Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(11)

“Jules . . .” I gently push her, but she doesn’t budge, a fighter to the core. It’s why I love her . . . just not the way she wants me to. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever. “Jules, no.” I scoot back. Her hands drop to the beam.

She searches my eyes. Her own brim with hurt. I can’t go down this road again. She’ll only grow to hate me. I wish I could tease her and slink away, my hands in my pockets. Instead, we’re stuck in these rafters together.

I sigh and drag my hands through my hair. It needs washing and a good cut. Usually Jules handles the shears. “Keep the coin,” I say, and place it between us. “Buy that silk dress. You can wear it to the spring festival.”

“I’m not going to buy a dress, idiot.” She snatches the coin and shoves it in her pocket. “What we need is food.”

“Well, in nine days—”

“In nine days, what? You’ll clean up your act? Find an apprenticeship? Suddenly gain a good reputation?”

I shrug. “In nine days we can leave Dovré. Start over in another city.”

“That’s what you say every full moon,” Jules snaps, then shakes her head, trying to rein in her quick temper. “We’ve been doing this for over a year, Bastien. We’ve watched every bridge. It’s time we own up to the fact that Bone Criers probably died out or moved on somewhere else—like we should.”

My eyelid tics, and I tighten my jaw. “South Galle has more Bone Crier lore than anywhere. The earliest myths come from here, not somewhere else. They haven’t died, Jules. Women like that don’t just die.”

Her gaze narrows into the glare she’s mastered. “Why, because you wouldn’t have a reason to wake up every morning?”

I’m done with this conversation.

I swing my legs up and stand on the beam. Jules stays stubbornly put. “Come on.” I extend my hand, but she ignores me. “Fine. Good luck up here.” I turn to leave.

“Wait,” she groans, and I look back. “I want to avenge my father’s death, too. You know I do, but . . . what if we don’t? What if we can’t?”

My ribs squeeze against a sharp pain in my chest. I can’t think about failing. How can she? Jules and Marcel didn’t watch their father get murdered on a bridge like I did. Théo still died, but he died slowly.

Years after their mother passed away, he brought home a beautiful woman. She mended their clothes, sang them songs, and slept in their father’s bed. They called her heaven-sent. She helped Théo in his work as a scribe, smoothing the parchment with pumice, marking out lines with a ruler and awl. When his income doubled, they ate sweetmeats and drank high-country wine. Then one morning Jules found the woman standing over her sleeping father and holding a knife carved from bone. The woman startled at Jules and ran from their cottage, never to return. Théo soon grew ill, and his bones turned as brittle as glass. Each time he fell, another bone broke. Finally, one injury was so terrible it ended his life.

I glare at my friend. “I will get my vengeance. Give up if you want, but I never will.”

Jules bites her lower lip. The small gap between her two front teeth is her only feature that reminds me of the girl I met when we were twelve. We’re eighteen now, old enough to worry about what comes next in our lives. What we’ll do after we give our fathers peace. I can’t think about anything else just yet.

“Who said you were the stubborn one?” Her smirk masks the worry on her face. “I was just testing you. Put me on solid ground come the next full moon, and I won’t be running away. You’ll get your kill, and Marcel and I will get ours.” I’ve told my friends about the second woman I saw when my father died. Marcel searched through all the books he’s stashed around Dovré—those he salvaged from his father’s library—and he figured out Bone Criers always travel in pairs. Convenient for our one night of murder. “Now help me down from here before I shove you onto that anvil,” Jules says.

A warm chuckle bursts out of me. “Fine.” I guide her to the crossbeam, where she can climb down. She’s nearly to the ground when the lock on the door rattles. Jules curses and jumps the rest of the way. I follow after her and roll to break my fall. The door flings open. We’re caught in a bright square of sunlight.

Gaspar gapes at us in a drunken haze. One of his suspenders has fallen, and his gut bulges over the waistband of his patched trousers. We dart past him, and he bellows, grabbing one of his fire pokers. He’ll never catch us. Jules and I join hands on the street, and our strides fall in perfect rhythm. I laugh at our near escape—we’ve had so many—and she flashes me a dazzling smile.

I could kiss her right then, but I glance away before I let myself.

Nine days. Then I can think about Jules.





4


Sabine


“I SWEAR ON MY FATHER’S bones,” Ailesse growls, tripping over the hem of her dress again. I grab her arm to steady her, and she lifts her skirt off the dusty path in the forest. “Isla made my dress too long on purpose. She’s determined to make tonight as difficult as possible.”

Odiva asked Isla to sew Ailesse’s white ceremonial dress, and I’ve never seen a finer one. The wide neckline clings elegantly to the edges of her shoulders, and the snug sleeves flare at her elbows. Isla took careful pains to fit the bodice, but Ailesse is right about the skirt. Its excessive train and front hem are hazardously long. Isla is too talented a seamstress for it to have been a mistake.