The Bone Thief

by Breeana Shields

  Tessa reaches me first. “What do you think? At least all the challenges are roughly the same. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be tortured this time.”

  Jacey comes up behind us. “That’s a low standard.”

  I laugh. “True, but I’m still relieved.”

  One by one, the others join us. I carefully avoid Bram’s gaze.

  “This game actually sounds kind of fun,” Talon says.

  “Don’t be fooled,” Niklas counters. “Knowing Norah, she selected this challenge because the solution is something arcane, like locking ourselves in a wooden box and going without food and water for days.”

  A throat clears behind us, and Niklas spins around to find Norah, lips pursed, one hand on her hip. “I don’t design the games myself, you know,” she says. “Nor are they difficult just for the sake of tormenting you.”

  Color rushes to his cheeks. “I’m … I didn’t mean …” he stammers. “I was only joking.”

  Norah’s eyes flash. She makes a dismissive, throaty sound, and then turns her attention to me. “Saskia, may I have a word?”

  My pulse spikes. “I … Yes, of course.”

  She gives me a curt nod. “Follow me.”

  Norah’s boots click on the bone floors as we climb the stairs and make our way through the grand foyer to her office on the other side of Ivory Hall. Unease snakes through me. Maybe she has an update on Latham. The thought is surprisingly disappointing—I’ve grown attached to my own plan for revenge. Then again, maybe I’m being punished. I’ve broken so many rules that I’m not even sure what I should be most worried about.

  Norah unlocks her office door and steps aside so I can enter. The room is softer than I would have expected considering her temperament. Two cream-colored plush chairs are situated opposite a large desk. Thick pale blue drapes frame tall windows. A vase of bright pink peonies sits on a low table. On the other side of the room, a cheerful fire glows in a small stone hearth.

  Norah settles behind her desk, then waves me toward one of the chairs.

  “Please,” she says, “make yourself comfortable.”

  I sit, but I’m far from comfortable. “Is something wrong?”

  “Rasmus has been removed from your security detail.”

  A bright spark of surprise goes through me. “What? But why?” I look behind me to try to gauge his reaction, but he’s not there.

  Norah sighs. “I’m afraid we’ve had some negative reports about his job performance.”

  “From who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they were credible, and we had no choice but to take action.”

  “I don’t understand. What did the reports say about him?”

  “He’s been accused of unseemly behavior.” Her eyes slide away from mine.

  My mouth goes dry. “What kind of behavior?”

  “Abandoning his post. Sleeping on the job. Drunkenness.” She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Saskia. We owe you better than that.”

  A slow pulse of dread goes through me. “No, Rasmus would never…. He’s done a good job.”

  She arches her eyebrows. “And yet you didn’t notice his absence until just now.”

  I can’t let Rasmus be punished for something he didn’t do. But how can I refute her without exposing myself and my team? If I confess, she won’t let me out of her sight. Latham will change the past. All of Kastelia will be in danger.

  “Please,” I say, “you can’t do this. He’s been a good bodyguard.”

  “I admire your loyalty, Saskia. Really, I do. But his actions are unacceptable. He put your life at risk. You’ll be assigned someone new, but the replacement won’t arrive for a day or two. So I need you to be particularly cautious until then. No going off by yourself. No leaving Ivory Hall. Understood?”

  My fingers twist together in my lap. I can’t let this happen to Rasmus. It’s wrong. Unjust. But I don’t know what else to do.

  I nod. “Understood.”

  Norah taps the desktop lightly. “Good. Now let’s go. I’ll walk you to the training wing and hand you off to Master Kyra.”

  Hand me off. I cringe. She makes me sound like I’m a baton in a footrace. Just an object to be safeguarded instead of a person with feelings.

  But the thought brings a swift pang of guilt that hits me hard in the chest. I treated Rasmus as even less than that—like he was just an obstacle to get around instead of someone with a reputation. A reputation I’ve just ruined.

  My private training is an exercise in futility. I can’t focus. My thoughts are slow and sticky.

  “You’re distracted,” Master Kyra says, not unkindly. “Worried about the next bone game?”

  “Yes,” I say. But it’s a lie. The games haven’t even crossed my mind since I left the workshop.

  I’m thinking of Rasmus. Of Bram. Of how my entire team is in danger because of me. I’ve been so selfish, so focused on defeating Latham, I haven’t appreciated how devastating the consequences would be if my friends were caught helping me. What would Jacey’s punishment be for dosing Rasmus with a walking sedative? Or Talon’s penalty for using training birds to spy for me?

  They’ve taken such good care of me and I haven’t returned the favor. I sink my teeth into my lower lip.

  “It’s late,” Master Kyra says. “Should we call it quits for today? Perhaps try again when you’re not so preoccupied?”

  The question makes my throat feel thick. Because I’m quite certain there will never be a time when I’m not weighed down by worry. And with the third bone game approaching next week, I don’t have time to waste. I need to find my mother’s bones. To stop Latham.

  “No,” I say, “let’s keep going.”

  I barely listen to her instructions. I have no intention of trying to see anything except Latham.

  Master Kyra drops a handful of bones into the stone basin in front of me, and I set them alight. Extinguish the flames. Tip the bones onto the cloth in front of me. The magic leaps in my belly and I’m sucked into a vision.

  It takes me a moment to get my bearings, but then the familiar bone-white walls of Ivory Hall come into focus. The dripping chandeliers. The curving dual staircases.

  Norah hurries through the foyer, a bundle of packages tucked under her arm. I can’t tell if I’m in the past, present, or future. The capital is quiet. No apprentices bustling between classes, no clanging of dishes in the dining hall, no one lounging on benches or studying spells. Maybe everyone is in training sessions. Or maybe the term is over, and everyone has already gone home.

  I follow Norah up the stairs, down the corridor, toward the men’s dormitory. She stops at one door, and sorts through her stack until she finds a parchment marked Notice of Exam Failure. She presses her lips together and shakes her head as she folds the paper and slides it under the door. Then she makes her way down the corridor, delivering letters from home, invoices for damaged library books, instructions to attend extra training sessions. She finishes in the men’s dormitory and heads toward the women’s. When she stops at my door, my heart clenches. Maybe we’re in the future and I’ve failed the bone games. But Norah doesn’t pull a paper from her stack. Instead she reaches for the doorknob. It turns easily at her touch.

  She enters the room. A neatly folded stack of linens sits on the end of each bed as if no one lives here yet. So I’m not in the present. Does that mean I’m in the past? In the future?

  Norah props a package on one of the pillows. It’s wrapped in brown paper stamped with delicate red designs. A tag is attached to the front, and Norah flips it over to reveal a single word written in elegant script: Saskia.

  The air freezes in my lungs, making it impossible to draw breath. Latham didn’t leave the spell book in my room.

  Norah did.

  But she couldn’t have known what she was delivering. Could she?

  I shift my attention to her face, hoping if I just study her carefully enough, I might be able to read her intentions. Ou
tside the vision, my stomach rolls over and I think I might be sick. The vision dims and I nearly pull my hands from the bones, but then a shaft of moonlight falls across Norah’s face. I’ve moved forward in time, but Norah is in the exact same place again. She stands in the middle of my room. But now I lie in bed, my hair unbraided and fanned across my pillow. My face is relaxed, as if for once my dreams are untroubled.

  Norah pulls a cloth from her pocket and holds it over my nose and mouth. A heavy stone of dread drops into my stomach. Am I in the future now? Is she trying to suffocate me?

  In the vision, I swat my hand over my face, as if trying to scratch an itch, but then I go suddenly limp. My hand falls heavily back to the mattress. Norah pulls a bone needle from her pocket and plunges it into a vein at my elbow. Outside the vision, my pulse thunders in my ears. It’s exactly like the needle I used on Declan to steal his blood—made from the wing of a vampire bat, infused with the animal’s numbing saliva so it pierces without pain. The chamber inside the needle fills with my blood as I lie motionless, drugged by whatever potion Norah soaked into the cloth.

  I think of Tessa’s horrified expression as she lifted the vial of my blood in the shop. Saskia, how did Latham get this? Is he doing readings on you?

  Suddenly the pieces fall into place. Norah discouraging me from going after Latham. The way each bone game has seemed specifically designed to torture me. Norah firing Rasmus as an excuse to leave me exposed. The realization is like a knife to the gut.

  I was right that Latham had someone working for him on the inside. But the traitor isn’t someone on the Grand Council.

  The traitor is Norah.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I stumble from the training room with my hand pressed to my mouth. Bile coats the back of my throat.

  Bram is waiting in the corridor and his eyes go wide. “What’s wrong?”

  Master Kyra is quick at my heels. “Oh good,” she says when she sees Bram. “Saskia needs a Healer. Can you walk with her? Tell Master Dina that she overextended herself during a reading and needs something for nausea.” But she’s wrong. There isn’t a medication in the world that can ease my rolling stomach.

  Bram takes my elbow. “Yes, of course.”

  I think of Norah saying she’d hand me off to Master Kyra. Did I just get handed off to Bram? I pull my arm away and his hand falls to his side. I ignore his wounded expression and hurry down the corridor.

  He races to catch up with me. “What happened?”

  But I don’t answer right away. Betrayal, as it turns out, feels a lot like grief. It comes in waves, nearly suffocating me, before receding into something manageable only to gather strength and pummel me all over me again. Norah sat in my home in Midwood. Her eyes welled with tears when I told her what had happened to my mother. She held my hand as she promised to help find Latham and get justice for my family. And yet she was working with him all along.

  Just like Declan.

  I wait until we’re far from the training wing before I dare speak. Then I spin to face Bram.

  “Are you still spying for her?” I ask the question through clenched teeth.

  “For who? For Norah? Of course not.”

  “Then why were you waiting for me back there?”

  “Because we left things in a weird place before. I wanted to talk to you.” He rubs a palm against his cheek. “Saskia, what’s going on? What happened back there?”

  I lay a palm flat against my stomach. I feel like fate is mocking me. Using my life like a child’s toy—a quick turn of a kaleidoscope that keeps rearranging everything I think I know. All I can do is wait for a new image to appear.

  “Latham didn’t leave the spell book in my room. Norah did.”

  He goes very still, and then rage flashes across his expression so suddenly, I take a step back. His hands curl into fists at his sides. The air around him seems to crackle.

  “I had nothing to do with this,” he says.

  “I trusted her,” I say softly, as much to myself as to Bram.

  “I did too. If I’d had any idea—” He takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What do you want to do now?”

  Thoughts whirl around my mind, spinning feverishly until they grow too weary to keep moving. Slowly, like exhausted puppies, they settle and grow still.

  And with the quiet in my head comes clarity. “I want to confront her.”

  Bram’s expression is tight, his eyes dark. “I’m coming with you.”

  My calm doesn’t last. As we hurry down the corridor, my pain catches fire and builds into a seething fury. Norah will pay for this right along with Latham. We’re nearing the staircase when Talon comes running toward us waving a parchment in front of his face. Jacey, Tessa, and Niklas are close behind him. “We’ve been searching everywhere for you.” His face is flushed. He rests his hand on the banister and sucks in a big gulp of air. “We just got the details for our final bone game, and—” His voice dies as he takes in our expressions. “What’s wrong?”

  “Norah is working with Latham,” Bram says.

  There’s a slow beat of silence and then they all start talking at once. Questions. Shock. Outrage. But it blends into a dull roar that makes my stomach turn. I can’t just stand here talking. I have to do something before the anger inside burns me alive. I might not be able to get to Latham right now, but I can get to Norah.

  I spin on my heel and race down the staircase. The others follow, their steps thundering behind me.

  When I get to Norah’s office, I don’t knock before throwing open the door. She sits on a plush chair in front of the hearth, her face lit by crackling flames. She’s sipping a cup of tea and a plate of pastries rests on a small table beside her.

  “Saskia,” she says, “what a nice surprise. Is there something I can do for you?” Her tone is light. Friendly. As if she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  It enrages me.

  “You’re a liar.” I practically spit the words.

  Norah’s eyes narrow. She glances at the rest of my team standing behind me. “Excuse me?”

  “You promised to help find Latham, and instead you’ve been helping him this entire time.”

  A spasm of something flits across her face—surprise? Regret? Guilt? But she quickly regains her composure and her expression smooths into tranquility. She brings the cup to her lips and blows delicately.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Bram takes a step toward her. “We’ll report you to the Grand Council. Maybe a little truth serum will improve your memory.”

  She gives a brittle laugh. “Are you threatening me?”

  Bram fixes her with a cold stare. “Yes.”

  Norah sips her tea. “That would be unwise.”

  She’s so unruffled that it unsettles me, blankets me with a cold that seeps into my veins.

  “You won’t get away with this,” I tell her.

  Behind me, Tessa lays a palm against my shoulder blade. “She’s right, you won’t.”

  Norah sets the teacup on the table beside her. “What is it you want, Saskia?” Her gaze is glued to me. She doesn’t even look at the others, as if she knows this is between the two of us.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say. “You’re going to confess to the Grand Council that you’ve been working with Latham. That you’ve been allowing him to manipulate the bone games. And then you’re going to give them whatever information they need to find him.”

  Her eyebrows arch, and her mouth twists into an amused smile. “That’s a lovely story, dear. Now let me tell one of my own.” She presses her hands together in front of her like an excited child playing a game. “We’ll all go to the Grand Council together. You’ll tell them your suspicions, and then one of them will ask how you came to believe such a preposterous claim. You’ll stammer a bit, before finally admitting that you saw it in a bone reading. Of the past.”

  She stands up and begins to pace in front of the h
earth. She looks exactly as she does when she’s lecturing in the workshop, like she’s savoring every moment. Drawing out the suspense for maximum effect. A heavy cloak of dread falls across my shoulders. I feel myself slumping under its weight.

  “You might protest that it was just that once—an accident, a mistake—but then I’ll point out a similar question that was recently put to rest by this very team. I’ll ask the Grand Council to demand you show your mastery tattoo.”

  I feel a shock wave go through my team, and Norah laughs. “You’ve been keeping secrets, I see. Would you like to show them now?” Reflexively, I fold my arms across my chest and press my palms over my upper arms. She turns to the others. “Saskia’s mastery tattoo is quite lovely. Very intricate. And it has three corners. Poor Jensen is on Fang Island at this very moment being punished for something Saskia is guilty of too. Ah, the irony. Imagine what the Grand Council would think of that.”

  A twinge of sadness flashes across Jacey’s expression, but it quickly hardens into defiance. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “The rest of us can testify that we know what you’ve done.”

  “I wasn’t finished with my story,” Norah says. “See, when I fired Rasmus, I found something strange in his pocket. A cloth that had been soaked in a waking sedative potion. He claims he got it from you, but that can’t be, because you’re matched to ingestibles. Unless …” Her eyes go deliberately wide. “Did Saskia encourage you to use unbound magic?”

  Norah taps her bottom lip with her index finger. “The stolen climbing equipment will be a problem for Niklas. I have it on good authority that Talon borrowed a bird from the menagerie. And, Tessa and Bram, you haven’t been helping Saskia learn even more magic she isn’t bound to, have you? Because that would be unforgivable in the eyes of the council.”

  It’s as if the air has been sucked from the room. We’re all robbed of speech. She’s right. Every single one of us has committed offenses that would result in our expulsion if the Grand Council knew. Or worse.

  “So here’s what’s going to happen,” Norah says, echoing my earlier statement. Her voice has taken on the sharp edge of broken glass. “The six of you are going to keep your mouths shut, keep your heads down, and complete your final bone game. If you’re successful, you’ll finish your apprenticeships in a few weeks, leave Ivory Hall, and get on with your lives. But if you decide to start spreading rumors, please understand, I will destroy you. Are we clear?”