Page 17 of Reign of Stars and Fire

Before Calista could sprint back toward her tenement building, I gripped her elbow. “Why did it feel as though the reading they gave was not only for me, but for the both of us?”

“They’re mad. Don’t waste a moment fretting.” She winked, but I was vowed with Ari. A man who knew better than anyone how to hide disquiet beneath grins and sly words.

“You’re hiding something. What more do you know about all this? Because I find it hard to believe the storyteller who not only aided the North, but the East as well, has no inkling about these wars that keep unfolding. Funny, don’t you think, that you seem to be there for every new royal.” I narrowed my eyes. She could have ulterior motives, a game she kept tucked up her sleeve.

I wanted to shake the truth from her until she wheeled on me, until her eyes filled with glassy tears she fought to tamp down, until the burden of the gifts she held reminded me fiercely of the shadows I once saw in my brother’s eyes.

“I’m not hiding anything, and I’m not up to no good. I didn’t mean to get tangled up with my kings and queens, all right? They just . . . they became part of me. Like I’d been searching for them all along, then—there they were.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Raven Queen, but I’m gonna help because the Golden King was damn kind to me when I was frightened on that sea ship, and because he fought for my kindhearted queen and the cursed king. Because he has an unshakable place in this story as much as you.

“I’m not stopping until I help find out what it is and . . . what it has to do with me and the whispers in . . .” Calista choked off her own words and turned away.

I licked my lips, a little ashamed of my suspicions. I reached a hand for her shoulder. “You do hear whispers. I know what that’s like. This darkness—Davorin—he whispered in my head before I remembered him. Perhaps, you should listen to them. You might find answers for yourself.”

Calista’s jaw ticked. “I’ve always heard whispers. I even told Lump about them when we were trapped together. They’re nothing new.”

“Cal,” Stefan said. “Be honest, we need to help each other now. These words are guidance, instruction. I’ve told you it might be wise to heed—”

“No.” She glared at her brother. “No, I don’t need to have a place in the tale. I already have one—I’m the bleeding hero who saves my kings and queens. Now, let me just keep it at that.”

“Calista.”

“No. They’re just my own thoughts puzzling out struggles. I was teaching myself because I’m learning my gift, Stef, that’s all it is.” Her eyes flashed like an icy storm when she looked back to me. “The singing, that’s new, but only because I had a thought to try it, almost like a memory. It wasn’t some spirit in the dark telling me how it was done, got it? Now can we move on from this?”

Without another word, Calista hurried across the street, leaving me and Stefan alone.

“Fear is talking,” Stefan said, adjusting the brim of his hat over his messy hair. “Fear for what might become of those she’s come to care for, but also fear of discovering she has more of a place here than she wants to accept.”

“What are these whispers in the dark?” Such a thing reminded me too much of Davorin to be at ease.

“Who can say?” He grinned, almost like he might be able to say, but simply didn’t. “But if it is something Cal needs, I hope she finds it. Come, we have the musings of fate to puzzle through.”

Stefan followed his sister, but I hesitated. My eyes scanned the crooked houses, the pubs and taverns and game halls. Raven Row was dirty and foreboding and . . . there was a strangeness to the place. A feeling almost like a presence was watching our every move.

It wasn’t as dangerous as Davorin, there wasn’t the same twist in the stomach or rush of blood from fear. This was different, simply there, watching.

The hair lifted on my arms. I rubbed the chill away and raced after Stefan and Calista, too uneasy to even spare a glance over my shoulder.

Chapter8

The Raven Queen

Calista wasn’tagreeable about my idea, but I didn’t give her a choice.

“We need to figure this out,” I said when she tried to distract me with a monty card trick for a third time. “The sisters mentioned a falcon the same as you. I think it’s something we ought to piece together.”

Stefan gave me a reassuring nod, like he wanted me to keep pressing the matter since his sister wouldn’t.

Calista hadn’t been the same since returning from the Norns. It didn’t take a great deal to see the truth that she was afraid to dig too deep, afraid it might shackle her to the danger of our crumbling world.

I wanted to reassure her, but what could I promise?

Davorin would destroy us all if we failed.

The battle lord was filled with vengeance and hate, and he knew how to influence the hearts of folk across the lands as greatly as my brother’s songs of the heart once did.

We needed Riot.