The Bone Thief

by Breeana Shields

  But now, seeing him join our group only after Norah nudged him in my direction, casts a heavy shadow over me, and all my hope shrivels. Dies. The idea of us together is laughable to Bram. He’s here, not of his own free will, but as a favor to Norah. And my free will is all tangled up in emotions that don’t belong to me.

  Fate is mocking me. It will be an exquisite kind of torture to be around Bram, but not with him.

  Hatred for Latham pulses through me. It’s fire in my veins. A bitter poison that coats my tongue. He’s snatched the happiness from my past, present, and future.

  Bram touches my arm, opens his mouth to say something, but then we’re interrupted by a loud voice behind us.

  “Did I hear you guys say you need a Watcher?”

  I spin around and my heart jumps into my throat. A tall apprentice in a green cloak stands in front of me. He has a messy mop of ginger hair and his nose and cheeks are dusted with cinnamon freckles. He was on my other path. I’ve been looking for him since I got here.

  I grasp for his name, but before I can find it, he sticks out his hand.

  “Talon,” he says, and I feel the name click into place in my mind. The rightness of it. The familiarity.

  When Tessa introduced me to her friends, I assumed Talon would be among them. But maybe he was fated to be on my path, not hers. But how can that be when I remember her introducing me to him before and not the other way around?

  My mind is spinning so fast, I can’t find the words to respond.

  Tessa leans across me to take Talon’s hand. “I’m Tessa,” she says. “And this is Jacey and Bram. The frozen one beside you is Saskia.”

  Talon puffs out his chest and tugs on the collar of his cloak. “No worries. I’m used to rendering people speechless.”

  A sudden warmth floods my chest; it’s the same instant affection I felt upon meeting Tessa. I squeeze his elbow gently. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He grins. “Well, good. And I must say, this is a much more welcoming group than the one I nearly joined.” He motions toward a clump of apprentices all dressed in green. They’re clearly his friends, judging from the goofy faces he’s pulling at them. “They thought a group with only one specialty was a bad idea.”

  “I’d say they had a very good point,” Jacey says, her voice full of amusement. “Six Watchers on a team seems like you’d be begging to lose.”

  “So is that a yes?” Talon asks. “Can I join you?”

  Jacey quickly looks around the group for confirmation. We all nod. “That’s a yes,” she says.

  Talon bounces lightly on his toes. “So what next?”

  “Ideally, we need a Mason,” Tessa says. “But if we have to double up … maybe another Mixer?” She chews her lip as she glances around the room. “Most of the teams look full.”

  “I have an idea,” Talon says. “Wait here.” He jogs over to an apprentice with straight jet-black hair and tawny skin. The two boys chat for a moment, and then return to the group together.

  “This is Niklas,” Talon says. “He’s agreed to join our team.”

  Niklas acknowledges all of us with a small nod. He has a slim silver ring on his left hand that he keeps unconsciously spinning as Tessa peppers him with questions.

  Jacey and Talon strike up a conversation about what format the bone games might take, and how lucky we are to get all six specialties. Which leaves me and Bram standing awkwardly beside each other.

  “Saskia,” he says, his fingertips brushing against my scapula. Even through my cloak, the touch is unbearable. A reminder of everything I want. Everything I can’t have. Everything I don’t know if I can trust. I turn slightly so that his hand falls away. His brow furrows. “Is something wrong?”

  How to answer such a question? With the truth? That I’m mourning memories of the two of us that aren’t real? That my feelings for him are as strong as they are mysterious, and I’m not even sure if either of us are the same people in this reality? But I can’t say any of that.

  “Everything is fine,” I tell him. “I’m just tired.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says. His voice is low, meant just for me, and his breath dances across my earlobe, sending shivers down my spine.

  My closed-up heart cracks open just enough to let in a small, shimmering sliver of hope. “What is it?”

  “In Midwood—after your mother died—I promised I would help you.” He glances around to make sure no one is listening. “And after seeing that spell book … we need a plan.”

  Oh. The fissure in my heart clots over, seals tight. More duty and responsibility and keeping promises.

  “You don’t have to …” I falter, distracted by the intensity of his expression. The way he is focused solely on me, as if we haven’t just received news that our training is about to become much more complicated and difficult.

  “Yes, I do,” Bram says. “Don’t forget that Latham wronged me, too. He befriended me, and then sent me back to Midwood to help you grieve the loss of your mother without telling me that he was the one who killed her.” He shakes his head. “He did that for a reason, and I need to find out what it was.”

  My fingers trace the red tattoo around my wrist. It’s supposed to be growing fainter, but if anything, it’s brighter than before.

  “I don’t want you to help me because you feel obligated.”

  “But I am obligated,” he says. “I loved your mother.”

  A lump forms in my throat. “I know you did.”

  But I don’t say the rest of what I’m thinking. That I’m heartbroken she’s the only reason he wants to help me.

  Chapter Seven

  Instructions for the first challenge of the bone games begin arriving later that evening.

  Tessa and I sit on a plush, oversized bench in the library—a space so breathtaking that I find it hard to focus on my studies. It’s a soaring atrium six tiers high, supported by graceful, carved bone columns that stretch from floor to ceiling. Each level has a low-walled balcony made from slender bones interwoven in a lattice pattern, giving the illusion that they’re fashioned from lace. Light pours in from large windows, casting the entire room in an otherworldly glow.

  A sudden flurry of activity causes both me and Tessa to look up from our spell books. Two instructors—a blue-cloaked Healer and a purple-cloaked Mixer—enter holding large wooden boxes. They glance around the room briefly, then split in opposite directions—one heading for the staircase that curves toward the upper levels, the other stopping at a table nearby and presenting the box to a stunned-looking Watcher.

  “What’s going on?” Tessa asks at the same moment the phrase bone games darts through the room like a whisper on wings.

  “Were we supposed to get a box?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.” Without even thinking, I stand, as does every other apprentice in the library. We are—all of us—drawn to the nearby apprentice who received a box.

  A crowd gathers around the Watcher, who shuffles from one foot to the other as his peers pummel him with questions: What’s in the box? Where’s the rest of your team? Are you nervous?

  “Back up and give him some space,” the Mixing Master says, making a gentle flicking motion with her hand. “This group’s challenge has nothing to do with yours. You’ll each get your own instructions in due time.”

  “But when?” a voice at the back of the crowd shouts.

  “The challenges are unique to each team—specifically designed to test your strengths and expose your weaknesses. You’ll receive them as soon as they’re ready.”

  “Maybe all of our maneuvering to get each bone magic won’t matter,” Tessa whispers.

  “I had the same thought,” I say. If the challenges are individually designed, we may have earned ourselves a more difficult set of tasks.

  Tessa’s fingers twine together. “Let’s find the others. It’s possible someone else on our team has our box.”

  My gaze flicks to the desk at the front of the library.
“Go ahead. I need to take care of something first and then I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks, but her eyes are already on the grand double doors and I can tell she won’t feel settled until she finds out if we’ve gotten our instructions yet.

  “Yes, go ahead. I won’t be long.”

  “See you soon.” Tessa squeezes my elbow and scurries away.

  The information desk is small and curved, with a spiral pattern carved on the front that encircles the librarian like the shell of a gastropod. She even looks a little like a snail, with a pair of spectacles perched on top of her head like small antennae.

  She leans forward as I approach. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wondered … is there any way to access the records of past students?”

  The librarian frowns. She retrieves the spectacles from the top of her head and settles them across the bridge of her nose. The frames are made of bone—magic, then—and I wonder if they help her see clearly in more ways than one.

  My hands begin to sweat.

  “That’s an odd request.” She folds her hands together in front of her and studies me, clearly waiting for me to explain myself.

  “My mother was a student here, and she recently died.” I tug on my earlobe, my restless fingers longing for something to occupy them. The words are still hard to say. “I was hoping to contact her former classmates so I could record their memories of her. For a keepsake.”

  The librarian’s face softens. “I’m so sorry for your loss. But that would be highly unusual. I can’t just give out contact information of old students. Perhaps you could talk to some of her old friends. See if they can help you?”

  “There’s no one to ask,” I tell her, “or I would have tried that first.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, dear, but it’s just not possible. It would violate their privacy. Even if I’m sure many of them would be sympathetic to your cause.”

  My fingernails dig into my palms. I have to convince her to help me, but I don’t know what else to do. She seems resolved.

  “It’s important,” I say. “Please?”

  She turns away and begins tidying the papers on her desk. Her movements are brusque. Efficient. “Will there be anything else?” she asks without looking up.

  “Could you … could you at least find me the surname of one of the apprentices who trained with her? Someone she mentioned once? Maybe that will give me enough to go on.”

  The librarian pauses. Cocks her head to one side as she considers my request. Then she sighs. “I don’t see how a name would hurt anything.”

  “Thank you,” I say, taking my first deep breath since the conversation started. “That would be so helpful.”

  She stands and motions toward a junior librarian to take her place behind the desk. “What is the apprentice’s first name?”

  “Avalina,” I say. “She started the same year as my mother, Della Holte.”

  “Old student records are on the sixth floor, so it’s going to take me some time. Wait here.”

  And I do.

  I wait and wait and wait some more.

  The light in the library grows dim. Shadows fall across the shelves. I pace the length of the library, as if keeping my feet moving might speed the process. The junior librarian—a young man only a few years older than me—keeps casting anxious glances toward the staircase, as if he, too, thinks his superior has been away overly long.

  Finally I hear the click of boots on the bone steps, and my pulse quickens.

  The librarian rounds the corner, her arms empty. “I’m sorry. There’s no apprentice by that name in the records.”

  “But that makes no sense. She trained here. How could there be nothing?”

  “Sorry,” she repeats, lifting one shoulder, nonchalant. “I can’t produce something that doesn’t exist.” But there’s something in the set of her jaw, in the careful way her eyes avoid meeting mine. She knows more than she’s saying. She saw something in those records that she isn’t willing to share.

  Anger flares in my chest, but losing my temper is unlikely to sway her. “What am I supposed to do now?” I ask under my breath. It’s a question directed more to myself than to the librarian, but she answers anyway.

  “Maybe it’s time to let this project go. Your memories of your mother are the ones that matter most anyway.”

  Her words make my throat ache, and I wish I could tell her that there’s so much more at stake than memories. Avalina is my best chance at finding Latham. And finding Latham is the only way I’ll find my mother’s bones.

  But I’ll need a different plan. It seems I’m searching for a ghost.

  That night, I wait until Tessa falls asleep, and then I pull out Gran’s healed bone. If I can’t find clues in the library, I’ll need to search for them the only way I know how—on my alternate path.

  The last time I attempted to read the bone was shortly after my mother died. I was grieving then. Shaken. And though I’ve thought about exploring it further, I haven’t had the courage. I don’t want to see myself interacting with Latham unaware that he was Gran’s murderer and had plans to kill me and my mother as well. To watch myself fall in love with Bram. To witness my own death.

  But now I have no choice. I need to search for clues in my interactions with Latham that might give me some idea of where to find him. And how to stop him once I do. I set the bone on my lap, and stare at it. My throat goes dry. I can’t bring myself to do another reading. I’m not sure I have the stomach to encounter Latham, but that’s not what’s holding me back.

  It’s Bram.

  If watching our story unfold once tangled my feelings so hopelessly, I can’t imagine the damage repeated readings would cause. If I want my love tattoo to fade, I need to forget my other path, not torture myself with it. How can I find clues to stop Latham without encountering a version of Bram that makes me want to disappear into another reality? I wrestle with the decision until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I don’t have to explore the path today. I can wait until I’m stronger. Until the tattoo has started to fade. So I fold my fingers around the bone and give into the temptation to close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

  Tessa’s anxiety about the bone games has reached a fever pitch. Over the past few days, most groups have received their instructions, and Ivory Hall has slowly emptied of apprentices as the teams have dispersed all over Kastelia to work on their tasks.

  The six of us sit together at an otherwise unoccupied table in the dining hall. Tessa has been talking nonstop since we got here—a frenzied stream-of-consciousness rant that makes me feel as if we’re all perched on a slender branch in a windstorm.

  “Do you think the bone games are timed somehow? Are we going to be at a disadvantage because we’re starting so late? What does it mean that we’re one of the last groups to get instructions?” Tessa doesn’t breathe between questions to leave time for an answer. But finally she falls silent.

  “Someone has to be last,” Talon says cheerfully. “Why not us?”

  Tessa wrings her hands. “I’d rather be in the middle. There’s safety in the middle.”

  “But no excitement,” he says around a mouthful of bread. “Safety is boring.” He licks the crumbs from his fingers, oblivious to the way she’s glowering at him.

  I lay a hand on Tessa’s forearm. Even though I don’t share her apprehension—I have much more pressing matters to occupy my worry—I understand it. Her role as a Healer is to alleviate pain, to end suffering. When she sees discomfort, she longs to magic it away. But this is a problem that can’t be fixed with anything but patience, and it puts her on edge.

  “Everything will be fine,” I tell her. “I promise.”

  “Saskia’s right,” Jacey says. “All we can do is wait.”

  Tessa takes a deep breath. “I know. I’m trying.”

  Niklas and Bram, who have been quietly talking to each other, suddenly fall silent. Bram nudges Tessa’s shoulder with his own.
“Look, maybe you don’t have to wait much longer.”

  Master Kyra walks toward us with a large wooden box. She plunks it down unceremoniously in front of Tessa, as if she knows exactly who needs to see it most. “Good luck,” she says.

  I practically feel Tessa exhale.

  Jacey reaches for the latch, but Tessa places her palm flat against the wood to prevent her from lifting the lid. “Let’s take it upstairs where we have more privacy.”

  We all glance around the room. Two other groups sit clustered together, both a sizable distance from each other, and so far from us that we can’t hear a word they’re saying. Can’t even make out their facial features.

  “I really don’t think—” Jacey starts, but the pleading expression on Tessa’s face seems to change her mind. “All right. I suppose an extra layer of privacy couldn’t hurt. Let’s open the box somewhere else.”

  The room I share with Tessa isn’t small, but with six people crammed in a circle on the floor between the two beds, it feels tiny. Bram ended up next to me, his legs folded in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles. His shoulder presses against mine, and it makes it hard to think. Hard to breathe. I try to shake off the feeling, annoyed that my body still can’t seem to tell the difference between my two paths.

  “Is everyone ready?” Tessa asks. The wooden box sits in the center of the circle.

  Jacey gives a playful, dramatic sigh. “Just open it already. The anticipation is killing me.”

  Tessa lifts the lid. Inside the wooden box is a thick cube of silky-smooth bone. It’s about the size of two loaves of bread resting side by side. At first glance, I might call it a box, except for the fact that it has no hinges, no visible seams of any kind. Tessa turns it over, examines it from every angle.

  “Um … thoughts?”