Page 58

“Untalented?” He is astonished. Rannoch laughs quietly beside him, the sound low and secret, flickering and thrilling.

“Alright, Keeper. I must know. It’s entirely inappropriate for this moment, but please.”

“She says he would go to their pantry and take the honey rolls in the night, moving them around so she would think there were none missing. But his face and hands would still be sticky in the morning, and he never noticed she kept the breads on the lowest shelf on purpose. A game from a mother to a son.”

“I was only five or six, I’ll have you know,” Silas mutters, a reluctant grin curling his lush mouth, softening his face in unexpected ways .

“Mmmm. And seven. And eight,” I reply, and he growls in the back of his throat.

“Your quarrel is with her, not me. She says you…I don’t know these things?

” Pausing, I wait for her to try to explain, brow furrowed, and Silas comes closer, hovering over me as though he could hear her through sheer proximity.

He’s massive, like the mountain, making it difficult to concentrate on his mother’s words, though I try.

My focus is skittering stones down a hillside, though; Silas smells like woodfire and cold dusk air, his skin close enough to mine that I can feel the heat from it.

Only his mother’s laughter draws me back, but I am curiously breathless when I speak for her again.

“She says you ate…maybe little pockets of meat and a buttered sort of — I don’t know. Not bread, exactly. Lighter. With pieces flaking off?””

“Oh!” Longing fills his voice. “I haven’t thought of those in years!

Miners’ pies. Or mountain pasties, they were called.

Not many made them, even when I was a child.

A waste of ingredients even then, maybe.

Or they took too much effort. But they were my favorites. And my mother made the best of them.”

Frowning, I twist my lips, feeling unexpectedly disgruntled. “I’ve never had them. How is that?”

“By the time you were able to, Keeper, the miners had stopped going to the mountain heart. And without trades, things became a bit tighter in the village.”

His mother is still filling me with whispers, and I close my eyes to concentrate. “Their memory tastes like nothing I’ve had before. I wish I could try one…”

“You can taste their memory?” Silas asks, suddenly very serious, and my eyes fly open before I can help myself.

“ No , I…I meant?—”

“Keeper. You said their memory tastes like nothing you’ve had before. I’ve never heard of a BoneKeeper who could taste memories.”

“A turn of phrase. Nothing more.” Stupid, Wren! Have care letting your secrets slip!

He stares down at me, at the bone cradled in my hands, at my blank face, and waits. Rannoch is still beside him, like a deer frozen in a hunter’s sight. Even Lorcan shivers at my lapse, suddenly very awake around my throat, down my spine.

You can taste memories? What other secrets have you been keeping from me?

Shrugging, I don’t answer him, but he asks again, a teasing warning clear in his voice.

Little Keeper, I’m surprised at you. Can you taste memories? What else are you not telling me?

I want to answer, but it is hard to concentrate with Silas and Rannoch staring, unflinching, with Silas’s mother still speaking, with Lorcan poised and waiting on my back. Layers and layers of sound and expectation and demand, and I am suddenly overwhelmed. Beyond overwhelmed really.

“Aren’t there places for you to be?” I ask, passing the femur back to Silas with careful hands and a quiet thank you for her time and stories.

Silas sighs, staring down at the bone in his hand, then nods once, more a quick jerk of his head than anything else.

“Rann?” The affection in his voice is clear; I’m being let into a private moment, but purposefully.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is any thing Silas does that is without meaning.

“We have to ready the feast tonight. Nickolas and his few need to be distracted with tasks, kept as far from the Traders as possible. Away from the silos as well. We can’t risk anything going wrong.

Their wagons don’t have enough, but anything is better than what we have now.

” Scrubbing a tired hand across his face, he turns back to me, dark eyes indecipherable.

“Our time together isn’t done, BoneKeeper, only delayed.

” It’s a clear warning, but doesn’t carry a threat.

More of a lingering promise, and though I don’t understand it, something in his tone sends cool shivers over my skin.

Too much today has been the unknown, and it seems safest to slip back into the masque where I am most comfortable, where my face is a still pool, a mirror of the outside world and nothing more. Breathing in deeply, I inhale the cold bone around me and school my body back to its center .

“Whenever you ask, Father. Of course I am, as always, ready at the call of the Council.”

I am placid, calm — the perfect BoneKeeper. And it infuriates him and Rannoch both, which oddly delights me, though I keep the little flicker of smug happiness locked deep inside.

Rannoch’s mouth presses into a thin line, brow furrowed in obvious suspicion at my ready acquiescence, and he moves in front of me, sinking to his heels.

Silas mimics him, the two men penning me in my chair between their overly warm bodies.

“Wren,” Rannoch begins, holding up his hand in anticipation of my protest. “I won’t call you Ceridwen when you clearly hate it, and I’m tired of calling you nothing but BoneKeeper.

A title is not a name. So if your bone friends call you Wren, then I’ll do it too, and you’ll just have to accept my friendship.

” I bite my tongue, and it’s enough that he continues, ticking points off on his fingers.

“The Blood Tree has been destroyed. You’ve accused Councilmen of murder.

Murder . Your house has been ransacked, your bones desecrated. ”

Silas makes a pained sort of choking sound, and Rannoch lays a comforting hand on his shoulder before continuing. “You’ve refused to read for the Council. And?—”

“ And you’ve been poisoned,” Silas mutters.

Rannoch nods, echoing him. “ And you’ve been poisoned. And we can’t deal with any of it right now because the Traders are here for the first time in near memory, and we’re desperate for this trade. Desperate, Wren.”

Silas breaks in, taking over. “So for tonight, just tonight, please. Stop fighting us. Stay somewhere safe. Don’t risk anything.

We’re trying to get our feet under us but the ground keeps shifting so quickly we’re being swallowed.

Please . Just for a night, return to who you were a month ago and once the trade is complete, we’ll figure this out.

But there’s too much.” He tries to sound reasonable, but it comes out as all his words do, commanding and firm.

“Of course,” I reply quietly, demurely, eyes wide and clear. They exchange an uneasy look, and Rannoch shakes his head.

“We’re serious, Wren. ”

“Yes, Councilor. I’ll take your advice to heart.” There is nothing in my voice to infuriate them, but Rannoch almost growls, and I can feel Lorcan rolling his eyes on my back.

Little Keeper. Stop poking the bears. You’re incorrigible.

I have to fight to keep a smile from my face at Lorcan’s exasperation. Nothing amuses me more than annoying my somber Protector.

Silas continued talking while I listened to Lorcan, and I catch only the end of his instructions. “Take her home the back way, Rannoch, then meet me at the Trader’s camp. Keeper — just…don’t burn anything, or break anything, or kill anyone. For the space of the Trade. Just the space of three days.”

With that, he leaves, Rannoch watching after him with concerned eyes before turning back to me and offering his hand.

“Alright, Wren. Home with you, I suppose.”

Home.

The word slices me, unexpectedly sharp for some reason. So casually said, as though it were a place I should know.

Home.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep my face empty, and am trying desperately to breathe through the abrupt stabbing in my chest, when Lorcan’s bones brush my skin under my cloak, soft as a bird’s wing, and the pain is gone in a heartbeat.

Let’s go home, Little Keeper he whispers, and I can feel him dancing down my spine.

Home.