A hush falls over the crowd as I make my way to the other side of the Marrow, where the boys wait. Declan is giving me an eager smile as if he knows exactly where I’m headed. And even though he’s right, my gaze still wanders to the other boys in line. My mother said she would try to choose an alternate path for me. That my two futures will probably be quite different. Does that mean she suspects the bones don’t think I belong with Declan? But then again, how could the bones show paths toward a different partner if it’s truly a fated match?
A lump forms in my throat as I step forward and hold out my hand.
Declan flashes me a set of perfectly straight white teeth. His eyes are the bright green of a tart apple.
“I knew it,” he says as we make our way to the bonfire. He grabs a blanket from one of the children and we sit on a large flat stone close to the flames. He traces small circles on my palm with his thumb.
“Are you happy?” he asks.
“It’s what I hoped for,” I tell him. And it’s true. Relief cascades over me—I wasn’t matched as a Bone Charmer and I won’t have a binding ceremony; any potential for magic that I had will slowly ebb away. But my relief is tempered by unease. In another reality, am I sitting in this very spot with someone else? Is Declan?
Which version of me is better off?
For the first time in years, I long for the assurance of the bones, for a path I know is sanctioned by fate. Now that I don’t have it, I feel like I’m walking along a rickety bridge toward an uncertain future.
My mother always tells me that bone readings are a privilege, something to be cherished. But I always thought choice was the greater luxury.
Maybe I was wrong.
Saskia
The Bone Charmer
The ship that will take us to Ivory Hall is nearly ready to launch and Bram still isn’t here. Maybe the prospect of being paired with me was so objectionable that he decided to leave Kastelia—it wouldn’t be the first time someone had gone missing after kenning day.
A breeze blows in from the harbor and sends a ripple of goose bumps racing across my skin. I rub my palms up and down my arms, trying to coax warmth back into my body.
“You forgot something.” A heavy cloak settles around my shoulders, providing instant relief. I turn to see my mother, a tangle of different emotions playing over her face. She gives a rueful smile as she studies me. “Don’t worry, love,” she says. “He’ll be here.”
I finger the crimson fabric of my mother’s favorite cloak. I’ve always loved how it flatters her complexion. And mine, too. Of all the things she could have given me—the future I wanted, a voice about my own life, a path different from hers and Gran’s—she chose to give me this. I move away from her. “I’m not worried,” I say with enough bite that she flinches. And then her expression shutters.
I let my eyes slide away from her, to the clusters of families gathered at the harbor. Everyone who was assigned an apprenticeship outside Midwood will board the ship today and travel up the Shard River to Ivory Hall. It’s one of the reasons the kenning tax is so high—the sheer cost of moving so many people all over the country must be astronomical. The same scene will repeat in every town and village across Kastelia. The wind will push the departing ships upriver toward the capital—Kastelia City—which is nestled in the upper delta. From there, the apprentices will board new ships, and the current will carry them back downriver to the different villages and towns where they’ve been assigned. Except those of us apprenticed at Ivory Hall, of course—Bram and I will set sail only once.
He still isn’t here.
“Saskia,” my mother says, “there’s something you should know.”
She takes my hands in hers, her fingers brushing the tiny purple tattoo at the base of my thumb. It was my first. It appeared when I was five years old, on the day I started school, the moment I let go of my mother’s hand and walked into the small stone building where my tutor was waiting. Tattoos always materialize as a result of intense emotional experiences—red for joyous ones, blue when the experience is sad, a hundred different colors for an array of feelings. When I got home that afternoon, I showed my mother the tattoo, a small, rounded shape that looked a little like the petal of a flower. It was at the exact spot on my skin where her thumb circled mine when we were hand in hand. “Why is it purple, Mama?” I asked. “Does it mean leaving you made me happy or sad?”
She pressed a kiss on my temple. “Purple is usually for bittersweet, my love,” she said. “It means you were a little of both.”
Her expression now is the same one she wore that day. It tugs at my edges, pulls me toward her like a shell in the tide. But I’m still too angry to give in. We’ve been dancing around each other since the kenning. For three days I’ve known there are things she wants to tell me. And for three days she’s known she has nothing to say that I’m ready to hear.
But now I’m leaving for an entire year. The reality of it drops into my stomach like a stone. “What is it?” I ask.
She opens her mouth, but it’s not her voice that comes out.
“Saskia!” Ami races down the path toward the harbor, her hair blowing wildly around her face. She catches me in her arms and pulls me tightly against her. “Thank the bones I caught you. I ran all the way here.”
I hug her fiercely. “I’m going to miss you so much.” As the words leave my mouth, I realize they’re meant for my mother, too, even if I couldn’t look her in the eyes as I said them.
“Promise to write?” Ami says.
“I promise.”
We pull apart just as the bugle sounds. The crowd starts surging toward the waiting ship, and my mother’s face falls. Whatever she wanted to tell me, it’s too late now.
Instead she settles for a kiss on my cheek. “I love you, Saskia,” she says. “I want the best for you. Please believe that.”
It was the wrong thing to say, and I feel the walls around my heart grow taller. “If you wanted the best for me, you wouldn’t have done this,” I tell her. “Why would the bones pair me with Bram? He’s not even here. How could I ever care about a person who is too much of a coward to show up and deal with his fate?”
Ami and my mother both freeze, identical expressions of horror on their faces. I bite my lip and slowly turn to look behind me. Bram stands a few feet away, a bag slung over his shoulder, his expression stony.
“Oh,” I say. “Hello.”
His gaze meets mine only for a moment before he stalks toward the dock without a word.
Later that night I stand on the deck of the ship and look toward home. The inky sky is full of constellations that remind me of small bones scattered against a velvet cloth. As if the future of the whole world could be read with just a glance heavenward.
Dozens of other apprentices mill around the ship—laughing, jostling, peppering one another with questions about what village they’re from or where they’re going to begin their training. But I’m not in the mood for small talk.
“Are you a leftover, too?” I startle at the voice. A girl leans against the railing, her face turned toward me. It’s too dark to make out her features clearly.