Page 13

“No scholar can confirm whether the brothers Alwin and Alrick are friend or foe.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

W hen I awoke, Nola and Ruchel let out a cheer. Asher helped me to my feet, and the others made room for him, careful not to touch his shadows. I wiped drool from my chin, wondering what I’d looked like on my back with my mouth hanging open.

Definitely not like a celestial being, that’s for sure.

Alwin sat behind the round table. His chalice was gone. Four gifts lay neatly in a row in its place. The hexen relic made of skin and inked in witch blood was the first. Asher frowned at it.

I pressed a hand to my belly to steady myself. The sight of it turned my stomach.

Beside it was a dagger made of sharpened bone, the handle pearlescent. Another book was next, something old and bound in sheepskin. Alwin lifted the forked branch beside it. It looked as fragile as glass, made of dried-up twigs, but the wiriest wands were always the most coveted by water covens. I didn’t doubt this one was something special.

“For you,” Alwin said, handing the new wand to Blue. “May it aid you in your journey, survivor.”

Blue accepted the tool humbly, brow furrowed below her sea-colored scarf. “But I failed.”

Alwin ignored her, lifting the dagger next. With it lying across both hands, he held it out to Nola. “May it aid you in your journey, warrior.”

Nola took it greedily, weighing it in her palm. Hilt and blade balanced evenly on her finger. “It’s not hexen, is it?” Her nose wrinkled.

“It’s made of god bone,” Alwin said, “a tooth given by the Crone of Creation herself to the god Hilt for its crafting. There isn’t a thing living or dead, divine or Hel-born, that it cannot cut through. Use it wisely, soldier.”

He lifted the sheepskin book next and passed it over to Ruchel. “Written by the first air coven and translated into common tongue a century ago. It’s one of my favorites from my personal collection. I thought this gift best for you, daughter of the mind. I wanted to give you a scarf made of my robes that would enhance your magic, but I sensed that you would view such a thing as a curse more than a blessing.”

A curse? That made me curious. Why wouldn’t Ruchel want her powers to be enhanced? She was lovely and warm but as tight-lipped as Blue. Possibly even more so in certain ways.

Ruchel bowed her head. “Thank you for such a thoughtful gift. You are correct about my preference, but I too failed the trial. I don’t understand . . .”

Alwin’s generosity didn’t end there. He didn’t touch the hexen book, gesturing for me to come and help myself to it. “For the victor,” he said, “who won the trial not only for herself but for her coven.”

It was another lesson, another push away from the path of vengeance, back toward the journey I’d once been on where community mattered above all else. A lesson I would ignore. There would be time for such things once the guilty god no longer breathed.

I am vengeance now .

Alwin’s consciousness vanished from the room in a gust of wind that blew out half of the torches.

“That relic is an evil thing,” Asher warned, his voice as dark and deadly as a tomb.

With two fingers, I pinched the corner of the cover and opened it carefully. The feel of the skin under mine was cold, leathery, and repulsive. I wiped my hands down my trousers briskly. Gooseflesh broke out on my arms.

“The Guardians aren’t letting us out of here with it,” Ruchel said.

We gave our prizes to Asher. He fed them into his shadows, but he was not willing to touch the hexen relic directly. I couldn’t blame him. My fingers still felt filthy. We wrapped it up in our scarves, and Asher finally consented to hiding it in that place where shadows rest, certain no other reaper would come anywhere near it.

He melted away into the darkness, and we climbed the stairs without him.

The Guardians searched us as soon as we re-entered the library. They tried questioning us too, but we kept our mouths collectively shut. Nola pointed her middle fingers up at them when they tried to demand answers from her. Bram wasn’t amongst them. Was this some tactic of his, or was he back in the Upper Realm spying for the god king?

“Are we being held here?” I challenged the green warlock I’d once assaulted. He chose that moment to dump out the items from my satchel onto the tile floor, searching my belongings for the third time.

Three Guardians made Nola hold her hands above her head as they patted her down. They did the same to Ruchel.

“Be polite where you touch my high witch,” Nola growled, “or I’ll pluck out your eyes and burn your tongues to ash.”

“They must have failed the trials,” the green warlock said to the others. There were eight of them gathered in the atrium. “Bram said not to hold them. They’ll be back on their own to try again.”

Like Hel we will.

We hoofed it to the train at high speed.

* * *

Asher was eager to be rid of the relic. He returned it to me, careful only to touch the scarf it was wrapped in. Then he slunk off into the corner of the lounge car, his fair skin gone gray as a gravestone.

We’d taken over the car, with one new addition: Talia sat beside Blue, across the table from our high witch. Nola mixed us drinks at the bar. I abstained from the gin, still regretting my choices from the night before that had led to nightmares and weakness today.

“You’re a warlock?” Ruchel clarified from the seat beside me. The sisters occupied the cushioned chairs nearest the entrance. It was their job to dissuade intruders.

If boxing her in with our coven bothered Talia, she hid it well. Her glossy midnight curls shone under the gaslights. “I am a warlock,” she confirmed quietly. The amulets I’d believed marked her as a witch hung around her umber neck, swaying with her movements. She fingered one of the pendants shaped like a bird in flight. “I do use hexen relics but only ones made of bronze or copper. I trade for them honestly. I let others believe I’m a witch for their comfort. Please know, we’re not all . . .” She searched for the right word.

“Ass-heads,” Nola supplied.

“That. Yes,” Talia said, her full lips in a droll twist. The deep lines that accentuated her amber eyes crinkled.

I unwrapped the hexen relic from the satin scarves that concealed it, and I pushed it across the table to her.

She touched it hesitantly, and a shiver tremored through her. “It’s . . . definitely powerful. I sense its pages are made of the skin of a gray witch.” Her throat bobbed, and she flipped through more of the book. “Yes, definitely a gray.”

“It’s pure evil, then,” Blue said, and with great restraint I resisted rolling my eyes.

“Interesting as all that is,” Nola said, “can it get us the fuck out of the Otherworld or not?”

Talia turned the pages tentatively. The bloody ink had smeared into a macabre mess, and she snapped the relic shut. Eyes closed, she stole a steadying breath in through her nose. Her nostrils flared. “It is an evil thing, and it’s hungry.”

If it was made of a gray witch, then I had an idea of how it worked, and I felt the color draining from my face. This book hungered the way my magic hungered. It was just as dangerous as I was.

“It could get us out of the Otherworld,” Talia continued, “but the cost is horrid.”

“Souls,” I whispered. “It needs spirit to fuel it.”

“That is the function of it, yes,” Talia said glumly. “Feed it the life force of another, and it will eat their soul and perform any number of impossible things.” She slid the book to the center of the table and wiped her hands roughly down her pant legs.

“What if we fed it magic?” I asked. I knew how to take things for myself, not how to give them, but magic and energy were aspects of spirit—I thrived on them as well. Perhaps not all hope was lost. “Energy can be renewed as can magic, yes? Feeding the book that would not be so detrimental.”

Talia shook her head, and her amulets knocked together. “I’m afraid I don’t know how that would work and would be too frightened of the consequences to experiment. I’m not a gray and can’t mold spirit. And I’m not a reaper—”

“A reaper would never ,” Asher said, bristling.

“Of course,” Talia added gently. “Since I am unable to help you at all, I will not accept payment for this reading. Let us part as friends.”

“Friends, yes,” Ruchel said glumly. “We’re grateful to you.”

I really like this Talia , Lisbeth said in my head, and I couldn’t agree more. She was an ally I wanted to keep close. One Blue was convinced was high witch—warlock—of a much, much larger coven than she let on.

Talia pushed up from the table.

I reached for her. “Wait. There’s something I’d like you to have in the name of that friendship. It matters not that you were unable to help us this time. There will be other times we need to help each other.”

She slid back into her chair, her elegant brows knitted. I pulled the amulet from under my shirt, and her amber eyes rounded.

“Please accept this from our coven to yours,” I said. The amulet hung from my outstretched hand.

Tentatively, she touched the bronze and gasped. “This isn’t hexen,” she said, awe in her voice. Then her hand snapped back from it like it had bitten her. “That’s a god-made relic.”

I could feel Blue’s accusing eyes boring into my skull.

“It’s a family heirloom. A Frian relic,” I admitted, letting it rest on the table between us. “And it’s yours now. Please take it.”

Talia bit her lower lip. “It’s too much. There are some things people simply shouldn’t have. Too much power can be a terrible thing, and that relic, I’m afraid to say, is just . . . a lot.”

Lisbeth’s voice in my head cooed excitedly, liking her even more.

“Power corrupts,” I agreed. “I can see why Blue is fond of you, but we aren’t warlocks. It’s a worthless bauble to us. Keep it, Talia. Take it and protect your coven with it. Use it.”

Ruchel squeezed my arm, a show of support for my actions.

Talia stared at the torch amulet for some time, notably avoiding Blue’s gaze. Slowly, she took it, the delicate metal scraping across the tabletop before she dropped it into her pocket. Then she left.

An uncomfortable silence took command of the cabin as Talia’s retreating footsteps grew duller in the distance.

Asher stood stoically, a pale statue in the corner, but his shadows were a whirlwind under his feet. Nola swirled her glass, then downed it in one gulp that made her grimace. Liesel sniffled. Her sadness carried in the quiet. Emma murmured at her soothingly, but her sister’s misery shook her slender shoulders.

“I thought we’d finally done it,” Liesel wept. “I thought that book was the answer.”

“It’s not over for us yet,” Emma said softly.

“Alwin,” I growled. He was always teaching lessons, and I’d had more than enough of them today. It occurred to me how pleased he’d be to know I’d given Talia a gift, growing our community. Had it been his influence that triggered it? Was I being manipulated? The notion made me grit my teeth, not because growing support was an evil thing, but because the gods always had a hidden agenda.

“He only gave me this book because he knew I wouldn’t use it,” I shared. “Bram thought it was because no one in his coven was worthy. He was wrong. This is more god games. Now we’re right back where we started.”

Liesel sobbed loudly. Emma hugged her to her chest.

“Not right back,” Ruchel said, “we’ve more friends now than we did before. That was smart, Maven.”

“We should destroy the book,” Blue said.

“No,” I snapped, and all eyes turned on me. “We won’t use it,” I added more gently, “but let’s not destroy it. Not yet. There’s too much we don’t know about it.”

I wouldn’t risk experimenting with the book either. Feeding it a spell sounded like a good way to get someone’s soul snatched, but I wasn’t willing to lose my one and only bargaining chip with Bram either. I had questions that needed answers. A guilty god needed to die.

“Asher,” Ruchel rasped, “please get this horrid thing out of our sight for now. We’ll figure out what to do with it another time.”

* * *

After the feast that evening, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I was so spent, I barely ate.

“Are you all right?” Ruchel asked, her brows furrowed. “You’ve looked pale all day.”

“I had dreadful dreams last night,” I told her. “I thought maybe I drank too much, but I just can’t seem to recover my energy. Not even a little. Nothing is helping.”

She squinted at me like there was an equation on my face she was trying to solve. “Have you had enough water? Maybe you should piss in a glass for Blue to look at.”

My nose wrinkled. “No thank you.”

“Then turn in early,” she suggested. “Get more sleep.”

“That . . . doesn’t sound so dreadful.” I rose to my feet, and I must have moved too quickly because suddenly the bone floors were coming at my face, and the walls had upended themselves. Ruchel shouted my name, and everything went dark.

A horrid voice cooed at me in my nightmares. I know what you are, it echoed in my thoughts. It shouted other frightful things at me that I couldn’t hold on to. One voice became many voices that creaked and groaned in my ears. The sound put a pit in my gut and made everything feel like it would never be all right again.

We know what you did to the Whitten women . . .

Guilt turned my stomach so sour I thought I might retch. The images were a blur, flashing lights, blood on the floor, the copper scent in my nose. Glass on the ground. My finger pricking on a sharp bit of bone . . . I screamed out. I felt like I was being spun like a top. I reached for the voices, a feeling of dread turning my insides cold, but it was like trying to trap smoke in a butterfly net.

I blinked my eyes open. I’d been rolled onto my back. The lounge came blearily into view. Familiar voices argued over me.

“We can’t know what’s done it to her,” Liesel said sharply, her bell-like voice gone shrill.

“It’s the shades that’s done it,” Nola barked. “Just look at her. She’s having nightmares we can’t wake her from, and it was your sister who gave her the wax to keep them out of her ears!”

“Don’t fight,” I slurred, uncertain if anyone understood me. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. A hand grasped mine. I tried to blink to clear my vision. My head was in someone’s lap, a person with a violet scarf in their hair—Ruchel, then. Four blurry faces hovered over me. On the ceiling above them, tumultuous shadows rippled like a black ocean caught in a storm.

The hand holding mine wore a sea-colored scarf. Blue. What a surprise.

“If you didn’t do it on purpose, Emma,” Ruchel said, voice cold as ice, “then stop refusing to answer my questions.”

“I’ll not be interrogated like a common criminal,” Emma bit out.

“You are a criminal,” Nola shouted. “We all are! That’s how we got here, you fool!”

“This isn’t a courtroom!” Emma fired back.

“Everyone calm down,” Blue said flatly. “If we let things get too heated, we’ll have revenants in here ready to toss us. If this is shades, we’ll just have to wait for—”

The darkness pulled me under again.

When I awoke next, I was in my bed. My compartment was dark, the curtains pulled shut. I’d tossed the blankets onto the floor at some point, and my body was covered in sweat. I had just enough energy to sit up and no memory of how I’d gotten in here. I leaned my weight against the bone wall, too exhausted to keep upright on my own.

Fist trembling, I knocked on the wall.

Shadows poured in through the vent, and Asher appeared, his silvery white hair the only part of him I could see clearly.

“Shades,” I whispered, and my chest heaved. “I have nightmare spirits in me.”

“It looks like it,” he said gently. His patient presence loosened something in my chest.

Shadows crept up my bed and along my blankets, then up my arms to cool the sweat from my neck. I sighed, leaning into them.

“Shades won’t kill you,” he soothed. “It’s no fun for them if you’re dead. Blue thinks they’ll move on once they’ve drained your energies dry. You’d recuperate what you lost with rest.”

But recuperating gray magic was much more complicated. And apparently Emma may have done this to me on purpose. I should probably have been mad about that, but if it had been Lisbeth, I would have done the same thing. I would have kept the foe I was uncertain about weak to lessen the threat.

I groaned. “Staying this drained in the games is a death sentence.” I rested my cheek against the wall, soaking up the cool touch of it. “I need the shades out now, but I can’t evict them. Not on my own. I’ve nothing to fight them with in here . . . I hate to even ask you this, but I don’t know what else to do.” I tried to shrug, but my shoulders were too tired to lift.

Consciousness and spirit were two sides to the same coin, and there wasn’t anywhere this reaper couldn’t go in the Otherworld. He was my only option.

“If you let me in, all the way in,” he said, shifting closer to my bed, “I can handle them. I’ll ferry them to the gates of Hel where they belong. Far away from you.”

I didn’t like owing him, but I hated being weak even more. “There are things you’ll see and hear in there . . .”

“I don’t plan to linger, Trouble. I’m not doing this to pry.”

“It’s not that. There are things I haven’t been forthcoming about.” I rubbed fingers down my forehead where an ache was forming. “Things you’ve asked me directly and I . . . Crone save me, I’m too tired to have this conversation. Just, give me a chance to explain before you tell anyone else what you learn in there. Please?”

“Maven,” he said reproachfully, “I’m not going to tell anyone anything . Whatever I see in your consciousness, it’s yours. Not mine to share. Do you trust me?”

“All right,” I sighed, because what choice did I have?

The line of his jaw hardened. “That wasn’t really an answer.”

He wore the night like a cloak, and his dark eyes, glossy in the shadows, captured my gaze and held it. My breaths escaped my dry lips in ragged puffs, and each one left me more winded than the last.

“I trust that we want the same things for now,” I said with a grunt. Talking was an effort.

I’d broken the habit of relying on others while I was raising Lisbeth. I couldn’t take chances. But being forced into these games had changed everything. Every trial, I either had to trust others with my life or chance it on my own and bring about my death all the quicker. I certainly hadn’t thought highly of Asher when we’d met, but somewhere along the way, he’d upended my doubts. I didn’t know what to think of him anymore.

He considered me, his head cocked. “Lie down.”

I did as he instructed, resting on my side, my head on the pillow, the fabric still damp from my sweat. His shadows surged, blanketing me in night. He laid one of his hands across my face, his palm smooth and warm and big enough to cover my eyes completely.

The train disappeared, the rumble of the tracks and the sway of the cabin falling away. The shadows went next. In my mind I was back in the apartment I shared with Lisbeth, her bed across from mine, her earring on the nightstand still missing its match. I sat up, no longer heavy from the weight of my own body.

Cuts of fabric scattered the floor, Lisbeth’s discarded projects. The sight of them tightened my throat. Asher stood amongst them, but his shadows were gone. I didn’t know where my mind had put them. His platinum hair was pulled back in a messy knot, hands tucked in his trouser pockets. A few strands broke loose to fall across his brow. Apparently, I liked his hair this way . . .

It was probably for the best that I didn’t dwell on that thought too much.

“Can you feel where the shades are hiding?” he asked. “Is it a particular memory?”

“No,” I said, still too exhausted to be very helpful. “Not exactly. They feel big, like they’re everywhere.”

Creaking voices called through the crack in the door behind him. “Fria,” the shades taunted. Their voices expanded to fill the room, bouncing off the walls. “Fria . . . I see you, Friiiiiiiiaaaaaaa . . .”

I met Asher’s eyes and swallowed. “I can explain . . .”

“Fria, Fria,” the shades chanted, “daughter of the traveler and the crossroads, we see you. You are ours now.”

The only evidence of Asher’s surprise was the slight lift in his brows, and then his expression smoothed. “I’ll take care of them.”

He turned to depart deeper into my mind, and I caught him by the back of his waistcoat. “Asher . . . thank you.”