“Why don’t you come up here?” I walk back to my lodged knives. “Unless you’re afraid of heights.” I yank the blades out of the crossbeam and sheathe them.
Jules snorts. “I jumped from the butcher’s roof to steal that goose last week, didn’t I?”
“Was it the dead goose who squealed?”
Jules’s eyes narrow to slits, but she rolls her tongue in her cheek to keep from grinning. “Fine, Bastien. I’ll come up there if you want to play with me.”
Not exactly what I meant.
She saunters to one of the supporting posts, grabs the hooks for Gaspar’s tools, and climbs. Her snug leggings show off the lean muscles of her body. I look away and swallow.
Fool, I chide myself. If I can’t keep my head around Jules, how will I manage being near a Bone Crier? They’re breathtaking and irresistible. Or so the legends say. My one run-in with a woman in white is proof enough. Even though I was terrified—even though I came to hate her—I can’t forget her rare, unsettling beauty.
I sit on the rafter, one knee drawn to my chest while the other leg dangles. Across the beam, Jules pulls herself to her feet. Her chest heaves above her bodice. She’s been lacing it tighter for two months, ever since I put an end to kissing her. “What now?” She rests one hand on her hip, but her legs shake. “Are you going to make me walk over to you?”
When I don’t answer, she bargains, “How about you meet me halfway?”
“Hmm.” I drum my fingers on my chin. “Nah.”
She scoffs and flashes her coin at me. “I was going to share this, but now I think I’ll keep it for myself. Maybe buy a silk dress.”
“Because that comes in handy for a thief.” I can’t imagine Jules in a gown. She’s the only girl in Dovré that dresses the way she does, and if any boy gives her grief about it, she blackens his eye. If he goes a step further and calls her “Julienne,” he’ll walk away doubled over with his hands between his legs. “Come over here.” I beckon with a lazy hand. “The ground is just fifteen feet below. If you fell, what’s the worst that could happen? A cracked skull? Broken neck? A nice chat up here is worth it, don’t you think?”
“I hate you.”
I grin and lean back against the post. “No, you don’t.” Everything between us feels right again. I’m goading her, annoying her, just like old times . . . before I made the mistake of kissing her. Jules and her brother, Marcel, are like family to me. I was wrong to mess with that.
Her braid falls in front of her shoulder as she eyes the ground. “So, is this officially a dare?”
“Sure.”
“What do I get if I make it across?”
“You mean if you live?” I shrug. “I’ll let you keep your coin.”
“It’s mine, anyway.”
“Prove it.”
She takes another glance at the ground and purses her trembling lips. In a knife fight, Jules would best me any day. But everyone has a weakness. She inhales a long breath and shakes out her hands. Her hazel eyes take on the gleam of the Jules I know best. The Jules who will follow me anywhere. She and Marcel will be with me in nine days. Together, we’ll find vengeance. My friends lost their father, too.
I never knew Théo Garnier. I was twelve years old and ready to pickpocket an apothecary when I first heard his name and learned of his fate. I overheard the apothecary speak of a strange illness he’d failed to cure three years earlier. He’d never come across anything so unnatural as the mysterious bone disease. It was the last tragedy Théo was destined to suffer after being abandoned by his wife and then his lover.
Suspicious that a Bone Crier might be involved, I spent the next month tracking what became of Théo’s two children. According to the apothecary, there was no family to take them in. I finally found Jules and Marcel in another district of Dovré, scavenging the streets like me to survive. We pieced together the puzzle of our fathers’ deaths and realized we had a common enemy. Together, we pledged to make the Bone Criers pay for what they took from us.
Jules stows the coin between her teeth and spreads her arms wide. She takes her first step.
My smile fades as I study her technique. “Look ahead, not downward. Focus on the distance in