All the apprentices crowd on the deck, elbowing for a better view of both Ivory Hall and the pier. I press against the railing, as eager for a glimpse as the others. Rows of ships identical to this one are docked all along the shore.
Seagulls circle overhead in patterns that look too structured to be accidental. Onshore, I see several people in green cloaks, delicate bone flutes pressed to their lips, playing while they look skyward. A white stripe on each sleeve designates them as members of the Ivory Guard, but I can’t think why musicians would be needed for protection. I study them for several minutes before I realize they must be Watchers—some of the select members of the Ivory Guard who also have bone magic. My father told me about them when I was small.
“Papa, if you could have any magic, what would you choose?” I asked him once. It was my bedtime, and the question was more of a stall tactic than actual curiosity. But he played along, as he often did.
“I’d be a Watcher,” he said.
I’d scrunched up my forehead then. “No such thing.” I knew all the magics had “bone” in the title. Bone Charmers, like Mama and Gran, Bone Masons, Bone Breakers, Bone Healers.
“Ah, but you’re wrong, bluebird. The official title is Bone Singer,” he said. “But that’s not a very serious name for someone tasked with defending a country, now is it? They like to be called Watchers instead. Much more impressive.” And then he told me about people who could control animals through song.
The Watchers are guiding the birds, seeing through their eyes to get a better view of the activities below. Huge white dogs pace along the shoreline and up and down the pier. Their owners stand at a distance, clothed in the same green cloaks but playing larger instruments. The flutes must be made from the bones of the same type of animal being controlled. I think of Ami back in Midwood, apprenticing at the bone house, and a pang goes through me. I wonder if she’ll learn to prepare bones so Masons can carve them into flutes.
Someone squeezes in beside me and I glance over to see Bram. He’s been avoiding me for our entire journey, but maybe looking out across the capital, he feels it too—how everything is different here, how home suddenly seems so far away.
“Hello,” I say.
He lifts his chin slightly, without answering, as if we’re strangers exchanging pleasantries, instead of two people from the same town. As if we’re not bone-matched.
I sigh and search for my patience. “Are you nervous?”
His dark eyes roam over my face. “Why? Because I’m too much of a coward to show up and deal with my fate?” He grips the railing so tightly that it turns his knuckles white. His black tattoos stand in such sharp relief that they practically leap off his skin.
My cheeks burn. “I didn’t mean—” But he doesn’t let me finish.
“Yes, you did.”
One of the crew members lowers the ramp and announces that it’s time to disembark. Bram turns his back on me and soon he’s lost in the throng.
The pier is a riot of color and noise. Vendors selling food—long skewers threaded with tender chunks of meat and crisp vegetables, delicate bowls made from spun sugar and filled with ripe berries, bite-sized morsels of sweet bread.
Merchants walk along the pier, boxes slung across their chests, peddling their wares. They sell little toy flutes made of wood and painted white, sets of pretend bones so children can playact the kenning, and even bits of shell and teeth that are mostly worthless except for mundane readings like choosing fish bait.
Kastelia City is a trading hub, and snatches of conversation from beyond our borders float past me in languages I don’t understand—the melodic long vowels of Cistonian, the guttural, harsh tones of the people of Novenium, and other tongues so unfamiliar that I can’t place them.
Each of the ships in the harbor seem to have unloaded their passengers at the same time, and soon a horde of apprentices are all pressing forward, climbing toward Ivory Hall. I’m caught in a swiftly moving wave of people, and I can only trust that someone at the front of the crowd knows where we’re headed.
The lane is steeper than it looks, and it’s not long before the muscles in my legs are on fire. By the time we make it to the top, the afternoon has faded away. The sun dips toward the horizon, and soft pink light colors the sky.
A woman stands on a tall box, shouting directions and signaling for the group to gather around. Her silver hair is braided and rolled into a tight bun at the back of her head, and she has a yellow half-moon–shaped tattoo on the side of her neck. Both her voice and mannerisms suggest she’s not someone to be trifled with. She reminds me a bit of Gran.
I crane my neck to get a better view of Ivory Hall, but we’re too close now, and the structure is too massive. All I can see is a solid wall of white stone, broken only by a huge set of arched double doors made of iron and inlaid with branches that mimic the Shard River.
Once we’re all assembled, the woman holds up her hands and the excited chatter dies away. “My name is Norah,” she says. “I’m Steward of Ivory Hall, and I’ll be making sure you get settled in today with a room assignment and your training schedule. If you’re apprenticing in one of the bone magics, you’ll also see plenty of me in your seminar classes.”
She motions toward a younger man, standing off to the side. “If you are apprenticing in a standard specialty, please follow Jonas to the back entrance. Bone magic apprentices will follow me.”
Norah steps off the box, scoops it under her arm, and walks purposefully toward the front door.
The group peels apart—the majority following Jonas, and the rest of us hurrying to catch up with Norah. Bram falls in step beside me and I turn to him, confused. Was he not listening?
I study him surreptitiously. His profile reveals wide cheekbones and a strong jaw with the barest hint of scruff. A battle rages inside me. Do I ask him if he’s in the wrong place? I don’t know if it will make things between us better or worse, if he’ll see it as a challenge or a peace offering.
“Bram,” I say carefully. “I think the Ivory Guard apprentices were supposed to go the other way.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. It’s the only sign he heard because he doesn’t look at me.
Then, finally: “I can follow instructions, Saskia.”
“But … wait, are you training in bone magic?”
“It looks that way,” he says mildly.
“Which specialty?”
“Bone breaking.”
A ping of alarm goes through me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why did you let me believe you were assigned as a regular part of the Ivory Guard?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Should I have to?”
“I don’t know. Should the great Saskia Holte have to ask for anything?”
I feel the words like a knife sliding between my ribs. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard before—how lucky I am to lead a bone-charmed life, a life with nothing left to chance. As if not having ownership over my decisions isn’t just another kind of prison.
“That’s not fair,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Life is only fair for some of us.”
I curl my hands into fists, my fingernails digging crescent-shaped impressions into the soft flesh of my palms.