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“There is no known way to stop angry shades from whispering nightmares in your ears once their mischief starts.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

T hat night I had terrible dreams. I watched Lisbeth die again and again and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I woke feeling so depleted it was difficult to get out of bed.

I was growing accustomed to functioning at half my energy, and yet somehow at the start of the day I was already down to a quarter of my magic. Gray sputtered in my chest, mere fumes. Perhaps it was the gin. We had overindulged, made bold by the talk of freedom. It was such a pleasant change to be working toward something new. Something greater than just surviving another terrible day.

Freedom first, then revenge.

It was early. I crossed to Nola and Ruchel’s room. They’d pulled their mattresses onto the floor and pushed them together. I climbed into bed between them.

“Shut up and cuddle me,” I told them when they grumbled about the hour.

They listened. It helped a little.

Trial number two was known as Master’s territory. We plotted out our strategy as a coven over breakfast.

“We can’t keep calling him Master,” Ruchel said. “It’s the horrid name he gave himself. Surely we can do much better.”

“Ass-head,” Nola suggested.

“It has potential,” Ruchel said with a shrug. “What else?”

“Bitch,” Blue offered.

Ruchel shook her head. “Too insulting to dogs. I like dogs.”

“Bastard,” little Liesel offered, her voice bell-like and the dimples in her cheeks deep.

“That’s the one,” Ruchel said. “This is the territory of the beast-born brute henceforth to be known as Bastard.”

“Hear, hear,” Nola agreed, and she drank to that because she liked to drink to everything. Cocktails were her favorite breakfast.

Ruchel took the gin out of her hand. She plopped a tall water glass in front of her in its place. “Not another drop until you drink three of those,” she demanded.

Nola groused and groaned and stomped her foot, but as soon as Ruchel wasn’t looking, she did as she was told. I wondered about Asher, who was off doing whatever it was reapers did on the parts of the train where the prisoners did not go. I was curious when we’d see him again.

The Schatten chimed twice, signaling the start of the second trial. It delivered us to the platform and the gates of another residential district. Thick towering walls of unnatural ice circled the trial. The frost was hardy and blue-black, the color of dusk, an unnatural work of the divines that didn’t melt in the heat.

I imagined it was this same fearsome ice that made up the gates to Hel.

The homes in this district were large and luxurious with many stories and steep gables, the intersections decorated in spitting fountains. It was immediately clear why someone like Bastard would claim this space. The wind blew in off the ice walls, making the weather temperate and pleasant.

When the gates parted, Blue took the lead, guiding us to a corner of the great wall. She cast a water spell on the ice, and large divots and notches appeared in the frost. The wall looked like the back of a frozen crocodile when she was finished.

We mounted the ice one after the other. I climbed last. Just over halfway up, I started to feel the vertigo and a weakness in my muscles from my depleted spirit, but I didn’t look down. Wind whipped at my face. Teeth gritted, I reached higher than the homes around me. Nola gave me her hand when I made it near the top, and she pulled me the rest of the way up.

The wall was so thick, we could comfortably walk three-abreast, but we kept to the edge farthest from the trial. My boots hit chipped ice and the encrusted stones within, the friction steadying my footing.

This was how Blue made her way out of the district every time the second trial arrived, and I soon learned why it was preferable to the ground.

Not only were the red-hooded warlocks plentiful down below, but they walked the streets accompanied by two-headed, wolf-like garm. I didn’t realize the beasts were tamable, but these appeared to listen to the warlocks, chasing prisoners out of buildings for them. Thankfully the creatures couldn’t climb, and if they could smell us, they were much too distracted by easier prey on the ground.

“Bastard isn’t usually so bold,” Blue murmured.

“He’s done recruiting, I suppose,” Ruchel said softly. “Now they’re just eliminating threats and turning witches into hexen relics.”

“They showed their hand too soon,” Nola said. “Bastard won’t make it to the games at this rate. I look forward to the day every red hood gets wiped out.”

You could wipe them out , Lisbeth said.

The errant thought struck me like a brick dropped onto my head. That’s not the plan , I grumbled at Lisbeth’s memory and my own self for conjuring the thought. In life, she’d had a bad habit of worrying about the less fortunate in a way that frequently put us both at risk, and here she was still trying to rub off on me. The gall of that woman.

Damn it all, how I missed her.

Survive the trials. Escape and murder the guilty god. That was the plan. Liberating the Otherworld was not anywhere on that list. I kept my eyes down, my lips firmly shut, and I marched on.

We weren’t the only witches clever enough to make use of the wall. Talia’s earth coven—or those who openly traveled with her—scaled it ahead of us using a green spell of climbing vines, and just ahead of them was Brick’s smaller group of four reds from the train.

Screams rose up from the streets. A huddle of hooded warlocks untethered their beast. A witch sprinted for his life, the violet scarf of a scribe flapping around his neck. The garm nipped at his heels, and cackles rose up from the warlocks, a bitter sound that hardened my stomach.

The wolfish beast sprang, and I turned away. The sounds were horrid enough—I didn’t need the images stuck in my head forever too. My hands made fists at my sides, nails digging crescents into my palms. My spirit awoke at the horrors all around, a small rebellion in my chest. But Nola’s words rang in my mind and steadied my soul. Not our fight.

Lisbeth was my fight, my reason for being here. I had my coven now and a chance at answers. The rest was just noise.

We walked on in a stony silence punctuated by bursts of violent commotion from the streets: panicked shouts, the hungry snarls of garm, and the cruel taunts from red-hooded warlocks. I drank from my canteen sparingly, the air cooler so high off the ground with the breeze blowing up off the ice. At times it was almost too cold.

We caught up with Talia’s coven when we reached the end of the district. Blue bartered assisting them down for drink. She needed to replenish her energy before casting the spell that would create our exit. The sisters steeped tea for her that Nola warmed with red magic until it steamed.

We sat and she drank, the quiet lingering between us, heavy and miserable.

Blue readied her forked wand, aiming her magic at the base of the ice, and the wall sloped into a steep slide we could all safely glide down on our backsides. It dumped us into the wooded park. We separated from Talia’s coven; smaller groups made less noise and were safer. We hiked through linden trees, past the gravel beach and jutting caves, around the black lake, back into the heart of Wulfram.

The library and the clock tower were in our sights. Last night we had agreed we would all attempt Alwin’s trial to increase our chances at claiming the hexen relic. But now Liesel was noticeably uncomfortable, chattering on about nothing, shuffling her feet when we stopped to rest, unable to be still. Although Alwin was not the most fearsome of gods, I understood her worry.

“It wouldn’t be the worst idea,” I told Emma, “if the two of you headed for the train directly. Someone should ensure the barrier opens to us, just in case a god has decided to occupy the throne room and demand a tribute. You could offer one on behalf of our coven and ease the way for us in case we’re in a hurry.”

Emma latched on to the idea. “I have a pendant with blessed blood inside it. I’ve been holding on to it for the next time we needed a gift.” Such treasures were used by families to honor the gods in many provinces.

“That’ll do nicely,” I said. I growled at Lisbeth in my head for making me this way. It was a waste, sending them off. The more who attempted the trial, the greater our chances were that we’d succeed.

Nola rolled her eyes at me and muttered something incoherent about “softhearted witches,” but she didn’t openly protest the idea. Blue pointed out that we only needed one person to prepare our way, but Ruchel agreed to allow it. The sisters never separated. It was a waste of breath to argue otherwise.

Emma accompanied Liesel back to the train. The rest of us headed inside the crowded library atrium. A small market gathered there.

Bram’s ability to be three steps ahead showed itself once more. Black-clad Guardians behaved as though they’d been expecting us to arrive, waving us over. One of them was the green warlock I’d met the first time I’d visited their leader. There was a small nick on his neck from my blade, the mark scabbing over.

The warlock glared at me but was helpful despite his broody demeanor.

We were guided to an alcove that hid a set of stairs behind a false bookshelf. The stone steps were lit with metal torches, and the walls were covered in etchings similar to the ones found in the clock tower, with Death’s crow and his broken wing, the falling feathers transforming into reapers.

The Guardians pointed the way but didn’t accompany us down. Blue questioned them about what to expect, but they either had no idea or chose to remain tight-lipped.

At the bottom of the stairs was a wide room with thick round columns, the ceiling so high our footsteps echoed. Old books gathered dust in the corners. Spiders spun impressive cobwebs between them. Its center was cast in a shadow too dark to see into.

We gathered by the stairs where the torchlight was plentiful.

“Will Asher be joining us?” Nola whispered.

“He said he’d be here,” I shared, “but I don’t think we should wait on him to turn up. We can’t risk running out of time before the train leaves.”

“Alwin favors knowledge,” Ruchel said soothingly. “He isn’t the sort of god who would make a trial that would test our bodies the way the others do. I don’t think we need to fear for our safety here. Let’s get it done now, and Asher can join us later.”

She was underestimating the cruelty of the gods, but I was getting what I wanted so I kept my thoughts to myself.

We collected torches from walls that held images of Alwin’s clever fox and headed for the center of the room, lighting more of the fixtures on the columns. When the room was fully illuminated, Alwin appeared in his mortal form, seated behind a round oaken table. A silvery goblet dominated its center.

Nola startled at the sight of him. “Is he a ghost?”

There was something ethereal about him, more translucent than was natural. He dressed in violet robes secured with a thick cloth belt in a shade of deep burgundy. His golden skin and shaved head gleamed. Long ago, a bald head was seen as a sign of great intelligence, as hair was thought to be a hinderance to the mind, trapping unwanted thoughts. Images of Alwin had started these rumors that were discarded centuries later.

I had never met Alwin before, though he was one of very few gods who maintained a home in both the Upper Realm and the Otherworld.

Seeing his slightly translucent form reminded me of when Lis was little. Her consciousness had liked to wander the room while she slept. I’d have to chase it back into her body come morning.

“It’s a projection of him,” I said, recognizing the look and feel of one’s consciousness and the absence of a sigil that would have been left behind temporarily had he traveled here physically with his divine magic. It was too bad he hadn’t traveled here properly. I could have taken that sigil, and then we wouldn’t even have needed to compete in his trial.

Alwin motioned at the highbacked chairs scattered about behind him. We each collected one and sat before the table in a row. He took us in with narrowed amber eyes, a line deepening between his heavy brows. His gaze lingered the least amount of time on Blue and the longest on me at the end.

“You, soldier,” he said to Nola in a voice that rumbled, “have chosen the path of a warrior. If you think you are worthy of my gifts, drink from the chalice of trials and begin your journey.”

Nola glanced at me, seated next to her, then at Ruchel on her other side. “And we’re sure this trial won’t kill us?” she asked.

“It’ll be mind games,” Ruchel soothed. “You can’t harm yourself in your own mind, I don’t think.”

Nola blew out a breath. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

She stood and took the glowing goblet in her hands. It shone brightly, reflecting in her tawny hair and cobalt eyes. She sipped a red liquid that smelled like wine. Then she set it down and reclaimed her seat beside me.

“Well,” Nola grumped, “I don’t feel any—” She slumped in her chair, unconscious.

Ruchel yelped in surprise. I caught Nola, steadying her, stopping her from sliding to the floor. Her breathing puffed against my neck. I pressed my ear to her chest and heard the comforting sound of her heart beating.

“Your coven sister lives,” Alwin assured me. His gaze snapped to Ruchel next. “You have chosen the path of the mind,” he said approvingly. “Drink from the chalice of trials, my daughter, and begin your journey.”

Ruchel did as she was bid and didn’t make it to her chair before she collapsed, unconscious. Blue caught her and guided her to the floor gently to keep her from striking her head on the stone.

“You,” Alwin said to Blue, sorrow dropping his voice, “my poor devout child. You have chosen the path of survival. If you think you are worthy of my gifts, drink of the chalice of trials and begin your journey.”

Blue pushed her chair closer to the table and never left her seat while she drank down a hearty swallow. The chalice was so big she needed both hands to lift it. Her head tipped back in her chair, arms limp at her sides. She was slumbering peacefully seconds later.

When it was just Alwin and I, we had a staring match I didn’t win. Moments stretched into minutes.

“It is difficult to see which path you are on,” he explained. “The years behind you are many. Your path has changed after so many lifetimes. What you want and what is needed are at war within you, but to partake in my trial, you must first choose your journey, old one.”

I knew what fork in my road he was speaking of. Long ago I’d learned what mattered most of all. My path was clear. Coven and community had been the pillars of my existence, but then I’d met the little girl with the toothless smile. Lisbeth needed me, and I’d abandoned that path to keep her safe.

I was forever changed now. There was no going back.

“Vengeance,” I said somberly. “I am the retribution against those who took the one I love from me. I will not rest until the guilty are gone from this world. I am vengeance.”

He let out a slow exhale that left his broad shoulders drooping. “Are you certain that is what you wish, old one?”

“I am certain,” I said coldly, and before he finished inviting me to partake of his chalice, I drank what remained in it down, the liquid thick and sour-sweet on my tongue.

I lay on the floor beside Ruchel. The magic took its time working. The alcohol was supposed to relax me and make invading my mind easier, but the divine magic struggled against my rebellious spirit. Sparks popped before my eyes, and my heart sped.

But spirit and consciousness are two sides of the same coin, and eventually mine surrendered to his.

The stone room fell away. I was back on the Schatten, or a place that resembled the train, in the passage of a sleeper car. Everything was too bright, the bone walls luminescent as pearls. Even the rumble of the tracks was different, smoother under my feet.

I explored the compartments, but it wasn’t bunks or luggage tucked inside them. Memories played out behind each door. I’d been taken deep inside my own subconscious. I stopped at the car that showed Lisbeth in our old shop. The flaming sigil burned on the tile overhead, and a shadowy creature fell from the ceiling, my mind filling in the gaps I hadn’t seen myself before the double of me burst through the door much too late.

I watched Lisbeth die.

The memory started over, only this time, the moment the sigil appeared I charged inside. I attacked the shadowy monster with a surge of spirit. I pursued it around the shop, knocking over shelves and scattering hats, shattering jars. I chased it out of the memory, down the aisles of the Schatten, into the dining cars. It turned over tables and threw plates at me that I dodged. The creature tried to escape me by entering the lounge.

I caught up with it there. The monster left oily slick in its wake, which I slipped in. Striking the creature was like attacking smoke. I chased the beast into another memory—Lisbeth’s first haircut—then another. Playing with her in the snow. And another. Baking bread together, smearing flour on my face and pretending I hadn’t noticed it there. Her little laughter so sweet my heart squeezed.

I watched Lisbeth die again.

And again.

And again.

I returned to the original memory. I gathered all the spirit I had left and laid a snare for the monster, iron gray claws extended from my chest like a beartrap. The next time the creature dropped from the burning sigil, I grabbed hold of the being with my spirit, and I crushed it.

But Lisbeth still lay on the floor dead at my feet. It mattered not how many times I destroyed the monster.

Depleted and alone, I found another memory of my sister, this one earlier in the day, before she died. I watched her dancing around our shop, practicing her steps in those lovely moments before I’d entered our room and left her alone. It played over and over again, Lisbeth humming a tune to herself, her skirts twirling.

I leaned back against the bone wall behind me, and I slid to the floor, knees to my chest. I pictured the mental mortar and pestle, and I grinded my grief down and down. I lost track of how long I sat there, numb and hollow inside, my spirit spent.

The gaslights dimmed, and a shadow grew before me, casting me in cool shade.

“Asher?” I looked up into the familiar face of the reaper, the sharp features and dark eyes, undecided if he was a figment of my mind.

“Ruchel sent me,” he explained, his rich baritone and his death aura too intense to be imaginary. He didn’t fit here in this realm of wispy memories and luminescent things. “There is nowhere in the Otherworld I can’t go, so our coven asked me to check on you.”

Doors up and down the sleeper car slammed shut, locks thrown—all but the compartment across from me barred themselves in an instant.

Asher chuckled. “Relax,” he said. “I won’t leave the atrium of your mind. I didn’t come to pry. The others are worried, is all, and they insisted I check in. You’ve been out a long while.”

Time likely passed differently here. I had no concept of how long I’d been gone, like dreaming. A night could fly by in a blink when I slept. “They’re already awake?”

He nodded.

“And the prize?” I asked.

“None have claimed it yet. Ruchel said she had to figure out a way to outsmart herself to beat her trial, but she proved to be too difficult an opponent. And Nola was given another chance to battle the invaders in her Sebrak encampment, but out of spite she burned even more trees this time around and was thrown from the trial.”

“And you?”

His laugh lacked humor. “I’m not allowed to make an attempt.”

“Right. You’re a traitor,” I said fondly. It was my favorite thing about him. “And Blue?”

“Blue was not comfortable sharing. But she wasn’t successful either.”

I sighed. “It’s all right. I know the lesson the god of wisdom is attempting to impart to me. I put it together some time ago. We’ll get the relic.”

Asher watched Lisbeth dancing for a time, and the corners of his black eyes crinkled. “What lesson is that?”

My throat and nose stung. I swallowed the scratchy feeling down. “He wants me to walk away because, no matter what I do, no matter who I kill, it won’t bring my sister back to me.”

Asher pushed down his hood. His snowy hair spilled loose and wavy over his shoulders. “If you know what Alwin wants, why are you still here?”

My next inhale filled my chest to bursting, and my eyes welled. “Because,” I choked, transfixed on the memory of lovely Lisbeth lighting up our dim little shop, “it’s just really nice to see her again.”

“Ah.” He sat down beside me, crossing his legs under him. Shadows billowed up between us and pooled inky black on the bone floor all around me.

We watched Lisbeth dance together.

“You should talk about her,” he said.

I felt my brows pull closer together.

“Do you remember when the high witch was ill?” he explained. “Remember how the coven took turns pushing her in the wheelbarrow and the burden was less because of it? The concept is the same here and now. You should talk about your sister. Share the burden of losing her.”

The very thought immediately made my throat tight. But who was I to doubt the wisdom of an ageless man who knew grief, loss, and death so intimately?

“She gave the best hugs,” I rasped. “When she hugged you, she used her whole body to do it. Not just her arms. And I miss her laugh. It was loud, and if you got her going good enough, she would snort like a boar and . . .” I chuckled at the memory of it, the rest of my words cut short by the emotion constricting my lungs.

Silent tears leaked from the edges of my eyes.

“I remember her,” he said, chin at a tilt, taking in her dancing with a broomstick.

My eyes snapped to him. “What?”

“She was on the train—the other part of the train. Not the prisoner cars. They all come to the Schatten in the end to be ferried to the life after. I don’t usually remember them. There are so many, but she made an impression. Her soul had a shine to it. She caught my attention.”

“How was she?” Scooting closer, I fired questions at him. “What did she say? Was she all right?”

“She was fine.” He grinned in that lopsided way of his that was peculiarly appealing. “Better than fine, I think. She made fun of my waistcoat.”

A cackle slipped out of me, disbelief and relief mingling to warm my heart. “That sounds exactly like what she would do.”

He brushed a hand down the horn buttons of his double-breasted lapel, his lip in a charming curl. “She was a plucky thing. She told me I didn’t look old enough to be someone’s grandfather so I should stop dressing like one.”

I hung on his every word and begged him for more, even made him repeat the details twice of how he’d spotted her seated in one of the passenger cars at the back of the Schatten, the glow of her divine blood sunshine-bright against the padded chair. He described her with the elegance of a poet.

Asher leaned back. His shadowy hood pillowed his head against the bone walls. “Usually, the recently deceased beg me for answers about what comes next. Souls on the Schatten are nervous—understandably so. I do my best to soothe them, but your sister didn’t ask me any of those questions. Instead, she told me all about the things she would miss in life. I liked that.” His black eyes softened. “I didn’t realize it until now, but she was talking about you.”

The sob took me by surprise. Surely I didn’t have any tears left, but they caught in my throat and choked off my breath. I pulled my collar up over my face to stifle them.

Always patient and never in a hurry, Asher lounged beside me, unbothered by my small breakdown. After all his millennia with the recently departed, he was inoculated against such things, I supposed.

“Unless,” he added breezily, “Lisbeth has another bossy, overprotective older sister with a very, very big heart?”

I coughed a breathy laugh into my shirt, blotting at my wet lashes. “No,” I said miserably. “Just the one.”

His darkness trickled up my arms and across my shoulders. I released my droopy collar. A brush of his magic cooled my hot cheeks and helped me dry my eyes. Asher pulled out his leather journal from an inner pocket in his waistcoat and worked on his verses, writing right to left, the silence comfortable between us.

I worried my lower lip. “Am I going to miss the train?”

“You have a little time. Visit with your sister a while,” he said.

I stretched my legs out in front of me, letting the dark pool engulf the rest of me in a blanket of night, and I watched Lisbeth. I let myself remember her. It hurt, but the burden did seem just the tiniest bit less after sharing her.

“Would you make a death pact with me?” I asked, surprising myself when I spoke the words without thinking on them much at all. I did feel oddly indebted to him now, though, grateful for the comfort he had shown Lisbeth and me. Considering how often I’d wrongly accused him of being a spy, I wanted to extend him a little trust. A small gesture.

He cocked a snowy brow at me. “You think a crow like me is going to die?”

I rolled my eyes. “Awfully arrogant of you to assume you can’t, considering you’re a traitor to the gods who is actively attempting to defy them all again and flee your prison. That seems like exactly the sort of thing that could get a man—even a reaper—killed.”

“Hm. I take your point. All right.” He tucked his journal and pen away in his inner pocket, then sat up straighter. “What am I trading for?”

“If I die,” I said, my words measured, “I want you to make sure no warlock can have my remains. It’s not just an issue of pride or decency. If some fool got ahold of my bones, even a novice could turn Wulfram into a crater. It’s in everyone’s best interest that such a thing doesn’t happen.”

All pleasantness bled from his face. His expression slipped into that placid mask, and his magic roiled around him, the choppy waves of an angry dark ocean. Despite wanting to leave the Otherworld, perhaps he disliked the idea of his home being destroyed. “I wouldn’t let anyone have at your remains, Trouble. Ever.”

“Not the Old One either,” I said sternly.

Asher scowled. “Of course. Because you hate him the most. But he didn’t make these trials you despise alone, you know. He’s a ferrier like me. His duty is only to the train. The Old One and his crows helped build the Otherworld. Should he now leave it to the other gods to claim it? The gods who make monsters for their amusement or create vicious beings like giants and then abandon them to do as they please, no matter who they hurt? An agreement had to be made to stop the gods fighting. If they didn’t, more mortals would pay a blood price. At least this way only . . .” His words fell away.

“Oh, don’t stop now on my account,” I said scornfully. “I assume you were about to say that at least this way the ones paying the price are guilty, worthless prisoners who earned their lot? Doesn’t matter to me whose games they are or why. The only things the gods have ever been good at is looking after their own interests and making my life difficult.”

“I don’t think that describes the Old One, and I don’t think guilty or worthless describes you. At least the Old One consistently does his job down here. He tends to the dead, and he treats the prisoners with respect instead of malice. He feeds and clothes them. No one is forcing him to do that.”

“He damned me here—and it’s debatable whether I deserved that,” I insisted.

Asher snorted. “You attacked him unprovoked. You definitely deserved it, you villain.”

“That’s debatable .” Whether or not I agreed that the games should exist, Death had taken my sister to a place I could not go. That’s all I needed to know about him. “Either way, I don’t want my body animated to push a cart around for all eternity. If you can’t burn me to ash, don’t let my fate be as a faceless servant who brings you drinks and fluffs your pillow until the end of time.”

“The souls of every revenant on the Schatten are ferried safely to the life after. They aren’t trapped in servitude. Their essence isn’t on the train at all anymore. It’s death magic that preserves them.”

“I don’t want that. Even if they aren’t the horrid kind of revenant with a damaged soul trapped inside them. Don’t do that to what remains of me.”

“Then I’ll carry your body out to the desert,” he said, expression smooth, magic tumultuous. I didn’t know his voice could be any lower, but it dropped further still. “I’ll carry you to where the hills turn purple at dusk. Out where no one living or dead could reach you.”

“Thank you,” I said, the words sounding weak and inefficient compared to his eloquence. “If you die—”

“And I will visit you there,” he continued, dark eyes squinting like he was imagining it all. “Every night, even after your remains are dust, I’ll come and see you. I’ll talk to you so that you have company. I don’t know if it’s true that your soul will be able to hear me visiting you in the life after, but I like thinking that it is.”

“I . . . That’s very generous,” I said, voice throaty. I swallowed to clear it. “What would you like me to do for you?”

He was ready with his answer. “At the very back of the train, in the last passenger car, the souls of the youngest are ferried. Being with other children helps keep them calm.”

My heart pinched. “Oh?”

“I like to see to them.” The ghost of a smile played across his lips. “If something happens to me, I want you to visit them at night before bed. Just talk to them a little. Tell them they’re safe. Tell them the train always leaves on time and they’ll be with their loved ones very, very soon.”

“I’ll do that if something happens to you. I’ll visit them every night.” Stretching out my right arm, I held my hand up to him in the old way.

Asher laced his long fingers with mine and squeezed my palm tightly, sealing our deal. He peered at me through powdery lashes, inky black eyes flecked in deep blues and browns, lips pursed, his sharp chin at a tilt. I couldn’t help but admire how well he hid his otherworldly prettiness by being so intimidating that it was difficult to notice anything else. Like the sleek beauty of a panther isn’t notable until the predator is safely behind the bars of a cage. Otherwise, all you see when you’re up close is the sharp teeth and devastating claws.

“You know what we could do instead?” I said, resisting the urge to grin.

“What’s that?” He cocked a platinum brow at me.

“We could forget trying to break out of the Otherworld and just kill the Old One instead. Claim the train for ourselves and never go back to Wulfram ever again. Let the gods fight their own wars for a change.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or have just gone insane.”

A chuckle slipped out of me, giving my puckishness away. Technically, I wasn’t joking, but I also wasn’t insane enough to try it. I’d already attempted to kill the Old One once. He was so powerful, just a portion of his magic had been enough to smother me. Even with the help of one of his reapers, I’d never be able to destroy him.

Asher was indeed very handsome, though.

And he was still holding my hand.

In the more southern provinces, they told folk stories about celestial beings whose grace was born of starlight. I hadn’t paid much attention to the myths, but studying him now, I wondered if his face framed in long silvery-white hair wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.