When the last ymbryne was laid inside and the door had been sealed, the crowd was ushered so far back from the building I half expected it to explode. Instead, Miss Peregrine made a loud birdcall and a massive flock of starlings circled down from the sky, then flooded through the holes in the roof. There was a great commotion inside. “What are they doing?” I whispered to Enoch. “Picking their bones clean,” he replied, his eyes rimmed with tears. “They’ll be powdered and made into medicines. Ymbryne bones have many uses and it’s a crime to waste them.” It was fitting. An ymbryne’s life was one
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