Page 29 of The Mirror of Beasts

The Bonecutter, for the first time in our short acquaintance, seemed somewhat nonplussed. “I hadn’t taken you for a fool. How does rejecting your gift punish the one who gave it to you?”

Caitriona didn’t offer an answer. The Bonecutter’s dark curls gleamed as she shook her head and simply moved on.

“The Hand of Glory?” she prompted.

“It’s …,” I tried again, but couldn’t think of any other word to express the apprehension swarming in my gut. “It’s mine.”

“Actually, it was mine to begin with,” the Bonecutter said. “Your guardian bought it from me years ago.”

My hands gripped my elbows. I could feel the others’ gazes on me, waiting.

“Tamsin?” Olwen queried into the long silence that followed.

“I’m just …”

I drew in a deep breath. Being an idiot, my mind finished.

It was stupid—so stupid—to hesitate this way. We needed the Bonecutter to repair the vessel. We needed to know what memory Lord Death had tried to hide, and if it could help us destroy him.

So why was my stomach in knots? Why couldn’t I slow my racing thoughts?

“I see fear in your eyes,” the Bonecutter noted. “Curious, that. Are you concerned you may lose the One Vision and need him again? That you might return to who you were before?”

The questions gave my fear a name, a face, a razored edge.

“Impossible,” the Bonecutter said. “You have passed through the threshold of the One Vision, and you cannot go back. Trust that the person you were was left behind at that door. You will never be her again. Forward, little Lark.”

You will never be useless or helpless again, my mind whispered. You will never be left behind.

I rubbed my nose, swallowing. “Fine. You can have him.”

I pulled Ignatius from my bag one last time, unraveling the purple silk to set him on the table. I didn’t understand the small swell of sadness as I stepped back. I’d been a hostage to this lard-dipped fiend, forced to rely on him to survive.

The Bonecutter picked him up by the iron candlestick holder, looking distinctly unimpressed by that “improvement,” as well as the state of him.

The bulging pale blue eye blinked open at the center of the palm, scanning the world around it until it landed on the Bonecutter. The eye widened, and then his whole being began to tremble—not with fear, but utter joy. Adoration.

And just like that, my sadness evaporated.

“Yeah, good riddance to you, too,” I muttered. “Thanks for the memories, you wick-brained creep.”

A bell rang upstairs—then rang again, and again, and again, more insistent the longer it went unacknowledged.

“Well?” the Bonecutter said, laying out her work instruments. “Is anyone going to get the door?”

I exchanged a glance with the others. Neve shrugged. I didn’t see a reason not to either.

Emrys stepped aside to allow the rest of us to pass, lingering in the dark until the Bonecutter said, “Come here, Dye. I’ve use for your delicate hands. Little Lark, take that bag up with you—yes, the one staring you in the eye.”

I picked up the brown paper bag on the nearby shelf, surprised by its weight. The Bonecutter murmured something behind me and Emrys answered, his voice low and rumbling.

At the sound of the pub door opening, I turned and raced up the stairs two at a time, and emerged from the workshop like a traveler returning from the Underworld.

The woman seemed to unfurl from the night itself, her heavy steps and walking stick banging out a loud tattoo on the floor. With her riot of silver-streaked dark hair knotted into a lopsided mound on her head and the withered leaves caught on her shabby cloak, it looked as if she had come stumbling out of some ancient wood.

Caitriona shut the door and locked it behind her, her hand hovering over the knife hidden under the sleeve of her shirt.

“They’ve got what you asked for, Hem!” the Bonecutter called from downstairs.

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