“Well, a necromancer’s involved… Maybe the guy used them for… necromancer things?” suggested Viv lamely.
The rattkin noticed the bottle. “I don’t think that’s sand.”
“I thought Varine was the necromancer.” Gallina handed Fern the bottle, then groped around in the satchel some more. “Did the dead guy just wander around carryin’ herbonesfor her? Pretty crap job. Maybe hedidrun off. Probably bored. Hey, here’s another one,” she said, pulling out the bottle’s twin.
Uncorking hers, Fern sniffed delicately, whiskers twitching. She carefully tilted a few grains into her paw and prodded them with the claw on her thumb. “I was right, it’s not sand. It’s bonedust.”
Viv sighed. “Well, this was a waste of time, wasn’t it? All that trouble for a sack of garbage.”
Fern carefully poured the grains back into the bottle, recorked it, and then peered around her shop with a thoughtful look on her face.
“What?” prompted Gallina, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes again. “Obviously, you got some kind of idea, huh?”
The rattkin ignored the question, lost in thought as she disappeared around the end of one of the shelves with the bottle still in hand.
Viv and Gallina peeked after her and found Fern on tiptoe, running her claw along the spines of a set of big leather-bound volumes shelved in a back corner.
“I’m sure it’s here somewhere…” muttered Fern. “Aha!” She pinched one and slid it from between its neighbors, catching it awkwardly with the arm still occupied with the bottle. “Shit! Heavy!”
As she carried it to the back counter, Viv caught Potroast gnawing on one of the bones, his beak clacking loudly against it. She rolled her eyes and left him to it. At least they were of use tosomeone.
“Now… where the fuck are you…” whispered Fern as she leafed through pages thin as onion skins. Viv had noticed she got even more foul-mouthed when speaking softly. Gallina and Viv looked at one another, shrugged, and waited quietly until at last Fern stabbed a passage with a claw and said, “Ha! I knew it.”
“So… it’snotworthless junk?”
Fern favored Viv with a triumphant smile. “I guess that depends on if it works. Osseoscription!”
“Never heard of it,” said Gallina.
“Not surprising, but—Fuck! Potroast, no!” shouted Fern, noticing his chew toy for the first time.
The gryphet hooted longingly around the bone jammed crosswise in his open beak and then very grudgingly set it down. He licked it once before backing away a step.
“Bring it up here,” Fern briskly ordered.
Viv moved to grab it, but Gallina made it there first. “Your leg probably got you in enough trouble today already, yeah?” Her expression curdled into one of disgust. “Aw, hells, it’s all slimy.”
Fern took it in paw and dried it with the hem of her cloak, then held it up again, rotating it in the light. “You see this? Look closely. They’re incredibly tiny.”
Viv leaned in, squinting. “Are those… words?” Tiny scratchings were engraved into the bone in long, swooping lines that curled around the length and flourished toward the knobby ends.
Gallina tried to tiptoe high enough to see but gave up and went to grab another bone from the satchel. “Huh. Thereissomethin’.”
“Osseoscription,” said Fern. “It’s sort of… an enchantment of animation, permanently inscribed into the bones. Incredibly challenging to create, or so it says here.”
“Doesn’t seem real animated,” observed Gallina, tapping what looked like an ulna against her palm.
Fern held up the bottle. “It doesn’t function without acatalyst. Bonedust. A powerfully invested powder that activates the scripts.”
“And then what?” asked Viv. “You sprinkle it on some bones and you get… awight? So, what you’re saying is, we should keep the two things as far away from each other as possible?”
“Not a wight. At least that’s not what it sounds like. A… well, the book calls it a bone homunculus. It’s an… assistant of some sort?”
Gallina frowned. “What does it assist with? Stabbin’ things?”
Viv’s eyes widened. “Or maybe it’s the sort of assistant that breaks you out of your prison cell.”
“Huh, that’d explain a lot,” said Gallina.
