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Prologue

SIX MONTHS AGO

Angelthene was alwaysquiet at night, but here in the sequestered district of Ebonfield, the thick silence felt especially eerie.

Fog curled around the car, making it difficult to see, and although the sprawling city was baking in the heat of a long, dry summer, the temperature in these parts took a sudden plunge, the shift a warning to all who wandered too close to the Crossroads.Turn back,it seemed to advise,while you still have a chance.

Cyra Sophronia held her breath, her wide eyes scanning her surroundings for any sign of movement as Erasmus steered the car through the fog.

It was the sky that drew her focus. Rather, what flew through it.

Firebirds. No bigger than the average crow, they lit up the starless expanse with shimmers of gold and ruby, their radiant plumage impossible to miss, even through dense fog. The birds’ most active time was the end of the growing season, the period during which they gathered tinder to build their funeral pyres. Once built, they would brood their glasslike eggs in the nest of wood and spices for a fortnight, then set the nest ablazewith rapid flaps of their wings, cremating themselves in a show of flames and combustion. This sacrifice was necessary for the hatching of their chicks—a cycle of life and death that was tragic, yes, and yet strangely beautiful, in its own way.

Cyra’s throat tightened to the point of pain, her heart pulling downward as if fastened to an anchor she dragged behind her.

The Firebirds were so like the phoenix. And the phoenix would always remind her of her many,manymistakes.

The tires thumped about as the car rolled down the dusty, uneven road. Peeking through the fog up ahead was a second road—one that intersected with this one to form an X. As that second road loomed, Cyra concentrated on steadying her breathing, her perspiring hands squeezing and twisting her seatbelt into a tube.

All at once, the fog cleared, and the field on the other side of the barbed wire fence spread before them, the gold of the waist-high grass reduced to a gray blur under the velvet cover of night.

Erasmus stopped the car just shy of the intersection.

They sat awhile in the quiet. Minutes passed, and during this time neither of them dared to even move.

Cyra was about to risk breaking the silence when a brittle voice beat her to it with a whisper of her name—her old one.

“Helia.”

Her head snapped toward Erasmus, the rasp of that ancient and terrible voice slashing deep into her bones, like a knife freshly sharpened on a whetstone. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He glanced about, the round lenses of his glasses reflecting the cool glow of the dashboard.

Cyra’s mouth dried out. “It must’ve been the wind.”

As if her words were a summoning, a supernatural draft crept through the vents, the clammy tongues of otherworldly spirits pebbling the skin on Cyra’s nape.

Once upon a time, she had been a part of the spirit realm, roaming the mist-veiled land of the dead as goddess of neither here nor there, her every step jingling with the ring of keys that could open any door, any latch. But centuries had passed since then, and those long centuries had changed her, molding her into something new. Ground that was once familiar was now foreign; beings she once considered friends were now strangers. She no longer belonged, nor was she welcome, on the other side of the curtain.

We’re here to talk,she reminded herself,not trade.Surely no harm would come from talking.

Right?

Erasmus must have sensed her distress, because he said softly, “All we’ll do is talk.” He shut off the car, the sudden absence of the engine’s purr causing the silence to swell like a too-full balloon. “There’s n-nothing to be afraid of, my love.” Despite the reassurance, the smile he gave her wobbled. “Ready?”

Cyra drew a breath, the scent of magic—warm sugar and smoke—coating her tongue, and said on the exhale, “Ready.”

Erasmus cracked open his door. Cyra followed suit, her fingers trembling on the handle.

The moment she was out, the wind picked up, blowing her hair upward like a flame. Tree branches creaked and cracked like frail bones, and fallen leaves and palm fronds swooshed by in gusts of unseasonably cool air. The sounds were oddly amplified, as if boxed in by walls no one could see.

They walked, side by side, across the field—to the old, crumbling fountain squatting in the center of it. Thousands of fountains just like this one were scattered throughout Terra, but only one was home to the granter of wishes the world calledThe Widow.

A rusted pail sat on the fountain’s edge, a hungry mouth begging for a meal.

The sight of the pail brought Erasmus to a sudden stop, his throat jouncing with a swallow.

He hated this part. Cyra didn’t particularly enjoy it either, but it had to be done.