Chapter 5

"You?"

The child was almost doll-like in appearance, her features unbearably soft save for her green eyes. There was no innocence to them; they were shards of glass capable of cutting someone open to see what was hiding beneath their skin. It was the gaze of someone who'd seen history unspool itself over centuries—of a soul too old to be wearing that face.

"I've an ointment that'll help you with your locked jaw," the girl said. "It'll only cost you three gold pieces, or a favor."

Her tone was formal, carrying some unidentifiable accent that made every word sound like a line of ancient poetry.

I promptly shut my mouth. "I'm … how?"

The Bonecutter looked to Emrys. "I suppose I have you to thank for this unpleasant surprise. I'd heard your father was stirring up old ghosts and throwing money around to see what ex-clients would bite."

"He did indeed," Emrys said, struggling to contain his own shock.

"That's the way of it with you Dyes," the Bonecutter groused, rolling her quill against the counter. "There's not a job you won't pay someone else to do for you, if you can."

"Oh my goodness!" I heard Neve sing as she came up behind us. I turned with slow horror, but it was already too late to stop her. "Aren't you adorable? I love your dress! "

The girl's eyes narrowed, hardening like flint. The air around us darkened, as if the light itself had shrunk away in horror. The temperature plunged.

The glasses on the shelves rattled, threatening to dance off into shattered oblivion. The bartender merely steadied the wineglasses with one hand while wiping down the back counter with the other.

All at once, the pressure released, and the glow of the fire returned to the pub.

"But I really do like her dress," Neve murmured from somewhere behind me. Olwen hushed her.

The Bonecutter glanced past my shoulder.

"No need for blades, Caitriona of Avalon. I'm certain you wouldn't enjoy an introduction to my own collection."

Caitriona lowered her knife, but only to her side. "You know who I am."

"I know all of you," the Bonecutter said. "The four who shattered the bonds of ancient magic to rejoin the worlds, at deadly cost. The Unmakers. And the tragic Dye heir, of course."

I thought Emrys might offer up one of his usual quips, but he only looked down at where his hand gripped the back of the stool beside him. There was something in his expression, the way his eyes hadn't quite focused, that sent an unwelcome ripple of dread through my thoughts.

"You don't understand," Olwen began.

"Oh, but I do," the Bonecutter said. "I understand far more than what you might wish to believe. About the unpredictable nature of magic. About the monsters that have appeared on this very isle. Whispers reach me from far and wide, from the living and the dead."

The Bonecutter slid off her stool. Not being tall myself, I was still shocked to see her diminutive stature. "That is why Nashbury Lark sought advice about his cursed child all those years ago, and why, out of great curiosity, I have allowed you to stay. I suspect you're about to show me something quite interesting."

Cursed child. With everything that had happened, I'd been able to push Nash's words from my mind. His warning. The Bonecutter couldn't possibly have guessed he'd only just spoken of it, but … the knowing quirk of her brow was unsettling, to say the least.

"We need your help," I told her. "Though this may be beyond even your skill set."

The Bonecutter smirked. Holding up her left hand, she snapped her fingers, and all the lights—natural and false—extinguished around us. The locks on the windows and doors turned with a harsh snap.

"The night's come, Bran," she told the bartender. "Be off with you."

He nodded, ducking to retrieve something from under the register—a stone tablet with a sigil for warding off unwelcome guests. Neve leaned over my shoulder to get a better look at it. She caught my eye as the bartender hung it around the doorknob.

"There are far more protections you cannot see," the Bonecutter said, retrieving her large ledger and pressing it to her chest. "Nothing and no one shall enter the pub unless I will it. You'll only need to worry about your own foolish impulses and sticky fingers."

She was looking at me as she said the last part. My temper prickled. "I'm not Nash."

"You'll answer for his sins all the same."

She gave a dismissive wave to the bartender. The air heated around us, then ruptured with a torrent of spiraling light. The transformation couldn't have taken more than a scant sliver of a moment, but every detail of it seared into my mind with stunning clarity—the way the man's bones shrank, how his form twisted and knotted around itself until nothing human remained and a large raven soared out from the sparks of magic still drifting in the air.

The bird tore through the haze of smoke in the fireplace, then up through the chimney. I reached out a hand, catching a long black feather in my palm.

Pooka. A shapeshifter. One of the last races of the Fair Folk in our mortal world. They often allied themselves to sorceresses and became companions to the women, offering their services in exchange for protection.

Which meant …

There had been countless rumors about who the Bonecutter was over the years. Most assumed it was a sorceress, or one of the Cunningfolk—you needed a certain magical skill set and vast stores of obscure knowledge to run this kind of outfit, after all. I'd always believed that if she was a sorceress, the Council of Sistren would have put a stop to one of their own profiting off the bones of their dead.

Not so, apparently.

Neve made a pained noise, all but shaking with the effort to keep her questions to herself.

"If you'll be so good as to join me in my workshop," the Bonecutter said. She ran a small pale hand along the carved spikes of the wooden dragon's spine as she rounded the bar. There must have been a small stool tucked behind the counter, because she was suddenly able to reach up and press a hand to one of the dragon's glass eyes. I took a step forward, squinting—and there it was, hidden in the painted lines of the iris. A small sigil.

Just behind her, the weathered planks of the floor pried free, stacking themselves neatly on either side of the staircase hidden below.

"The kitten is not allowed to join us," the Bonecutter said, starting down the steps. "In fact, I'd rid yourselves of it immediately."

"Not much of an animal person, are you?" I asked.

"Not unless they have rare fangs, claws, or skin to offer," the Bonecutter said.

Griflet hissed.

Olwen hesitated, but I gave her a nod. Gently, she set the basket down and pulled the protesting kitten out of the blanket.

"Now, don't be like this," Olwen told him, giving his head a gentle stroke. She removed her jacket and set the kitten down on it, so it had a soft surface to lie on. With one last irate yowl, Griflet extracted his teeth from her oversized sweater and curled up in a sullen circle on the makeshift bed.

"Come along, then, and watch your head for webs—I leave the spiders to catch any unwanted pests," the Bonecutter said, continuing down the steps into the darkness below. "Though, sadly, you lot are far too big to be snared."

No one moved.

"Fine," I grumbled, taking the basket. I went first, carefully descending each narrow step. True to her word, an alarmingly thick layer of pale webbing covered the slanted roof of the enclosed staircase. Here and there, delicate wisps had fallen, drifting down into our path.

A shudder rippled through me as I held out a hand, trying to protect my hair from any spiders looking for a new home. When I risked a glance back, Neve was searching the webs with hopeful eyes.

"No," I whispered. "No arachnids, and no picking up random bones."

"Not while you're watching, at least," she whispered, ignoring the look I sent her.

Emrys came next, followed by a clearly unhappy Caitriona, both bending at the waist to avoid knocking their heads.

As the Bonecutter reached the bottom step, the basement lights fluttered on, revealing the space in all its mundane glory.

The basement wasn't exactly the vast, creepy warehouse I had imagined. It was cramped, carefully packed with kegs and shelves of liquor bottles and cleaning supplies. The air was dank, but perfumed by warm wax and something vaguely earthy.

At the very center of it all, directly ahead, was a large table, barely recognizable beneath the chaos strewn over its surface. Plastic containers of bones—both human and animal—were stacked high and carefully labeled with some unintelligible code not even the One Vision could untangle. A tray piled with blank sheets of parchment was set beside a decrepit-looking quill and inkwell.

Most intriguing, however, was that either side of the table was lined with glass bottles hovering over candle flames. Many of the candles had burned down to pools of white wax, drooling onto the floor.

My eyes lingered on the glass containers. They had been worked into delicate, almost ethereal shapes, many resembling flowers or moons, all of which had a pearlescent sheen. I couldn't place exactly why they'd captured my attention until I saw Olwen eyeing them with something like grief. One of her hands strayed toward the nearest one, her finger ghosting over its curve.

They were nearly identical to the ones she'd kept on the shelves of her infirmary.

The Bonecutter was quick to replace the melted candles with new ones, adjusting the heights of the bottles as needed. Muttering something to herself, she reached into a small burlap sack hooked onto the end of the table. When she dropped the tiny leaves from inside into the nearest bottle of simmering liquids, it belched up gray smoke as the leaf dissolved.

"Now," the Bonecutter said, clearing the center of her table by unceremoniously dumping piles of books onto the dusty floor. "What have you brought me?"

I set the basket down in front of her, pulling the blankets back to reveal the shattered skull inside. I bit my lip. It was worse than I remembered—some of the shards were so small, they wouldn't even qualify as slivers.

The Bonecutter retrieved a large pair of glasses from the drawer of her worktable. My own reflection stared back at me in the glossy amethyst lenses, gaunt and bruised. Her small hand shoved me back a step so it could swing the neck of an articulated lamp over.

Light flooded the scarred wood surface, revealing more than one dark stain I could only pray was ink. Her stool creaked as she pumped a lever to raise its height, and again as she turned to face the table.

At that slight movement, the workshop tore itself apart.

The explosion of movement sent my heart slamming into the pit of my stomach. The stones in the walls scattered like disturbed nests of roaches. Olwen leapt away in alarm as they clattered up toward the ceiling and revealed the line of Victorian glass display cabinets hidden behind them.

The dingy light fixture rattled, then bloomed into a full crystal chandelier. The moodier light suited the tapestries that unfurled in all their tattered glory to cover the small windows where the ceiling met the wall.

Smaller tables and chairs raced out from behind the shelves containing the pub supplies, forcing Emrys to dive out of the way to avoid being run down as they moved into position in front of newly emerged bookshelves. The shelves were, of course, stuffed to the gills with scrolls, notebooks, tomes, and even what looked like the occasional Immortality.

Having remade itself, the workshop stilled again. The sound of some unidentifiable, metallic jangling filled the long silence that followed.

"That was amazing, " Neve gasped out. "Where did you hide all the sigils? How did you trigger them to cascade that way?"

The Bonecutter gave only a tight-lipped smile.

Olwen wandered the space with starry eyes, greedily drinking in the sight of it all.

"Should you be keeping the pub stuff this close to your … other stuff?" I asked uneasily.

The Bonecutter waved me off. "I've only ever had one incident, and the man was able to pass the adder out of his intestines eventually."

"No lasting damage with that, I'm sure," Emrys said. Our eyes met and looked away just as quickly.

"His tongue did, eventually, grow back," the Bonecutter said, lifting a piece of bone closer to the light.

"What is all this?" Olwen asked, studying the array of objects in the lit cases. They were displayed proudly, like prizes.

"Payment from satisfied customers," the Bonecutter said.

"Payment?" I repeated. "If you take goods in trade, why make Cab—" His name caught in my throat. "Why make us agree to your mysterious ‘favors' to get a key out of you?"

"I only ask favors of those who possess nothing much of value," the Bonecutter said.

My face heated with embarrassment. We'd been poor, not completely destitute. "We could have paid."

Her brows shot up above her glasses. "Not the price I would have asked."

I used the nearby shelves as an excuse to look away, fighting the flare of heat in my face.

"Is this all stuff you've found or traded for?" Neve asked, joining Olwen in front of one of the lit cases. They seemed entranced by a collection of necklaces, some ornate and sparkling with fat gemstones. Others were simple: A thin silver strand. A gold chain with an ivory locket. Gold rings and even a few earrings, one shaped like entwined serpents, were displayed beside them. But there were also gardening shears, books, and even a violin.

The Bonecutter looked up from where she had begun to lay out the shards of Viviane's vessel on the table. "Both. Do you see that puzzle box, the one no bigger than your palm?"

I joined them at the case, studying the warm-toned wood. On its lid, several tiles with painted sigils sat in various grooves.

"Does it look familiar, Dye?" she asked.

"Yes," he muttered, leaning against a shelf of stacked scrolls, just outside the glow of the table's light. He shifted, toeing the holes singed into the rug. The Bonecutter seemed to enjoy his discomfort.

"What does it do?" Olwen asked.

"It can trap a soul if you assemble the sigils correctly, but might just as soon trap yours," the Bonecutter said. Her gaze narrowed, slicing back toward Emrys. Assessing. "I'll sell it back to you, if you're interested. Seems you could have use for it."

He only lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

Olwen let out a soft gasp as she studied another section of the case. Her expression turned distraught, and my heart all but leapt out of my chest.

"What?" I asked.

The Bonecutter's smirk was that of a snake circling another animal's nest of eggs. "You've spotted my apple, I see."

At the word, Caitriona was by Olwen's side in an instant, searching past her horrified reflection in the glass until her dark eyes landed on the small apple and its pedestal. The fruit looked sickly but hadn't lost its golden sheen.

"You cannot have this," Caitriona said, raising her fist as if to smash through the glass. "You cannot. This is … this is not yours. "

"And it concerns you how, exactly?" the Bonecutter asked, fixing her with a gimlet eye.

"We took a vow to protect Avalon," Olwen began.

"And what a wonderful job you've done," the Bonecutter said. "Can you be a priestess of a place that no longer exists?"

"That's enough," I said sharply.

But Olwen didn't need protecting. She tilted her chin up and said, "Of course we can. We still serve the Goddess."

The Bonecutter turned her gaze toward Caitriona, a knowing smirk tucked into the corner of her lips. It was all the more unsettling on a child's face. "And do you agree, Lady Caitriona?"

Caitriona's jaw set dangerously. She barely seemed to be breathing.

Emrys's voice broke through the seething tension. "Did the apple come from one of the exiled sorceresses?"

The room's focus shifted to where he stood behind us, picking an invisible piece of lint off his jacket. Unbothered, as usual, by anyone's feelings outside of his own.

Still, that small redirect was enough to steer the conversation back to safer shores.

"Yes." The Bonecutter returned to the task in front of her, holding up the largest piece of the skull again. She lifted the amethyst lenses of her glasses to reveal red, then silver lenses beneath them. "I must admit, of all the things I thought you might bring me from Avalon, I didn't expect a druid vessel. I would have thought they'd be destroyed after the sorceresses stopped the druids from taking control of the isle."

"Do you know how to fix it?" I asked again. "I just thought, you know, you work with sorceress bones to create keys—"

"What?" Neve asked, horrified.

The Bonecutter lifted a brow. "Forgot to mention that to her, did you?"

Neve sent me an accusatory look.

"How do you think the Hollowers get into sorceress vaults?" I asked her. "The Veins are sealed with skeleton knobs. You need the bone and blood of someone in that family—if not the sorceress herself—to feed into the lock."

"You can see a sample of that work in the case on the far left," the Bonecutter said with a grim flourish of the hand. Always the consummate businesswoman.

"I think I'll pass," Neve muttered, eyeing both Emrys and me with outright disgust. "And for the record, I just thought Hollowers were talented at breaking whatever curses locked up vaults and tombs."

I shifted my weight, hugging my arms to my center. Cabell was the only person I knew with an innate talent for breaking curses.

The Bonecutter studied me, as if she'd had the same thought.

"Then you have greatly overestimated the capabilities of most Hollowers, including myself," Emrys said. "Half the time survival's a matter of luck and remembering to look down before you take your next step."

"Well, you've found yourself a bit of luck today," the Bonecutter said, leaning back and removing her glasses. "As it happens, I do know something of vessel-making and believe—after some consultation of a few books and journals—I will be able to fix it."

I drew in a sharp breath, moving toward the table.

"But again, I return to the same question," the Bonecutter finished. "Are you willing to pay the price?"