Page 168 of Silver in the Bone

Neve shut the door behind us one last time and watched as I moved toward the chamber that Cabell and Emrys had shared.

I stopped, feeling the words well in me. The story that finally wanted to be told.

“You were right,” I told her. “I do have a death mark.”

“Tamsin—” she said softly.

“Nash and Cabell had left me behind at our camp. They’d gone to search another sorceress’s vault for Arthur’s dagger, and they had no use for me.” I swallowed the knot lodged in my throat. “And then I heard her ... I heard a voice on the wind. I thought she was calling for me. It was a White Lady.”

A woman who’d been murdered by her lover and left to guard her lover’s treasure until she killed another to take her place.

“I was just a stupid kid, and I was so angry and hurt they’d left me,” I whispered. “Even though I knew better, even though Nash had told us so many ghost stories, all I could think was She wants me. I know this is going to sound absurd, but ... there was a part of me that even wondered if she was my mother, and she’d finally come to get me.”

We’d stood alone together on the open, snow-dusted field, and even as she’d reached out to touch the skin over my heart, to freeze it, I’d wondered if the look on her face was love.

Neve wrapped her arms around me from behind, pressing the side of her face against my shoulder. Instead of pulling away, I leaned into her.

When she released me, she waited for me to look back before saying quietly, “I’m going to go up to the library for a little while. Have one last look around.”

I nodded. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

I waited until her footsteps faded on the stairway before facing the door again and pushing it open.

The neighboring chamber was a mirror image of our own. The icy bite of the air had set in deeper with its emptiness. Aside from Cabell’s workbag sitting on the end of the bed, there were no signs that anyone had been sleeping there.

A fresh bitterness filled me. Emrys couldn’t have known that we would find the ring, but the fact that he’d left no trace of himself here—it made me wonder.

I don’t care, I thought, picking up Cabell’s bag and hugging it to my chest. I don’t.

I reached into the pocket of my jacket, my fist closing around the piece of smooth wood. I gripped it tightly against the swell of emotion in me, until its edges cut into my skin.

And then, with a deep breath, I placed the small carved bird on the pillow and walked away.

I found Neve not wandering through the oaken shelves of the library, but at the very back of it, contemplating the tapestries that covered the windows. On one, a man wreathed in branches raised his sword to face the knight on the other, draped in holly.

Neve glanced back as I came toward her.

I touched the woven figure sprouting with oak leaves. “Have you heard this story? The Holly King and the Oak King?”

“No,” she said. “But I can make a guess—they represent the turning of the seasons?”

“Basically,” I said. “They’re personifications of winter and summer, or the dark half of the Wheel of the Year, and the light. They duel one another again and again, their power waxing and waning as their season comes and goes. Some versions say the Holly King is Lord Death and that they’re dueling for a woman they both love, or the Goddess herself.”

It was surprising to see it represented here, but given the size of the library and the variety of manuscripts in it, I figured the Avalonians had collected stories from all over the world.

“Should we go down?” Neve asked, struggling to pick up her fanny pack. While the spell expanded its capacity, it didn’t do much to lighten the load.

“Yeah,” I said, and seized by a strong impulse, I touched her arm. “Thank you for being my friend, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“You really didn’t make it easy,” she said. “But then, nothing truly good ever is.”

Footsteps echoed up to us from the staircase. I angled back toward it, expecting to see Olwen or Caitriona there—but no one came.

I frowned, moving to the stairs, but there was no one there. Neve and I exchanged a look, continuing down the steps and searching the darkened hallway of the level below. There was movement there, all right.

“Oh,” I whispered, dropping to a crouch. “Come here, you rascal.”

A trembling gray kitten, his fur matted with blood, darted out of the shadows and all but leapt into my outstretched arms. His claws snagged the front of my jacket as he tried to wrap himself around my neck.

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