“You first, Jules,” Bastien says. “Then you can guide the Bone Crier through to the other side.”
“I say we let her squirm.” I startle at the nearness of Jules’s voice, just behind me, deep and scratchy for a girl. If I had my shark tooth, I’d have sensed her closeness. But my grace bones are in her possession now, a fact she keeps gloating about when she’s not hissing about her hurt leg. I hope it falls off.
“Our first priority is to get her deep underground,” Bastien replies.
Underground? My chest tightens at the suffocating thought. The courtyard beneath Château Creux is different from wherever Bastien means; it’s at least open to Elara’s Night Heavens and the breeze from the Nivous Sea. “Where are you taking me?”
His spicy scent hits me as he shifts nearer. “The catacombs. I’ll let you guess by which entrance.”
My heart hammers. The catacombs are rumored to have several entrances, and some sections don’t join up with others and lead to dead ends. “No, you can’t . . . I can’t . . .” I’ll be starved of moonlight and starlight, my last sources of strength. I have to get away. Now.
I shove Bastien hard in the chest. His hold breaks, and I run—only four feet. He grabs my other arm and twists it behind my back. I suck in a sharp gasp of pain.
He chuckles. “You were right, Marcel,” he calls a little ahead of us.
“Was I?” Marcel replies. “I mean, I usually am, but what about this time?”
“Bone Crier magic comes from more than just bones.” Smug satisfaction drips from Bastien’s voice. “They’re creatures of the night.”
“Ah, yes . . .” Marcel drawls indifferently. “That’s partly why they worship Elara.” He doesn’t sound like he has the venom to commit murder, like Bastien or Jules, or even help them strip me of all my magic. But his apathy could be a mask for viciousness. “They need sustenance from the goddess’s moon and stars.”
“And without it,” Bastien adds, adjusting his hold on my arm so he’s no longer twisting it, “the princess here will be nothing except a lure for her queen.”
“Lure?” Jules asks, wariness creeping into her tone. “What are you talking about?”
I grind my teeth. It’s clear enough to me. “Is that your big plan?” I turn my face to Bastien. “Using me as bait to kill my mother? How? You won’t be able to steal her grace bones—and she has the finest in my famille.” I throw all the cruelty I can into my tight-lipped smile. “She will utterly ruin you.”
“Bastien . . .” Jules says from behind me, her voice low. “Maybe we should rethink this.”
I feel him bristle. “I have been rethinking this. Our fathers deserve more than the death of a random Bone Crier. We need to stop ritual sacrifice once and for all. The smartest way to do that is strike for the head—take out the queen.” His tone tempers with an edge of desperation. “This is our best chance, Jules.”
“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Don’t I always?”
She huffs. “Hilarious.”
“Keep moving,” he says. “We’re almost there.”
She walks past me and slams her shoulder into mine. My jaw stiffens. I kick backward and bash her shin with my heel. She hisses a curse. I must have hit her wounded leg. Good.
My left cheek smarts with a bright burst of pain. I stumble backward with a jolt of dizziness. “Careful, Bone Crier,” Jules warns me.
I lift my chin, wishing I could rip off this blindfold so I could stare her down. I barely know her, but I already hate her. Jules hurt Sabine. I haven’t forgotten that.
She limps away from me. I hear her for a few paces, then I don’t hear anything at all. Has she already entered the catacombs?
A fresh wave of panic assaults me. I drag my feet and wrestle against Bastien. He yanks me forward. “You’re next.”
I can’t go in there. I won’t. I stomp on his foot. His arm wraps around my throat in a chokehold. I can’t breathe. I thrash harder.
“Stop fighting!” His voice trembles with exertion. “Or I’ll hurt you so badly you’ll wish you were dead.”
I don’t doubt him. Blood pounds through my skull, but I won’t back down. I pry at his hands. I claw. I kick. I clamp my lips together so I don’t mouth, Please. I won’t beg. He won’t steal my self-respect, as well as my graces.
“Um, Bastien?” Marcel says with nail-biting sluggishness. “I think she understands your point now.”
Bastien’s grip hardens. My eyes water. I fear my neck might break. Maybe he’ll end my life right now. I dare you, I think, even while my head prickles on the verge of unconsciousness. If he kills me, he’ll die with me.
“Merde,” he says, as if he’s had the same thought. He releases my throat.
I collapse and suck in burning mouthfuls of air. Before I’ve a chance to recover, he lugs me up again and hauls me forward. We trip forward a few feet, and the ground steeply declines. My legs are knee-deep in wild grass; this isn’t a catacombs entrance. We’re moving down the side of some kind of cliff or ravine. Before the terrain levels out, my left foot plummets into a burrow. “Put the other foot in there.” Bastien shoves me. “That’s the entrance. We’ve arrived.”
I try to scramble away, but he grabs me and holds me still. I jerk against his grip. “All right,” I say, “I’m going.” He slowly releases me, but the warmth from his body still hovers nearby. I square my jaw. Bastien thinks I’m nothing without my graces. I’ll prove he’s wrong and hasn’t stripped me of my courage.
I place both feet in the hole and kneel to slip in headfirst.
“No, feetfirst or you’ll get caught inside,” he says, and I suppress a growl. If this is a trick, I’ll make him suffer for it.
I take one last breath of fresh air and drink in what I can of the moonlight. I pray its cool energy will be trapped beneath my skin long enough to help me survive the darkness.
I slither into the hole.
The space is tight. I’m forced to shimmy in on my back. My head slides in last, and I swallow hard. I’ve wriggled through small tunnels before. The caves beneath Château Creux are riddled with them. But I never did so feetfirst and trapped between three people who want me dead.
“In thirty feet, you’ll feel another hole, the opening of a side tunnel,” Bastien tells me. He sounds irritated, like it chafes him to offer me assistance.
I yank my blindfold off so it hangs around my neck. My surroundings are still dark and smothering. I squirm downward at a diagonal angle until I find the branching tunnel. I shove my legs in, but the tunnel angles upward, opposite the way I’m trying to slide through. Panic builds inside me like growing thunder. I start to whimper. I never whimper.
Laughter echoes, but I can’t tell from which direction. “It’s fun to hear you struggle,” a husky yet feminine voice calls. Jules. “But now I’m bored, so here’s the secret: move down past the second tunnel, then climb back up and go through it headfirst.”
I close my eyes against the blow of my own stupidity. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ve been held underwater by a tiger shark and confined in cramped snow caves in the north, but I’ve never panicked like this and lost my right mind.