for long. At least fifty powder casks were carted from the king’s alchemists to the royal shipyard today, and let’s just say His Majesty should have sent more than four guards on the journey.”
Bastien stares at Jules, and then bursts into warm laughter. “You really are a goddess.”
A pretty flush dusts her cheeks, and she rocks back on her heels. Black powder must be a weapon of some kind.
“Anyway, we need to hurry.” Jules crosses her arms. “Night has fallen, and one of the Bone Criers—that witness from Castelpont—is already lurking outside.”
My stomach tenses. Sabine. She shouldn’t come in here. She only has one grace bone.
“Found it,” Marcel says around a mouthful of bread. He’s already sprawled on his stomach with three of his four books open. “It’s from Ballads of Old Galle.”
Bastien carefully sets the cask of black powder on the ground. “Go on.”
Pushing his floppy hair out of his eyes, Marcel reads:
The fair maiden on the bridge, the doomed man she must slay,
Their souls sewn together, ne’er a stitch that will fray,
His death hers and none other ’cross vale, sea, and shore,
Lest her breath catch his shadow evermore, evermore.
Marcel rolls into a sitting position and sets the book on his crossed legs. “There, Bastien. That should comfort you.”
He frowns. “It should?”
“‘His death hers and none other.’” Marcel taps the words on the brittle page. “Because Ailesse summoned the magic on the bridge, only she can kill you, or she’ll die with you.”
My muscles go rigid. Jules steps forward. “Where did it say that?” She steals the words from my mouth.
“Her ‘breath’ is her life, and his ‘shadow’ is his death,” Marcel explains. “I never read it like that before, but now it’s obvious. Ailesse will ‘catch death,’ like you’d catch a cold, if someone other than herself kills Bastien.”
Bastien rubs his jaw. “But . . . I still die?”
“Yes, but that isn’t the point,” Marcel says. Bastien doesn’t look so sure. “This is one less thing you have to worry about when the queen comes tonight. She won’t dare to kill you. She isn’t going to risk her daughter’s life.”
A sudden coldness grips me. My leverage is gone.
Bastien cocks a brow, finally understanding, and swivels to face me with a crooked grin. “Thanks for making me invincible.”
My stomach rolls, and I close my eyes. Bastien is going to be bolder now. As if he needed any more confidence. My mother will have to exercise caution around him, but he won’t have to hold back any vengefulness. I only pray she doesn’t bring Sabine. I won’t let Bastien near her.
I raise my chin and meet his poisonous stare with more venom. “You forget you cannot shield yourself from your greatest danger, mon amouré. I am the instrument of your death, not my mother. And I swear I will kill you before you even attempt to kill her.” Or Sabine.
Conviction burns inside me, like a sudden burst of Elara’s Light. Behind Bastien and the others, the air ripples with silvery heat. I’ve never seen anything like it.
A flickering image appears. I gasp. Bastien whips out his knife and looks over his shoulder, but the image is gone. In an instant, what I saw sputtered out and disappeared.
A silver owl with outspread wings.
16
Sabine
ODIVA SWEEPS NEARER TO THE edge of the ravine, where I stand, still quaking from seeing one of Ailesse’s captors. Four of the elder Leurress fan out behind her: Milicent, Pernelle, Dolssa, and Roxane. Next to Odiva, they are our famille’s strongest Ferriers.
“Why are you here, Sabine?” Odiva asks, her curious gaze traveling over my necklace—Ailesse’s necklace—to see if it bears a new grace bone. I know why she’s here. And how. Odiva told me last night she’d be able to track her daughter with familial magic, blood of her blood, bones of her bones. Magic I don’t possess.
I open my mouth to explain about the silver owl, but then I hesitate. I can’t tell Odiva that an owl of all creatures—a bird my famille finds superstitious—guided me here of its own volition. She’ll think I’ve gone mad. “I was hunting for more graces and found one of Bastien’s accomplices in the forest. I chased her here.”
“Bastien?” Odiva arches a sleek brow.
“Ailesse’s amouré. The girl spoke his name.”
The matrone nods slowly, her black eyes drifting past me to the ravine.
“She slid into some kind of tunnel opening down there. It looked small.”
“Nothing we don’t have the strength to claw through.”