He lags a step behind as we creep through the forest. The dry mulch cracks and snaps beneath his feet. The girls in Dovré don’t mind his clumsiness. I’ve heard them whisper about Marcel’s “sweet face” and “honey eyes.” If they whisper about me, I don’t hear it. Truth is, out of the three of us, Marcel is the only one who’s approachable. Slash, duck, roll. My muscles tense as I think through each move. The Bone Crier will be fast, but I’m ready for her.
“The title of Poirier’s poem is further responsible for the misconception that all Bone Criers are fair-skinned,” Marcel continues, “when in fact ‘blanches’ refers to their dress color.”
“Are you still talking?” Jules skips faster down the deer trail. “This will take until dawn if you don’t keep up.”
She’s right. I wheel back to help Marcel. We’ve been hunting bridges for over a year now, and my itch to finish this is festering. Tonight, Bastien, tonight. “How about you ditch the pack and bow?” I suggest. Marcel looks like a mule with all he’s carrying. “That gear slows you down every time.”
“I’d rather be slow than defenseless.” His eyes stray to a leaf caught on his cloak, and he touches its jagged edges. “Vervain,” he identifies, and sticks it in his pocket. “Besides, the book stays with me. You know that.”
I do. The book goes everywhere Marcel does. It’s the main reason for his pack. The lore of Old Galle is in those folktales. They don’t hold up to Marcel’s logic, but the book was on his father’s bedside table when he died. I understand the need for it. My father’s unwieldy knife isn’t as bulky, but I also never go anywhere without it.
The breeze shifts, and I cough at the sudden scent of roses. “Did one of Madame Colette’s girls corner you on the way out?”
“What? No. Why would you—?”
“The fragrance.” I wink. “Pretty sure someone rubbed half a bottle off on you.”
Marcel sniffs at his collar and curses under his breath. “She’s not a brothel girl,” he mumbles, and speeds up to move past me.
I chuckle, following right on his heels. “Let me guess—Birdine?” The frizzy-haired ginger works at a shop near La Chaste Dame. Her airy voice and warm laughter put customers at ease while her uncle swindles a high price for cheap perfume. “No one else wears that much rosewater.”
Marcel groans. “You can’t say anything. Jules will roast me over a pit if she smells this on me.”
“What’s it to her?”
“She holds a grudge against anyone who looks my way.”
“Especially when you look back.” I give him a knowing grin, but he doesn’t laugh like I expect him to. He’s too busy rubbing crushed pine needles all over his neck and shirt and scouring the path ahead for his sister. I’ve never seen him so flustered. Marcel’s normally as unruffled as they come. “You’re serious about this girl, aren’t you?” I cock my head. “Want me to talk to Jules? Ask her to ease off the leash?” Marcel’s only sixteen, same age as Birdine, but that’s old enough to have some fun without worrying about your sister’s eyes on your back.
His face brightens. “Would you?”
Jules will skin me alive for even bringing it up. She’s mother, father, and more to her brother. That kind of responsibility can’t be easy to shake off. Before a Bone Crier wrecked Jules’s and Marcel’s lives, their mother did her own fair share of damage. She abandoned Théo for a sailor when the kids were small and left port on a ship that never returned. “Of course.” I step over a gnarled root and set a quick pace again. Spin, dive, slice.
“Birdie is tired of perfumery. The musk makes her head ache.”
“Oh?” I’m not sure what he’s getting at, but I smirk at his nickname for her. “She got another way to make a living?”
“She wants to assist me in my work.”
“Pickpocketing?” Jump, stab. I bet the Bone Crier will choose one of the bridges in the deep forest south of Dovré. Some bridges are forgotten and hard to find. Not for me. “Or did you mean the revenge business?”
“Scribe work,” Marcel says slowly, not realizing I’m teasing. “I still have most of my father’s tools. There’s parchment to prepare, lines to rule—plenty for Birdie to do. A scribe does more than merely read and write,” he adds, like all poor kids in Dovré can do the same.
I scratch the back of my neck. Is Marcel really so anxious to go off and commit to a profession already? I never let myself think past the next full moon. “Listen, I could have picked up a chisel and hammer over the years.” If my father were alive, that might have made him happy. But he isn’t alive. Now I can only give him justice. “Turns out all I needed was a knife.”
Marcel pushes a reedy branch out of our path. “I don’t follow your point.”
“Look, have a good time with Birdie—when you can, anyway. But don’t lose focus. Jules and I need you.” I give him a brotherly slap on the shoulder. Without Marcel, we wouldn’t know the finer details about Bone Criers, even though that knowledge is patchy. “Becoming a scribe is sure to make your father proud, but his memory needs to be put to rest first, all right?”
Marcel’s chest sinks, but he musters a brave nod.
Jules whistles a birdcall, impatient for us to catch up. We hurry along faster, but Marcel’s footsteps fall heavy. I nudge away a prick of guilt. Reminding him to keep his head in the present is nothing Jules won’t tell him herself. At least from me it doesn’t come with a shouting match. Marcel was seven when Théo died. Jules was nine. The two years she has on him give her a harder understanding of what they lost. Marcel needs revenge as much as we do. One day he’ll thank us for making him stick it out until the end.
By the time we spy Jules ahead, she’s nearing the first bridge on our route. She’s about to step out of the forest and onto the road when she stops abruptly.
I freeze, always in tune with her, and hold up a hand to stall Marcel. Someone must be nearby. Jules will wait for him to pass. We’re known thieves. If we came across the wrong person—
Jules’s silhouette grows stiff. Hitched-up shoulders. Spread fingers. Not good. How many people are out there? She backtracks slowly, ducking lower with each step.
“What’s happ—?”
I clamp a hand over Marcel’s mouth.
Jules hits a low-lying branch. She’s never that clumsy. “Merde,” she says, and drops flat to the ground. The wild grass rustles. She crawls through it. When I see her again, she’s pointing wildly behind her.
Marcel and I crouch. The three of us gather in a tight circle of heads. “Soldier?” I ask. The king’s guard doesn’t patrol this far from the city wall, but I can’t think of who else could have Jules in a panic.
She shakes her head. “Bone Criers.”
My throat runs dry. I blink stupidly at her. Even Marcel is speechless. “What, here?”
She nods.
“Castelpont?” I’m still disbelieving. I never considered this bridge could be a target, just a shortcut. It’s in full view of Beau Palais.