Page 137 of Silver in the Bone

“Mostly the stories he told us,” I said. “It’s weird, isn’t it? It’s almost like they’ve all come alive now that we’re here.”

Cabell considered that. Then, catching my shiver, pulled off Nash’s jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

“Thanks,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t need it?”

“I like the cold,” he said. “It helps clear my mind.”

I pulled the jacket tighter around me, wishing I had thought to put on my flannel coat before meeting Emrys.

“Do you think Olwen could be right, and we were supposed to come here?” Cabell asked quietly. “That Nash told us all those stories for a reason?”

“I think he told us partly to explain the relics we were looking for,” I said, “but mostly to amuse himself.”

Cabell looked down at the silver rings on his hands.

“I mean ... maybe?” I offered. “Maybe there is more to all of this. Like with all of the stories that had so many variations, we can choose which version we want to believe.”

“And which version of ourselves,” he said.

“Yeah, I suppose,” I said. “What is it you want to believe about yourself, Cab?”

He didn’t answer.

“Sometimes I envy your memory,” he told me then. “Because it’s a place where nothing dies.”

“Your story isn’t finished yet, Cab,” I promised him.

“Maybe,” he said. “But whatever happens, at least you can find me there.”

The dance of flame was as terrifying as it was hypnotic.

In the lean times between paying jobs, Nash had us camp out under the stars. Long after I was meant to be sleeping, I would lie awake and watch the campfire thrash and flicker. I’d try to count the sparks as they rose through the darkness, fading like stars in the morning. And when the flames finally subsided to smoldering ash, I’d sleep.

Tonight, by the time I’d made it back to our chamber, Neve was deep asleep, sprawled out on the mattress. Eventually, I gave up on trying to follow her lead and climbed out of bed. I paced as if I could shake the thoughts loose that way.

When that didn’t work, I settled into the chair in front of the hearth and found my way back to my own ritual, nudging the salamander stones together to create a small fire. Crossing my legs, I propped my elbow against my knee and my chin against my palm. The flames rose from the cold stones, golden bright.

I let thoughts stream through my mind without trying to grasp any of them. Old memories of vaults and primordial forests. Cabell and me in the library. My knife slicing Septimus moments before he was torn apart. The Children rising from the mists. The gleaming bottles in Olwen’s infirmary. The hound racing toward Caitriona. The white rose. Nash’s yellowed bones ...

It was the last image that lingered long after the others had settled. That picture of quiet, anonymous death after such a loud and infamous life.

For the first time since he’d vanished, the thought of Nash didn’t bring anger. It only brought an aching at my core. Regret.

Let the dead die, Tamsy, he told me once. It’s only memory that truly pains us, and they release it when they go.

Nash’s memories had come in song, in fireside stories, over the clink of pints, but they were silent now, and always would be. Unlike the sorceresses and the priestesses, who strove to crystallize their memories, who refused to let their lives be forgotten, he would have welcomed the unburdening. He’d always been selfish like that.

Let the dead die.

And any memory of my parents along with him.

My eyelids grew heavy. I didn’t fight the insistent pull of exhaustion.

The air turned to dark water around me as my mind sank deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. Flurries of bubbles streamed toward the retreating light at the surface until, finally, I reached a soft bed of earth. Silvery shells rose as the dirt dissolved beneath me, pearly and sinister.

Not shells. Bones.

I tried to scream, but water filled my mouth and lungs. I pushed away, but they were everywhere, shivering and clattering as they started to assemble themselves. Their pieces fitting together into monstrous forms that crawled forward, grasping at my legs.

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