It felt like the opportunity would never come. We had been traveling together for the entire night, moving from 18H back to the East, just past their hometown. We thought it would be safer to head back the way they came, where people were less likely to expect them. Throughout the night, though, Sidra claimed she was unable to sleep from the excitement of it all. By the time she had fallen asleep, her twin woke up. It was clear that, on some level, Sidra still had a while to go before she could trust us, and Ambrose seemed to be reassuring her.

Eventually, my shift on watch was over, and Fal had to take my place. Then, I was the one who was barely able to sleep. Sidra lay so close, and I can see the lump in her bags that she had brought with her. The bags that she refused to let Durabi carry despite the fact that it was beginning to slow her down and make her shoulder hang low. She kept saying we would pull it out once we were at a safer place, but I didn’t know when that would be.

The sun rose over the desert, bringing a beautiful rainbow of oranges and purples to the sky. I pulled myself up from the bed roll, and saw Fal standing nearby. I went to his side, but glanced over my shoulder to see if the others were asleep. “How are you feeling about all of this?”

He took a moment, choosing his words carefully. “Nervous. This could be it.”

I pat his arm. “This could be it. We just need to find a safe place to camp out. I don’t think any of the Waystations are the best bet.” I sighed, combing my fingers through my hair. The tangles were atrocious, and as we stood in silence, I tied my hair back with a piece of fabric. When we returned, Daya wouldn’t have many nice things to say about the way I had kept it. I caught Fal watching me from the corner of his eye. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. We should… we need to find a spot. Does that map of yours have anything of interest?”

I reached into my chest pocket, pulling out the map of the Wayst that I had been working on for a while. “Well,” I pointed to my guess as to where we were, “I don’t journey this far north that often. But, if we dip south…” I looked over the map in deep thought. “There are some bone yards.”

“I apologize, but I’ll have to politely decline that idea. For me and everyone else here who has lived a relatively normal life.” He moved so he could see the map. “What happened that there’s a whole yard of human bones out here?”

“Who ever said they were human?” I raised my eyebrows at Fal, and I saw his brows furrow. “They’re big. Honestly, they could be rocks that were carved to look like bones, but who can say. They’re white and the rib cages are like these giant, well, cages that are almost as tall as Arden. And the skulls, Fal, they’re amazing. Honestly, we should go see them at some point if we don’t head there now.” I looked up to him with a smile, and he gazed down at me. “Right, no bones for Fal. The hater of morbid things.”

He crossed his arms and looked to the desert. “If I’m not mistaken, I would think you’re asking to see me again after this is all over.”

“The brother of my husband-to-be?” I laughed. “You aren’t that tempting.”

“Perhaps not like this, but, I could always prove you wrong when--”

“Do keep in mind that there are innocent bystanders before the two of you devolve into whatever conversation it was you two were heading for.” Ambrose’s voice perked up from behind us and I felt my neck warm up. Ambrose approached us both, and I couldn’t help but notice that he had left the top buttons of his shirt loose.

“Do keep in mind that there are innocent bystanders who don’t care to see your chest,” I quipped.

“Then why are you looking?”

I blinked, trying to figure out what to say next. Fal had to fill in the gap. “Aumee here doesn’t have much experience with men. She’s easily swooned.”

“Not true. Moving on, we’re discussing a place of hiding.” I shot Fal a glare, and he covered his smile with his hand as he nodded along to what I was saying.

“I heard something about a bone yard.”

“It’s been lightly vetoed.”

“Sidra will love it. She’s into that sort of stuff.”

“Then it’s settled. We head south to the bone yard. The trip there won’t have many stops. Are you sure the two of you will be okay?”

“Sure. We were fine last night, weren’t we?”

⇼❂⇼

They were terrible. Sidra refused to give up her load, and Ambrose complained every few minutes about the heat of the sun. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could, but spun on my heel. “Alright, we need to change something because this is clearly not working.”

“You think?” Fal muttered beneath his breath as he collapsed onto the sand for a quick break.

“Sidra,” I said as I looked at her bag. “You need to give up the bag. Durabi can handle it. You’re slowing us down and tiring yourself out more than is necessary. We don’t have water to spare.”

Sidra’s eyes could have cut me, but the beads of sweat that were rolling down her forehead and the way she held her shoulder showed that she was close to giving up. “I don’t trust it to not take off. Or for you to take off on it.”

“Haven’t we moved past this?” I moved closer to her, extending my hand. “Let us help you.”

Fal grunted. “She’s not going to. How about this.” Fal lurched to his feet and moved over to Durabi. “I take half of his load. The boy gets on with her bag. Everyone is happy. The lizard wouldn’t take off with someone he isn’t familiar with, right?” Fal pat Durabi’s head, and the saladassi nuzzled against his palm.

Durabi was unpredictable, but he definitely wouldn’t follow the orders of Ambrose, or run off with him. I looked to Fal, who was already moving to grab the bags. “You aren’t an animal, Fal. You shouldn’t have to carry the load.”

He didn’t look up. “If I can, and if it helps, then I will. This helps us move faster.”

With that, he began loading himself up, tying the ropes across the front of his chest. Ambrose stood still, hesitant to move closer to Durabi. Fal grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him on top of Durabi. “Hold the reins. That might help.” Then, he turned and yanked the bag from Sidra’s hand, dropping it into her brother's lap. “Problem solved. Let’s keep moving.”

Fal started, and I hurried up to his side. “What is all of that about?”

“We need their trust, and their magic.”

“We don’t need their magic. Daya can break your curse.”

“If she wants to. I don’t think she will. I think we should stick around, read as much of that book as we can, and head back. We may even figure out why it is so important. We could bargain for more,” Fal’s voice was soft, and I had to strain my ears over the crunching of his heavy feet on the sand.

“Fal, what more do we need? I’ll be free, and you’ll have your status back.”

He sighed. “Forget that I brought it up. We have time. Let’s make use of it.”

I found myself trailing behind Fal, but staring hard at his back as he walked ahead of everyone else. If he truly believed Sidra could help him, he was mistaken. If she had powerful magic, she wouldn’t be in the position she was now. Or, perhaps, he was just saying all of that so that if we were overheard, they wouldn’t question our motives. No, Fal wouldn’t think like that. He seemed too good for that.

“You seem to be thinking rather hard,” Ambrose said, his rich voice snapping my eyes away from Fal.

“Hardly thinking, actually.”

He laughed. “I have a hard time believing that. So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your story?”

It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. As of yet, Ambrose had given me no reason to be wary of him, but the way his eyes were taking me in as he waited for my response made my heart skip a beat. Whatever I said, he seemed ready to dissect it. “All of it?”

“The important parts.”

I flashed a smile in his direction. Pretty boys often had a weakness for pretty girls, and if that was the only way I could throw him off my scent, then I would definitely make use of it. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. My parents died when I was young, a nomadic family, and I was bought by some Traders closer to Arden. Since I had some experience in the Wayst, I put up a bit of a fight, which surprised them. Someone ended up throwing me into the Ring for minor fights, and at some point I suppose I showed promise. The fights got harder and I didn’t really have a choice.” I paused. “Overtime I had collected some money, and bet on myself. When I won, I made some nice coin and was able to buy myself out.” I shrugged. “There’s not much to it. There are more interesting stories out there.”

“I think it’s a great story,” Sidra complimented, though I could feel something bitter in her voice. “How did you meet Fal? You two seem close.”

“Fal was my cell mate,” I said loud enough for him to hear. “Do you remember the first thing you said to me?”

Fal turned his head just slightly so he could hear me. “Something about how scrawny you were.”

“You said they would eat me alive.”

“I was wrong.”

“At least you can admit it.” I looked to Sidra to gauge her reaction. “When I bought myself out, I may or may not have revisited the Ring that Fal was at. It didn’t take long to orchestrate a breakout. His size made it easy.” I stretched my arms. “What about the two of you? We only know the basics. But, some of those could be rumors. Word in the Wayst isn’t very reliable.”

“I thought Fal was a collector?” Ambrose said, straightening up in Durabi’s saddle as if he had discovered a nugget of failure in my story. I latched onto it quickly.

“He was,” I said in a hushed tone. I looked at Fallon from the corner of my eye, as if I were wary of whether or not he could hear me. “It’s… not something he likes to talk about. When you work with valuable or magical artifacts, though, you often come across someone who is willing to go the extra mile to get what they want.” I gestured to Fal’s back. “In this case…”

Sidra finished for me. “They got what they wanted.”

I nodded. “Your turn.”

Sidra spoke first. “Our parents both practiced magic. A few people in the Waystation didn’t agree with it, and had them killed. We were maybe fourteen years old at the time. Ambrose became a shipwright, but a lot of his earnings went to buying off local Traders who had their eyes on me. It wasn’t until a week or so ago that they made a move.”

I feigned an apologetic expression. They thought it was the Traders who were after them. They hadn’t even given thought to the idea that the spell book was the object of desire. That was good for us. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy.”

“We made it work just fine.” Sidra held her chin high.

Ambrose chimed in. “That’s easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one out slaving away all day. She stayed all cozied up inside the house just trying to decode that book. I tried to tell her that you can’t decode a language you’ve never spoken.”

“Yes, actually, you can.” Sidra rolled her eyes. “There are inscriptions, drawings. Some of the words correlate with the drawings, so I’ve been able to guess at a few of the letters and words. Stuff like bone, flowers, herbs, woods, I can mostly guess at those if there are drawings. And I’ve been able to figure out some of the words. It’s just… the mixing or binding or anything like that. The verbs.”

“You mean the instructions,” her twin corrected her.

“No, Ambrose. The verbs.”

“If you knew the instructions then you wouldn’t be having so many problems. The verbs are part of the instructions. Therefore, you need to know the instructions. Not just the verbs.”

Sidra opened her mouth to argue with him, but Fal jumped in. “No matter the issue, I can assure you both that I’ll be able to help with reading the book. We’re looking for one spell. I can write up some of the important letters and sayings, but I need to find one specific spell. One that can break the curse I have.”

“How will you know what to look for?”

“The witch who cursed me used a few words in particular. Eoten, or monster, and blodraku, revenge.”

The rest of us fell quiet.

“As soon as we reach the boneyard,” I said with a sigh, “we can start on the book.”

⇼❂⇼

As we came to the boneyards, I could feel the awe coming off of them. The bones here were large, and while they ran up to the long, people-wide bones that littered the ground, I headed for the skull. The skull was a curious thing. Like a quillback antelope, it had razorblade teeth and long antlers atop its head. The holes from the eye sockets created beams of light on the soft sand, while in the shadows green plants with petals and long, grassy blades grew. The Eastern parts of the Waystland generally had more flora, but this place was the golden spot. I walked into the skull, which was the size of the sanctuary’s stables alone. I sat my things down, and tied Durabi up.

I was unloading his things when Sidra appeared, casually eyeing me as I laid everything out on the ground. “How did you find this place?”

“Exploring.”

She nodded. “I see.”

As the night went on, we all gathered in the cavernous skull and huddled around the low, ember fire. Fal was attempting to teach Sidra what some of the words she had translated incorrectly meant, and what certain symbols meant as well. I polished my knives, but listened closely to their conversations. At some point, Ambrose slipped away to do some sketching of the bone yard, and Sidra soon followed to bring him a torch.

“Aumee,” Fal whispered from across the cavern. I rose from my bedroll and made my way over to where he sat, holding the book in his hands. With him, it looked small, insignificant. I couldn’t imagine sitting there and watching him attempt to flip the delicate pages, or use his thick fingers to follow along with the text. As I came to sit beside him, though, he placed the spell book into my lap. “I think I’ve figured out what kind of witch she is?”

“The kind that starts with a ‘b’?” I rose an eyebrow at him but the joke fell flat in front of his serious gaze. “What kind of witch do you think she is?”

“A necromancer.”

I glanced around the cavern, waiting to see if I could hear the sand beneath their feet or their voices in the distance. I heard some muttering. Good. They were still around, but not too close. “That’s a serious accusation.”

“She has bookmarked many of the pages that mentioned bones or death. She didn’t ask me about any of them, but as we were going through the words, she had a tendency to skip past the pages. While she was pointing out one of the words, I saw a bone was tattooed onto the inside of her middle finger. That was a tradition for many witches who practiced necromancy. They believed that by tattooing a bone onto your middle finger, you were then able to better focus on what it was you were working with.” He pointed something out on the page, but it all looked like another language to me. I had never been taught Old Deorcalo, and I barely knew anything from the newer versions of it.

“So what does that mean for us?”

Fal sighed. “She’s looking to raise the dead. If I teach her more, she’ll only be using her powers for evil.” He sighed. “Whether I want to be like this or not, I can’t let her raise the dead. We need to take the book now, while we have the chance.”

“We can’t let you do that.”

I stood in front of Fal, handing him the spell book and grabbing the knife from my waist. “It’s not a matter of whether or not you can ‘let’ us take it.”

“That book belongs to me and my family,” Sidra held her hand out, palm up, and I watched as her eyes grew dark. “Our business has nothing to do with you. Teach us, take your reward, and be on your way.”

Fal rose like a mountain behind me. I could see the fear in the identical eyes of the twins. Their gaze was drawn up above my head, and Sidra stepped back in fear. I sighed, “We can’t. Not if you’re going to use this for evil.”

“You don’t know what I’ll use it for!” Sidra dared to take a few steps closer. “Give me the book, and this won’t have to get ugly.” Ambrose fell into step beside her.

Fal held the book up. “You don’t know what kind of magic you’re messing with, Sidra. Necromancy is dangerous. The magic is outlawed by the entire Waystland for a reason. No one has been able to control it so far.” When Sidra said nothing, he continued. “Witches who become necromancers have changed as people. Do you want that for yourself?”

Sidra just scoffed. “I’ve read the history of necromancy. It goes back to Deorcae. He wanted his own warriors, so he conscripted some. They were like his children,” she trailed off, looking at her own hands, “and so when they died, he wanted them back. He found a way to bring them back. Necromancy goes beyond using the dead as puppets or selling your soul to buy death off. Necromancy is life.” With that, she clenched her fists in one powerful motion. A loud crack sounded above Fal and I, and when I looked up, I saw that small, web-like fractures were lining the inside of the skull.

Fal threw himself over top of me just as pieces began to break off, and I let out a scream as I saw the book fly from his hands and onto the ground before the twins’ feet. Fal’s body stood strong above me, but I could hear pieces of bone crashing down onto the plants and earth around us. As soon as it ceased, Fal shook the dust and debris off of himself. “Are you okay?”

I coughed, bone dust creeping into my lungs and leaving a layer of death over my tongue. “Yes. Are you?” He nodded. “We have to hurry.”

Only the part of the skull that we had been standing under had collapsed, and through the mouth of the skull, I could see the twins running on foot away from us. Ridiculous. I jumped onto Durabi’s back, slicing the rope with my dagger. He took off running, and as we came up to the twins, I grabbed onto Sidra’s clothing and held tightly as Durabi ran further from her brother. Just as we were coming around the end of the ribcage, something hot shot up through my arm and I looked down to see a blade had pierced through my forearm. I dropped Sidra, pulled the blade from my arm, and looked to see Ambrose pulling his arm back to throw another.

I dove off of Durabi, hiding behind a rib bone. Sidra tried to take off, but as she did, she threw sand in the direction of my face. The golden sand flew towards me, it turned into the slithering body of a snake. I slashed at it, and it quickly turned back to sand. Parlour tricks. Sidra doesn’t know any real magic. I braced myself as I ran towards her, knocking us both into one of the giant towers of bone. She let out a scream, falling to the ground. The book slipped from her hands, and I scurried to grab it.

She lay in the sand for a few seconds, her black curls falling in front of her face. “I can help you.”

“You can’t help me with anything.”

“You’re one of Daya’s girls. Right?” I didn’t respond. She laughed, but spit out some blood. “The saladassi gives you away. I’ve only ever heard of her little bird riding one of those.” She wiped her mouth. “I know your situation. You’re bound by a contract. That contract can only be destroyed in one of two ways. By Daya herself, or if Daya’s heart stops beating.”

Her eyes met mine through the locks of her hair. I wanted to turn away, but I stood there and stared. “If you and Fal stay, I can grow stronger. I can cast a spell that would bring Daya into the ground. That freedom you want so badly? You’ll have it.”

“I’ll have it if I bring her this spell book.”

“You wouldn’t do that. What good is a contract being broken when you can end it all in one breath? You would never have to worry about Daya again. I may not know your whole story, but I can see it in your eyes that you want out.” She sat up, leaning back against the bone. “Of course, you could kill me. You could kill my brother. You could be on your way.”

“I’m not killing anyone. I just need the book.”

“And what? Leave us out here? Leave us defenseless?” She chuckled. “How selfish.”

“I’m not selfish--”

“You’ve lost your parents. How young were you?”

“Young.”

“I wasn’t. I remember every detail. I remember watching the fires crawl up their bodies, devouring their flesh like it was always meant to be that way. I remember the smoke in the air blocking out my mother’s face. I even remember the smell. The burning flesh. That’s how I remember my parents. I just want to be with them again. You may not remember yours, but I remember mine. That’s all I want. Please, don’t take that from me.”

My throat was dry as I watched tears stream down her face. Perhaps she was a good actress, or perhaps she was crying for the very real reason of thinking I was about to kill her. Whatever it was, I found myself kicking the book back in her direction.

“You have until the end of the week to show some promise in helping Fal. If you don’t, I won’t just be taking the book from you. That’s a promise.”