The Bone Thief

BREEANA SHIELDS

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Dedication

To Ben,
who first made me a mother

Chapter One

I have blood on my hands.

I stand in the Forest of the Dead, next to our family tree, a knife dangling from my fingers. My palms are raw and seeping. I’ve been digging into the bark for nearly an hour, and I’ve only managed to carve a shallow furrow. I didn’t think it would be so difficult, but Gran once told me these trees were special—strengthened by the magic of the bones that have hung here for generations. And these branches have seen more power than most.

A bead of sweat slips from the nape of my neck down my spine. I slide to the ground and rest my back against the tree trunk.

Summer has given way to fall, and the trees are aflame with hues of red and orange, as if the whole forest is on fire. It makes me feel as if I’m inside a bone reading, seeing all of my possible futures, dozens of paths stretching before me.

But my mother isn’t on a single one of them.

It’s not just that she’s dead; it’s so much worse than that. She’s also missing.

Latham stole her body, and if I don’t find her bones, she’s lost to me forever. I think of how Gran’s bones were used for my kenning, of how her gran’s bones were used for hers. Our entire family is sealed together this way—the bones of one generation guiding the fate of another. If I can’t get my mother back, whose bones will be used for my own daughter’s kenning? Will they belong to a stranger? Someone who never stroked her hair when she was ill? Who never looked into her eyes after a nightmare to tell her she was safe? Who never loved her?

With a start I realize that even if I do manage to find my mother’s bones, she will never comfort my daughter like Gran comforted me. Never hear the sound of her laugh or clean her sticky fingers. Death is one cruel revelation after another, unfolding like a map of heartache with ever-expanding borders. And now this: My mother will never know my daughter.

Then again, maybe I won’t survive to have a daughter at all.