Silver in the Bone, page 27
The words felt like they were reaching down and drawing my lungs out through my throat. I let him fill in the story’s gaps the way he wanted to. That was what everyone did anyway.
“There’s something I’ve always wondered,” he said, sitting on one of the trunks. “What happened to you in the years between when Nash left and you joined the guild? Where did you go?”
I knew that six-year stretch, from the time Cabell and I were ten to when we could officially claim Nash’s membership at sixteen, had always been a source of speculation among the guild. Our silence on it wasn’t just that they didn’t deserve an answer—it was what would happen if they found out.
“If I tell you,” I said, “you can’t repeat it to anyone. Your father especially.”
Emrys let out a soft hum. “Now I’m even more intrigued.”
“I’m serious,” I told him. “If you repeat what I’m about to tell you, I’ll come down on you harder than any curse.”
“Only increasing said intrigue,” Emrys said.
I shook my head, taking in a deep breath. “The library’s attic.”
“The—” He actually did a double take. “The guild library’s attic?”
I carefully put the shield back. “Librarian broke the rules and let us inside, even though we weren’t members ourselves.”
“I didn’t realize Librarian could break rules,” Emrys said, amazed.
“He hid us up in the attic, along with some of the lesser relics not on display, and let us come down at night to eat and play with the cats,” I said. “He’d bring us Immortalities and guides to read, and food and water until we were old enough to get it ourselves—though I’m still not sure where he got the food.”
“From everyone’s lockers. Nicodemus Lot and Astri Cullen had a four-year war break out between them because each was so sure the other was stealing their food stores,” Emrys said. “I thought it was the cats being tricky but…apparently not.”
His brows lowered, as if trying to imagine Cabell and me up in the cramped crawl space. “Why didn’t you just go to one of the guild members?”
My top lip curled in disgust. “What makes you think we didn’t?”
That was the simple truth of it. Librarian didn’t have a human heart or mind, but even he somehow knew to protect and care for two vulnerable children.
“Anyway,” I said, “it was fine once we learned how to speak ancient Greek and we could actually talk to him. Well, I learned. Cabell had the One Vision.”
“It’s a good thing you had Cabell,” he said after a while. “You’re lucky.”
It had always surprised me that Endymion and Cerys Dye only had one child, but when all you needed was a son to continue the family name, there was no reason for more, I supposed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t have survived without Cabell.”
That wasn’t exactly true, though. I wouldn’t have had a reason to survive without him. And if the curse stole him from me, it would take that piece of my heart, too.
“I’m sorry,” Emrys said. “About what happened. All that stuff I’ve said about Nash and you and your brother over the years…”
“It’s fine,” I said, putting the conversation out of its misery. “Not like it’s your fault.”
A sound came from the hallway outside—skittering, rattling, almost like—
The roots are moving, I thought.
The quick clip of footsteps echoed down to us, slipping through the crack we’d left open between the chamber doors. I blew Ignatius out with a single breath, waving the smoke away and shoving him in my bag to smother it. The smell of it would give us away—
Emrys grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the armoire. The shelves inside had either been removed or collapsed long ago, leaving barely enough room for two people to stand after he pulled the doors shut behind us.
I switched off my flashlight and tapped his head lamp off just as the chamber’s heavy oak doors swung open.
My heart thundered in my ears, and I held my breath. My legs were tangled with Emrys’s longer ones, my body fitted against his side. The fabric of his tunic was soft against my cheek, and for several moments, all I heard was the galloping pace of his heart, faster than my own.
I hadn’t realized he had an arm around my shoulder until it shifted as he leaned forward, trying to see through the sliver of space between the doors. I hadn’t even realized I’d looped my arm around him for balance. My fingers were splayed against his waist, and the heat of his skin radiated through the thin linen, sending a bolt of warmth through my core.
The new arrival stepped inside, lifting the candle on its iron holder. Emrys was right—the dark hooded cloak was so oversized that it completely engulfed their face and form, making it impossible to see who they were. They turned toward the abandoned possessions, toward the armoire, and sniffed.
We froze, my fingers digging into the hard muscle beneath them. Emrys’s breath caught.
But the figure only turned back toward the wall opposite us. A pale hand reached for a cluster of three white stones I’d barely noticed before, pushing each twice in turn. The stones around them seemed to come alive, pulling back like scurrying mice to create an opening in the wall. As they shifted, they exhaled a cloud of mist into the chamber.
The figure stepped through the opening, and in the darkness of the armoire, Emrys’s eyes found mine.
“Tamsin.”
The inviting darkness breathed my name. It rose and fell in tandem with my own slow breathing. I stayed in that slow, honeyed pull of exhaustion until I felt the band of heat around my back give a gentle squeeze. My eyes shot open.
Emrys’s pale face hovered at the crack in the doors, and somehow, the fact that he wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t acknowledging that I’d dozed off on him, made it all the more humiliating.
“We’ve officially waited them out,” he murmured.
There was no sense of how much time had passed, only the sound of the stones shifting again. The cloaked figure emerged moments later and made for the entrance. Finished with whatever lay beyond the wall.
The great oak doors lumbered shut, hinges whining in protest. The chamber was thrown into unyielding darkness. I counted back from two hundred in my head, waiting to see if the steps would return.
But even as it became clear they would not, neither of us moved.
I closed my eyes again, trying to think of anything other than the way my cheek was pressed to his chest, his heartbeat the only sound in my ears, the way his fingers were absently stroking down my side, seeking and granting comfort.
In that dark, warm place, we’d become shadows ourselves. Breathing in unison, bodies intertwined until each point of contact felt like a burst of sparks across my skin—there was nothing outside of that sensation. No magic, no monsters, no world at all.
The cedarwood had turned the air sweet, but woven through it was the smell of him. His fingers tightened around my waist, and somehow, impossibly, I drew closer. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been held this close by anyone. When I’d wanted to be.
If he turns his face…The thought whispered through me, warming my blood like a shot of whiskey, curling low in my belly.
No.
I pulled away so quickly, it made lights dance in front of my eyes. I pushed out of the armoire and staggered forward, unsteady after crouching for so long. The chamber’s damp chill coiled around me, as if all too eager to have me back in its shadowed grip. I shivered, switching my flashlight back on.
After a moment, Emrys followed, keeping his back to me as he shut the armoire’s doors.
“Let’s—” I cleared my throat. “Let’s see if we can open it.”
He nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Standing in front of the white stones, I stole another quick look at him, then opened my bag, taking stock of what supplies I had left, mentally running through my list. No crystals, tonics, or rope. No axe, either, but I did have my dragonscale work gloves and pulled them on.
“You think whatever’s back there is cursed?” he asked, surprised.
“I think we don’t know what we’re going to find,” I said, “or who created the passage, and it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. What do you have on you? Any crystals?”
Emrys opened his own workbag—monogrammed in gold with his initials, of course. He pulled out a small sack of amethyst, quartz, labradorite, and tourmaline, as well as a collapsible hand axe he opened with a flick of his wrist. He passed it to me, then pulled out a black velvet pouch.
The long silver chain dropped into his palm first, followed by a black crystal point—only, as he picked up the chain and let the point hang in the air, the black inside it moved, swirling like water to reveal the tiniest of white blossoms inside.
It was a crystal pendulum, usually used to answer questions or detect energy vibrations caused by magic or the presence of malicious spirits. I had never been able to get one to work, and with Cabell, I hadn’t needed one.
The crystal didn’t move.
“No curses,” Emrys said, pulling the stone up to eye level. The black liquid inside thrashed, creating a whirlwind around the flower. “But a lot of magic, as you might expect.”
“What kind of crystal is that?” I asked as he held the chain closer to the wall. Seeing the smile growing on his face, I added, “If you tell me to guess, I will punch you.”
His smile turned mysterious in the most annoying way. “Family heirloom.”
I let out a noise of irritation and reached up, switching on his head lamp.
“You want to do the honors?” he asked.
I passed him my flashlight and turned toward the stones, closing my eyes and bringing to mind the touch pattern the figure had used. The stones felt like ice beneath my fingertips, and I could have sworn they shivered with each touch.
The stones around them pulled themselves back, clattering and scraping against one another to crawl out of our way. Reclaiming my flashlight, I took a deep breath of mist and stepped through the opening.
Into a stairwell. The wall closed behind Emrys. I turned, making sure the white stones were visible from this side, too. There was only one way to go now—up.
“Where are we?” I whispered. “Is this still the tower?”
The beam of Emrys’s head lamp moved up the stairs. “Let’s find out.”
So, we climbed. I kept count of the landings between each steep and shallow set of stairs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…nine.
“It can’t be the tower,” I said, recalling the image of the tower from the courtyard. “It has five levels, and the library is at the top.”
“We went down three stories too,” Emrys pointed out. “Maybe the main stairwell only goes to the fifth floor because that’s all the other Avalonians are allowed to see?”
“Or no one alive remembers there’s another floor, or how to get there,” I said, winded from the climb. “Except our cloaked friend.”
The last set of stairs was shorter than the others, lending some credence to our theory that there was a smaller, hidden floor above the library. The dizzying and winding trail led to exactly what I had expected: a locked door. Black iron, with a door pull inside the metal mouth of what looked like a screaming human skull.
The door was locked, but there was no keyhole, making it impossible to pick. But a fastening spell had never stopped my persnickety companion before.
Ignatius, still clearly petulant about the rough treatment I’d given him earlier, took forever to open his eye once his wicks were burning.
“Sorry to catch you at a bad time, but if you aren’t too busy…,” I said to the churlish hand, gesturing toward the lock.
As his light fell upon it, misty, golden webs of magic appeared, as if the glow had peeled back a layer of shadow to reveal the locking spell’s structural bones. It was only when Emrys reached out to stroke one lightly with his fingers, amazement dawning on his face, that I realized it was anything unusual.
The bolt inside it slid open and the heavy door swung out.
“You’ve got a complicated relationship with that thing, don’t you?” Emrys said.
I pushed him forward, forcing him into the room first. As he stooped to pass through the doorway, he stopped, blocking it.
“What?” I asked, standing on my toes to see past the expanse of his back. Every muscle there seemed to tense at once. “What is it?”
A strange vibration moved through my left hand and down my arm. It was Ignatius. The hand was trembling; the filmy pale eye was wide open.
Finally, Emrys moved out of the way.
The walls on either side of us were lined with wood shelves, each burdened with small objects, white as fired porcelain. But as I stepped inside, letting Ignatius’s light fill the small space, unease ran its cold, clammy hand over my chest. The shapes—the sculptures—were grotesque. Agonized in their forms.
And made of human bone.
“Holy gods,” I breathed out, risking a step closer to the nearest shelf. Emrys’s fingers skimmed down my back, as if instinctively trying to grab my shoulder and keep me from it.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Not in books, or vaults, or tombs, or anywhere else.”
“This is…” Emrys, for once, truly seemed at a loss for words. A noticeable shiver moved through him as he rubbed at his arms. “Who do these bones belong to? What kind of sick mind would desecrate them like this?”
“It feels like a collection, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Is it possible whoever made them killed this many people?” Emrys asked faintly.
I shook my head. “Even before the curse, there weren’t enough beings living here for someone not to notice people dying or disappearing. I think someone’s been digging around in graves.”
Setting Ignatius on the ground, I brought my flashlight close to the first sculpture in the line of them. The upper portion of the mouth, just behind the teeth, had been carefully cut to fit against a pelvic bone. Both were etched with tiny, almost unreadable markings.
“Are they curse sigils?” Emrys asked, leaning over my shoulder. The warmth of his body caressed my back, his breath stirring the loose hair near my cheek.
“No,” I said. “The shapes are rounder, more intertwined. I’ve never seen some of these before. Do you think they’re left over from the days of the druids?”
“The sorceresses created their own language to control magic,” Emrys said. “It makes sense there might be others. Or the marks are purely decorative.”
The sculpture beside it was a rib cage balanced on two femurs, secured in place again by precisely cut slits in the bones that allowed them to fit seamlessly. A hand hung down from the center of the ribs, its finger bones melded together with silver knuckles. All covered in the sigils.
Bile burned its way up my throat as I turned, taking stock of them all. They were vile and horrific; I could barely stand to look at them without feeling the cold swell of some deep, innate fear that had been bred and nurtured across the thousands of generations of my family line.
I bent to retrieve Ignatius, then froze. The light from his small flames had bled into the nearest sculpture on the bottom row of shelves, throwing the shapes of the carved sigils onto the stone floor in illuminated patterns. As I knelt, the sigils shifted and began to spin.
“Tamsin,” came Emrys’s sharp voice. I looked up, only to realize I didn’t see him—he’d gone around to the other side of the stairs climbing up from the center of the room. As I made my way toward him, I passed a tarnishing suit of armor and a glass-faced cabinet full of vials and withered black herbs.
The narrow staircase—hardly better than a rickety ladder—led up to the open air, and near its base sat a large cauldron. The first gray light of Avalon’s dawn broke over it, glinting off silver clawed feet and causing its etched sides to shine like polished blades.
Emrys was staring down into it, his face sickly pale. I came to stand beside him, bracing for whatever grisly thing waited inside.
Instead, I found myself staring into a glistening pool of molten silver.
It churned with some unfelt wind, swirling with eddies. The metallic smell was emanating from the cauldron, but when I floated my hand over it, there was no heat. Only blistering cold.
As I stared into its depths, fragments of memories rose unbidden and splintered further. The pale face of the White Lady in the snowy field, calling me forward to join her in death. A flash of darkness and stone and the steel of a small blade. The unicorn, standing beneath a dead tree, collapsing as an arrow pierced its chest.
I took a step back, forcing myself to look away. Emrys looked awful, worse than I’d ever seen him, his skin bloodless and clammy.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Emrys?”
It took a moment for him to look up, his eyes filled with a wrenching, pure terror. He didn’t seem to know where he was, moving from the cauldron until his back hit the wall.
“Emrys?” I asked more urgently. “What is it? What did you see?”
He held up a hand, his throat working hard as he doubled over. “I’m fine—give me—give me a second.”
He wasn’t fine at all. I looked back at the cauldron, my mind bursting with thousands of thoughts. I searched through that storm for a memory—for any passage of a book, or a story, that had mentioned a cauldron in Avalon.
“What is this?” I whispered.
The liquid silver simmered as I leaned over it. An unnameable feeling passed through my body from scalp to toe, an animal instinct that there was something beyond that mirror-like surface. That someone was watching from the other side.
Before I could stop myself, before I could tell myself what a stupid idea it was, I dipped the very end of Ignatius’s candlestick holder into the surface.
