Page 169 of Silver in the Bone

“It’s Mari’s cat,” I explained to Neve. His tail flicked my face and made me think of home.

Neve reached out, stroking the kitten’s soft head. “Where have you been hiding, little Griflet?”

And what have you seen? I wondered.

“How would you like to live in a library?” I asked the kitten as Neve and I made our way down to the great hall. “With many other cute and devious friends?”

Olwen met us on the stairs. “I was just coming to find you.”

I pushed my hair back so she could see the kitten. Olwen’s expression became a watercolor of emotion, none strong enough to hold for more than a moment. “Oh, Blessed Mother.”

Carefully, she extracted the kitten’s claws from my jacket and tucked him into the crook of her arm. He purred contentedly.

“Are you ready?” Neve asked.

“Yes.” Olwen scratched between Griflet’s scruffy ears. “The ritual has to be performed at daybreak, so we haven’t a moment to spare.”

The great hall still reeked of blood, and dark stains were still visible on the floor, even after we’d tried to clean it. The statue of the Goddess loomed above the altar, her white stone body speckled with blood. At the center of her chest, a candle still burned.

Caitriona stood with her back to us, staring down at the items before her: the athame, the wand, the chalice, a bowl of what looked to be dirt, and a carafe of glowing springwater. At Griflet’s quiet mewling, she turned, her eyes widening.

“How?” she rasped out.

“Tamsin and Neve found him hiding upstairs,” Olwen explained. She brought him up to press his soft face to her cheek, then stowed him away in the basket with Viviane’s vessel. Griflet nestled into the soft blanket covering it.

Neve and I set our bags down beside it and accepted the thin wreaths of greens and twisted wood that Olwen placed upon our heads.

“I don’t have magic,” I said, understanding.

“Trust me” was all Olwen said.

Caitriona motioned us forward to gather around the altar. When I hung back a step, Olwen gently nudged me into place between her and Caitriona. I froze, my pulse thrumming in my veins as I stared down at the glossy black top of the altar. The flecks of gold and silver in the polished stone looked like stars in a night sky.

The athame’s blade glinted. The chalice was silver, simple in its form but rimmed with glittering sapphires and emeralds. It was the wand that caught my eye, though. Longer than my arm, longer than even Neve’s own tool, it looked like a straight branch capped with a silver point.

While Olwen donned ceremonial robes, Caitriona did not. She bent down to retrieve the massive tome that she had placed near her feet.

I drew in an unsteady breath as she thumbed through the pages, revealing glimpses of color and glorious illuminations. Neve shifted, clearing her throat in the silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her decide—she set her wand down near our bags, freeing her hands to let the magic come naturally.

“Hail Mother of All, the heart of the world—” Caitriona’s voice choked, but steadied again as she began to chant. The words were grave and edged with no small amount of anger. “Earth of your body.”

“Earth of your body,” Olwen repeated, licking her cracked lips as Caitriona added a handful of dirt to the chalice.

“Water of your blood.”

Olwen echoed her again, pouring water into the chalice.

“Breath of your daughter.”

Olwen leaned forward and breathed into the chalice.

Sickly mist rolled up and over the steps, as if called forth by the chanting. It spread through the great hall like roots in dark soil, feeling its way toward us.

Caitriona used the statue’s candle to light another. “Fire of your soul.”

“Fire of your soul,” Olwen said. And then, together, they said, “We call upon your power.”

Caitriona shut the book and picked up the athame, chanting as she sliced her palm and squeezed blood into the chalice.

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