Page 111 of Bone Year

“I stared at it for too long after my first autopsy.”

We find it. Wide, black iron banded, a lock plate in the center that looks older than the rest of the building. Ellavee tries the handle.

“Locked.”

“Obviously,” Lux breathes.

My hand goes to my throat before I’ve thought about it. The key is warm under my fingers. The oblong bone-pale head, the single vertical line down its center. I pull it out.

“Wait.”

Lux turns. “What?”

“Malric said this key opens something when I need it most. Maybe⁠—”

“Try it.”

I fit the key into the lock. It slides in smoothly, which surprises me. I turn.

Nothing happens.

I turn it the other way. Nothing. I jiggle it, because I am drunk and a little desperate. The key in the lock does absolutely nothing at all.

“Figures,” Ellavee mutters. “Whatever that key opens, it’s apparently more important than a morgue. Great.”

“It’s supposed to know,” I say, a little annoyed. “How does it not know?”

“Maybe it thinks you don’t need this badly enough.”

“I think I need it pretty badly.”

“Tell it that.”

“I’m not talking to a key, Ellavee.”

I pull it out and tuck it back under my sweater. Lux has already moved past me into the small antechamber off the corridor— a desk, a wooden chair, a row of hooks on the wall where spare coats hang, a cabinet.

“Check the desk,” she says. “People who work morgues don’t walk far to get their own keys.”

Ellavee slides the drawers open. I check the cabinet. Lux kneels at a second drawer tucked beneath the desk and makes a small, victorious sound.

“Found them.”

She holds up a ring.

It’s heavy and old and has at least forty keys on it. Brass, iron, one that looks like it was carved from bone. Lux turns the ring in her fingers and frowns.

“This is going to take all night.”

“Can’t you just...know?” Ellavee waves a vague hand. “You’re fae, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ellavee, let me just know. That’s how being fae works. We simply know things.”

“So figure it out.”

Lux rolls her eyes but closes her hand around the ring and shuts her eyes. I watch her, fascinated. I’ve seen her summon fae light, but I’ve never seen her do anything else with current. Her brows pull together. Her hand flares faintly at the edges, a white shimmer, and then one of the keys on the ring glows for exactly one breath before going out.

Lux opens her eyes and separates the key from the rest of the ring.