The Bone Thief

by Breeana Shields

  “We are,” I say softly.

  As soon as I sit down, a jolt goes through me. Startled, I clutch the arms of the chair, and the room tilts sharply to one side. I squeeze my eyes closed. A series of images flashes behind my lids—a woman sitting on a stone ledge studying a pile of bones as the wind whips her black hair around her face; a man dropping a handful of carpal bones into a silver goblet filled with blood; a pair of twins—a boy and girl no older than six or seven—arguing about whether the mandible on the table between them belongs to a black bear or a grizzly.

  My eyes snap open and nausea threatens at the back of my throat. Low in my stomach is the familiar pulling sensation that suggests I’m about to be swept away into a full-fledged vision.

  I think of touching the walls in my room when I first arrived at Ivory Hall, of my nightmare coming to life even though I was wide-awake. This throne must be made from the bones of dead Charmers. Their combined history calls to me—I long to grip the arms of the chair and fall headfirst into their stories. It takes effort to keep my eyes open.

  Sweat prickles on my brow. I can’t lose control in front of the Grand Council. I focus all my attention on staying in the present, fixing my gaze on a spot in the back of the room where bright rectangles of light fall on the floor. I yank my hands from the arms of the chair and rest them in my lap. Slowly, the sensation subsides, and I feel more anchored to the present. I pull in a deep breath and dry my hands on my cloak. When I look up, the entire Grand Council is watching me. The Bone Charmer—a bald man with a heavily lined brown face—studies me particularly intently.

  “Are you unwell?” he asks.

  I press my lips together and shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  His gaze doesn’t move from me. Seconds tick by.

  My hands go cold. I interlace my fingers and press my palms together, but I don’t look away. I have the distinct feeling that I’m being tested, and to break eye contact would be to fail. From the corner of my eye, I see the other members of our team shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

  Finally the Charmer gives a small nod of concession. He turns to the other members of the council.

  “Shall we begin?”

  The Mixer—a woman who looks far too young for such a prestigious role on the council—stands and produces a large wooden box. She places it in front of Jacey on the narrow table that runs from one end of the dais to the other.

  “Begin whenever you’re ready.”

  Jacey looks like she might be sick. She hesitates a moment, probably hoping for more instruction. But it doesn’t appear that any additional information is forthcoming. Her fingers tremble as she lifts the lid and takes out a set of bones, a mortar and pestle, a half dozen tubes of different liquids in a variety of colors, and a clear flask.

  “Are these the ingredients for truth serum?” Jacey asks.

  “We’re only here to observe,” the Mixer replies. “No questions, please.”

  Jacey swallows and pulls her shoulders back. She places the bones into the mortar, and then, with practiced hands, begins to crush them with the pestle. The tools look like they’re made of marble, but they must be infused with bone fragments to be able to pulverize the contents so efficiently. Soon the small bowl is filled with white powder.

  Jacey unstops a vial of pale green liquid and dribbles a stream into the mortar. Then she uses the pestle to stir the mixture into a thick paste. She continues adding ingredients—a drop of yellow liquid, ten drops of orange—until finally she seems satisfied. She deposits the paste into the flask and fills it with crystal-blue water, stirring it vigorously until the paste dissolves. When she looks up, her eyes widen, as if she’s forgotten she was being watched.

  “It’s ready.” Jacey’s voice is even, but her knees shake beneath the table.

  “Call in the witnesses,” the Mixer says.

  Even though there’s no one at the back of the room, the double doors swing open and a dozen people are led forward by black-cloaked members of the Ivory Guard. First among them is Jensen, who looks more like himself than the man we met in prison a few days ago—he’s been bathed and shaved, though he’s a little thinner than he was in my vision. An image of him cradling Boe in his arms flashes through my mind, and I bite the inside of my cheek almost hard enough to draw blood.

  Most of the witnesses file into the bench behind the Grand Council, but Jensen sits on the opposite side of the room, in the front row. The wide aisle between the two groups seems like an impassable gulf.

  “How would you like to proceed?” the Bone Charmer asks.

  Our team exchanges glances.

  “One moment, please,” Tessa says, motioning the rest of us toward her. The six of us huddle together around her chair to discuss. “Let’s save Jensen for last,” I whisper. “He deserves to hear what the others have to say so he can defend himself.”

  Bram nods. “I agree.”

  “Who should go first?” Tessa asks.

  Niklas sighs. “I’m not sure it matters.”

  And he’s right. I’ve turned the case over in my mind again and again, pored over the wording of the Kastelian law, and there isn’t a solution that ends well.

  Unless Jensen claims he didn’t do it. But based on our conversation with him, he seems disinclined to lie. And the truth serum will make it impossible anyway.

  Once we’ve finished talking, we settle back into our seats, and Tessa addresses the council. “We’ll interview the witnesses one at a time, and end with the accused.”

  The morning tips into afternoon, and stuffy heat infuses the chamber. We’ve been at this for hours and haven’t learned anything new. Each witness points to the same basic facts: Jensen alleviated his child’s pain with magic he wasn’t authorized to use. The couple who approached Jensen and Boe on the trail testified that they heard the desperate screams of a child, but by the time they reached Boe, he was sitting calmly—seemingly pain-free—while his father healed his leg. I tried to push back in my questioning: Could it have been a different child screaming? Could Boe have been in shock? How can they really know for sure what Jensen did when they didn’t see it for themselves?

  But it hardly makes a dent in the avalanche of testimony that follows.

  Members of the Ivory Guard testify that the moment they began questioning Jensen, Boe proudly announced that his papa had fixed his leg and made the pain go away.

  A Mending Magic Healer testified that he examined Boe shortly after the accident and found evidence of a newly healed femur fracture. In his opinion, there is no question that the boy broke his leg and received a healing spell.

  Finally it’s time to question Jensen himself. I feel as if my nerves have been wrung out like a wet cloth.

  Tessa invites Jensen forward and he climbs into the witness seat slowly, like a man twice his age. Jacey pours a bit of the truth serum into a small drinking horn and offers it to him.

  Jensen grimaces as he brings the keras to his lips, and I’m forcefully reminded of my encounter with the foul-tasting liquid after my father’s bones were stolen. I remember the horrible, lurching feeling of not having control over my answers. Of the words practically leaping from my mouth the moment a question was asked. The memory makes bile rise in my throat.

  Jensen downs the truth serum in one swallow.

  Bram has the first question, and he leans forward slightly in his seat. “Can you tell us your name?”

  “Jensen Niles.” The answer comes almost instantaneously.

  “Do you have bone magic?” Talon asks.

  “Yes, I’m a Healer.”

  “Which kind?” Talon presses.

  “Disease.”

  When it’s my turn, I shift in my chair so I can meet Jensen’s gaze. “Can you tell me what happened the day Boe broke his leg?”

  Jensen relates the story more or less the way I saw it in the vision. He took Boe with him on a house call. The horse got spooked. Boe fell and broke his leg. As Jensen talks about his son, the lines around his mou
th soften. His eyes shimmer.

  “What was it like to watch him in pain?” I ask.

  From the corner of my eye, I see a few of the council members react to this question with raised eyebrows or frowns. But I don’t care. They need to hear it.

  “It was torture,” he says.

  “What would have happened if you hadn’t healed Boe’s fracture?”

  “He would have died.” Jensen’s gaze is steady.

  I nod at Jacey to indicate I’m finished. I wish I could handle the entire interrogation myself, but we agreed to limit ourselves to just a few questions at a time before ceding to the next team member.

  “Did you use forbidden magic to heal your son?” Jacey asks.

  I press my lips together and stare at my lap. It’s a good question for getting to the truth, but a terrible one for helping Jensen.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Jensen says, his voice even. “Any parent would have done the same.”

  “Did you perform a healing spell by accident?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “So you did have a choice.” Her tone indicates it’s a statement, not a question, and Jensen must interpret it the same way, because he doesn’t reply. “Go ahead, Niklas.”

  Niklas leans forward in his chair. “Do you have a mastery tattoo?”

  “Of course,” Jensen says.

  “May we see it?”

  One of the Grand Council members—a woman without bone magic—clears her throat. “That’s an unusual request. Why are you asking?”

  “While preparing for this case, I did some research on the time before the binding ceremony was introduced. And it led me to believe that mastery tattoos are different when more than one specialty is conquered.”

  She gives him an appraising look. “Different how?”

  “Their design indicates the number of different magic elements that have been mastered. For example, a double-edged sword for someone who learned two different types of magic, a block-shaped design for someone who controlled four.”

  The Grand Council members whisper to one another, clearly impressed. They hadn’t expected any of us to know such a fact, let alone think to ask about it.

  But my mother knew.

  A drumbeat of panic builds in my chest. Blood rushes in my ears.

  I hear my mother’s voice in my head. Your mastery tattoo has three corners. I didn’t fully understand what she meant at the time.

  Suddenly I feel as if I am in the witness seat. As if the Grand Council will demand I pull up my sleeve to reveal what lies beneath. And all the evidence they need to convict me will be rendered in graceful, curving lines in hues of violet and cobalt. With a jolt, I realize I’ll have to hide my tattoo forever, not just until I’m further along in my training. It will testify against me for my entire life.

  “Very insightful,” the council member tells Niklas. Then she turns to Jensen. “Typically, we would never ask to see a tattoo without the consent of the witness, but I believe a good case has been made for revealing yours. Pull up your sleeve, please.”

  Jensen complies. His mastery tattoo is a pair of wings.

  “We have to convict him,” Jacey says.

  The Grand Council removed the witnesses and left the six of us alone to discuss our decision. We moved from the dais to the benches in the front row of the chamber.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” I say. “Our instructions said that the Grand Council would abide by our decision, so let’s do the right thing and find him not guilty.”

  Tessa lays a palm on my forearm. “But, Saskia, this is a test. The challenge is to see if we will make the same ruling they would. And they’d convict him.”

  “What did Jensen do that was so terrible?” I can hear the edge in my voice, but I can’t seem to soften it. “He saved a child’s life. We’re really going to send him to rot on Fang Island for that?”

  Talon paces back and forth in front of the dais. “But it’s not as if it was only that one time, Saskia. He had a dual mastery tattoo.”

  “Maybe that’s just the way the tattoo manifested. It could mean nothing,” I say.

  “In context, it means something,” Niklas says. “I’m bound to Instruments and Tools, but if I were accused of constructing a building, and my mastery tattoo supported that—”

  I spin to face him. “You’ve said practically nothing for more than a week, but now that a man’s life is on the line, you’re suddenly feeling chatty?”

  Niklas puts both hands in the air, palms facing me, and takes a step back. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Saskia.” Tessa’s voice is reproachful, but her fingers close gently around mine. I take a deep breath and try to rein in my anger. She turns toward Bram. “You haven’t said much. What’s your opinion?”

  Bram rakes his fingers through his hair. “Breakers don’t subspecialize—we’re simply assigned to Bone Breaking—so I’m not sure I’m the most qualified to give an opinion. It’s complicated. I agree with Saskia that it’s not fair, but I also agree with the rest of you that Jensen broke the law.”

  “He had a good reason,” I say, letting my gaze sweep over each them. “Doesn’t that matter to any of you?”

  “We weren’t asked to decide if he had a good reason,” Jacey says softly. “We were asked to decide if he’s guilty.”

  I feel like a loose thread inside me has snagged on something sharp, and now I’m slowly unraveling. If my team thinks Jensen deserves to be punished, they would surely think the same of me. If they saw my mastery tattoo, would they even listen before they condemned me? Would they care that my mother only taught me bone charming to save my life? Would it matter to them that my magic was able to grow wild and free because I didn’t have a binding ceremony until I arrived at Ivory Hall? Or would they simply see three corners and call me a criminal?

  For the past few weeks, I’ve let myself indulge in a fantasy that I might be able to have friends here. Allies. That, when the time was right, I’d be able to tell them everything and they would have my back. But I was wrong.

  A deep well of sorrow opens in the pit of my stomach. I have nothing. No one.

  “Fine,” I say, “if everyone else agrees, then I won’t interfere.”

  “Saskia—” Bram says, but I hold up a hand to stop him. I turn toward Jacey.

  “Tell the Grand Council that we’ve made a decision.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next few days pass in a blur.

  Ivory Hall is bustling with apprentices again. Round one of the bone games is over and all the groups are back in the capital.

  And no one had a challenge as brutal as ours.

  Chatter about the games floats through the corridors between training sessions and across the dining hall at mealtime—stories of one group tackling an obstacle course, another working as a team to cross a chasm, yet another who had to find their way through a giant maze made of bone. As far as I can tell, none of the other teams faced something with lasting consequences. Most of the apprentices seem to be in good spirits, as if the challenges have given them more confidence in their abilities. But a thick fog of foreboding hangs over me that I can’t quite shake. The Grand Council sentenced Jensen to fifteen years on Fang Island. He will miss Boe’s entire childhood. It makes me feel ill every time I think about it.

  And I know my future isn’t any brighter. I feel like I’m in a bone reading, looking down two equally dismal paths—either my life ends at Latham’s hand, as it has so many times in my nightmares, or it ends as a prisoner on Fang Island once my secrets are exposed.

  I long for the comfort of my mother’s good advice or Gran’s warm hands around mine or my father’s gift for telling me just the right story that puts everything into perspective.

  But I can’t have any of that.

  I’m homesick, but it wouldn’t matter if I were in Midwood. After Gramps died, I visited the Forest of the Dead often, finding comfort at the base of our family tree. But now, with my mother’s an
d Gran’s bones still missing, it would only be a painful reminder that I have no way to connect with them. Except …

  I do have one of Gran’s bones—the healed one that I’ve been avoiding since I got here. Looking down my other path won’t allow me to visit memories of my father or Gran—they were both already gone before the bone broke. But I could see my mother again. I could finally look for clues about Latham. And now that I’m better about feeling my way forward and backward through time, maybe I can avoid seeing too much of Bram. The extra practice navigating through the reading might be good for me. It could help me in later visions to know if I’m seeing the past, present, or future.

  My loneliness gives me the courage that my fear never could. I sit on my bed and fold my legs in front of me.

  I close my eyes and touch the bone with a single finger. I feel the familiar tug in my belly and then I’m swept into a vision that feels as real as it does familiar. Like pulling a well-loved sweater over my head and finding it exactly as I remembered.

  I linger on my mother’s face as I entered the Marrow for my kenning—the way the candlelight danced in her eyes. I watch as she placed her red training cloak around my shoulders before I left for Ivory Hall, as she took my hand in hers, her fingers brushing against the petal-shaped tattoo on my thumb. But then I speed past my terse responses, grateful I lived in a reality where she knew how much I loved her.

  At Ivory Hall, I pay special attention to my training sessions with Latham. I examine every visible inch of his office, hoping for any small clue to indicate where he might be hiding. I stay in the reading for as long as my focus allows.

  And then the next day, I read the bone again.

  At first, I told myself I was reading my other path to look for clues about Latham.

  But now, days later, the readings have become more than practice. More than searching for ways to stop Latham. More than trying to find Gran’s and my mother’s missing bones.

  The readings have opened a gateway to another life. One where I don’t feel so disconnected from everyone around me. I sink into the feeling of friendship there as I study my other path over and over again.