Page 117 of Silver in the Bone

“Oh, wow,” Neve said, trying to see down the length of it to the shadows ahead.

As we stepped off, the floor rose again of its own accord.

“Should we be worried about that?” I asked faintly.

“There’s another lever down here to lower the platform,” Emrys assured me. “I spent a precious hour of my life finding it.”

As the platform slid into place, blocking any trace of light from above, I realized what I’d forgotten in all our hurry.

“My workbag,” I said, pressing a hand to my forehead.

“Have no fear, ladies and gent,” Emrys said, pulling on his head lamp and clicking the light to turn it on. “I’ve got us covered.”

Beside me, Neve closed her eyes and drew in a gasp like the last soft breath before a kiss. Her lips were moving, but it was a moment more before I heard the song: the words that had no translation, the humming that seemed to be born from the deepest chamber of her heart. It harmonized with her echoes on the stones around us, until Neve’s voice became a thing of pure power, and the power became her voice.

The melody was otherworldly and filled with promise, like a revelation. Wisps of pale blue light gathered at her fingertips. She brought her hands to her mouth and blew on them, scattering the shivering lights like dandelion seeds down the length of the tunnel. Their glow made me feel like I was floating in one of the pools in the cavern below.

“Incredible,” I told her. And she hadn’t needed a sigil, let alone her wand, to do it. She had done what had felt natural, and the result was astonishing. Neve beamed, tracing a finger around one of the lights.

With what dignity he could muster, Emrys reached up and turned off his head lamp. “Well, that works too.”

“Where are we going?” I asked. “I can’t imagine you just wanted to show us this paradigm of a cold, drippy cave tunnel.”

“It’s really more of an ancient path into the bleak never-dawn,” Emrys said, starting down said ancient path. “But it is indeed drippy and cold.”

The damp passage was short, but it reeked of the isle’s decay in a way the other tunnel hadn’t. The air was thick with moisture, and we churned up foul odors with our every step. My ears strained, listening beyond our footsteps and the dripping water that seeped from the walls.

At the end of Neve’s trail of lights, I could make out a grotto of some sort. I was so focused on it, I overlooked the antechamber that opened into it.

Dread brushed along my spine, cold and quivering, as I turned to my right. There, an iron-grated door barred entry to a crypt; through the rusted metal, I could just make out the shape of three plain stone coffins. It was a lightless crevice, lacking any color or adornment beyond the names chiseled into their lids.

The one closest to me read MORGAN.

“Can we assume this is the Morgan we know as Morgan le Fay?” Emrys asked.

“Yes,” Neve said, her voice hushed. “Olwen told me about this. While the surviving sorceresses were exiled, High Priestess Viviane didn’t know what to do with the bodies of the priestesses who died getting revenge on the druids. She decided not to bury them in the earth, to keep them from being reborn, but couldn’t bear to burn them.”

I nodded, feeling something heavy settle at the base of my throat. After everything, the High Priestess had still loved her sisters in spite of their betrayal. She hadn’t left them to rot into the ground, the way I had with Nash’s remains.

“Someone’s been down to visit them,” Cabell said. He slid a hand through the bars, pointing at the bouquet of dried roses placed at the head of Morgan’s coffin.

Neve squinted, trying to see for herself. “That’s impossible. Olwen said she wasn’t even sure where the crypt was.”

“She might not be,” I said. “But someone remembered.”

“I agree this is all very unsettling and mysterious,” Emrys said. “But believe it or not, this isn’t what I wanted to show you. Follow me.”

Past the antechamber, the stench thickened until I could barely draw breath without becoming queasy. We stood on a wide stone platform, overlooking a section of the tower’s moat. It ran through the length of the grotto, its murky sludge filtering through grates.

“This,” Emrys said, “is why I brought you down here.”

I glanced back over my shoulder and stilled. Neve stepped in closer to my side, her breathing turning ragged.

The platform spread out around us, filling the cavernous space. There, on either side of the entrance we’d come through, were cages.

Four of them, made of crudely shaped iron. Two looked as if they had been torn apart from the inside, the bars twisted as if made of twine, not metal. A pile of silver bones waited in the third.

And the ground around the fourth’s was painted with dark, dry blood.

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