“No, we’re going to do this properly, face-to-face.” I’m clean for the first time in weeks. We snuck into the Scarlet Room of La Chaste Dame, where Baron Gerard likes to slum around. Jules scrubbed my hair with his soap and used his razor on my face. She even gave me a splash of the baron’s fragranced water. Now I smell of licorice, watercress, and cloves. It’s enough to make me sneeze, but Jules promises the scent is enticing. When the Bone Crier plays her song, I should pass off as the fated boy she lures. Whoever he is.
“How do I look?” I ask for the first and hopefully last time in my life. Lunge, strike, parry. I practice my formations in my mind as Jules fusses with the cape I “borrowed” from the brothel. It’s fastened across my back and one shoulder, the same way upper-crusters from the noble district wear them. We’ll return it to the Scarlet Room once we’re done tonight. Madame Colette will poison us in our sleep if she learns we’re thieving from her regulars.
“Almost perfect,” Jules replies. “The only flaw is your breath. The sausage was a mistake.”
“You’re the one who pilfered it—and ate the other link.”
“I’m not the one trying to impress a demigoddess.” Jules turns away and rummages through the underbrush.
“Bone Criers aren’t immortal.” Marcel wipes his dusty hands on his trousers. “They live as long as we do. The old songs perpetuate that myth, but if you look closely to their source, specifically the epic poem Les Dames Blanches by Arnaud Poirier, you’ll see where the confusion began,” Marcel divulges in a lazy drawl. He isn’t trying to impress us, and he isn’t worried much about changing our opinion either. He speaks like he always does, sharing whatever pops into his head and turns the cogs of his mind. “‘With divine gifts, they lure, they kill,’ Poirier says, but of course he means Bone Criers derive power from the gods, not that they are gods. They just claim to descend from them.”
Jules plucks a handful of leaves, half listening to her younger brother. “Mint,” she announces, not a moment before she shoves it in my mouth.
I choke and spit out a couple leaves. “I don’t need the whole plant!”
“Maybe you do.” She fans her face and strolls past me. I don’t miss the sultry sway of her hips. She’s wearing all black from her leather bodice to her boots. She even sports a black hood-piece to hide her blond hair. Jules is always the shadow in our hunts, and I’m the distraction. Although she’s doing a better job at that right now. As for Marcel, we try to keep him out of sight. He’s good for strategy, but when it comes to stealth, he has two feet in the same boot.
He lags a step behind as we creep through the forest. The dry mulch cracks and snaps beneath his feet. The girls in Dovré don’t mind his clumsiness. I’ve heard them whisper about Marcel’s “sweet face” and “honey eyes.” If they whisper about me, I don’t hear it. Truth is, out of the three of us, Marcel is the only one who’s approachable. Slash, duck, roll. My muscles tense as I think through each move. The Bone Crier will be fast, but I’m ready for her.
“The title of Poirier’s poem is further responsible for the misconception that all Bone Criers are fair-skinned,” Marcel continues, “when in fact ‘blanches’ refers to their dress color.”
“Are you still talking?” Jules skips faster down the deer trail. “This will take until dawn if you don’t keep up.”
She’s right. I wheel back to help Marcel. We’ve been hunting bridges for over a year now, and my itch to finish this is festering. Tonight, Bastien, tonight. “How about you ditch the pack and bow?” I suggest. Marcel looks like a mule with all he’s carrying. “That gear slows you down every time.”
“I’d rather be slow than defenseless.” His eyes stray to a leaf caught on his cloak, and he touches its jagged edges. “Vervain,” he identifies, and sticks it in his pocket. “Besides, the book stays with me. You know that.”
I do. The book goes everywhere Marcel does. It’s the main reason for his pack. The lore of Old Galle is in those folktales. They don’t hold up to Marcel’s logic, but the book was on his father’s bedside table when he died. I understand the need for it. My father’s unwieldy knife isn’t as bulky, but I also never go anywhere without it.
The breeze shifts, and I cough at the sudden scent of roses. “Did one of Madame Colette’s girls corner you on the way out?”
“What? No. Why would you—?”
“The fragrance.” I wink. “Pretty sure someone rubbed half a bottle off on you.”
Marcel sniffs at his collar and curses under his breath. “She’s not a brothel girl,” he mumbles, and speeds up to move past me.
I chuckle, following right on his heels. “Let me guess—Birdine?” The frizzy-haired ginger works at a shop near La Chaste Dame. Her airy voice and warm laughter put customers at ease while her uncle swindles a high price for cheap perfume. “No one else wears that much rosewater.”
Marcel groans. “You can’t say anything. Jules will roast me over a pit if she smells this on me.”
“What’s it to her?”
“She holds a grudge against anyone who looks my way.”
“Especially when you look back.” I give him a knowing grin, but he doesn’t laugh like I expect him to. He’s too busy rubbing crushed pine needles all over his neck and shirt and scouring the path ahead for his sister. I’ve never seen him so flustered. Marcel’s normally as unruffled as they come. “You’re serious about this girl, aren’t you?” I cock my head. “Want me to talk to Jules? Ask her to ease off the leash?” Marcel’s only sixteen, same age as Birdine, but that’s old enough to have some fun without worrying about your sister’s eyes on your back.
His face brightens. “Would you?”
Jules will skin me alive for even bringing it up. She’s mother, father, and more to her brother. That kind of responsibility can’t be easy to shake off. Before a Bone Crier wrecked Jules’s and Marcel’s lives, their mother did her own fair share of damage. She abandoned Théo for a sailor when the kids were small and left port on a ship that never returned. “Of course.” I step over a gnarled root and set a quick pace again. Spin, dive, slice.
“Birdie is tired of perfumery. The musk makes her head ache.”
“Oh?” I’m not sure what he’s getting at, but I smirk at his nickname for her. “She got another way to make a living?”
“She wants to assist me in my work.”
“Pickpocketing?” Jump, stab. I bet the Bone Crier will choose one of the bridges in the deep forest south of Dovré. Some bridges are forgotten and hard to find. Not for me. “Or did you mean the revenge business?”
“Scribe work,” Marcel says slowly, not realizing I’m teasing. “I still have most of my father’s tools. There’s parchment to prepare, lines to rule—plenty for Birdie to do. A scribe does more than merely read and write,” he adds, like all poor kids in Dovré can do the same.
I scratch the back of my neck. Is Marcel really so anxious to go off and commit to a profession already? I never let myself think past the next full moon. “Listen, I could have picked up a chisel and hammer over the years.” If my father were alive, that might have made him happy. But he isn’t alive. Now I can only give him justice. “Turns out all I needed was a knife.”
Marcel pushes a reedy branch out of our path. “I don’t follow your point.”
“Look, have a good time with Birdie—when you can, anyway. But don’t lose focus. Jules and I need you.” I give him a brotherly slap on the shoulder. Without Marcel, we wouldn’t know the finer details about Bone Criers, even though that knowledge is patchy. “Becoming a scribe is sure to make your father proud, but his memory needs to be put to rest first, all right?”
Marcel’s chest sinks, but he musters a brave nod.
Jules whistles a birdcall, impatient for us to catch up. We hurry along faster, but Marcel’s footsteps fall heavy. I nudge away a prick of guilt. Reminding him to keep his head in the present is nothing Jules won’t tell him herself. At least from me it doesn’t come with a shouting match. Marcel was
seven when Théo died. Jules was nine. The two years she has on him give her a harder understanding of what they lost. Marcel needs revenge as much as we do. One day he’ll thank us for making him stick it out until the end.
By the time we spy Jules ahead, she’s nearing the first bridge on our route. She’s about to step out of the forest and onto the road when she stops abruptly.
I freeze, always in tune with her, and hold up a hand to stall Marcel. Someone must be nearby. Jules will wait for him to pass. We’re known thieves. If we came across the wrong person—
Jules’s silhouette grows stiff. Hitched-up shoulders. Spread fingers. Not good. How many people are out there? She backtracks slowly, ducking lower with each step.
“What’s happ—?”
I clamp a hand over Marcel’s mouth.
Jules hits a low-lying branch. She’s never that clumsy. “Merde,” she says, and drops flat to the ground. The wild grass rustles. She crawls through it. When I see her again, she’s pointing wildly behind her.
Marcel and I crouch. The three of us gather in a tight circle of heads. “Soldier?” I ask. The king’s guard doesn’t patrol this far from the city wall, but I can’t think of who else could have Jules in a panic.
She shakes her head. “Bone Criers.”
My throat runs dry. I blink stupidly at her. Even Marcel is speechless. “What, here?”
She nods.
“Castelpont?” I’m still disbelieving. I never considered this bridge could be a target, just a shortcut. It’s in full view of Beau Palais.
“A woman in white is on the bridge and another one is retreating from the other side. That woman is wearing green, though, so your all-in-white theory doesn’t stand, Marcel.”
“Perhaps the white is ritualistic,” he muses. “In the legends, Bone Crier sightings happen during the dance on the bridge. Only one story mentions witnesses, and it doesn’t note the color of their dresses, but . . .”
I scarcely hear a word as Marcel drivels on. Jules finally smacks him, which shuts him up. She looks back at me, and her smile splits wide. “Bastien, we’ve done it! We’ve found them!” She stifles a burst of crazed laughter.
I don’t grin back. I can’t think, can’t find my breath. My pulse throbs behind my eyelids. I knew in my gut I’d have my revenge tonight. The scene I’ve captured in my head—the scene I’ve imagined for years—unfolds before me.
I step on the bridge. The Bone Crier and I clap eyes on each other. I pretend to be spellbound. We dance. I’m playing her game. Then I announce who I am. I name two of the men her people have killed. My father. Jules and Marcel’s father. I slit her throat with my father’s knife, and Jules kills the witness. We don’t bury their bodies. We leave them where they die.
“Bastien.” Jules shakes me.
I swallow, coming back to myself. I rub my hands together to get my blood pumping. “Marcel, guard the road—back where it’s out of sight of the bridge. The Bone Crier’s true soulmate will come at some point. With any luck, we’ll be finished by then.”
“I’ll climb a tree and watch for him.” Marcel looks upward, and his hair flops over one side of his face. The one eye I can see is already distracted by the variety of trees above us.
Jules frowns at him. “Don’t mess this up. No comparing sap or bark or whatever else fascinates you.”
“I’m perfectly capable of staying on task.”
“Are you?” She arches a brow. “Prove it. Stick to your post until we call for you, not a moment sooner. Leave the fighting to us. I don’t want to mop up your guts when this is finished.”
“He’ll be fine,” I say, and lean close to Marcel’s ear. “Think of rosewater.” I nudge him. After tonight, our revenge business will be done.
He tamps down a smile and gives me a private nod.
“Are we ready, then?” I ask my friends. “This is everything we’ve worked for. We’ve got to be flawless. That Bone Crier out there”—I point, as if I can actually see her—“will be lethal in ways we can’t even imagine. We have no idea what powers she’ll possess.”
“She won’t use them,” Jules says. “I’ll see to that. I’ll take her buried bones before you’re finished dancing.”
The two of us exchange a fierce glance. I trust Jules with my life, and I know she feels the same about me. “I’m counting on it.”
Marcel reaches for his bow. “If I do see the soulmate, I’m only aiming to maim, correct?”
I cringe, imagining all the ways that could go wrong. “How about you stall him with your words? The Bone Crier can’t catch a glimpse of the other man. That’s the most important thing to remember.”
Marcel gives me a lopsided grin, like he hopes he’ll still get to see some action. He better not.
“Don’t even think about—”
A mournful cry quivers on the air.
No, not a cry.
A melody.
A tremor chases up my spine and shudders across my shoulders. I’m ten years old again, alone in my father’s cart. I leave the cart and follow the song, walking in the small shoes my father made me. The music warbles. The low tones sound so ancient they spark memories I don’t have, shapeless echoes of a time before I was born, or my father was born, or any soul lived and died upon this land.
“Bastien.” Jules grabs my leg, and I inhale sharply. I realize I’m standing and facing the bridge.
“Stick to the plan,” I say gruffly, and spit out the rest of the mint leaves. I’m fine. If the Bone Crier wants a soulmate, I’ll give her one. I’ll give her me. Then I’ll break her.
Jules lets go. I stalk forward through the wild grass and roll out a crick in my neck. When I take my first step onto the road, my breath catches. The Bone Crier’s ghostly white dress stands out against the dark stones of the bridge. She’s real. This is finally happening. My fists tighten. I approach like the thief I am.
Her back is to me, her hair sleek and long and deep copper. My eyes follow the loose waves down to the curved line of her hips.
I can’t look away. Why should I? I tread louder, scuffing the bridge stones, bold and reckless. I’m here for you. The trap is mine this time, not yours.
Fifteen feet ahead, the Bone Crier pulls the flute from her mouth. Her shoulders rise as she breathes in. Like some creature from a dream, she turns to me. Her trailing dress resists the movement and clings to the ground in spiraling folds. She looks sculpted from marble, like something my father would have painstakingly crafted, one chisel strike after another. My skin flushes with heat.
The girl’s hair billows around her slender shoulders. Her beauty is unfair, masking the vicious predator within. But didn’t I expect that? Then why is my blood pounding?
Her large eyes glow umber in the moonlight. Her lashes are dark, not warm in color like her hair. I’m near enough to notice that now. Somehow I’ve moved another ten paces closer, drawn to the look she gives me. Feral, sure, astonished. I’m mirroring that look. We’re both staring at our destiny. Certain death. But I won’t be the one to die.
“What is your name?” the girl asks in a slightly high-pitched voice. She’s young, I realize. Close to my age. Was the Bone Crier who killed my father so young? Did she only seem older because I was a child?
“Bastien,” I blurt. So much for giving a false name. I meant to reveal my own in due time. I won’t slip up again.
“Bastien,” she repeats, her mouth carefully trying the word like she’s never heard it before. It makes my own name feel new to me. “I’m Ailesse.” She twists the bone flute in her hands. A sign of nervousness. Or a trick to make me believe she’s nervous. “Bastien, you were chosen by the gods. It is a great honor to dance with a Leurress, a greater honor to dance with the heir of Matrone Odiva’s famille.”
“Are you asking me to dance?” I play along and steady my feet. This girl, Ailesse, is the equivalent of a princess. My perfect victim. Her people will think twice before they kill another man.
A surprising bubble of laughter
spills out of her. “Forgive me, I’m getting ahead of myself.” She smooths her hair back, walks to the parapet, and sets the bone flute on the ledge. When she returns, her eyes are focused like the huntress—the murderess—she is. “Bastien, will you dance with me?”
I fight the urge to glance over my shoulder. Jules should be under the bridge by now. With any luck, she’s already dug up the first bone.
I bow like I’ve seen barons do, one arm folded in front of me. The strap of my knife harness pulls tight across my chest. “It will be my greatest pleasure to dance with you, Ailesse.”
6
Ailesse
I INHALE A LONG BREATH, blow it out, and sneak a glance at Sabine. She peers at me and Bastien from between the branches of an ash tree in the forest. My peregrine falcon vision sharpens on her upper lip, caught between the tight press of her teeth. She’s just as anxious as I am. Maybe she thinks I won’t take the dance seriously, like the time I practiced it with her. Giselle taught us the movements together, and whenever they became too intimate, I crossed my eyes at Sabine. She finally fell into a fit of giggles, and Giselle threw her hands up and ended our lesson for the day.
I take three steps closer to Bastien and hold his gaze. We’re almost touching. We soon will be. Nothing about the danse de l’amant seems humorous now.
A rush of warmth prickles across my skin, and I restrain a shiver. Time to begin.
Fog rolls onto the bridge and clings to the lower half of my dress, blending into the white of my skirt. It makes it appear even longer. I lift my leg and turn on one toe, the fog swirling with me.
Bastien’s lips glisten and part as he watches. When I finish revolving, he flexes his hands and reaches for my waist. I touch his wrists and whisper, “Not yet.”
“Sorry.” He flinches back, his voice hoarse.
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