“So you see,” I concluded, “they will use me to free Mother from the book—not that I have any idea how to manage that—and then they will unleash the Plague. They think they can control it … overcome it again.”
“Foolish,” said the Book Man shortly.
“I know. But I don’t know how to stop them. I don’t know how we are going to get out.”
I heard a faint rustling at the little opening in the door and the unmistakable scratching of claws on wood. I peered through the window cautiously.
Baldbeak was perched on the narrow ledge of the little window as best he could, his sleek feathers glinting faintly in the light. He cocked his head at me, his beady eyes full of intensity. In his beak, he held something small and gleaming.
My breath caught. “What do you have there?” I whispered, hoping against hope that he had somehow managed to steal a key from one of the guards.
I extended my hand, and Baldbeak dropped the object into my palm—a chicken bone, picked clean. My heart sank. He reached his beak through the bars to nibble at my ear lobe affectionately.
“Thank you,” I said. “But I can’t eat this.”
Not for eat, he said impatiently, nudging me with his beak.For key.
“A key? But …” I turned the bone over in my hand.
Bone key, he explained. He sent me an image, a little watery and vague, of the chicken bone growing teeth at one end.For door.
“I don’t know if I can,” I said.
You can.
I thought his faith in me was probably misplaced, but I sighed and cupped the bone in my hands. I had never really sat down and tried to do something specific with my magic—either I had felt a surge of emotion, and it had responded as it chose, or I had given it direction but not form. Now, however, I had to make a key to a specific lock, and I had no idea where to start. No doubt the spell was written down somewhere, and I wasn’t the first to try to come up with it, but I felt like an explorer in a new world. A woefully underequipped explorer.
“What are you doing?” asked the Book Man from the neighboring cell.
“Baldbeak brought me a bone,” I called back. “He thinks I should make it into a key.”
“Brilliant!” the Book Man exclaimed.
Baldbeak preened.
“But I don’t know how!”
I heard the shuffle as he moved back closer to the door. His voice came clearer now. “Remember when you were stitching the spellbook? In my shop?”
“Yes. But this isn’t embroidery! I don’t even have my needles with me, because I’m in this stupid dress with no pockets.” I tugged at the green velvet.
“You have channeled bone magic with no needle before.”
“Only when I was really frightened, or in pain …”
“But you candoit, Netta. I can try to talk you through it as best I can, using my limited knowledge … but I have every faith.”
I stayed silent for a moment, staring down at the chicken bone. It was the least magical-looking thing you could imagine. There was even a bit of sauce still clinging to one end. I suppose it had been part of a prison guard’s supper, once upon a time.
“When I used this power before,” I said softly, “I didn’t know it was bone magic. I didn’t know what it was. But now that I know …”
I looked at the wall as if I could somehow see through it into the Book Man’s bright blue eyes.
“Every time I use it, I come closer to freeing it altogether,” I said. “And who knows what that will mean for Virelith, really? How is it any better if I wield it rather than the Temple?”
“My dear, your caution is admirable,” said the Book Man, “and I quite understand your trepidation. But no knowledge stays hidden forever, no matter how deeply you bury it. It wants to be found. It wants to be known. And bone magic most of all. The question is not who has awakened it, or how, but how to deal with its awakening.”
I took a deep breath, cupped the chicken bone in my hands, and focused my gaze on it.Please, I thought.Please work.I closed my eyes and imagined a needle skimming over the key’s surface. The Book Man kept up a steady stream of encouragement and advice, and his voice in the background calmed and guided me as I tried to concentrate. I felt a slight tremor that I thought at first was my own hand shaking, but then the bone began to bounce about on my palm. I nearly dropped it.
