, not that they are gods. They just claim to descend from them.”
Jules plucks a handful of leaves, half listening to her younger brother. “Mint,” she announces, not a moment before she shoves it in my mouth.
I choke and spit out a couple leaves. “I don’t need the whole plant!”
“Maybe you do.” She fans her face and strolls past me. I don’t miss the sultry sway of her hips. She’s wearing all black from her leather bodice to her boots. She even sports a black hood-piece to hide her blond hair. Jules is always the shadow in our hunts, and I’m the distraction. Although she’s doing a better job at that right now. As for Marcel, we try to keep him out of sight. He’s good for strategy, but when it comes to stealth, he has two feet in the same boot.