The question takes me by surprise and it takes me a moment to answer. A leftover. It’s a derogatory term used for those who can’t afford the kenning or whose kenning was too murky to be useful. Those who are assigned an apprenticeship from whatever is left once everyone else has been bone-matched.
“No,” I tell her. “I’ve been apprenticed as a Bone Charmer.”
“Oh.” I can hear the note of disappointment in her voice. “I just thought …” She turns her face toward the water. “You just didn’t seem as happy as the rest.”
An awkward silence stretches between us. How can I confess that she’s right—that I’m not pleased with my match—when she has it so much worse? My parents could afford to have bones prepared for any reading they wanted, and my risk of being a leftover was practically nonexistent. My whole life has been sanctioned by fate.
I clear my throat. “Where will you be training?”
“Leiden,” she says. “I’m apprenticing as a glassblower.”
“I visited there as a child and I still remember how beautiful it was. The stained-glass windows, especially.” I shove my hands into the pockets of my cloak. “I hope you’ll find success.” But my words ring hollow, even to my own ears. Because it doesn’t matter how talented she is—no one quite trusts the skills of someone who isn’t bone-matched.
“Yes,” she says, pushing off the railing, “I hope so, too.” And before I can say anything else, she fades into the night, as if she’s already practiced at being invisible.
Bram is already asleep when I descend the ladder into the sleeping quarters. All the apprentices sleep in one giant room in the belly of the boat. But the others must still be in the mood for celebrating. Apparently, Bram and I are the only two miserable enough to want to turn in early. Not even the leftover girl is here yet.
Bram lies stretched out on one of the dozens of hammocks slung from the ceiling, his hands behind his head, bare feet crossed at the ankles, his face lit from the flickering light of the oil lamp that hangs from a hook on the wall. It’s as if I’ve never seen him before. As if he’s been transformed in repose, a different person when he thinks no one is watching.
The sight pins me in place.
And then I notice the tattoo—a slender green vine with leaves shaped like teardrops—that curls over the top of his foot and disappears under the hem of his pants. I’ve never seen one like it, can’t even imagine what kind of experience would produce such a lovely, intricate design. It’s so at odds with the violent black triangles on each of his knuckles. A sharp pang of both guilt and fear twists my heart as I stare at his hands.
Why would the bones pair me with a soldier? What if my mother made a mistake?
But it doesn’t matter if she did or if she didn’t. At the end of our year of training, we can each either choose to accept or reject the match. If we both accept it, we’ll set a date for our joining ceremony. If either of us rejects it, we’ll go our separate ways and spend our lives alone. No one wants a partner who was meant for someone else.
I select a hammock in the opposite corner from Bram, as far away as I can get. I feel uneasy about sleeping this close to him, even though I know the room will soon fill and there will be so many people between us that he won’t even know I’m here. I watch his chest as it rises and falls.
Suddenly his eyes snap open. He turns his head and his gaze finds mine across the room. I freeze. He stares at me for several long seconds, as if he’s not sure if he’s dreaming or awake. And then his expression hardens and slowly, deliberately, he looks away.
It’s going to be a long journey to Ivory Hall.
Saskia
The Tutor
I come downstairs the morning after the ship leaves Midwood to find my mother sitting in her favorite chair with an open spell book perched on her lap.
She leans forward, studying the pages, a crease between her brows. The delicate skin under her eyes is blue with exhaustion and she’s wearing the same rumpled clothes as yesterday. Bone charming is an ability that takes more than it gives, but the last few days have exacted a higher price than usual. My mother seems lost in her own thoughts in a way I’ve rarely seen before.
As a child, I made a game of trying to catch a glimpse of the bone spells—creeping down the stairs hours after my mother had kissed me good night to peer around the corner where she worked at a small wooden table. But she would always turn her back at the last moment, positioning herself so that the spell book remained hidden.
“Your bed is calling, Saskia,” she said each time, without turning around. I used to wonder if she could see my future without the bones. If she’d done so many readings on me that she could predict my every move without magic or ceremony.
But seeing her like this—unraveled, holding the spell book in plain sight, completely unaware of my presence—is like traveling along a swiftly moving river and noticing a hole in the bottom of the boat.
She’s been searching for a way to heal the bone for three days now with no success. We’ve barely talked about what happened at the kenning.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I ask.
Her head snaps up and she presses a hand to her chest. “Saskia,” she says, her eyes wide. “I didn’t see you there.” The expression on her face tells me she feels it, too—the water seeping up through our weak spots, ready to swallow us if we don’t act quickly.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” My gaze falls to the open pages in her lap—to the diagrams of bone patterns and neatly written notes in the margins.
She notices me looking and closes the book. She nestles it inside a wooden box, which she locks with a key suspended from the ribbon around her neck. “I’m getting closer.”
“What if …?” I try to find a way to ask the question that’s been itching at the back of my mind since the kenning. “What if we do nothing? What if I just move on with my life and we don’t worry about trying to heal the bone? Would it be so bad living two alternate lives at once?”
My mother pushes open the window and a cool breeze blows into the room, carrying the delicate scent of lilac blossoms. “You won’t be whole until the bone is,” she says. “Doing nothing is not an option.”
I glance at the bone resting on a shelf across the room. It split unevenly, leaving one half bigger than the other. What does she mean I won’t be whole?
A gust of wind slams the window shut and I startle. But my mother doesn’t react. She’s staring into the distance, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “I need you to go to the bone house for supplies,” she says finally.
I feel guilty for the relief that floods through me at the thought of escaping for a few hours.
“Of course,” I tell her. She scribbles a list on a scrap of paper and presses it into my palm.
“Be vague if anyone asks questions,” she says. “And tell Ami I said hello.”
Before I even have a chance to make it to the door, she’s already unlocked the box and pulled out the spell book again. I’m not sure why she even bothered to put it away.
The bone house is on the edge of town adjacent to the Forest of the Dead. The smell reaches me long before it comes into view. I cover my nose and mouth with the back of my hand as I climb the hill, but the stench of death still curls up my nostrils and makes me light-headed.