Page 64 of Hallowed Bones

How had I forgotten? “Have there been any other indications of Veil creatures killing?” I ask.

Ezra shakes his head. “Not to my knowledge,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any. Our powers aren’t perfect, and Reyes’s premonitions are not all-seeing.”

My palm closes around the keys in my fist, squeezing until the metal teeth dig into my flesh. If Jonah Montgomery isn’t the only death, how many more could there be? Is it the same creature? What does it want? Was our initial assumption correct? Is another coven finally trying to kill us all?

The echo of Ezra’s kickstand going up with the tap of his boot is as loud as a gunshot. His bike growls to life as he cranks the engine. I stand against my Hummer and watch as he roars out of the lot—the red eye of his taillight, the last faint image of him as he races away.

CHAPTER 23HAVEN

Alexander is strong enough to be our coven leader if he wanted. Don’t challenge him, Kane. It would do none of us any good. Should you wish to keep your place, I would also keep your mouth shut about the woman.

—EXCERPT FROM PRIVATE NOTE WRITTEN BY DIMITRI BISHOP TO HIS BROTHER

My dad used to tell me that dreams were secrets written in a code that only the dreamer could decipher. I never really understood what he meant. Now, my dreams feel more like warnings.

Leaving Bishop Manor after the revelations of what’s been plaguing me for the past year doesn’t cure me. Instead, it makes every small stress increase in volume, and in weight, until they all press down on my shoulders, making my bones ache and my head throb. The books that showed up at my door the day after sit untouched on my nightstand, but I know who they’re from. I’d only had to open one and see the PROPERTY OF on the bottom of one of the pages as well as the surname to follow to understand why they’d been delivered as well.

They may be giving me space, but the Sons of Salem are making it clear that there is no escaping the information they intend to give me.

Birdy—for lack of agreeing on a better name for the crow that came crashing into our dorm room—seems to be settling right into the human space he’s found himself in. When I return, I check his wing again, but there’s been no change. If the wing is actually broken, then it’ll need to be set correctly to heal, but when I feel along the ridge of the bird’s body, it doesn’t seem as if the bones shift easily. It’s as if the twisted wing is an anomaly that’s older than whatever made it slam itself into my window the night before. Heartbreak slices through me at the sight, but when Elodie returns from her time with the lacrosse player she’d been with, she reminds me that if we get caught with him, we’ll be in trouble. I know I can’t keep him forever, and even if I could, birds are meant to fly free.

But what happens when one’s wings are clipped?

Sunday night bleeds into Monday morning, and the silence of the dorm room is broken by my roommate’s snoring as I get out of bed and quickly dress for the day. I grab the box and the bird from my wardrobe and slip out of the room at the crack of dawn, hoping I can find a place to keep him near the building so that I’ll be able to check on him regularly without risking getting booted. The animal’s dark eyes watch me as I cart him across the courtyard and down a narrow stone corridor. Maybe I can keep him in the greenhouse.

Halfway there, I hear voices and quickly duck around an alcove. I don’t know why I’m so anxious, but I don’t want anyone catching me with the bird. Glancing down, I swear the damn creature is giving me the evil eye—as if he’s annoyed by my ridiculousness.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I warn. “You’re the one who slammed yourself into my window. You have no room to judge me.”

The bird flutters his one good wing and turns his back on me. I stick my tongue out at him and move out of the alcove as the voices fade. When I reach the doors to the greenhouse, I’m disappointed to find them closed and locked. I look down at the animal.

“Well?” I prompt him. “Got any bright ideas?”

He flutters his wings again and bounds over to one side of the box before pecking at the cardboard side. I look in the same direction and frown when I spy the opening of a path around the side of the greenhouse. Maybe the bird knows the campus better than I do.

With no other plans and nothing to lose, I follow the path. It winds around the glass shell of the greenhouse and into a small garden that’s pressed between two stone walls and the conservatory. It’s out of the way of foot traffic, but close enough to my dorm and still on campus. I look at the bird again.

“Can witches talk to animals?” I ask.

Those beady eyes stare back at me, but no response is forthcoming. Guess that answers my question.

Bending, I settle the box beneath the large frond of a potted palm so that it shades a good half of the inside. I double-check the food bowl and water I set out before getting ready to leave. As soon as I straighten, though, the bird sticks his beak up in my direction and rattles out a low cawing sound. I pause, staring down at him. Is he scared of being left behind?

“I’ll come back after classes later and check on you,” I say—as if the thing can understand me. He stares back, unblinking. I’m not even sure if birds can blink, but his lack at the moment is unsettling.

I suppose it would make sense if he feels like he’s being abandoned. He’s wounded and weak. Having to rely on another person for your needs is not a fun task. I would know—the weeks following my parents’ deaths were some of the hardest of my life. Slowly, I return to the box and crouch again.

Lifting a hand, I reach into the box and tap the bird’s feathered head lightly, stroking softly over him. “You really don’t seem like the wild type,” I tell him honestly. “I wonder who your owner is.”

He doesn’t make another sound until I stop stroking him. The caw gets louder, and when I try to leave, the box rattles madly, his shriek echoing through the alcove.

“Okay!” I snap, going back to the bird’s side and returning to my stroking. “Fine! Just a little longer.” He quiets down immediately, and I give him the side-eye. “You’re a demanding asshole, you know that?”

It might be my imagination, but I swear the damn crow preens at that comment.

As I sit there and stroke the bird’s head, down his back and over his wings, I have little else to do but think. I have a million and one questions, but the answers to them all aren’t going to come from within. Not this time. If I want more information, then I’m going to have to go back to the Sons of Salem. A truth I’m not quite comfortable with.

Still, avoiding them isn’t an option either. Fate—or maybe something crueler—has seen to that.