Chapter 6

A weight built in my chest, dragging my heart into the pit of my stomach. "What do you want?"

The Bonecutter had been prepared for this moment—the ask was already poised on the tip of her tongue. "I would like your Hand of Glory, little Lark."

Panic fluttered through me. The lie was instinctive, born of a life with few possessions, and fewer true valuables. "I don't have it anymore."

The Bonecutter looked utterly bored. She jutted the small point of her chin toward the workbag at my side. "Yes, you do. I can scent it."

"Great." I grimaced. "Now I just feel bad that you've had to smell him this whole time."

"You should," the Bonecutter said. "He reeks of burned hair and fatty meat. Do we have a deal?"

I didn't move. My thoughts raced, trying to outrun my heart.

"That fetid thing crawled out of a dark pit," Caitriona said. "Get rid of it."

Defensiveness prickled my every nerve. "He's not that bad—"

Emrys let out a laugh of disbelief.

"No one asked for your opinion." I turned and glared at him.

He held up his hands. "Please, continue debating. We have all the time in the world to stand here while you attempt to process human emotions for the first time. "

We'd bickered and fought countless times, and I'd certainly launched some magnificent insults his way in the past. But … the casual cruelty of his words stung like the kiss of a knife to my throat, and for a moment I couldn't speak. I stared at him, at his perfect, beautiful face, and felt a new cold gather on my skin.

His haughty expression dimmed, his eyes softening even before Olwen moved to slap him upside the head. I almost let myself believe he regretted it.

Neve grabbed my hand between hers, drawing my focus back to her face. The understanding only made me feel worse.

"Far be it from me to speak ill of your creepy little friend," she said, "but weren't you convinced he was trying to escape your bag to smother you the other night?"

"Okay, fine, he's horrible and may be some sort of cosmic punishment Fate has inflicted on me for wrongdoings in a past life," I said. "But he's still useful. He can unlock any door, remember?"

"You travel with a sorceress," the Bonecutter said. "Can she not unlock doors? Could the priestesses not be of assistance?"

"I have relinquished my magic," Caitriona said.

The Bonecutter, for the first time in our short acquaintance, seemed somewhat nonplussed. "I hadn't taken you for a fool. How does rejecting your gift punish the one who gave it to you?"

Caitriona didn't offer an answer. The Bonecutter's dark curls gleamed as she shook her head and simply moved on.

"The Hand of Glory?" she prompted.

"It's …," I tried again, but couldn't think of any other word to express the apprehension swarming in my gut. "It's mine."

"Actually, it was mine to begin with," the Bonecutter said. "Your guardian bought it from me years ago."

My hands gripped my elbows. I could feel the others' gazes on me, waiting.

"Tamsin?" Olwen queried into the long silence that followed.

"I'm just … "

I drew in a deep breath. Being an idiot, my mind finished.

It was stupid—so stupid—to hesitate this way. We needed the Bonecutter to repair the vessel. We needed to know what memory Lord Death had tried to hide, and if it could help us destroy him.

So why was my stomach in knots? Why couldn't I slow my racing thoughts?

"I see fear in your eyes," the Bonecutter noted. "Curious, that. Are you concerned you may lose the One Vision and need him again? That you might return to who you were before?"

The questions gave my fear a name, a face, a razored edge.

"Impossible," the Bonecutter said. "You have passed through the threshold of the One Vision, and you cannot go back. Trust that the person you were was left behind at that door. You will never be her again. Forward, little Lark."

You will never be useless or helpless again, my mind whispered. You will never be left behind.

I rubbed my nose, swallowing. "Fine. You can have him."

I pulled Ignatius from my bag one last time, unraveling the purple silk to set him on the table. I didn't understand the small swell of sadness as I stepped back. I'd been a hostage to this lard-dipped fiend, forced to rely on him to survive.

The Bonecutter picked him up by the iron candlestick holder, looking distinctly unimpressed by that "improvement," as well as the state of him.

The bulging pale blue eye blinked open at the center of the palm, scanning the world around it until it landed on the Bonecutter. The eye widened, and then his whole being began to tremble—not with fear, but utter joy. Adoration.

And just like that, my sadness evaporated.

"Yeah, good riddance to you, too," I muttered. "Thanks for the memories, you wick-brained creep."

A bell rang upstairs—then rang again, and again, and again, more insistent the longer it went unacknowledged .

"Well?" the Bonecutter said, laying out her work instruments. "Is anyone going to get the door?"

I exchanged a glance with the others. Neve shrugged. I didn't see a reason not to either.

Emrys stepped aside to allow the rest of us to pass, lingering in the dark until the Bonecutter said, "Come here, Dye. I've use for your delicate hands. Little Lark, take that bag up with you—yes, the one staring you in the eye."

I picked up the brown paper bag on the nearby shelf, surprised by its weight. The Bonecutter murmured something behind me and Emrys answered, his voice low and rumbling.

At the sound of the pub door opening, I turned and raced up the stairs two at a time, and emerged from the workshop like a traveler returning from the Underworld.

The woman seemed to unfurl from the night itself, her heavy steps and walking stick banging out a loud tattoo on the floor. With her riot of silver-streaked dark hair knotted into a lopsided mound on her head and the withered leaves caught on her shabby cloak, it looked as if she had come stumbling out of some ancient wood.

Caitriona shut the door and locked it behind her, her hand hovering over the knife hidden under the sleeve of her shirt.

"They've got what you asked for, Hem!" the Bonecutter called from downstairs.

"The old bag can't be bothered to come up and give it to me herself, I see," the new arrival said, enjoying our reaction to the name old bag. She eyed each of us in turn, her face streaked with soil, as if she'd been gardening under the cold moonlight.

At last, she turned toward the bar and shouted down, "The whole list?"

"Yes, you withered bat," the Bonecutter called back. "I even strung the protective wards from the temple on Delos for you, not that you'll pay me for my time!"

"That it?" the woman asked, crooking a finger at me .

I handed it over, watching as she rummaged through the bag, nodding as she silently counted the items inside. Reaching into the inner pocket of her cloak, she retrieved a bundle of dried herbs. They had a sweet, floral scent, but I held them by the tips of their stems anyway, not letting any other part of the plants touch my skin or clothes. You never really knew with this kind of thing—it could just as easily be the starter for poison as a relaxing salt mix for the bath.

"Are you a sorceress?" Neve asked, unable to keep the note of eagerness out of her voice.

"Did the mystical aura give it away, or was it the wart on my nose?" the woman shot back. "Yes, child. Much to the Sistren's chagrin, I was once called the Sorceress Hemlock."

I opened the archive of my mind and sorted through it until I found the pieces of her story and began to assemble them. Her swift, glorious rise among the ranks of sorceresses to vie for High Sorceress … and an even swifter inglorious fall.

I snapped my finger, pointing at her. "The Mouse Shepherdess."

Neve whirled around, horrified. "Tamsin!"

"It's all right," Hemlock said with a deep chuckle, folding the bag's opening over. "I've been called worse for some of my ideas, and pushing for the Cunningfolk to have a voice on the Council of Sistren is one I take pride in. As good a reason as any to be expelled. The problem with being before your time is that you almost never get to see the moment you transform from fool to hero in others' eyes."

"You were expelled from the Council?" Neve asked, shocked. "For that ?"

"Are you one of the Sistren?" Hemlock asked Neve. "You seem a bit too free-spirited for it, I must say. Unless they no longer seek to crush their maidens into the same mold."

"I'm self-taught," Neve admitted.

"Ah, no provable bloodline, or were they merely feeling especially callous that day?" Hemlock asked.

Neve toyed with the end of one of her braids. "The first. "

"Well, you'll be better for it," Hemlock told her, with surprising sympathy.

"What do you mean?" Olwen asked, curious.

"Only that her learning won't be limited to what they wish her to know," Hemlock said. "Breaking away from their rigid system of sigils allows for the Goddess to manifest more strongly in our intuition, allowing new depths of power to be discovered."

Neve's expression sharpened with interest. I knew she was thinking of the light, and the way the sorceresses had reacted. "You really believe so?"

"I know so," Hemlock said. "That's why the priestesses of Avalon called upon magic in whatever way innately spoke to them—forgive me, I'm telling you what you already know, aren't I?"

Olwen smiled sadly.

"Even I get the occasional scrap of gossip thrown to me when it's juicy enough," Hemlock said. "Terrible trouble you've found yourselves in, my girls. Enough to win yourselves your own unflattering nickname."

It seemed we were all too tired and heartsick to explain ourselves again.

"Lord Death is hunting sorceresses," Neve said. "Wouldn't it be safer to see if you can rejoin the others?"

"I'll be damned before I leave the house I've built with my own two hands," Hemlock said. "I'll fight to defend it with whatever breath I've left in my body."

She held up the bag from the Bonecutter to emphasize her point.

"Then you'll die," Caitriona told her plainly. Leaning a hip against the bar, she crossed her arms over her chest.

"So I will," Hemlock said, turning toward the door. "Tell that fawn-faced ninny to burn my body when it happens."

"Don't say that," Neve said. "You can still go to your sisters. They need your help as much as you need theirs."

"It doesn't work that way with the Sistren, though I wish it did," Hemlock said. "I meant what I said before, about my body. You live as long as I have, and you'll find it best not to leave anything unspoken."

"Please," Neve tried again.

Hemlock stood in the doorway. Cold wind swept in around her, but the goose bumps on my skin had nothing to do with its icy kiss. "Have heart, sweet sorceress, but say your goodbyes while you have the chance."