Page 15

“Beware the revenant that still has their soul.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

I survived nine more days in the games. We saw little of Asher, and it alarmed me how much I noticed his absence. Every night, I knocked on the bone wall between our beds, and my stomach churned when there was no knock back.

Ruchel had him spying on Bram and keeping an eye on the beast-born we called Bastard. The giants grew bold again, and he was busy doing whatever it was that reapers did to push them back. More nights crawled by without a word from the enemy of my enemies.

My friend.

During the fifth trial, we dodged belching geysers and sinking spots in the shade of towering trees. Dark movement caught my eye, and I turned hoping to find Asher perched on the branch above me.

But it wasn’t a reaper. The lounging black cat was bigger than a panther, with a spot of white on his chest. His tail drooped behind him, swaying lazily.

“Your humble servant greets you, God of Night and Mischief,” I said, bringing my coven to a startled halt in the bog. My boots sunk an inch into murky mud.

Well, well, Nott purred, directing his thoughts into mine, if it isn’t my favorite little pet. How goes the games, bloodthirsty one?

“They’re as messy and bloody as always,” I said with forced cheer. Based on the confounded expression of my coven mates, I was the only one receiving Nott’s messages.

His lips spread wider than was natural for a cat, showing off a deadly set of sharp teeth. Have you caused any trouble lately?

“Always,” I vowed. I had enough enemies as it was and didn’t wish to add this particular deity to that list. His mercurial reputation preceded him, and he could bar the way to the train on a whim and damn us to fend for ourselves against the beasts that resembled giant crocodiles.

Good, good. Running into me here is not a coincidence. I’ve a request to ask of you.

“I am ever your servant,” I said cautiously. Nott and Mara were the first gods I’d met who’d ever responded positively to the sight of a gray witch. And their divine energy did not match that of the god who’d killed my sister, which kept them off my murder list for now, but that didn’t mean I wanted to run errands for them.

Nott batted at a stray leaf with his big paw. My friend Asher has taken a great interest in you, and I’d like to know why.

“Well, he’s . . . um.” My mind went blank. I glanced at Ruchel, who couldn’t help me at all because she had no idea what was being said.

She showed me her palms and shook her head.

In my long life, when I felt unsure how to respond, answering a question with a question often served me best to grant me more time. “My lord, Asher is your friend, but isn’t he a traitor to all of the gods?”

His chuckle rumbled darkly in my ear. Well yes, but I love misfits and traitors the very best. And if Asher is interested in you, then the Old One is interested in you. That fascinates Mara and me because the Old One is interested in . . . nothing. Ever.

I stammered out an incoherent response, and my stomach plummeted. Asher swore he wasn’t a spy. I believed him, but I disliked the idea of him being bonded to Death even in reputation. What if his loyalties remained divided by his maker? What were weeks he’d known his coven compared to the centuries he’d known his god? “I take it you are aware of how I came to be a prisoner on the Schatten, my lord?”

Yes , he purred. A riveting tale.

“I believe that is the reason for their . . . curiosity.”

I suspect there is more to it than that. There’s always something more with them. If you and Asher were up to great mischief, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you, pet? You wouldn’t leave me out, I hope.

I recalled my first interaction with Nott, how Asher had cautioned him about me. I’d thought he was trying to poison the god against me, but I was now certain that he’d said those things to make sure Nott showed me favor. That was the clue I needed.

Play his game and keep him happy , Lisbeth’s voice said in my ear.

My demeanor transformed. I attempted one of those wide, Otherworldly smiles. “If I told you what we were up to, it would ruin the surprise, my lord.”

Ooooh, I love surprises. The messier, the better. Nott rose up onto his paws, and he prowled from one end of the branch to the other until the limb leaned low. He leapt down from it, landing soundlessly on the soil. My coven mates backed away from him, but I held my position as an act of respect.

“It’ll be messy,” I said.

When do I get to see this surprise? It can’t take too long. If it’s too long, I’ll get bored, he warned . He hit me with another feline grin full of too many teeth. Then he bounded closer, curling around me, rubbing his back against my legs in the way of cats. When I get bored, I get unpleasant. You don’t want me like that.

No, I most certainly did not want that. The skin of my arms pebbled. “How long is too long?”

His tail flicked up to curl around my shoulder and brush against my chin. He made me scratch behind his ears. Hm. Hard to say . . .

“Well then, I’ll . . . be quick.” I’d been trapped in the Otherworld for just over two weeks, and it felt like I’d been imprisoned for decades. Of course I’d move quickly.

Nott stepped in a wet patch of mud and fussed over his dirty paw. I need a nap , he said, yawning in my mind, and he slinked off, disappearing into the brush.

When he was out of sight, I let out the breath I’d been holding, and then I shared a warning with my coven that Nott was poking around about our escape plan. The uneasy silence that followed felt loud. They were all in their heads, blankly alarmed expressions plastered on their faces. I was in no better shape.

“Did Asher tell him?” Blue demanded. “I won’t deny that having a reaper join our coven has been useful, but we’d be fools if we assumed we could trust him implicitly. If the gods learn of what we’re attempting, the punishment would be . . . I don’t even want to think about what’s worse than the games.”

“I thought the same as you,” I told her. “But what else could he possibly be after if not an exit at this point? Hurting us hurts him too.”

Blue’s chest heaved. “I don’t know.”

“That’s just it,” Ruchel said. “There’s nothing worse any of them can do to us now. We’re already stuck in the games.”

Liesel interrupted the doom and gloom with a brilliant idea that made Ruchel hug her so hard around the neck that she coughed. We took the path away from the muck, closer to the flowing river. We gathered fallen logs and dragged branches with us. Emma and Liesel lashed them together with earth magic, molding the wood to their will with their connection to the element they shared. We built two rafts large enough to lie across, and we let the current carry us downstream.

No more hiking. No more mud sucking at every step. No more geysers spitting sulfur and surprise sinking sand, just a gentle glide downriver.

Blue spotted a collection of tomato vines growing wild by the bank. She sat up so suddenly she nearly caused her raft to capsize. Wood wobbling beneath her, she cheered as Emma and Liesel begged her to be still. Using her wand, she guided us to shore, commanding the water with her gift from Alwin.

The sisters stayed with the rafts to keep them from floating away. The rest of us accompanied Blue to fill our packs with as much fruit as we could carry. They were excellent for trading because they were highly valued as a traditional offering for the gods. They made a perfect addition to the midday meal, and the tomatoes were so juicy, they could help replenish some of the energies of both a water witch and a red.

Green vines crawled across the ground, dotted by the fat little fruits that were small enough to cup in my palm. I picked the tomatoes beside Ruchel but started when she jerked upward, eyes scanning the trees for trouble.

“What is it?” I asked her softly.

Nola dropped the tomato in her hand and readied her Crone blade. Blue shuffled in behind us, clutching her pack of tomatoes protectively.

“I don’t know,” Ruchel said, brow furrowed.

“Hello.” The voice came from a woman dressed in tattered white linen. She appeared between the trees as though she’d been there all along, hiding behind them. Her skin was ghostly pale, and her dark hair lay over her shoulders, lank and oily. Her feet were bare and filthy. Thick mud caked the bottom of her skirt. “Will you help me?”

I recognized her as a revenant—a Whitten woman, they were called in the Upper Realm—and my heart hurt for her. She was not the soulless sort who haunted the train, not a corpse animated by magic, but the sort with their soul, twisted and broken and trapped inside them still where only the god who’d made them could free them.

The dangerous sort.

“We’ll help you,” I told her softly.

Ruchel grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Maven, no,” she hissed in my ear. “I sense great danger from this woman.”

“Trust me,” I whispered. She was right about the danger but not about what would trigger it. “Show her your warmth, Ruchel.” Then I glanced behind me at Nola and Blue. “It’s probably best the two of you just don’t say anything at all.”

“You don’t want to help me?” the woman asked, her expression flat and her head at a tilt.

“Yes, we do,” I said with fervor, and I took a cautious step forward. “Would you like a tomato?”

The woman in white, once a dedicated follower of Fria until the god of frost stole her away, considered the fruit balanced in my palm. She ran her fingers through her lank hair and eyed my braid. “Will you help me?”

“With your hair? Yes,” I said, and I tucked away the fruit and extended my hand to her slowly, carefully, the way one might hold out a piece of food with great caution toward a prowling predator.

She took my hand, her touch as cold as the grave. Her lips were tinged in blue and purple like a bruise, and when she breathed, her breath fogged gently despite the humidity, evidence of the White One’s wickedness. I had to bite down on my lip to stop it from trembling.

Guilt crashed to the bottom of my gut like a stone. There was nothing I could do for this woman. Not really. I’d spent lifetimes trying to help revenants just like her when I was Fria. I was their goddess, and I couldn’t save them.

“We don’t have time for this,” Blue muttered.

Nola hushed her, throwing an elbow into her side.

We washed the woman’s hair in the river. Nola helped me lower her into the water. Blue fetched soap from the green sisters, and we used it until her dark hair shone, glossy and clean.

Ruchel spoke to the revenant kindly as she braided her hair, seated on the bank in the mud just behind her. I cleaned her feet and between her toes too, and she seemed to like that, though she didn’t speak. Her expression remained blank, but occasionally light lit her eyes with awareness as Ruchel shared about the history of the calendar, filling the quiet with a droning gentleness.

The woman stood then and plucked a white piece of thread from her linens. She twirled it in her pale hands a moment, then handed it to Nola with the hint of a smile. “For you.”

“Oh. Thank you?” Nola said, glancing at the revenant, a line deepening between her tawny brows.

The woman stepped behind the moss-covered trunk of the nearest oak tree and was gone.

“Leave now,” I said urgently, rushing back down the bank toward the rafts.

“I don’t sense danger any longer,” Ruchel said.

“Where there’s one revenant, there’s always more,” I cautioned. I jostled my satchel and sent tomatoes tumbling. Blue tried to pick them up.

“Don’t fuss with that! Leave now!” I crowed at her.

Blue grumbled but did as I bid her. We hurried onto the rafts and pushed off.

“Should I even bother asking how you knew that woman was a revenant?” Blue demanded.

I didn’t know how to answer her, so I said nothing.

“Figures,” Blue growled.

Nola lounged beside me, twirling the piece of white thread between her fingers. “She gave me thread?”

I stuck my fingers in the water to clean them as we glided downstream. “She did. Be glad she didn’t eat your face off.”

Nola shuddered. Revenants were dangerous beings who couldn’t be killed. They could be corralled, they could be calmed, but I could never make them who they once were. They hurt their families and had to be sent away, banished to the Otherworld with all the other unpredictable and dangerous beings.

Like me.

We made it through the trial and into the forested park not far from the clock tower in half of the time it would have taken us to navigate the blasted bog.

“Hide,” Ruchel breathed.

We abandoned the rafts, diving for cover amongst the greenery. In the hurry, my hand slid against a muddy trunk, and I smacked my face on a log. Nola ran into the back of me. We toppled under the foliage together. Nola pressed her palm over my mouth to silence my groan of pain, and I froze, my legs tangled around her longer ones.

The footsteps of the nearing creature rattled the ground under my cheek. Nola and I held our breath, waiting for the retreating thud, thud, thud to grow farther and farther away until my lungs burned, begging for release.

The creature stopped. I was tempted to peek out at the beast, to see the massive being that had threatened us inside this park since my first trial, but the desire to live cured me of my curiosity in an instant.

The creature began moving again, rustling the trees with its bulky body. The snap and boom of a trunk breaking in half and striking the ground put nightmare visions into my mind of the creature’s mass. A chill shot down my spine in spite of the humidity. Birds fled the trees. Smaller garm sprinted away, uninterested in us as a meal with the threat of death at their heels.

“We go in groups,” Ruchel hissed. “We’ll move more quietly that way and we won’t be tripping over each other. Nola and Maven are our best fighters, so they’ll need to travel separately. We meet at the clock tower.”

Nola unsheathed the Crone blade from the holster at her hip, a leather one Emma had sewn for her.

“I’ll go with the sisters,” I whispered because I knew they wouldn’t be parted from each other, and Nola would want to look after Ruchel. No beast in Hel was more fearsome than Nola when someone or something threatened Ruchel.

“Don’t engage the creature, ducky. Not if you can help it. It’s big and slow and blind. Better to run from it if you can. Fight only if you must,” Nola lectured. She grabbed my face, palms flat over my ears, and touched her brow to mine. “And don’t fucking die. You hear me? It’s rude to die on me.”

My heart squeezed. “I’ll see you at the clock tower. Alive,” I vowed.

They let us leave first. We stepped quietly through the trees. The noise of the beast was so loud in the distance it hid the smaller crackle of twigs and rustling greenery. I didn’t breathe normally again until the trees parted and we were back at the columned buildings surrounding the clock tower.

Hanging from the library walls by the neck were five red-hooded warlocks. The dead dangled, arms limp, bodies swaying side-to-side in the breeze. They’d been lifeless for a while; the sour-sweet stench of rot was starting to carry.

It said something that no garm had gotten to them. The size of the Guardian coven had become insurmountable for even Hel-beasts here. They’d outgrown the maze. The street was packed tight with their dark uniforms.

Emma came to a halt, blue eyes taking in the dead. “It’s starting again. Another battle of covens fighting over a throne no one can win. Why is there always a fool or two convinced they can become a god? Don’t they know gods don’t share power—they take it?”

“Hopefully,” I said, “we get out of here before the streets are ripped apart by war.” Hopefully they kept recruiting, kept killing each other in little bursts, buying us more time to escape.

A line had formed leading down into the tunnels of the clock tower. Guardians manned the archway. They stopped every prisoner attempting to enter, anyone not dressed in uniform, and took something from each of them, reaching inside bags and satchels at knifepoint and adding the goods to a growing pile.

The others caught up to us while we were debating how to best hide our favorite items to keep the Guardians from stealing them. Emma suggested we put something of worth on top, using it to hide what we wanted to keep at the bottom, to encourage them to grab the first and ignore the rest.

“If they try to take my Crone blade,” Nola grumbled, nostrils flaring, “I’m going to start stabbing people.”

I huffed a laugh, then moved out of arms reach, just in case. Nola had a reputation. Other prisoners shuffled out of her way too.

Blue, usually a woman insistent on not drawing attention to herself, booed the Guardians loudly. Blue had her own reputation, and the line of prisoners joined her, jeering.

Talia and her earth coven were up ahead of us. They were so mud-splattered from the bog, I hadn’t spotted them earlier. I counted them quickly, pleased that there were still nine members. None of them had died this trial. They’d lost two witches to garm earlier in the week.

Brick’s group of red rogues were in the line ahead of the greens. They fussed at the guards as their belongings were searched.

I recognized the warlock in charge, tall and slender with light fawn skin and a new hexen finger bone relic pinned to his collar beside a green pendant. He headed up the group theft occurring under the archway.

Blue whispered briefly with Talia, then returned to us to share the news. “Commander Aiden of the Green is letting his recent promotion get to his head,” she told us. “They’re demanding a tax for the ‘protection’ they offer us all by killing garm.”

The warlock commander called into the crowd, “Pay the tax to board the train or join the Guardians. Pay the tax to God King Alrick or join his army and keep your goods.”

“Pay the thieves,” Blue hollered back through her cupped hands, “or die in a war you don’t want!” Her sunken cheeks went russet with the passion of her words.

The commander tugged on the sleeve of the Guardian at his elbow and pointed her out. “Take two items from that witch.”

Blue returned the gesture with one of her own, raising both of her middle fingers at him.

I like this witch who’s causing a stir , Nott purred in my ear. I searched the crowd behind me for him but didn’t immediately spot him.

A brewing commotion at the end of the line rose to a crescendo, prisoners and guardians alike scattering to make way for the God of Night and Mischief in his black cat form. He prowled toward me, smiling in a manner that was Otherworldly and almost too human, too expressive, with his lips pulling back over jagged teeth.

My coven started to part to make way as well, but I waved them down. In the old days, fleeing in such a fashion or putting your back to another was offensive, a sign of disrespect. It was possible the custom hadn’t reached the Otherworld, but I wouldn’t risk it.

“My lord,” I greeted. “I wonder what you think of these mere mortals gathering tributes for themselves instead of offering them to you?”

The Guardians at the gate seemed unmoved by Nott’s nearness. They shouted for the line to press on.

They’re scum , he hissed. But Alrick has forbidden me from interfering in his son’s attempt to claim the crow throne and start the games.

I couldn’t have heard him correctly. My next effort to speak spluttered out of me. “His son?” I said, my attention drifting to the library, the towering stone building hiding Bram inside it somewhere. “Bram is going to start the games for the god king?”

The high warlock was aligned with the king in more than just ambition. Alrick had sired him. Alrick, who remained top of my list of gods who had the most to lose from a gray witch gone rogue . . . I’d already put together that Bram hadn’t been visiting my shop just to deliver coal or to flirt. He’d come as a spy for his divine father.

Had he told Alrick who he’d found hiding in the little hat shop in Kosh? Is that why Lisbeth was dead?

And why had I been spared?

I don’t like to talk politics, pet , Nott said, yawning inside my head. Politics bore me. Tell me something interesting. Tell me about this lovely witch with the silver in her hair and the starlight in her gaze and the lines of great wisdom on her face. She’s glorious.

“Nott favors you,” I told Blue to soothe her. Her shoulders had gone taut as a drawn bowstring when he stalked near.

Her flinty eyes shot wide as the great panther circled her, rubbing his neck against her hip, demanding pets. Tentatively, she patted the top of his head, and he purred loudly.

“There isn’t much I can tell you about her,” I said. “Blue doesn’t like to share her name with anyone.”

How intriguing , Nott cooed. Tell her to climb onto my back. The scum wouldn’t dare collect a tax from her up there. They aren’t complete fools. They won’t come near me.

“Wouldn’t you like to tell her yourself, my lord?”

That would be pretentious, pushing my way into her head like that. No. My servant will tell her for me.

I shared Nott’s wishes, and Blue’s eyes only grew. Her throat bobbed. A devout witch, she did as she was bid, tucking her satchel against her side and climbing astride.

He carried her through the archway, past the line of thieving Guardians who wisely kept their hands to themselves. We followed close behind. The uniformed coven didn’t touch any of our things either. Not even the commander dared.

Nola didn’t have to stab anyone.

Nott came to a halt farther down the descending tunnels. Now tell her to get off. I’m not a pack mule.

“He would like you to climb down,” I said, but Blue had already jumped off before I finished the sentence.

Come along now, pet. Leave the other witches behind.

“Hurry to the platform,” I told them. “I’ll meet you on the train.”

Nott padded along at a brisk pace, past where the tunnels forked. It’s tedious walking with you. You’re much too slow.

“I apologize for my mortal deficiencies, my lord,” I said breathlessly. I had to jog to keep up with him.

The stone around us was damp. Images of the broken crow decorated the walls, the wing Alrick ordered Death to tear free raining down its feathers to form reapers.

Nott came to a stop so suddenly I bumped into his hindquarters. He swatted me with his tail. Climb on, pet.

“But I thought you weren’t a pack mule, my lord?”

Nott hissed at me.

My lips twitched as I slid onto his back. I clung to him with my thighs, hands buried in his glossy fur. He bounded ahead. When I screamed in fright, certain I’d be tossed from his back, Nott cackled.

The throne room was littered with balls of yarn. They touched every surface except for the great crow throne made of bone. I climbed down off his back onto legs that felt like rubber.

Nott charged through the yarn, swatting at the brightly colored red and blue balls and ignoring the earth-toned ones. You weren’t very forthcoming with me earlier, pet, so I made Asher tell me what you’re up to.

“He . . . what?” My heart took off, worry hardening my gut, but I’d made the mistake of doubting Asher before. I didn’t want to do it again. We were . . . friends. I pushed my anxieties aside. He wanted out of here as much as we all did.

He’s convinced me to help you.

I blinked down at the mad god. “That’s . . . In what way, my lord?”

Nott rolled onto his back, swatting balls of yarn into the air until the colorful threads covered him, the dyed strands stark against his inky fur. You require a sigil, one cast by a god. Or have I been misinformed?

My jaw went slack.

Say something , Lisbeth’s voice shouted at me, knocking me out of my shock.

“My lord, were you to grant me such an honor, I would make great mischief in your name,” I said, running a finger across my chest, the gesture of an earnest vow. “I would rip a hole in the Otherworld and tear the games asunder. Think of how outraged the gods would be. Picture the chaos, the panic, the mess . . .”

His laughter was pure villainy, silky and soft in my ears and as threatening as a knife to the throat . . . even tangled in yarn as he was.

And all you’ve got to do for me in return is kill my sister.

My mouth fell open, but no words spilled out. They caught on my tongue and tangled there. “Your . . . You wish for me to murder Mara, the Lady of Nightmares?”

Well, yes. If you’d like my sigil so that you can rain down your messy chaos, you’ll have to do this first. Mara is fussy about her devotion to Alrick. She likes the king’s order and won’t let me help you, my pet. He sighed. She’s becoming more and more like our mother every day. Such a disappointment.

“But . . . can’t you stop her?”

I can’t kill her. I love her.

“No! Some other way. Any other way!” Even the suggestion of it made my blood boil.

Afraid not. We’re twins. Mara can hop into my mind and see my plans any time she likes. With my sigil fueling you, you should have no problem ripping her soul clean out and swallowing her whole. In fact, why don’t we pop over to Hel right now and—

“No! I . . .” Speech abandoned me. Hot angry air blew from my nostrils. “I wasn’t suggesting we kill her. In fact . . .”

Lisbeth’s voice was back in my head. Careful of your tone, love.

My hands formed fists. I didn’t want to be careful. I’d had enough of these god games built on little slights that had hurt someone’s divine ego. My lips trembled from the effort of stopping myself from shouting. Gray magic stuttered in my chest.

“I am the wrong person for this task,” I said, warning dripping from every syllable. My fingers had gone gray. “Possibly the worst person in all the Otherworld you could have asked to accomplish such a wicked thing.”

He chewed at the yarn. Colorful red strands hung between his teeth like the intestines of his last kill. But I love wicked things. Why can’t you do it?

“I would give anything for my sister to still be alive. I’m not taking yours from you,” I bit out.

Spoilsport.

“I won’t kill your sister, God of Night and Mischief. Not ever. And I’m deeply offended that you would ask it of me.”

Now you’re just boring me, pet. I should eat you up for that. A growl rumbled out of him, and he bared his frightful teeth.

My mind whirled. I should have apologized, begged him not to murder me. I should have pleaded for our plan, insisted a different arrangement could be made.

Instead, I picked up a bright little ball of yarn, this one yellow, and I heaved it toward the corner of the throne room. It bounced against the pavers.

He sprung to his paws and bounded after it, and any insult was immediately forgotten.