“Take off your shirt,” she murmurs.
My gaze flies up to her hazel eyes. “What?”
“I need to wash it,” she explains, biting her lower lip to hold back a grin.
My ears burn. Ailesse is still watching me, one of her brows lifted. I keep my face straight, pull my shirt over my head, and pass it over to Jules. We always rinse our silt-drenched clothes after the water settles in the catacombs. She doesn’t need to make a game out of it.
“Come with me.” Her eyes drift over my bare chest. “It’s dark where the water is. Private.”
“Knock it off, Jules.”
Her jaw muscle tics, but she laughs like a tavern girl, completely out of character. “Look how tense you are.” She pokes my abdomen, and my muscles involuntarily flex. “The queen won’t come tonight. It’s almost dawn. Even if she tracked her daughter’s bones, she could never get all the way down here. She’ll wait until she has a whole night, when she’s at her strongest.” Jules unties the muddy laces at the top of her blouse, and the rough-spun cloth parts lower. “Plus, once she realizes we’re in the catacombs, she’ll have to rethink her strategy. So you can afford to let down your guard, Bastien.” She traces a thin scar above my navel.
I push her hand away. “Hurry up with our clothes, all right? We have work to do.” She shouldn’t have kissed me in Gaspar’s shop. I shouldn’t have kissed her back. “I’m not leaving the Bone Crier alone with Marcel.”
Jules scoffs and glances at Ailesse. “Why? She’s a weakling now.”
“Go, Jules.” I push her again, this time with more force.
She catches my wrist and squeezes hard. We haven’t gotten into a scuffle since we were kids, but the glint in her eyes says she’s itching to break that streak. She finally lets go and forces a sultry smile. “Suit yourself. Have fun with your soulmate,” she says in a singsong voice.
On her way out of the chamber, she throws a pointed look at Ailesse while flinging my dirty shirt across her shoulder. Ailesse’s glare is just as hateful.
I drag a hand over my face when Jules leaves. It’s laughable, really, the idea of soulmates. If the Bone Crier and I really are bound by ritual magic, it’s not because we’re meant for one another. That would mean my father was meant for the woman who killed him, and I refuse to believe he was meant for anyone else besides my mother. Even if I don’t remember her.
“I know why you resist her.” The smugness in Ailesse’s voice claws under my skin.
“You know nothing about me.”
She tilts her head to study my face. She’s filthy from the chalky tunnel water, and there’s a nick at the base of her throat, along with a smear of dried blood. My blade did that. I glance away and rub a knotted muscle in my arm. “I know you have a spark of Elara’s Light,” she says. “Everyone does. It’s the whisper in your head, the thoughts behind your thoughts. It tells you your friend might prick your heart, but she doesn’t pierce your soul.”
I snort. “Your gods aren’t my gods, Bone Crier. They don’t speak to me. They sure as hell don’t dictate my life.”
Her nostrils flare. I’m still a few feet away, but she leans toward me and tucks her bent knees to the side. The movement pulls on her dress, and it falls off one of her shoulders. I try not to stare at the creamy softness of her skin. She doesn’t notice. She’s too busy throwing darts with her eyes. “I wouldn’t have chosen you either, Bastien.”
My chest jolts when she says my name. It’s too personal, too familiar, coming from her. Ailesse stiffens. I realize I have a death grip on the hilt of my knife. Her hands close into fists. She’s ready to fight back, despite her bonds and lack of power. A pulse of admiration trips through my veins.
Marcel lets out a loud snore and rolls over, lugging his pack onto his chest. Even in his sleep he’s guarding his book—as well as Ailesse’s bones. Jules stuffed them inside after we entered this chamber and threatened Marcel on pain of death—which means nothing, since Jules says it so often to him—to keep the pack out of Ailesse’s reach.
The worst of my tension diffuses. I let go of my knife and walk over to Marcel. I scoot away his pack with the toe of my boot. It’s the only way to wake him up. I swear he’d sleep if his bed were burning.
He jerks upright and swipes at me with his eyes still closed. I slide his pack out of reach. “Get up, Marcel. I need your help.”
“Why?” He absently licks his lips. “It isn’t morning. I wasn’t dreaming. I start dreaming two hours before dawn.”
Leave it to Marcel to determine the time, even though he can’t see the moon or sun. “We need to sleep during the day from now on.”
His eyes slit open and he peers back at Ailesse, who watches him like a predator. “Oh, right. We’ve stolen a Bone Crier.” He blinks. “And I told Birdie I’d walk with her by the river today—and tomorrow, and the day after that.” He releases a heavy sigh.
“Get out your book.” I toss him his pack. He doesn’t catch it fast enough, and it thunks against his chest. “You want to see Birdie? Start reading.”
His brows wrinkle. “I fail to see the connection.”
I crouch beside him, my back turned to Ailesse. “The queen will track us here as soon as tomorrow night,” I whisper. “We’re not getting out of these catacombs alive unless we form a proper plan to”—I slice my finger across the base of my throat—“her. That involves you doing what you do best: reading between the lines of those Old Galle folktales.”
“Ah, I see.” He pulls into a cross-legged position and glances at Ailesse before he winks at me. Twice.
“Listen, we’ll talk more after the Bone Crier is sleeping, but for now . . .” I scoot closer and lower my voice another notch. “Do you know how strong the queen will really be down here? Will she be able to use any of her bone magic?”
“I think so . . .” Marcel unfastens his pack. “But it will cost her more energy. Eventually, she’ll run out, though I have no idea how long that will take. It isn’t mentioned in any stories here.” He pulls out his father’s book and sets it in his lap. “Unless I’ve forgotten something.” He turns the pages, and the book falls open where the spine has cracked. I twist to look at it with him. Ailesse sits up taller and tries to peek at it, too. Can she read? I always imagined Bone Criers doing things like drinking blood from horns or eating the raw flesh off animals, not studying out of books. Hell, I can barely read.
I tip up the book so she can’t see inside. The story I’m looking at is a myth about Bone Criers, complete with an illustration of a woman with unbound hair. The train of her dress is so long it spreads from the center of the bridge to the foot, where an unassuming man comes near. I see my father. I see Jules and Marcel’s father.
I see me.
Acid rage hits my stomach. I abruptly push up on my feet and stride away from Ailesse. She isn’t close, but she’s still too close. I lean against the only brick wall in the room—a place like others in the catacombs that’s been shored up to prevent the tunnels from collapsing—and fight to breathe.
“Are you all right?” Marcel asks, a vague note of concern in his voice.
I wait for my pulse to slow. “Just hungry. You?”
“I suppose.”
I steady my legs. Pull away from the wall. Rummage through a few jars and tins on the jutting bricks we use as shelves. Keep yourself together, Bastien. Focus on a plan. Like food and supplies. We don’t have much, except the little we left last time we had to hole up in here. If we have to stay much longer, one of us will need to make a run to Dovré.
Jules ducks back inside the chamber and brings a puddle of water with her. The clothes she wears are soaked, but not dirty anymore. She’s fully bathed, something each of us always does in turn—part of our routine here, or else the silt-mud itches like the plague.
She wrings out her hair, lugs in a bucket of water, and shuts the door panel. “Marcel, you’re actually awake.” She chuckles, already in a better mood for being clean. “The way you were snoring, I th
ought you’d sleep another fortnight.”
He grunts distractedly, his head bent over his book.
She limps closer to me and totes the bucket along with her. I arch my brow. “More drinking water?”
She nods, passing me my rinsed shirt. I hang it from a brick to dry. “Anything good in there?” She eyes my tin.
“The usual.” I offer her a piece of dried meat.
She pops it in her mouth and chews it for a moment. “You know, I’ve been thinking.” She limps toward Ailesse. “Wouldn’t it be a shame, if when the queen comes, she doesn’t even recognize her own daughter?”
Ailesse tenses and slides back on the slab. But she can’t escape. Jules tosses all the contents of her bucket at her. Ailesse breaks into a coughing fit and shudders.
Jules grabs a fistful of her dripping hair and studies Ailesse’s face. “There, much better. Now the muck is gone, and we can see the monster.”
Ailesse’s mouth forms a vicious line. She thrusts out her ankle-bound legs and kicks Jules hard in the stomach.
Jules flies backward and hits the ground. As soon as the shock fades from her face, she’s back on her feet, her eyes livid.
Merde.
“Jules,” I warn. She doesn’t listen.
She draws the knife sheathed at her thigh.
Ailesse lifts up on her knees, agile even tied up. “You want my blood?” she sneers. “Come and take it. Watch Bastien die with me.”
Jules’s grip on her knife turns white-knuckled. Marcel shuts his book. I take a tentative step forward. “Jules,” I say again. I’m not going to die. I can’t be the Bone Crier’s soulmate. “The queen will know if she’s dead.” My pulse pounds harder as I look at Ailesse. “Won’t she?”
Ailesse’s feverish eyes drift from me to the sharp point of Jules’s blade. She presses her lips together and nods.
Jules cries out in frustration and throws the knife. Ailesse jerks aside, but the blade flies wide and clatters against the stone wall.
A flood of cool relief washes over me.
Scratch, scratch.
I glance behind us. Something chirps faintly. I frown and move near the small door of our chamber. The scratching comes again. Another chirp. An animal? I’ve never seen so much as a rat down here.
“What is that?” Jules asks.
“No idea.” The scratching intensifies, the chirping grows louder. There’s more than one creature out there in the tunnel. And they really want in. What if Ailesse’s mother is with them?
Impossible. She couldn’t have tracked us that fast.
I crouch and tentatively push at the false door. I’ve spent enough time in the gutters and alleys of Dovré not to flinch at rodents, but that doesn’t mean I want my finger bitten.
The door cracks open. The muffled chirps amplify to a chorus of screeching. A fuzzy brown head with a squat face pops in through the gap. The lamplight reflects off its beady black eyes. Another head burrows in.
“Bats.” I grimace.
“Bats don’t roost in the catacombs,” Marcel says.
With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I turn to Ailesse. She’s staring at the creatures fighting to get in, her eyes bright with hope. This is Bone Crier magic, though I don’t understand it.
I reach to yank the door shut, but the first bat squirms inside. It unfurls the velvety membranes of its wings. Huge for a bat. Twice the normal wingspan.
“A giant noctule.” Marcel gasps in awe. “But they’re tree-dwellers, so they shouldn’t be . . .” His words trail off. His face pales as the bat bares its fangs at me. “I don’t think it likes you.”
Jules draws a sharp breath. “Bastien, watch out!”
The creature shrieks and flies at my face. I scramble back and try to beat it away. More flapping wings swarm around me. Other bats have pushed inside.
“What do we do?” Marcel shouts. He’s on his feet, using his book as a weapon, but there are too many. At least ten. No, fifteen.
“Shut the door!” Jules cries. She fights a bat tangled in her hair.
I swat at the creatures clawing my arms and push at the door. But the force is too strong on the other side. How many are out there?
A terrible image flashes to mind. Jules’s knife. On the ground near Ailesse. Jules never got a chance to get it back.
I let go of the door and spin around. Through the storm of black wings, I see Ailesse. The ropes at her wrists are already cut away. Now she’s sawing the ones at her ankles.
I plow forward with my arms up to protect my face. The swarm thickens. “Jules!” My voice sounds faint under the deafening screeches.
The lamps in our chamber start to extinguish from the rushing wings. I’m halfway across the room. Ailesse sees me coming. The bats aren’t harassing her. She works harder, frantically trying to cut herself free.
More lamps snuff out. I shove against the tide of wings, shrieks, and claws.
Ailesse has almost severed the rope, but she can’t finish. I’m within reach. She swipes out with the knife, but the bats throw off her aim. I scramble to grip her forearm before she can attack again. I bash her hand on the slab—once, twice, and she loses the knife. I give it a hard kick, and it skids across the ground into the chaos.
She thrashes and pounds me with her fists. I crawl on top of her and wrestle to pin her down. I can’t find another length of rope to tie her wrists back together again.
“Bastien!” I crane my neck at Jules’s muffled shout. Through the choking black, I see dim flashes of her. She has an arm around her brother. They’re pressing toward the door. “Hurry!” she calls. “We have to get out of here!”
“You can’t escape this.” Ailesse’s soft but savage laughter heats my ear. Her words are only loud enough for me. “My mother has found you.”
I break into a cold sweat. I’m not ready for the queen. I haven’t made a plan.
Only one lamp burns now, the one nearest to us. In the last snatches of light, Ailesse’s pupils are large and fathomless pits. Hell is inside them, the dark Underworld she worships, the endless night where Tyrus reigns.
No. My breath catches. We’re not in Hell yet. This night isn’t endless.
“Don’t go!” I shout to Jules and Marcel. “The bats will follow you. This is the queen’s magic. It will fade when dawn comes. We just have to ride it out.”
It’s only a hunch, but it’s the best hope we have. Jules is right—the queen won’t come here tonight. And if her strength is truly weaker in the catacombs, then her magic will be weaker, too. By morning, the bats will leave. At the very least, they’ll be defeatable.
Jules and Marcel do as I say. I catch a glimpse of them crouching against the far wall by the door. Jules bends over Marcel, shielding him from the worst of the onslaught. “Don’t let Ailesse escape, Bastien!” she cries.
I’d die first.
The bats scratch my back and screech in my ears. The last lamp extinguishes. Ailesse’s body flinches beneath me as we’re thrown into complete darkness. I have a strong grip on her arms now, and her hips are wedged between my knees. I can’t hold her in this awkward position until dawn. Painstakingly, I wrestle her onto her stomach. She’s strong, but thankfully not as strong as she was on the bridge.
I sprawl on top of her to anchor her to the slab. Her ankles are still bound together, so I press most of my weight onto her upper body. I fold my arms around her waist to lock her arms at her sides. She wriggles and elbows and bucks beneath me. I press my head into the crook of her neck and struggle to keep her down. I hate being this close to her, my bare chest against her back, and the wet fabric of her dress the only barrier between us. “If you were wise, you’d stop fighting and save what little strength you have left,” I say, using all my willpower not to strangle her in the dark. “You know you can’t outmatch me.”
She pants for air. “You’re wrong. We are perfectly matched. That’s why the gods paired us together. So if you were wise, you’d stop resisting me and accept your fate.” Her nose b
rushes my cheek as she turns her head toward mine. “You will die. You answered the call of my siren song. The ritual has been set in motion, and now it can’t be broken. If I fail to kill you, the gods will complete the task.”
My chest tightens. I wet my dry lips. “You’re a liar and a child of murderers—a murderess yourself.”
“I speak the truth, Bastien.”
Unearthly screeches pierce the air. Bat wings rail against me. I barely notice. Ailesse’s words echo through my head. Her poison warmth heats my body.
“Your death is mine,” she tells me. “The gods will make sure of it.”
13
Ailesse
I’M SLEEPING IN MY MOTHER’S bedchamber in Château Creux, wrapped in the fur from the albino bear she hunted to claim his graces. I’m warm. I’m comforted. I believe she might love me.
I open my eyes to the purest black. I’m not swathed in bear fur, but pressed beneath the weight of my amouré. My greatest enemy.
The bats must be gone. I don’t hear their shrieks or flutters, only Bastien’s deep and even breathing. His body has shifted in the night. He’s sleeping at my side, no longer lying on top of me. One of his legs and an arm are draped over my back.
This is my chance to escape. My chance to kill him first.
I test the strength of the ropes around my ankles. They loosened during our struggle, unraveling in the spot where I tried to cut them.
With the careful quietness I’ve learned from hunting, I ease out from under Bastien and slip off the stone slab. I can’t move far—the rope around my feet is still lodged beneath the large stone—so I sit and start prying the rest of the rope apart. The last fibers are tough. I need something sharp. I feel along the ground and find a limestone shard. As I saw at my bonds, I form the rest of my plan. I’ll creep over to where Jules and Marcel should be sleeping. I’ll follow the sound of his light snoring. Then I’ll sneak into his pack. My grace bones must be inside, based on how adamantly he was guarding it.
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