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“We move out the day after tomorrow, Ell.” She’d stilled, like a deer in a hunter’s sights.

“There’s nothing I can do. Not right now.

We’re already over a week into the Month of the Earth.

I don’t know why we’ve delayed so long as it is.

In any case, he’s decided.” Turning to me, he’d dropped to his heels, and took one of my hands.

“There’s still time, Wren. The road home isn’t quick, and he’s battling what he knows with what he feels he knows.

” Rubbing his face with a tired hand, he’d sighed deeply.

“He’s a good man. It’s hard to remember at times, and you haven’t seen it really, but what he has to be and who he is are two different things.

I don’t know if you can understand that.

I hope you’ll remember it in the days to come. ”

Standing, he’d turned back to Ellie, her face damp with tears.

“We knew it wouldn’t last, Lolly-girl.” She didn’t reply, and he’d glanced at me before shrugging.

“I love you, Ell. We’ll figure something out.

” Her intake of breath was sharp and sudden enough that he laughed sadly, shaking his head.

“Aw, now. Wren knows. I don’t think it’s a surprise to her. ”

“Wren is fast asleep and can’t hear anything,” I whispered in the dark, and could feel more than see their answering smiles. “If you give Wren a quarter candle, she’ll be so lost to the world that an earthquake wouldn’t wake her.”

Which was true. Faster than expected, worn out from the day and the late hour, I’d fallen asleep.

I don’t know how long he’d remained, what promises were made once I was out, but Ellie was still lost to the world when I’d gotten up, sleeping like the dead.

For the first time since I’d been taken by the People of the Blood, I stepped outside alone.

Mist was still thick on the damp ground as I’d made my way to the pickets where the horses were tied overnight.

My own lay lazily in a patch of wet dirt, and I curled up beside him, face pressed against his velvet coat, breathing in rhythm with the slow in-and-out of his body, eventually falling back to sleep there until Rannoch and Kaden’s voices woke me like a dream.

“No wonder we never see her, if she’s spending all her time sleeping with the livestock…”

I’d come awake immediately, feeling on the edge of tears at the familiar tone.

I’d missed them more than I could even acknowledge to myself; to look too closely at their places in my heart would open doors that couldn’t be closed again.

But their absence in the last two weeks had left more space inside me than I knew.

“Horse isn’t livestock ,” I’d replied without opening my eyes, desperate to keep them, to not let them dissipate with the morning mist. “He’s my…

I don’t know. Friend.” I finally opened my eyes to glare at him, but as soon as I’d seen the angles of their cheekbones, the familiar shapes of their lips and eyes and faces, everything softened into excruciating, daggersharp yearning.

And it hasn’t faded since, sitting here with them, voices quiet in the waking morning, feeling like we’re stealing time.

“Where have you two been, anyway?” I ask curiously, unable to hide the longing in my voice, still leaning against Horse, trying to ignore the way my lips want to tilt up at the sounds of their laughter.

Kaden scrubs his face with a hand tiredly.

“We’ve been put to work, Wren. Morning to night.

We’re in an odd position. Not quite guests, not quite prisoners.

And since we’re not together, per se, we’ve completely befuddled them.

So our days are tasked, but cautiously so — nothing too hard, or below what the Second Tier do here. But we’re not left to our own devices.”

The easy way he says Second Tier catches my attention. “Second Tier? Is that something you have too, where you’re from?”

For the first time since I met him, he looks…almost nervous, although I feel like I must be wrong.

“Ah…well…”

A scream shatters the air around us, a dagger in glass, and the shards fall down, cutting my ears with its sound. I know that voice. I know the voice that calls out with her; Ellie is singing with death, and I am off running before I know it, chasing down the music, praying I am wrong.

“What? Wren, what?” Kaden and Rannoch are racing behind me, cannot hear the change in the cry, and I run faster.

But I am too late.

Her soul is a bright star above her body, where a snake lies, headless and bloody by her bare feet, two small holes clear on her ankle.

Her eyes are open and empty.

Above her crumpled body, Axton is wrapped around Teo’s body, whispering frantically in the shaking man’s ear, pressing a hand over his mouth to muffle the agonized sounds pushing through the BloodLetter’s fingers.

Axton looks around, clearly panicked, eyes flaring wide when he sees us. We are the first to the clearing, but can hear others following closely behind, though they aren’t in sightline yet.

“Take him. Quickly. Somewhere far from here, where sound will be swallowed,” I command Rannoch and Kaden. Thank the Goddess they respond instantly, stepping carefully around Ellie, prying Teo from Axton’s embrace, and physically pulling the collapsing man along between them.

“I’ll follow her, I’ll follow her!” Teo is moaning, wailing, the sound of an animal being slaughtered, and Rannoch’s face is blank when he turns to me.

“BoneKeeper?” he asks, waiting for approval; shivering, I press my hands to my eyes.

“He must be silent, or he’ll be silent forever.”

Rannoch nods, and, with the blunt end of his dagger, knocks Teo out in a quick, decisive movement. Kaden groans under the sudden weight, but then helps shoulder Teo’s body, and they stagger into the heavy wood just in time.

“What happened?” Kylabet’s horrified voice pushes through the brush just before she appears, flanked by several of Axton’s men. Her face drains of color, and she wavers briefly on her feet before steadying herself.

“Some kind of serpent. I don’t know. I’ve not seen its like before.” Axton’s voice is careful; there is some kind of conversation, but I can’t hear it over Ellie’s song.

Stepping forward, I kneel beside her body and take her soul in my hands, where she flows like water.

What is this, Keeper? She sings, astounded.

This is the Guiding. I can bind you to waiting bone, have you sleep until you are woken again in your own.

It is not painful…It is…so much different than we’ve been told. Will I be safe?

I will keep you safe, Ellie.

Will Teo know? Will I see him?

Once you are home again, yes .

Thank you, BoneKeeper, she whispers, and I quietly guide her to my bone blade.

“What are you doing?” One of the men beside Axton snaps like a feral beast. I raise my eyes to him, confused.

Caution! Caution, Wren! Say ‘grieving’ and nothing else! Lorcan is frantic on my back; I can feel his teeth bite, his fingers scrape.

“Grieving,” I reply dumbly. The man narrows his eyes.

“A Fifth Tier?”

His tone, so doubting, ignites anger in me so deep and bright it sears. “Does life hold so little value in your world that you don’t even spare sorrow for the classes below you?”

Disgust is clear in my voice, my lips curling into a sneer and snarl, and he steps back, looking to either side of him as though for support. “ We grieve. You are a Binder. Did you steal her soul, Demon?”

Axton looks, for the first time since I met him, entirely unsure, and I’m ridiculously and stupidly disappointed in him, though I have no idea why.

“I would never, never guide a soul without its request or permission, Rider. To do so would be unthinkable in the face of the Goddess.”

Truth rings in my words, undeniable, and it seems answer enough, because he falls reluctantly silent.

Axton finally opens his mouth to speak, clearing his throat first. “This Fifth was the Binder’s maid.

They have a bond of sorts. It is different in the Bone Culture.

” It is no real explanation, but for some reason is enough to calm the men behind him.

He inhales deeply, then forces himself to continue, voice cool and emotionless.

He turns to me, clearly thinking he’s offering some sort of comfort.

“We will call her friends to prepare her for burial. We won’t break camp until she is safe in the ground. ”

The men behind him move silently, but I am caught on his comment, tilting my head in confusion. “What does that mean?” I ask hesitantly, the warmth of her sleeping soul safe in the Guiding Knife.

Kylabet answers beside me, careful and blank. “Her burial. We have to dig deep enough that the wolves won’t scavenge her body. It will take time.”

“Dig?”

“Yes, Binder.” She is exaggeratedly patient, as though speaking to a small child, her grief making her short. “We put our dead below earth, then cover them. We’ll mark her deathbed, though.”

As her meaning becomes clear, sickness seizes my heart, and I am suddenly and violently ill, rushing to the edge of the small glen and bending over the thick brush.

They bury their dead beneath the ground.

Beneath the ground.