The Bone Thief

by Breeana Shields

  My gaze slides to Bram, but he’s clearly leaving space for me to take the lead. “We have some questions about Latham,” I say.

  Avalina sucks in a sharp gasp as if I’d struck her. She stands, her chair scraping loudly against the wood floor. “Who are you? Why would you come here?”

  I knew her friendly demeanor was too good to be true.

  “I’m Della Holte’s daughter,” I say softly. “Latham killed my mother. And my gran.”

  Her eyes go wide. She drops her head into her hands, her long hair falling across her face like a curtain. Then, just as suddenly, she straightens and rushes from the room. Bram and I share a dark look. Was that a dismissal? Do we stay? Do we go?

  She comes back a moment later with two bone amulets, each suspended on a leather cord. Without a word, she puts one over my neck, and then does the same to Bram.

  “It will keep him from watching you,” she says.

  An icy finger trails down my spine. “Defensive magic,” I say, remembering the necklace my mother left for me on my other path.

  She nods and then bites her lip. “Please,” she says, “tell me what you’re doing here.”

  My thoughts are muddy and it takes me a few moments to clear them enough to speak. “After Latham killed my gran and then my mother, he stole their bones. He wants me dead too. I have to find him before he finds me.” I tell her the story—how Latham is determined to collect the bones from three generations of Charmers. How he used Declan to spy on me and to try to win my affections so I’d have all three essential tattoos. How he wants to kill me slowly so that my bones will be as powerful as possible. Bram’s brow furrows as he listens. His gaze falls to the tattoo on my wrist, and I feel my cheeks heat.

  Avalina’s fingers worry the bone charm that rests in the hollow of her throat. Her expression is bleak. “I haven’t seen Latham in years. I wouldn’t have the first idea how to find him.”

  “And yet you’re still protecting yourself from him.”

  She drops the necklace, and her hand falls into her lap.

  “You must know he’s still obsessed with you.” I dip my head toward her amulet. “You wouldn’t need to wear that otherwise.”

  “I can’t help you.” Her voice is small, uncertain.

  “Maybe you could just tell us a bit about him,” Bram tries. “What he was like when you knew him. It might help.”

  She shakes her head. “You need to leave. Please.”

  My mind snags on the please. The courtesy of it. The civility, even as she’s trying to kick us out. She wants to help, but she’s afraid.

  “I’m going to die soon.” My voice is soft, but steady. “I’ve seen it in a vision—over and over again. There’s probably nothing I can do about it. Probably nothing you can. But when you hear the news, I wonder if you will torture yourself with what could have been? What you might have said that could have made a difference.”

  Her expression is stricken. So is Bram’s. “You’re trying to manipulate me,” she says. She sounds horrified. Indignant.

  “Yes,” I say, because that’s exactly what I’m doing. “But I’m also telling the truth. I know what it is to stare down an alternate path and wonder at the different choices you might have made. It’s not a fate I would wish on anyone.”

  A hundred emotions flicker over her face, and worry puddles in my chest as I wait for which one will prevail. But finally, her expression settles into resignation. “It’s a very long story. I’ll make us a kettle of tea.”

  As soon as she’s out of earshot, Bram whips toward me. “You were lying, right? About having a vision of yourself dying?”

  His concerned expression makes me hesitate. I want to say something reassuring, protect him from the truth, but the words stick in my throat. “No. I wasn’t.”

  “Saskia!” My name explodes from his mouth in an urgent hiss. I feel it rush across my cheek like an angry gust of wind. “How am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me everything?” His gaze falls to the love tattoo around my wrist. “You never told me that Declan betrayed you.”

  I bite my lip. Say nothing.

  “Did you fall in love with him?” The question makes me want to retreat. To curl up inside myself and avoid what’s coming.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  In the kitchen, the tea kettle whistles.

  Bram narrows his eyes. “Then who?”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I say, watching Avalina arrange the kettle and a selection of teacups on a tray.

  “If you weren’t in love with Declan, then how did you get that tattoo?”

  Avalina picks up the tray and starts to turn.

  “Bram,” I say sharply. “Later.”

  Avalina comes back into the room and slides the tray onto a low table. She pours a cup and offers it to me. Fragrant steam curls around my face as I take a sip.

  Both Bram and I watch Avalina expectantly. Finally she sits in the chair closest to the hearth. She curls her feet beneath her and takes a deep breath.

  “My parents had an unhappy pairing.” Her index finger traces the rim of her teacup. “They fought constantly. My gramps once said that he’d never seen two people more suited to make each other miserable than my mother and father. They seemed to know exactly how to bring out the worst in each other. They rarely agreed on anything, but the one exception was their hopes for my future. They both desperately wanted me to be bone-matched. It was more important to them than anything, even than saving for my kenning. I think they wanted to spare me the misery of a pairing like theirs.”

  I lean forward in my chair, fascinated. My own parents had an unusually happy relationship, even for a bone-matched pairing. It’s hard to imagine growing up any other way.

  Avalina stands and adds a log to the hearth, prodding it with a fire iron until it settles. Then she sits back into her chair and continues with her story. “My parents spent a modest amount to have bones prepared for my kenning, but they spent a small fortune on the ones designated for the matchmaking portion of the ceremony. And they made their intentions clear to the Bone Charmer: He should use the less powerful bones for the kenning, and the stronger ones for the bone-matched partnership. So that’s exactly what he did. He matched me with a boy I had never met, never even heard of. Latham Thorn.”

  With a start, I realize I’ve never heard Latham’s surname before. It hits my ear strangely. As does listening to Avalina describe him as a boy.

  “My parents were thrilled,” she says, “relieved that they’d set me up for the life they’d never had. We made arrangements to visit the Thorn family immediately. His town held their kenning later than mine because their apprentices didn’t need to travel far to reach Ivory Hall. So Latham hadn’t yet had his reading when we arrived.”

  She stops then, her eyes becoming unfocused and faraway, as if overtaken by memories.

  “Was it horrible?” I ask. “Meeting him for the first time.”

  Avalina smiles. “Quite the opposite. He was handsome and kind. I’d never experienced such an instant connection to another person, and I could tell Latham felt the same way. But his father was”—a shadow falls over her expression—“displeased. To say the least.”

  “Why?” Bram asks. “I would think he’d be happy your parents had saved him the expense of a matchmaking reading.”

  She sighs. “Latham’s father was on the Grand Council. He had big plans for his son and thought the match was beneath him. I wasn’t from a prominent family. I hadn’t been matched to a bone magic specialty.”

  A jolt of surprise goes through me. “But wait, I thought you were matched as a Mixer?”

  She frowns. “No. I was assigned to Ivory Hall as a chef’s apprentice.” My gaze goes to the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, and the little pots of spices that line the windowsill in the kitchen. “It suited me perfectly. It still does.”

  “But your record at Ivory Hall said you were a Mixer. And my mother talked of you as if she’d known you, as if you’
d trained in bone magic.”

  Avalina refills her teacup. “Ah yes. Well, as I said, Latham’s father was unhappy with the match, and he decided that Leiden’s Bone Charmer must have been in error. That perhaps he mixed up the bones from my kenning with the ones from my matchmaking reading. He convinced his colleagues on the Grand Council to demand a second reading from a different Bone Charmer. And once they heard that the more powerful bones were used for my matchmaking instead of my kenning, they agreed. My second reading matched me as a Bone Mixer.” Her eyes fall to her cup. “And it also declared I had no suitable partner as a bone match in the entire country.”

  I pull in a sharp breath. The unfairness of it is staggering. “But I still don’t understand what happened with Latham,” I say. “If you weren’t bone matched anymore, then why was he so angry?”

  “Latham believed the results of the first kenning, not the second. We both did. It was so clear that we were meant to be together. We could talk about anything. He used to laugh at my jokes before I even got to the punch line. Latham’s father tried to keep us apart, but we met in secret. And once I started training in bone magic, it was easy to be together. We fell in love despite everything—Latham’s father, the Grand Council, the second kenning—we didn’t need an official bone match to know we were fated for each other.”

  My heart constricts. Her tone is full of tenderness. How can she be talking about the same man who killed my mother? Who killed Gran? She leans forward and lays a palm on my forearm, as if she can guess my thoughts. “He was different then.”

  I shake my head. “No. People don’t change that much. He tricked you.”

  “I know it must seem like that,” she says, “especially after all that has happened since. But I think I’m a pretty good judge of character. I let you through my door, didn’t I?”

  Normally, her gentle humor would soften me, but I can’t make sense of what she’s saying. I expected her to tell me Latham was always a monster, that she ran from him—as fast and as far as she could—at the first opportunity.

  “So what changed?” Bram asks.

  Avalina sighs. “Latham’s father was enraged when he found out we were still seeing each other. He demanded Latham call off our pairing. Latham refused. So his father went to the Grand Council again. And this time, he accused my parents of bribing our Bone Charmer for a false reading. Latham thought it would never work, assured me everything would be fine. But he underestimated how much power his father had over his colleagues on the council.”

  “The rest of the council believed him?” I ask.

  She massages her forehead. “Either they believed him or they were willing to be complicit in his lie. It’s hard to know which. But in either case, my parents were convicted and sent to Fang Island. Leiden’s Bone Charmer was too. And I was expelled from Ivory Hall and stripped of any right to practice bone magic.”

  Horror pushes up my throat. “But they’re not still there, right? You must have been able to reverse such a terrible decision.”

  Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Fang Island is a cruel place. All three of them died before they could be vindicated.”

  I think of Jensen and my stomach seizes. What will become of him? What will become of Boe in his absence?

  “So is that why everything changed between you and Latham?” I ask. “Because of what his father did?”

  “Of course not,” she says, like one person’s family betraying another’s in such a heinous way wouldn’t be enough to tear most couples apart. Her hands tremble as she smooths invisible wrinkles in her dress. “I didn’t hold him responsible for what happened. We don’t choose our parents. But yes, it changed things. Or I should say, it changed Latham. He became bitter. Obsessed with revenge.”

  I squirm uncomfortably in my seat as I think of my own fantasies of exacting vengeance on Latham. I don’t want to fathom that the two of us could ever have anything in common.

  “At first, we stayed together. But increasingly, I realized he had become a different person. His father’s actions—and the Grand Council’s—had unlocked a darkness in his heart that no amount of love could overcome. He started dabbling in dark magic, seeking out those who used it, learning to practice it himself. It frightened me.”

  “What kind of dark magic?” I ask. Did he know about the spell that required the bones of three Charmers even then? Had he been planning to kill my mother since he was my age?

  “Terrible things. Using healing magic to cause pain instead of relieve it, Mason-made weapons that should never exist, bone potions that induce panic if swallowed …” She stops talking, pressing her lips together as if she’s ashamed the words have escaped. “I thought maybe in time he’d learn to forgive, to let go of all his hatred, but it only got worse. So I left him. I moved away from Kastelia City and came home.”

  “Did he try to win you back?” Bram asks.

  “For many years,” she says. “He seemed to show up at odd times, to know precisely where I’d be on a given day. Finally he admitted that he’d been reading my future. We fought.” She touches the pendant at her throat again, as if to reassure herself that it’s still there. “I told him I never wanted to see him again. But …”

  “But what?” I ask.

  “He respected my wishes … at least he seemed to. He stopped contacting me. He started tutoring at Ivory Hall. His life seemed to settle. But over the years, I got the sense that it was just an interlude. That he was planning something else. Something bigger.” She frowns sadly. “It seems I was right.”

  “Do you know where he might be?” I ask. “The Grand Council hasn’t been able to find him.”

  “Like I said, I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Yes, but you know him. Better than anyone. Where would he hide?”

  Her gaze gets faraway again. She bites the inside of her cheek as she thinks.

  A swarm builds inside me—hundreds of small, fluttering worries. What if she knows something but won’t help us? What if she’s still protecting him? What if we risked so much for nothing? The questions cleave together, coalesce, become a cord that winds tighter and tighter inside me until it nearly strangles my breath. What if Latham gets away with this?

  I see the moment an idea occurs to her—a sudden light behind her eyes. A strike of a match in a dark room.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Probably nothing. But when we were courting …” Her voice wobbles, as if thinking of Latham, the way he was then, is painful. “His mother inherited a small shop in Kastelia City. It had been in her family for generations. It changed over the years—it started out as an apothecary, then became a bookstore, and once it had even been a menagerie of sorts—selling colorful songbirds and small furry pets. When Latham and I met, it was a shop that sold a variety of musical instruments—all bone-carved—that would play in tune regardless of the skill of musician.”

  “You think he’d hide in a music shop?” I ask, confused.

  “It had a secret room.” Her cheeks flush. “We’d meet there sometimes to be alone.”

  It seems unlikely, but at least it’s something. And maybe whoever works there can tell us something about Latham or his family that will help.

  Avalina scrawls the address on a bit of parchment and gives it to me.

  “Thank you.” Darkness has crept over the room. Rasmus must be livid by now. I rise to my feet. “We better get going. If you think of anything else …”

  “Yes,” she says as she walks us to the door, “I’ll let you know.” And then, after a pause: “Be careful. I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  I turn to face her. “Oh, but I do.”

  She pales. Her shoulders sag. “I’m sorry. Of course, you know. I didn’t mean …” She trails off. I think about how bright and happy she was when we first arrived, and now she looks wilted, as if we’ve snatched the sun from her sky. “He was a good man once,” she says softly. “He could have been a good man still if only …” />
  I stiffen. “If only what?”

  She sighs. “If only his family had accepted his fate. If only the Grand Council hadn’t interfered.”

  “If only he’d made different choices?”

  Avalina bites her lip. Nods.

  “But isn’t that true of everyone?” Bram asks. “Aren’t we all just a collection of the choices we’ve made?”

  “Yes,” she says, “I guess we are.”

  Bram hesitates, his hand on the doorknob. “When did you finally lose hope that Latham would change?”

  Avalina’s expression grows thoughtful. “I suppose when I realized he’d mastered the darkest magic of all—the ability to pretend to be someone he wasn’t.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We step out of Avalina’s cottage to frigid air.

  Shivers race up and down my body, and I wish I hadn’t abandoned my cloak at the glass workshop. I fold my arms across my chest and run my palms along my skin.

  Bram shrugs off his Breaker cloak and wraps it around my shoulders. “Here,” he says, “this should help.” It smells faintly of freshly cut straw from the floor of the Breaker training room.

  “But now you’ll be cold. I don’t want—”

  Suddenly his hand closes around my elbow, and he spins me toward him, pressing my back against the tree in front of Avalina’s house.

  “Saskia,” he says, his voice ragged. His eyes search my face. “May I kiss you?”

  The question is low and urgent. My eyes go wide, and I’m flooded with feelings I can’t name. They swirl inside me, hot and bright. I think of Bram’s gaze falling to my wrist. If you weren’t in love with Declan, then how did you get that tattoo? I should tell him no. I should try to protect him from Latham. But the tattoo isn’t fading, and I’m not sure it ever will. He moves closer, still waiting for my answer. My heart lodges in my throat. I nod.

  “Good,” Bram says, his breath close to my ear. “Rasmus is coming.”

  And then Bram’s mouth is on mine. Warm. Familiar. His hands slide under my hair and curve around the back of my neck. His thumbs trace the contour of my jaw.