Page 74 of Silver in the Bone

“Nah, I’m just trying to free my sister from whatever demon possesses her precoffee,” he said. “And anyway, it’s not like you had much of a choice on the brother front.”

“Fate did right by us,” I said. “Just that once.”

Cabell hummed in thought. “Fate, or Nash?”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” I asked, changing the subject. “I think I managed an hour at most.”

“Lucky,” he said. “I got maybe ten minutes, thanks to the sweet lullaby of screeching.”

I was used to sleeping in strange places, drifting off as soon as my head touched a soft surface, whether it was my hands, a pillow, or a bundled-up shirt. Yet every time I’d closed my eyes last night, my memory had turned traitor. It flashed between the monsters in the woods, the life draining from Septimus’s face, Emrys’s scars, and Caitriona’s words. I’ll take you to see your father.

I hugged my arms around my middle, trapping some warmth beneath my flannel jacket. I drew in a deep breath of the foul air, made worse by the pungent smell of excrement and animal sweat wafting from the stables a stone’s throw to our left.

A short distance away, Deri had scaled the Mother tree, packing what looked to be woody abscesses with straw and moss. The hamadryad was joined by dozens of tiny green figures, who were cleaning rot from the tree’s body and stripping dried pieces of bark off to eat. The sprites were no bigger than my hand and had bodies like twigs and heads like pale green rosebuds. Their wings were translucent and glimmering, almost like a dragonfly’s.

Behind us, Betrys and one of the other Nine, Arianwen, were moving through sword drills under the watchful eye of Bedivere. The clatter of their wooden practice weapons punctuated the quiet of the morning, chased by a grunt or “Ha!” of effort.

“That’s it,” Bedivere said, “lean into it—yes, Ari, that’s it.”

Arianwen had cropped her brown hair close to her scalp, which only served to emphasize the loveliness of her face. She moved with a fluidity I envied, her full figure unimpeded by the leather practice armor as she swung her arm up and down, arcing the blade slowly, then quick-quick, tap-tap.

Betrys met her every blow with practiced ease. It hardly seemed like a fair match; Betrys had a solid five inches on the other girl, which meant she had the longer reach with the blade and Arianwen had to move faster, strike with more power, to even out that advantage.

Then again, I supposed, real fights were only ever fair by chance.

“She did say daylight, didn’t she?” Cabell asked, peering up at the sky. He was all but bouncing on his heels, as impatient as I was to get going.

“She did indeed,” I groused.

“And cease,” Bedivere said from behind us.

Both girls fell back, returning their wooden swords to a nearby rack. Betrys used the sleeve of her tunic to swipe the sweat from her brow, then wrapped an arm around the other priestess’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I told you you’d have it in no time.”

Arianwen beamed, leaning into her. It was hard to tell if her face was sunburned or merely flushed from the training. “Are you off to the kitchen?”

“Cook awaits my skilled knife,” Betrys confirmed. “You?”

“Mari needs help with the laundering,” Arianwen said. “Are the two of you waiting for Cait?”

With my brain thick with fog, it took me a moment to realize she was talking to us.

“Yeah,” I said, a bit more harshly than I meant. “Unless we have different concepts of daybreak, she should have been here a while ago.”

Arianwen’s brows rose. “It’s not like her to be late—you don’t think she’ll need someone to go with her, do you?”

“I’ll be joining them,” Bedivere told her with a small, knowing smile.

“Yes,” Arianwen continued, “but are you absolutely certain—”

“It’s the laundry, Ari, not the gallows,” Betrys said, shaking her head.

“Easy for you to say—you won’t be smelling like lye for a fortnight,” Arianwen said.

“Yes, but you get to use the wash bats,” Betrys said, guiding her away. “I know how much you enjoy beating the dirt out of linens.”

Arianwen sniffed, her voice trailing off with her steps. “It is invigorating.”

“I’ll see if I can’t find Caitriona,” Bedivere told us, scratching at his white-tipped beard. “I’m certain she’s only making her morning rounds.”

---