Page 111 of Silver in the Bone

“That’s an unusual name,” Mari said, visibly relaxing as she cuddled the kitten beneath her chin. The creature happily accepted the attention with a soft purr. “I think ... yes, you look more like a Griflet to me. Thank you, Olwen!”

“Don’t forget to eat something before this evening,” Olwen said. “The both of you. I’ll hunt you down and feed you bits of cheese if I have to.”

“Just so you know, you’re invited to do that anytime,” I said.

The larder was lit by three glass windows, which gave a clear view of the disaster inside. I turned. And turned again.

The room was as large as the bedchambers and smelled sweet with dried fruit, but there was food only on one wall of shelves. My stomach turned over at the sight.

“Where do you keep the rest of it?” I asked.

Mari set her kitten down to allow him to explore. Olwen quickly shut the door behind us, pressing a finger to her lips.

“They don’t know?” I asked, the words bursting out of me. I turned to survey the shelves again. “This is food for weeks, not months.”

“Now you understand the importance of the crops they’ll be growing in the courtyard,” Olwen said, glancing at Mari as she fussed with a nearly empty jar of dried berries. Seeing them reminded me of the almost decadent sweet bread they’d given us the night before.

Dread crept over me like a shadow. There was no way this would last until they had viable crops to eat. Unless ...

“Can you use your magic to grow crops faster?” I asked.

“Yes,” Olwen said. “Though we’ve been reluctant to do so, with the magic of the isle feeling so ... unpredictable.”

I did the math in my head, working out how much about two hundred people would need each day. “Do you think they’d be fully ripened within two weeks—a fortnight?”

Why are you doing this? my mind whispered. This isn’t your problem ...

Wasn’t it, though? I wasn’t about to have any of us starve to death before we carved a path back to our world.

“Possibly,” Olwen said. “Why?”

“You’re in luck,” I told them, reaching for the first basket of grain. “Because if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s stretch a little bit of food to make it last.”

And, if it came to it, lie and lie until every last hope they had was extinguished.

Unsurprisingly, Neve had returned to the library at some point during the day. By the time I’d managed to drag my tired bones back up the stairs to talk to her, the pile of books beside her had grown so high, I almost missed spotting her at the table.

She had her headphones on, and her dreamy synth music seemed to be wandering through the rows of shelves, as if curious about what books it would find there.

I collapsed into the chair directly across from her at the worktable.

With a sigh, Neve paused her CD and lowered her earphones.

“I feel like I need to brace myself whenever I ask you this,” she said. “But is everything all right?”

“Get excited,” I told her. “It’s even worse than what you’re imagining.”

“I’m imagining you found out the Mother tree is going to die within days, starving the world of its last bit of magic and reducing us to a feast for the Children and whatever worms might live in the soil,” Neve said.

“Okay,” I managed. “Wow. I’m ... not actually sure it’s worse than that.”

“Are you going to tell me,” Neve asked, “or am I supposed to guess? Because the sacred pools drying up is next on my list.”

The story tumbled out of me so quickly that I struggled to catch my breath by the end of it. All the while Neve stared back, her frown deepening.

“What do you think?” I asked her.

“I think you believe you saw someone with silvery hair,” Neve said. “And you assume it’s Caitriona, just like you assume it has something to do with the druids and Lord Death.”

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