Silver in the Bone, page 19
I hadn’t realized Neve had followed me over to change until I heard her gasp.
It took me a moment to understand what had startled her. I reached for my tunic, but she gripped my arm, turning me more fully toward her.
I tried to curl in on myself like a leaf, blood rushing to my face. For the first time since it happened, I’d managed to forget about the blue-black stain on the skin over my heart. It was shaped like a hideous, sinister star.
“Tamsin…,” Neve whispered, her eyes huge as she backed away. “That’s a death mark.”
I pulled my tunic over my head, my pulse fluttering with a strange panic. “No, it’s not.”
“You were touched by a spirit,” she said. “How did you survive?”
“It’s not,” I insisted, gripping my jacket and throwing it over my shoulders. A blisteringly white field of snow flashed in my mind, the incorporeal hand stretched toward me, the pain like a knife to the heart—
“What kind was it? A poltergeist? A wraith?” Neve pressed, trailing after me as I made my way back toward the stairs, where Cabell and Betrys waited.
I whirled on her, my face aching, my body as tight as a drum. “It’s not a death mark. That’s an old wives’ tale.”
Neve held up her hands. “All right. It’s not a death mark. Great Mother, relax, will you? I didn’t mean anything by it. Death marks are nothing to be ashamed of. Most people don’t even survive the touch.”
The silence between us was painfully awkward as we made our way back up the stairs. Cabell shot me a questioning look. I ignored it, letting exhaustion claim my thoughts. Let it empty my head of anything other than imagining the small stretch of floor I’d be able to lie down on for a few hours.
Betrys gave us each a looking-over in that silent way of hers, the scar on her right cheek somehow more pronounced with her frown. Rather than take us to one of the outer buildings or into the walls again, she led us to the tower itself.
In the shadowed light, it was hard to make out the details of the first level; it seemed to be a great hall, in which countless tables had been assembled in two long rows.
The aisle between them led to yet another ornate statue, this one of the Goddess herself, dignified in face and posture, colored bone white. Small bowls of unseen treasures, dried bundles of wheat, and dying flowers were arranged around her in offering. A candle flickered from a chamber carved into the center of her chest, turning the natural cracks in her stone surface to glowing veins.
The walls were painted as though the artist had wished to bring the forest inside. Something about the way the candles shivered and guttered along the tables and walls made it seem like the trees and flowering undergrowth were alive. As if we had been offered a glimpse into the isle’s past.
Neve came to stand beside me, and I followed her reverential gaze up to the chandeliers and the garlands of dried greens and flowers strung between them.
My heart gave an involuntary kick against my ribs. Why would they heap offerings upon the idol of the Goddess and lovingly decorate the hall when all it could ever be was a reminder of what they’d lost and would never get back?
“This way,” Betrys said gently.
To the far left was a large winding stone staircase, its walls carved into the body of the tree. As we climbed, there was a dull thudding in my ears, and I couldn’t tell if it came from my own heart or somewhere inside the tree.
The upper levels were a breathtaking meeting of tree and stone, seamlessly entangled like smoke and steam. On the second floor, I slowed, peering into an enormous open chamber. Dozens of sleeping people were spread across blankets and straw-stuffed mats. I scanned them quickly, searching without luck for Nash’s ugly mug.
Betrys brought us to the third floor, to a hallway lined with grim-faced doors. She opened the closest one, motioning to Neve and me. “I hope you won’t mind sharing…?”
Inside was a handsome four-poster bed that looked large enough to sleep an entire family. A simple tapestry of deer and birds hung along one wall, and there was already a fire in the hearth.
“The people sleeping downstairs…,” Neve said, hesitating. “How can we accept this when they’re on the floor?”
Speak for yourself, I thought. I could accept this gladly.
“They choose to sleep together for comfort and protection,” Betrys reassured her. “These chambers are normally used by the priestesses of Avalon, but my sisters and I prefer to sleep among the others in case a need to defend the tower arises in the night.”
Well. I put my hands on my hips, tilting my head back. Annoyingly, I now felt a little bad too.
“Many of our elders are resting in the other chambers, so I ask that you keep as quiet as possible,” Betrys continued, giving me a particular look. “And do not wander the halls.”
“Will we be able to meet the other Avalonians?” I asked. If he was here, Nash would have to be among them.
Betrys merely opened a door for Cabell and left without another word.
“Come on,” Neve said, giving my arm a gentle tug. “It’ll be better to look for Nash after a few hours’ sleep anyway.”
I sighed, shooting Cabell an uncertain look.
He nodded, that hopeful smile still on his face. “Better to be sharp, right?”
“Right,” I echoed.
Neve picked up the candle on the small bedside table, carrying it over to the tapestry for a better look before turning to the wardrobe. A painted fox and hare were caught in a circular chase across its doors. Opening it, she found our bags stowed inside and two long coats made of a patchwork of different fabrics.
“Wand?” I asked, already knowing the answer by her expression.
She moved to sit down on one side of the bed. I sat on the other, my back to her. The room didn’t have any sort of window or opening in the wall, allowing the heat of the fire to linger with us. It took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t smelling smoke—instead, four stones with carved spirals had been pressed together in the hearth, flames flickering lightly upward.
“Salamander stones,” Neve said quietly. “I’ve read about them. Never thought I’d actually see them.”
“An ongoing theme of this misadventure for all of us,” I noted, moving outside the fire’s glow. I ran my hands along the walls, keeping to the edges of the room to ensure there were no hidden entrances or spellwork. As impressive as the large stones were, their cheerful glow did nothing to offset the constant baying of the creatures in the ravaged forest below.
“How are we ever going to sleep?” Neve asked.
I blew a wispy strand of hair out of my face. As tired as I’d been on the way here, I was wide-awake now. Neither my mind nor my body seemed willing to wind itself down, so I went to retrieve my bag from the wardrobe.
“I think I have some pills or a tonic,” I said, rummaging through it. “Let’s just make sure they didn’t help themselves to anything—”
I swore.
“What?” Neve asked, twisting around.
“I left Ignatius at the springs,” I said, hanging my head.
“Who’s Ignatius?” Neve asked.
“The Hand of Glory,” I said.
“I knew that’s what it was!” she said, glowing with excitement. “Where did you find one? Did a sorceress make it for you? Does it really open locked doors?”
“That, and more,” I said, then, resigned, added, “I have to go get him.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of all the idiotic moves I’d made in recent days, this was the most boneheaded. Ignatius had behaved himself so far, but if one of the priestesses or Avalonians found him and he decided to open his eye and take a look around…
I didn’t want to know what they would make of something as sinister as a Hand of Glory.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Neve asked. “It’s a long walk through the dark.”
I hesitated, surprised by how hard it was to turn her down. “I can manage on my own.”
“At least take this.” Neve offered up the candle and its iron chamberstick.
“There’s plenty of light on the way,” I protested.
“Please,” she said more forcefully. “It would make me feel better.”
“All right.” I sighed through my nose. “But only to end this conversation.”
“Uh-huh.” Neve let out a knowing hum. Knowing what, I had no idea, but I didn’t like it, or the smile that came after. Retrieving her CD player and earphones from her fanny pack, she slipped the latter over her ears.
“Go to sleep,” I told her.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” she said, still with that same tone. She leaned against the thin pillow and headboard, stretching her legs out over the blanket. Her music followed me into the hallway.
I was still replaying the moment as I made my way down through the tower, creeping past the hall of sleepers ensconced in whatever they dreamt of in this nightmare realm.
Shielding the struggling candle flame with my hand, I crossed the courtyard quickly, glancing up to make sure no one was watching from the walkway along the high defensive walls. By the time I’d made it down the stairs to the springs, I was out of breath.
I forced myself around the last curve of the stairs, chest burning, legs like bags of sand. Breath wheezed out of me as I scooped up Ignatius, still wrapped in his purple silk. I turned back toward the stairs like a prisoner facing the gallows.
“Botheration,” I muttered, and went to sit on the maiden statue’s enormous foot instead. Looking up at her from below, I added, “Sorry, girl.”
I knew it was a mistake the moment I leaned back against her cold stone ankle. My body went heavy as the last bit of momentum left it.
I might have stayed there, sprawled out with only a candle and a demonic sentient hand for company, if I hadn’t heard the quick strike of feet on the stone steps.
I slid down off the side of the foot, blowing out the candle as I landed in an ungraceful crouch. It had to be Olwen, but on the off chance it wasn’t…
My pulse thrummed in my ears as I waited, risking a quick lean around the statue. Then another when I saw who it was.
Emrys stood at the edge of one of the pools, staring down into its glowing depths. His face was so devoid of emotion, it was as if his spirit had been ripped from his body. The sight of it sent an unexpected pang through me.
And then he removed his gloves. One, two, dropping to the stone. I leaned forward, trying to see, but between the dozens of feet that separated us and that incessant cerulean light, nothing seemed unusual.
Not until he reached for the hem of his sweater and undershirt. The muscles of his back tightened as he pulled both over his head.
The iron chamberstick slipped out of my fingers and clattered to the ground. Emrys whirled back, eyes wide with surprise or fear or something worse, but it was too late. I’d seen them.
“What the hell did that?” I rasped.
I hadn’t imagined the scar on his face at Rook House. It continued down along his neck, across his breastbone. That single, ragged scar fed into dozens of others, their brutal seams raised red and angry. My eyes couldn’t follow them all as they stretched over the taut muscles of his chest, his arms, his back, down below the sharp, low V of his abdominals.
He looked like a glass figurine that had been knocked from its shelf. Shattered, and hastily put back together.
Emrys’s face was rigid as he reached for his sweater and pulled it over his head, as if that could erase what I had seen. I stood there, unable to move.
“Are you following me now?” he asked angrily, picking up his gloves and turning to storm back up the steps.
“What did that to you?” I whispered. The heavy layers of clothing, the refusal to take his gloves off—no glamour would have hidden this from anyone with the One Vision, so he hadn’t bothered.
“Leave it, Tamsin,” he said, his voice like ice.
Somehow, I’d crossed the distance between us. Somehow, I was taking his hand, turning it over to see where the scars continued over the tendons and muscles of his forearm.
“What the hell is going on? Did those things—” No, it couldn’t have been the Children of the Night. I would have seen it happen. “Did Madrigal do that to you?”
He ripped his hand free, but he hadn’t turned fast enough to hide the agonized shame that spilled over his features.
“Emrys!” He stopped a few steps above me but didn’t turn. “What happened?”
His hands curled at his side. “Do you care?”
I couldn’t tell which of us was more surprised when I shouted, “Yes!”
We stood there staring at one another, breathing hard. The walk had winded me, but it was nothing compared to the heaviness that welled in my chest at how pale his face had gone.
“What happened?” I whispered.
His throat worked hard as he swallowed. “I made a mistake. There—are you happy? It turns out I’m as big an idiot as you’ve always thought.”
“This happened on a job?” I asked. “It wasn’t Madrigal?”
“It had nothing to do with her,” he said. “And it has even less to do with you.”
He left me standing at the bottom of the steps, his footfalls creating a thundering echo in my skull. It wasn’t the exhaustion that kept me there, staring at the place he’d been, but the shock that still had me by the throat.
There were any number of curses that could shred a mortal to pieces, flay the skin from their muscle and bone. All agonizing.
None survivable.
A new question seemed to arise with every step I climbed. How long had he had these scars?
I half expected to see him in the courtyard, and again at the entrance to the tower, but the only person waiting for me there was a stone-faced Caitriona.
I froze.
“Look, I just forgot this—” I began, for once not having to think of an excuse.
“I’ve spoken to my sisters,” she interrupted me. Even in the light of the torch she held, her face was inscrutable. “And it’s been agreed that I’ll take you to see your father tomorrow.”
I stared at her, heart thrumming wildly in my chest. “Really?”
He’s alive. The words seemed to take flight in my chest. Somehow, impossibly, Nash, like the most tenacious of rats, had survived sorceresses, debtors, and a growling wilderness of monsters.
“Indeed,” Caitriona said, turning sharply on her heel to head back into the tower. “Rest while you can. We leave at daybreak.”
“This is daylight?”
Cabell’s smile was grim as he leaned against the simple fence that bordered the courtyard’s training space. “Sure it is. It’s gone from pitch black to bleak gray.”
“So glad you can still find an ounce of humor to squeeze out of this,” I grumbled.
He pulled away, feigning fear. “Oh no. Don’t tell me you used the last of your coffee packets at Tintagel?”
The mere mention of instant coffee was enough to darken my mood. I had a cracking headache from going so long without my sludgy elixir of life.
“Good thing you have the best brother in all the many lands,” he said, reaching into his satchel for a small thermos.
My eyes widened as I snatched it from him and unscrewed the top. The smell of bitter, chemical coffee rose with a wisp of steam, greeting me like an old friend. I looked at him again.
“I actually think I might cry,” I said, hugging the container to me.
“I made nice with the elfin cook, Dilwyn, and got some hot water,” Cabell said. “It turns out not even the Fair Folk can resist one of my winning smiles.”
“Are you sure she didn’t just give it to you so you’d go away?” I asked, taking a sip of the sweet, sweet sludge.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Feeling unusually sentimental, I added, “You are the best brother, you know.”
“Nah, I’m just trying to free my sister from whatever demon possesses her precoffee,” he said. “And anyway, it’s not like you had much of a choice on the brother front.”
“Fate did right by us,” I said. “Just that once.”
Cabell hummed in thought. “Fate, or Nash?”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” I asked, changing the subject. “I think I managed an hour at most.”
“Lucky,” he said. “I got maybe ten minutes, thanks to the sweet lullaby of screeching.”
I was used to sleeping in strange places, drifting off as soon as my head touched a soft surface, whether it was my hands, a pillow, or a bundled-up shirt. Yet every time I’d closed my eyes last night, my memory had turned traitor. It flashed between the monsters in the woods, the life draining from Septimus’s face, Emrys’s scars, and Caitriona’s words. I’ll take you to see your father.
I hugged my arms around my middle, trapping some warmth beneath my flannel jacket. I drew in a deep breath of the foul air, made worse by the pungent smell of excrement and animal sweat wafting from the stables a stone’s throw to our left.
A short distance away, Deri had scaled the Mother tree, packing what looked to be woody abscesses with straw and moss. The hamadryad was joined by dozens of tiny green figures, who were cleaning rot from the tree’s body and stripping dried pieces of bark off to eat. The sprites were no bigger than my hand and had bodies like twigs and heads like pale green rosebuds. Their wings were translucent and glimmering, almost like a dragonfly’s.
Behind us, Betrys and one of the other Nine, Arianwen, were moving through sword drills under the watchful eye of Bedivere. The clatter of their wooden practice weapons punctuated the quiet of the morning, chased by a grunt or “Ha!” of effort.
“That’s it,” Bedivere said, “lean into it—yes, Ari, that’s it.”
Arianwen had cropped her brown hair close to her scalp, which only served to emphasize the loveliness of her face. She moved with a fluidity I envied, her full figure unimpeded by the leather practice armor as she swung her arm up and down, arcing the blade slowly, then quick-quick, tap-tap.
