Rannoch murmurs something under his breath, which sounds like, “ I thought we weren’t doing things for the face of a pretty girl,”; Silas’s head whips around to meet Rannoch’s sardonic gaze, but everything is so unknown that I push it to the side, keeping my eyes on the glass in my hand.

Silas exhales heavily. “The water was a gift from the Traders. It is not a private stock.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…” I reply shortly. His shoulders tighten, muscles rippling beneath his thin shirt.

“I know your thoughts, Keeper. You have not learned to school your face well enough to hide them from me when we are in private.” His voice is strangely sardonic, “Your thoughts are not your own in any case. They belong to the village, and the Council.” A long pause, and then, so low it’s hard to hear, “They belong to the Gods, and the bones. But most of all, they belong to me. As they are mine, so you are mine.” It is a threat, a promise, and, in the far corners, a dark desperation I have not heard in the Father’s voice before.

But the claiming makes me deaf to whatever slip of his soul he is exposing to me in this moment.

“Do I have no rights?” I snap, and he lets out a tired laugh that is more of a cry.

“No. No, you don’t.”

“I am still a citizen of this village!” All of a sudden it is too much, and the wild anger of years of frustration, of being caged and kept, bursts from me, caution thrown to the storm winds. “Every BoneKeeper before me has had the full rights of a citizen!”

Silas is just as angry, just as rash in his reply.

“Every BoneKeeper before you has lost a right, just bit by bit, chiseled away until we’re where we are now.

As BoneKeeper you are more and less than a citizen, Wren .

You should know that by now. You are not seen as a woman.

” The words are a punch to my stomach. They drip with disdain.

I am not a woman. “The Council has been meeting, preparing for the coming Storms. And in the meetings many things other than food and shelter have been discussed. You chief amongst them. There is a debate…” He pauses, seemingly discomforted, which makes me more nervous than anything else up to this point.

“...there is a debate as to whether you are to be considered human, or a blessed vessel from the Gods. And, as a vessel, you are a tool, nothing more. A sacred tool, to be protected and cherished. But you would not have the rights you are so used to now.”

A bitter laugh escapes my mouth. “ Rights? You think I have any rights now? That I am living a life of comfort and ease?”

He shakes his head sharply. “You have no idea how things could be for you, who fights for you to keep your cage door open, even slightly.” He is frustrated, furious.

“They are not fighting hard, if you know anything of my life.”

“You know nothing .” The words are a rebuke. “They risk everything to keep you from the wolves.”

“The wolves are at my door every night, Sir. ”

His eyebrows draw together, a deep crease between them. “What wolves?”

Shaking my sleeve back, I show the fingerprint bruises, the slices of skin raw from nails.

“You may think I’m not worthy of being called a woman, but rest assured.

Nickolas and others do not have your same distance, and would treat me as such if given the chance.

They are not kind with their conquests, I’m sure you know. ”

He reaches out a massive hand with unexpected gentleness, and caresses the bruises. “Nickolas did this?”

I nod. If I am in for blood, I am in for bone. “And worse. And has promised worse still. But I keep the door barred. If I am moved to a place to sit on a dais and be a vessel, this vessel will be filled and broken before morning light.”

“Nickolas will not do so again.”

I laugh, now with real amusement. “You think you have a tamed beast, but he is rabid, and none of you are willing to see it.”

He shakes his head. “He will come to heel when I call. He is not as brave as you think.”

I fight against rolling my eyes. It would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous for me personally. “He is not as stupid as you think. And when you loosen his leash, I only hope I am not in his sight.”

“He will not hurt you, Wren. You have my word. ”

“You are more blind than I am, and when it is too late, I will be food for the Earth and will not be able to say you were wrong. And even if he were not to hurt me, do the other woman in this village not matter to you? Or do you truely not see him for what he is? Ignorance is no excuse for you.”

He rubs a hand across his face, a tired movement that speaks volumes of frustration and exhaustion.

“Do you know the Bones called for me when I was eight?” he asks conversationally, as though any of this conversation is normal.

As though anyone ever speaks to the Father.

Come to think of it, as though anyone speaks to the Bonekeeper.

“Yes, in theory, but not the details of it.” I answer carefully. It is always best to be cautious when one does not know where the path leads.

“They did. You were a babe, a child, so I am not surprised you do not know the full story.”

“As though 8 is not a child?” I bite back, and then sigh, rubbing my forehead. I am not myself today, am being dangerously careless. But I don’t want to be myself! I think mutinously. I want to be…anyone else. My head is throbbing, and I feel dizzy suddenly.

Head between your knees, Little Keeper !

Lorcan barks out the command which I immediately obey, leaning forward and trying to calm my breathing.

Silas’s bass is surprisingly contrite. “My apologies, Keeper. I forgot that the Silent and the Exiled are difficult for you.”

Ah. That explains it. We are too deep in the Keep, too deep in the carved out mountain, and I am surrounded only by fragmented mosaics made of Silent bone, and worse still, the Exiled.

The coldness and emptiness pulls at something inside me, but it is muted by a dark, throbbing pain pounding nails in my skull.

Guide us home they whisper, agonized pleading, tearing at my skin like claws.

Blood, flesh, and bone. Bring us home, Keeper, or give us Silence, but end the pain.

We repent, we repent, we repent. I am being sucked in and down, pulled by dragging hands into the Below, until?—

A cool breeze and cold cloth yank me back into myself. The Father is kneeling before me, holding me up with one giant hand, guiding my fingers forward with the other to place them on a well-worn femur. She sings to me, a joyful trill of recognition, and I startle.

“Your...your mother?” I ask, surprise clear in my voice.

I have never read for the Father in any personal capacity.

Only for the purpose of the village. So his mother is singing, singing, singing, words tripping over themselves, excitement dancing along the femur like fireflies in the night.

The Father looks wary, unsure, and surprisingly vulnerable.

“I thought…I thought perhaps you’d need someone loud enough to drown out the sounds of the Exiled. And my mother was many, many things. Loud being foremost amongst them.”

The vulnerability sits awkwardly on the usually forceful man, until I remember that, when he was first named as The Father by my father, after my anointing and when I was old enough to Guide souls, the first call to Rendering was his mother.

Without a BoneKeeper, until the new one is born, or old enough to speak for the bones, the Council makes the rules and decisions.

It is meant to be impartial, as it’s seen as a heavy task to call to Render or Reap, but there are entire fields that have been harvested while no others have been touched.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember her Guiding well.” I feel like I should apologize, though I’m not sure why, and he shrugs in response.

“You were very sick at the time. And very young.” He tilts his head, watching me. “I’m surprised you recall anything from that time. It seemed…difficult for you.”

Unsure how to respond, I smile down at the femur. “She’s very excited. Why isn’t she out with the other families? She’s been…not lonely exactly. She says you speak to her often. But she is missing the sunshine.”

He frowns, shaking his head. “She knows why,” he replies cryptically.

“It’s not safe for your family, she says. Nor for Rannoch’s? And others? What’s this?”

Rannoch and Silas exchange a long look before Silas turns back to me. “Bones have a tendency to go missing around here, Keeper. Especially those with stories to tell. ”

Cold shivers through me.

“Do they.” It’s not a question though — surprising me in how unsurprising it is.

Of course the bones I don’t see, the ones inside the Council House, or far up the mountain in their chambers, would be most vulnerable.

And most valuable. It is a sad realization that, even with the reverence we’re supposed to have for our ancestors and the Gods, the grime and waste of petty power still has enough pull to overcome sense.

“Were the old ways even real? Has it always been as such?”

Rannoch and Silas look at each other again before Rannoch sighs. “Memory is always seen through a golden light or a blackened shadow, Keeper. There is little that stands as it looked in the plain sun of day when you walk backwards through time.”

The femur sings beneath my fingers, pulling at the corners of my lips despite Rannoch’s words. “He ate as much as that?” I whisper, and Silas rolls his eyes, faux irritation in his voice, barely masking his curiosity.

“What awful and untrue stories is she telling you, Keeper?”

His entire body is leaning forward; I have never spoken for her, so it has been many, many years since he has heard her.

“She says you were a tiny, untalented thief,” I reply, trying to keep the hint of laughter from my words.

Her joy at finally being able to talk to her son is filling me with borrowed happiness.