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“I’m sorry, Teo. Truly I am. I don’t know what to do. My hands are tied. I can only promise that, when your time comes, I will be beside you if I am able, and will put your bones to rest by hers?”

“There is no surety that you’ll be by me when I pass, even if I am able to stay with you in the Crimson City. Death could take me silently in the night, and I would have missed my chance. Forever. There is only one way that is a promise .”

“What you want me to do — there is no guarantee, Teo. You can’t ask me to do that.

To risk you, and Ellie.” Swallowing convulsively, I shiver.

“You’re asking me to risk more than myself.

If your people found out…oh Gods. And the BloodLetter took my Guiding Knife.

I have no Silent Bone to keep you, anyway.

Only Lorcan –” My eyes flare wide in panic, sudden realization hitting me and sending a lightning bolt of fear through me.

Reaching up, I fumble at my neck, which is completely bare.

“Teo!” Sheer terror floods me when I look back at him, and see how he is sitting now, so calmly, Ellie’s bone fragment in one hand, a hammer and my bone necklace in the other. “ Teo !”

“I’m not asking you, Wren.” His voice is unbearably gentle.

“I am not giving you a choice.” Putting Lorcan’s bones on the floor in front of him, he motions to a small pile of jewel-red berries beside him, which I am only now noticing for the first time.

“Sunseed. It grows in the wild here. Our children are taught not to touch it from birth. Sunseed, Moonseed all in a row. Eat of the fire and away you will go. Drink down the moon and home you’ll return, moonseed for dreaming, but fire will burn. ”

“What —”

He points at the tiny table with the small white vial on it.

“That is moonseed, pressed to juice. If you pour it in my mouth quickly enough after I eat the fireseed, it will nullify the poison. But Wren,” his voice darkens to a warning, “if you try to put me back, I will only keep doing this, over and over and over, until you are forced to accept it.” My eyes flicker frantically between him and Lorcan’s bones, piled awkwardly on the cold stone floor.

“What are you doing, Teo?” I can barely breathe. A hammer and bone. A hammer and bone.

Teo shrugs, lips pressed together, clearly regretful. “I had to have a guarantee of some sort. I’m not a bad man. But I am desperate. You…you won’t have much time, I think. For what is to happen. You will have to move quickly. Very, very quickly if this is to work.”

Pushing myself to my feet, I stagger forward a step before collapsing, hands outstretched. Begging, I try to drag myself to my necklace. “I don’t understand . But…give me Lorcan. Please. Gods. Give me Lorcan! ”

“I’m trying to, Wren,” he replies, lips twisting into a secret smile, eyes shining.

“Goodbye, my friend. Thank you. And good luck.” With that, he lifts the hammer, smashing the necklace of bones in front of him over and over and over until it is nothing but dust and needle-thin shards too small to ever hold a soul.

A piercing wail bursts from my throat, raw and jagged, and I claw mindlessly at my face, tearing my hair in agonizing helplessness.

It’s bloody and vicious, the sound of an animal caught in the steel jaws of a trap, the sharp teeth biting through flesh and snapping bone, a wild, crazed sound of pain, pain, pain.

Lorcan’s soul hovers above the wreckage, pale and silent.

There is no place I can Guide him.

There is no way for me to save him.

So he does not ask, somehow swallowing his song — a thing I didn’t know possible. He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t want to add to my suffering.

Teo stares down at the powder before him and nods once.

He inhales deeply, then glances at me, face soft and affectionate, his lips tilted up in a sweet smile, so incongruous with the chaos inside me that I feel like I have lost my mind, that I am watching life through a mirror, or from the other side of the veil.

Everything freezes in the brief, bright moment — Lorcan’s soul a paused shiver, Teo’s face still the friend I knew, and me, trapped on bloody knees wondering if I have it all wrong, if maybe I missed something.

If I am given enough space in this stolen second, maybe, maybe I can figure a way out of this.

But time surges ahead on his exhale. Shrugging almost carelessly, Teo reaches down, grabs the entire pile of fireseeds, and shoves them into his mouth.

His body stiffens immediately in one sudden, jerking motion, his eyes flaring wide, whites flashing before they roll back in his head.

It is as though he’s been struck by lightning — he is electrified, every hair on end, then, without warning, he collapses, completely still, on the thick mat.

The room is grave silent for what feels like a millennia but is only the space of a breath, before his soul bursts from his body in bright, chaotic song.

Quickly quickly Teo sings, QUICKLY! and feeling suddenly surges through my petrified body.

Flinging myself toward the small table, I pull my body forward, scraping skin along the rough floor, leaving a trail of crimson behind me.

My fingers fumble frantically at the tiny vial on the table, hands shaking so hard I almost drop it twice before finally finding purchase.

Crawling on shaking elbows, I make my way to where Teo’s body lies, vibrating but empty, on the mat.

Faster, faster! You must go faster! His soul commands. Shuddering with the effort, I pour the moonseed into his mouth.

His body relaxes.

But Teo’s soul does not return to it as it should.

Any other soul I have ever seen thrown from its body, however briefly, is forcibly pulled back if its body is still able to hold it.

Any hint of life keeps it tethered there.

Teo’s…is not.

Instead, in front of me, two souls hover unbound.

Making a quick decision, I reach for Teo, fumbling as he fights me unexpectedly, slipping from my grasping hands over and over until I am finally able to grab him in a bruising grip, his soul flickering white where my fingers press into him.

Breathing hard, tears pouring down my face, I try desperately to force him to obey.

Teo to his body, Lorcan to bone, then you will figure out the rest, I recite over and over in my head, looking frantically around for anywhere, anywhere I can bind Lorcan. Where? WHERE?

But there is nothing. The room is studiously empty; it is only me, two souls, a body, a fragment of bone, and the dust of my heart beaten into an unassuming pile on the floor.

Lorcan is fading quickly, a glint of candlelight now instead of a torch in the night.

As he dims, he finally sings to me, almost an echo of a sound.

I can feel his sorrow ringing through my bones when he whispers Goodbye, Wren.

I am sorry I could not stay. I would not have left you. I would never have left.

Teo is still vibrating in my hands; I frantically look between his soul, and Lorcan’s, and Ellie’s bone, which is calling now, almost as loud as Teo’s. In sheer, blind panic, I grab Lorcan in one hand, barely keeping control of Teo in the other, and turn to Ellie’s bone.

Make room, make room! I command with every ounce of power within me, but she refuses.

I will not take him, Keeper. Even for you.

Lorcan flickers, is so pale his soul is the butter yellow of the sun in our village. The pale wheat of our crops. The cold light of a winter dawn.

Goodbye, goodbye.

The world closes in around me, cavernous and dark, every moment a blink, every moment an eternity.

Make room or I will rip you from your bone and silence you forever.

It’s not an idle threat — I’m already tearing at her soul, peeling her away from her binding.

I am a rabid wolf, foaming at the mouth, ready to pull the world apart to find a place for Lorcan to rest. He is almost gone, barely a shadow at all.

It is only for Teo, Binder! There is only room for Teo.

Screaming, head tilted back, neck cording, I curse the Gods. I curse the Earth and the Sun that have brought me to this moment, every Rending and Reaping, every Guiding, every storm-lost soul.

I bend.

I break.

And I shove Teo in beside Ellie, where they burst into song together, so loud and bright it pierces my marrow with sharp, jealous pain.

Lorcan is a breath in my hands, my fingers cradling him.

Binder! QUICKLY!

It is the last thing Teo is able to say before he and Ellie ignite in a bright white flare, the echo of their meeting so powerful it knocks me sideways into Teo’s empty body.

His empty body.

It has been only a few seconds. Not even a minute.

His empty body .

My knees are bloody .

Eerie calm settles on me like a shroud; I don’t waste a breath to consider the implications of what I’m about to do.

There is Lorcan, and there is the rest of the world, and no space for nuances between.

Reaching down with one hand, I rub my raw skin, getting my fingers as bloody as possible, then pass Lorcan’s soul to it, before bloodying my other.

In my dripping, crimson hands, his glowing soul strengthens, just for a moment, long enough that I am able to guide him to the bone in Teo’s waiting body.

There is nothing to battle against me, and I am meticulous, filling every bit of marrow with Lorcan’s soul light, binding him as I have never bound another before, weaving him into spiderwebs of vein, sinking him into rivers of red.

I guide him to bone, then, using my blood as ink, trace my sigils on his brow, his cheeks, his lips.

By blood and by bone I have bound you, Lorcan. Come back to me. Come back. What am I missing?

As quickly as the thought strikes me, I am moving, sifting through the bone dust to grab one of the tiny, razor sharp shards that the hammer did not completely destroy.

It cuts my fingers as I pick it up, slicing a thin, neat line, but I don’t feel the pain.

Turning back to the body, I flip his hands palm down, and on his exposed flesh, carve the symbols of the TriGoddess deep into the unresisting skin in matching patterns.

Blood wells from the cuts in ruby lines along the curves of the three moons.

Finally, rocking back on my heels, I look down at him, checking and checking again to see that the guiding will hold. Everything looks right, everything is clean.

But he is not breathing.

I have blood.

I have flesh.

I have bone.

What more? What more ?

Words surge forward in my mind, forcing my lips to whisper a quiet prayer I have not said or heard since I was a child, when my mother still held me against her in the night and gave me all of the love in her heart for as long as she was able.

Placing both of my bloodied thumbs on his closed eyes and pressing gently, I murmur,

“Blessings of the Lady upon you.

The eyes of the Maiden who loves you.

The eyes of the Mother who birthed you.

The eyes of the Crone who guides you.

The passion of the Maiden for your heart ,

The protection of the Mother for your soul,

The wisdom of the Crone for your mind.

Blessings of the Lady upon you,

From now until the end of time.”

There is a long pause,

painful,

unending,

soul-crushing.

Lorcan.

Please.

please

And then…

And then …

His chest heaves, a stuttering, shaking expansion, the first breath of a new child.

Again, deeper and smoother, and again, until it is a natural movement.

I can’t quiet my shaking hands, can’t stem the tears pouring like waterfalls down my cheeks.

In a sudden, startling motion, his eyes fly open, wild and wandering until they catch on my face, confused and disoriented.

I meet his gaze, can’t look away, so I watch as they change.

Watch as the dark brown softens, brightens, and changes to a clear hazel, like watching daylight move over a forest floor, soft greens, rich browns, and flecked gold. These are not Teo’s eyes.

Three, four more breaths…inhale, exhale, inhale, and awareness floods him, clear and undeniable — sun breaking through the clouds.

For a brief moment, alarm and astonishment war on his face before he finally focuses on me with unerring precision, a hint of amused affection glinting in his eyes.

“Little Keeper…what have you done?”

Lorcan.