I swipe my tears with shaking hands. My fingers come away sticky with blood. It’s everywhere—on my neck, in my hair, all over my dress and sleeves. It’s in places I can’t see. Ailesse’s throat. The stones of Castelpont. Her amouré’s knife.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Calm down, Sabine. You don’t know Ailesse is dead.
The boy kept hesitating. She could still be alive. I’m not too late.
I bolt through the tide-carved tunnels beneath the ancient castle, then down the last tunnel toward the courtyard. The night is half spent, but Odiva should be awake and awaiting our return.
How will I explain what happened? This is all my fault.
I’m about to burst inside when a rush of dizziness seizes me. I grit my teeth and brace my hand against the tunnel wall. My salamander grace has helped me recover from the hooded girl’s attack, but I’ve lost too much blood. On the way here, I nearly passed out and had to rest with my head between my knees. It cost me precious time. I can’t let that happen again.
“I have given you everything possible these past two years.” Odiva’s voice is a murmur, but it resonates throughout the large cavern.
My chest tightens. For a moment I think she’s speaking to me—my mother died two years ago—but when the black spots clear from my vision, I see my matrone standing under a pool of moonlight in the center of the courtyard. Her back is turned to me and her arms are outstretched. She’s praying—fervently—or else she’d notice me. Her stingray’s sixth sense and bat’s echolocation would have picked up on my arrival.
“Now the time is nearing an end,” she continues. “Grant me a sign, Tyrus. Let me know you honor my sacrifices.”
Tyrus? I focus on Odiva’s cupped hands. They’re turned downward to the Underworld, not upward to the Night Heavens. I wrinkle my brows. The Leurress worship Tyrus—we offer him souls of the wicked on ferrying night—but our prayers travel to Elara, who hears the pleas of the righteous. Or so I was taught.
I push away from the wall. It doesn’t matter. Ailesse is in danger. I’d pray to any god to save her. “Matrone!”
Odiva stiffens. I emerge into the silvery glow of Elara’s Light, and she turns to face me. At the same time, her hands close around something dangling from a gold chain over her three-tiered grace bone necklace. She quickly tucks it into her dress, and I catch a glint of sparkling red.
“Sabine.” Her ebony eyes narrow as they flick over the gashes on my arm, my head, and waist. She hastens to me. “What happened?” A slight tremor skims across her lower lip. “Is Ailesse hurt, as well?”
I suddenly can’t meet her gaze. My throat runs dry, and tears flood my vision. “We were unprepared,” I choke out, not knowing where to begin.
Odiva steps closer, and the noctule bat skull fastened to her asp vertebrae crown looms over me. “Unprepared? For what?”
“Her amouré. He was ready for us. So were his accomplices—two of them. They knew what we were. And they wanted us dead.”
Lines of fury and confusion form between the matrone’s dark brows. “I don’t understand. Ailesse is the most promising Leurress our famille has seen in a century.” I agree, though it’s a compliment she’s never paid my friend. “How could mere commoners—?” Her voice breaks like she can’t find her breath.
“A girl stole Ailesse’s grace bones under the bridge.” I withdraw my hand from behind my back and present Ailesse’s depleted shoulder necklace. My final task as her witness would have been to tie her grace bones back onto it. Shame burns from deep inside me and scalds my cheeks. Until tonight, I believed my best friend was invincible, but I should have buried her bones deeper, guarded them better. Then Ailesse could have defended herself. “The girl claimed her father was killed by Ashena, so Ailesse’s amouré must have been helping her seek vengeance.”
Odiva grows statuesque. The funneling breeze wisps through her raven hair and sapphire dress, but her body is motionless. Finally, her lips crack apart. “Is she alive?” she whispers. “Did they kill my daughter?”
A broken sob rips out of my chest. “I don’t know.”
She grips my chin. “Where is the bone flute?” Ice crawls up my spine as her black eyes bore into me. I’ve never seen Odiva so vicious and desperate.
“It’s” . . . lost in the riverbed. “They took it.”