[An hour or so later he comes back, no longer in a good mood and looking a little tired.]

The ghouls do not have bones. [He makes a gesture and pulls a chunk of gingerbread out from nowhere. It has a faint glow around it.] Unless those bones are tiny and useless.

The river is not water, and the only creatures I could see in it were eels, which typically do not have bones, so I did not investigate further.