Page 26 of Silver in the Bone

Cabell gripped the doorknob but didn’t move.

“You are my only family,” I told him. “I’m going after the ring as soon as the Sorceress Grinda sends someone to pick up the locket we recovered for her. She said it would be tonight.”

Cabell didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken.

“There are too many people after the ring to wait—and too many people who suspect Nash was the last to have it,” I said. “If you won’t help me, at least pack a bag and try to disappear until this is all over.”

“I’ll do you one better and not come back at all.” He opened the door and stepped out. Either his voice was a whisper, or I imagined his last words as he brushed past: “Love you.”

“Don’t die,” I told him anyway.

The door slammed shut.

My knees felt like they were made of sand. I sat heavily on the edge of the wooden coffee table and finished off the last of his beer.

I knew he was in pain; I saw the flickers of it every day like light catching a prism. He’d been a touch more reckless than usual, but I’d assumed it was fueled by his frustration and his impatience to find a solution.

It never occurred to me he’d try to destroy himself before the curse ever could.

I should have stopped him from going out. Made him stay and talk it through with me. It was never a good idea to wander the streets this time of night, even with a small knife on your keychain and salt in your pockets.

Grow up, Tamsin. This isn’t a fairy tale.

Fairy tales—the original stories, as opposed to the rosy retellings—were all thorns and misery, and a truer mirror to humanity than anyone wanted to believe. But for Cabell to act like I was a child caught up in daydreams was almost more than I could take.

The problem with siblings, I decided, was that they spent years gathering up all these little daggers of observation and learning exactly where to slip them between your bones.

And anyway, Cabell was the one who had wanted to search for Nash long after it became clear that Nash had discarded us like the last sip of cold coffee. He was the one who had clung to the idea that Nash was still out there, trying to make his way back to us. He was the one who had cried about it every night those first few months, when we were sick with hunger and exhaustion and were sleeping rough in the winter woods.

At Tintagel, there’d been no evidence of a fight, no evidence of any curses being cast, not even tracks that might have indicated Nash had drunkenly staggered over the edge of the cliff bordering the ruins of the castle. The cold sea never returned his body to the rocky shores. The only footsteps we found in the mud and snow had led to the castle, and there weren’t any leading away.

But if he was alive, why hadn’t he come back? Why hadn’t he used the ring to break Cabell’s curse?

I shut my eyes, giving my head a hard shake. It didn’t matter whether Nash was alive without the ring or dead and buried with it. I just needed his last known whereabouts to pick up the ring’s trail before the others did.

But to do that, I was going to need a few things. Including, I thought with a scowl, the One Vision, as Cabell had oh-so-gently pointed out.

And there was only one way to get what I needed ...

A calm settled over me as I mentally sketched out the beginnings of a plan. As each step came into focus, my body began to feel solid again, and the world seemed to steady around me.

Stooping, I gathered up the explosion of mail on the floor I’d previously ignored.

I unrolled the newspaper, glancing at the front-page headlines. Surging gas prices. The upcoming World Series. A freak ice storm in Britain.

The last one caught my eye enough to make me skim the first few paragraphs:

Overnight, roads across Great Britain iced over despite a lack of snow and a week of record-breaking high temperatures ...

I brought everything into the kitchen—and dropped it all onto the counter with a horrified gasp.

“Florence, no!”

I scooped up my little potted succulent from her place on the windowsill. At the movement, she dramatically dropped her sickly brown leaves, leaving only a bare stem.

“What happened?” I asked. “You were fine the other day—was it too much water? The heat? Winston is hanging in there, so what happened to you?”

Winston was the aloe plant that had been left for dead in my neighbor’s trash can along with Florence.

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