Page 157 of Silver in the Bone

Emrys’s hand was still on my shoulder, warm and reassuring. I had to tuck my hand under my leg to keep from reaching for it. “All ears.”

“Well,” she said, eyes shining with an excitement I might have appreciated more under different circumstances. “I believe bone turns silver when you come across a great deal of death magic. You’re certain you never happened upon a curse or spell—perhaps in an object you touched?”

The ghost of the woman in the snowy field flashed through my mind. The icy fire of her touch as she’d tried to drag me into death with her. The mark over my heart burned with the memory.

Neve touched my shoulder, guessing my thoughts. By the look on Emrys’s face, he’d figured it out, too.

I breathed in deeply, nodding. “That’s probably it.”

Olwen tied off the bandage. “Does that feel all right?”

I nodded. “Thanks. But here comes the hard part—are you both really willing to do what it takes to destroy the revenant, knowing she has some small piece of your High Priestess in her?”

“There is no other choice but to uproot her dark magic,” Caitriona said simply. “We must get the athame to perform the purification ritual.”

Olwen nodded. “If the ritual can restore the land and return the Children to their original selves, some good may yet come of this pain.”

“Well, it should be easy enough to destroy the magic the revenant is feeding on, right?” I said.

Caitriona and Olwen exchanged a long, horrified look.

“Right?” I repeated.

“Is it possible to merely ... trap and relocate the revenant before killing her?” Caitriona asked, a pleading note in her tone.

“Is that your way of telling us you can’t remove the high magic attached to her new source?” I asked.

“Both Cait and I have the ability to do so,” Olwen said. “Only a priestess of Avalon may cross the wards protecting it.”

“Again, what’s the problem?” Emrys asked.

“The location in question,” Olwen said faintly, “is the living tomb of King Arthur.”

The words seemed to inhale all the air in the cottage.

Caitriona began to pace again, hugging her injured right arm to her chest to stabilize her shoulder. Her face was tight with thought as she tried desperately to untie the knot Olwen had just presented us with.

“It is an obligation of the Nine to protect the sleeping king,” Caitriona said, more to herself than to us. “Inherited from our sisters of ages past. If we remove the protective magic around the tomb, Arthur will die once and for all.”

Emrys swore beneath his breath.

I was the only one willing to ask the obvious question. “Does it matter?”

“What do you mean?” Olwen asked.

“Does it matter if he finally dies?” I asked. “The whole reason he was kept alive was to come to the aid of the mortal world in their time of greatest need, and the guy couldn’t even be bothered to wake up and help Avalon. Maybe we don’t want his help.”

Caitriona’s back was to us, her body rigid with the war no doubt raging inside. “You do not understand. You cannot.”

Olwen looked at us, her eyes pleading. “It’s one of the few duties we’ve been able to fulfill since the isle fell to darkness. We took a vow.”

Caitriona was only partly right. I might not have understood the point in keeping Arthur alive in the face of all we were up against, but I did recognize he meant something to them, just as he had meant something else to Nash, and to all those who longed for the legends to be true. The role the Nine played in protecting him was one of the few pure things that hadn’t been corrupted by the decay spreading through this wasteland.

“Fine,” I said, glancing at Emrys and Neve to make sure the three of us were in agreement. “Then we’ll try to lead the revenant away from the tomb. If we can’t, we’ll have to remove the magic she’s feeding on, even if it means letting Arthur go. Can you at least agree to that?”

“Cait?” Olwen looked to her, waiting.

When Caitriona faced us again, she was as pale as the snow outside.

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