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“A ticket aboard Death’s train cannot be purchased. Passage on the Schatten is secured with magic and blood and regrets.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

“ L isbeth!” I came to with a gasp.

Bursting upright, I knocked my head on the bunk above me. I rubbed the ache out of my scalp. My heart was a war drum in my chest, ready for battle. The fabric of my skirt was too heavy for the hot, dry temperature here. I yanked on my high collar to loosen it, and my fingers snagged on the delicate chain of the amulet I’d tucked under my shirtwaist. All at once the horrors of the evening returned to me.

I looked about for Lisbeth, but I was no longer in our shop.

A sob caught in my throat as my mind cruelly replayed the source of my grief. Closing my eyes, I pressed my palms over wet lashes, willing the visions away. My throat burned, and I lost the battle against my tears, weeping loudly into the bedding.

I sobbed until my throat hurt and my eyes were crusty with salt, fingers digging into the unfamiliar blankets.

Sacred Crone save me. I’d gone mad. The divine fire in my chest had burned out only after it had turned me dangerously reckless. The gods deserved to pay for their many crimes, but a full-frontal assault aimed at Hel had been utter lunacy.

It’s a wonder I was still alive at all.

I sucked in a breath, fighting back the next current of tears. The floors and walls resembled limestone, but the surface was too smooth and there was a yellowish hue to it under the gaslights. Like bone. The gentle sway of the small cabin and the rumble of the tracks below confirmed my worst fears. I was no longer in Kosh. I wasn’t in the Upper Realm at all.

I was aboard Death’s train, the Schatten, made of the dead for the dead.

Bile burned the back of my throat. I used my hand to shield my eyes from the bright glow of the wall sconce, blinking until my gaze readjusted. My skin was clammy and paler than its usual sandy shade.

“Don’t panic,” I whispered to myself, but my body ignored the command. My heart took off at a mad gallop, and my skin pebbled and prickled.

There was blood on my clothes. Lisbeth’s blood. She was all over me.

I wanted to curl up and cling to the last of my sister’s essence. I’d sleep there and never wake. Rest forevermore. Let the Schatten carry me straight to the life after and whatever awaited me beyond its ethereal gates. But Lisbeth would hate me like this. She would shout at me for wallowing so shamelessly that I’d put myself in great danger. I could almost hear her voice, my memories of her were still so fresh and vivid.

Knock this off, she’d say. Pick your sorry self up right now. You’ve things to do.

She was right. There was a guilty god I needed to end and a murdering garm to rip apart. I couldn’t accomplish either of those things here.

I took in air through my nose and blew it out past dry, cracked lips, retraining my lungs to breathe normally again. When my thoughts tried to stray toward my grief, I imagined the pain inside me as the dark green herbs I worked with in the shop so often. I dumped my sadness into a mental mortar and crushed those sour feelings to smaller more manageable bits with an imaginary pestle, grinding my fist into my open palm.

Down and down, I stuffed my grief until the sinking sickness softened and all I felt was numb and hollow. I let the survival instincts I’d honed after years in hiding stitch me back together into something resembling composed. If I dwelled on Lisbeth even a little, I wouldn’t have the strength to avenge her.

You need a coven , the voice in my head said, sweet and crystal clear.

I needed off this train, and I couldn’t do that alone.

“Oi! Is anyone up there?” I asked, voice weak and small like I hadn’t used it in ages. I prodded at the bunk above me with my boot.

No one responded. I eased off the bed, rising slowly on legs that felt like pudding. I lifted onto my tiptoes to peer over the railing. The top bunk was disappointingly empty, no potential ally in sight. I dropped back down on my heels, deflated and alone.

A wooden plaque stretched across the ceiling.

“ Judgment ,” I read the single word aloud. “Well, fuck you and your judgment,” I ground out.

Headed for the window, I swayed on my feet like I was walking across the deck of a ship being tossed by the sea. I hadn’t yet found my equilibrium here. I pulled back the brocade curtains, and faint unnatural light poured inside. There was no sun in the sky, just a strange gilded glow interspersed with puffs of clouds.

A city blurred by, or the image of one did. The longer I stared at the brick and gabled buildings, the more alien and unreal they appeared. There was no life out there. No traffic on the streets, no carts or horses or pedestrians. A massive clockface sat inside a large central tower. Only, this clock had thirteen hours, not twelve. Whatever the train was circling, it wasn’t some peaceful cityscape. Wulfram, the ancient legends called it. A place of arbitration.

I shut the curtains.

The sliding door that separated my small sleeper cabin from the rest of the train had a fading mark melted into it. Shaped like Death’s crow, an oily sigil lingered from the divine magic used to bring me here.

My fingers scraped roughly across what remained of a dark wing. I didn’t dare grab for this power with my gray magic, remembering how easily Death’s essence had smothered me before. After it faded, I tried to turn the brass handle on the door, but it was locked.

“Hello?” I shouted, knocking my fist against the wood. “Is anyone out there?”

Where were the others awaiting judgment, the magic-rich people who had infuriated the gods as I had? How strange it was to spend so much of my time these last few years shoving people away as hard as I could. Now here I was, desperate for any one of them.

When no one replied, I gave up on the door and went searching through the luggage tucked under the bunk, looking for supplies. I didn’t know what would come next, but I wouldn’t be caught unprepared.

I braided my hair into a long plait to get it off my neck. Not sparing a thought for who owned what or where it all came from, I pulled out a traveler’s chest and found assorted clothing inside. Most of it was nonsense: lone stockings and shoes without a partner. The brown trousers I found were too long for me, but they would serve me better than my shop-wear.

I pulled off my thick skirt and the crinoline beneath it. After stepping into the trousers, I tucked the lengthy pantlegs down into my boots and adjusted suspenders over my shirtwaist to keep them in place. I’m short but hardy. Cut for a man, the fit was tight around my thighs, but the fabric was light. It gave me more range of motion and was better suited to this heat.

I still had a pocket pistol at my ankle, but it wasn’t loaded. Wanting it closer at hand, just in case, I slipped it into the waistband of my new trousers, against the blood-soaked cotton at my navel. Perhaps I’d find ammunition somewhere, if there was such a thing in the Otherworld.

The door clicked.

I hurried to it, and this time it slid open cleanly. I eased out into a brightly lit hall that smelled of kerosene. Across from my room, a woman hunkered down near another bunk. Perhaps she’d been the one to free me. In her fifties with light rosy skin and sunken cheeks, she picked through luggage, throwing clothing and bed linen behind her and out of her way. Brown hair shot through with silver peeked out from a blue-green scarf.

She was attractive. The more years I saw, the harder it was to find anyone appealing unless they at least had crow’s feet at their eyes and some silver in their hair. They looked like children to me otherwise. Her tattered dress was a sea-shade favored by water covens.

“Hello?” I whispered, and the woman’s head snapped toward me.

I showed her my palms in a gesture meant to be reassuring, but she rose into a fighting crouch, flinty gaze bouncing from my face to the crimson stains that made my shirtwaist stick to me.

“I’m called Maven,” I said, struggling to keep a calm tone. The way she glared at me had my twitchy fingers wanting to grab for the pistol at my waist, but that was no way to make allies. I couldn’t be the only one who wanted off this train. Witches were strongest together.

“There’s no point in bothering with names here, girl,” the blue witch said. Girl? I was centuries older than she was, though Lisbeth said I looked about thirty-five, depending on how well I’d slept the night before. I didn’t bother correcting the witch. Though her tone was terse, she rose out of her fighting stance.

“I had hoped—”

“There’s no point in hope either.” She rushed out of the cabin then, jogging down the hall past more sleeper compartments, steps hollow echoes against the bone floors.

I frowned at her retreating back. Another plaque stretched across the ceiling. Serve the gods. Win the games , it read, and my stomach plummeted.

What games?

I was a stranger to the Otherworld, but it was no secret that the gods who resided here could be so cruel they made the divines in the Upper Realm seem diplomatic in comparison. But what exactly was it that they did to the prisoners sentenced to the Schatten?

I tried not to dwell on the what ifs, focusing instead on being as prepared for the worst as I could. The rest of my scrounging was somewhat fruitful. I found a satchel, a thick blanket I could roll up to fit inside, and a knife that was too dull to be very useful in a fight but would do as a tool until I had the means to sharpen it. No ammunition unfortunately.

There were plaques near every bunk. Most of them held words like lawfulness or restitution or related synonyms. The next one brought me up short.

Earn your freedom , it read. The rest of the wood had been broken off. Beneath it was a swatch of bright red blood that dripped from the ceiling and turned my insides cold. I didn’t bother searching that cabin at all.

Movement echoed down the aisle, and I poked my head out of the compartment, hoping to try my luck with another prisoner. But the person pushing a cart of refreshments toward me—if they could be called a person—had no face. Smooth pale skin stretched from chin to their shorn hairline.

I leapt back with a gasp. They shuffled by, dressed like a train car attendant in a coal black uniform with bright brass buttons. A shiver rippled down my spine. I crept into the aisle, glancing back to ensure the sinister attendant continued in a direction that would take them far away from me.

I finished with the sleeper cars after that, making for the dining cars. The first was empty, but glasses of water sat beside plates of half-eaten food. Mouth parched, I helped myself to the water. I drank until my belly was so full the liquid sloshed inside me when I walked. In the next car over, more faceless attendants cleaned plates off scattered tables.

Bile rose in my throat. I stepped quickly past them into the next cabin, a lounge car with cushioned chairs. The central standing clock had thirteen hours instead of twelve like the Upper Realm. Another plaque hung under the clock. The words the Crow Games are coming were the only parts I could make out. The rest of the message had been chiseled away.

Other passengers huddled together in this car, people with faces, so I lingered. In the corner, a yellow-haired young woman clutched her knees to her chest and wept. Her slender body shook. I was too hollowed out to feel anything for her but a shared fright.

Opposite her sat the blue witch from earlier. Her hands folded in earnest prayer, lips moving with her silent words, pleading with the gods. Between her fingers she clutched a pendant. Based on its color and the clam shape, it was a symbol of Unger, god of the sea.

My attention returned to the plaque and the parts of it I couldn’t read.

“Ignore it. It was all a lie,” the blue witch groaned, “so I tore it down.”

“What did it say?” I asked.

“The winner of the games would be given divinity and made to rule the Otherworld, and other such nonsense. The gods would never bow to a mortal, of course. It’s a trick to encourage prisoners to fight. Only one coven can win the games, and the god who blesses them will take the throne and set the winners free. Nott probably put up the sign to cause mischief.”

“Good that you took it down, then,” I said, then I sighed. It was no surprise at all that the divines were fighting over a throne. They usually were. And it was even less surprising that instead of risking their own immortal bodies, they settled their differences with the blood of the prisoners who had wronged them.

I needed allies, and I needed them fast. Surely I wasn’t the only one aboard desperate not to stand alone here. I’d throw myself at any of them at this point. Perhaps if I kept the blue witch talking . . .

“Her. I want her.” The voice made me turn.

Lounging at a side table were two witches, their bodies curved toward one another in hushed conversation. I wasn’t certain who had spoken until she did so again.

“Let’s invite her to travel with us,” the witch said. She was dressed in an aged leather waistcoat dotted with scorch marks, her skin a cool medium-brown with autumn undertones. The knapsack at her back bulged. Her boots were mismatched. The violet scarf braided into the witch’s midnight hair showcased her allegiance to the pursuit of knowledge. A scribe’s scarf.

The witch beside her remained seated, weighed down by her own heavy pack. Between long fingers, she balanced a shot of clear liquor. Tawny hair cropped short around her head, her complexion was a light shade of fawn. She wore the woolen uniform of a soldier. The jacket was so frayed and battered, most of the blue color had seeped into gray.

The soldier considered me over her drink, cobalt eyes narrowed. “No, Ruchel. Not her.”

I shuffled closer, clutching the strap of my new satchel to me tightly.

“You’ve said no to every new prisoner who’s walked out of that hall. We can’t afford to be so choosy,” Ruchel ground out. Around her neck hung a copper pendant with the same torch symbol worked into its center mine had. That symbol had meant many different things over the ages and had often been favored by witches labeled as rebels and anarchists. Now, it was a symbol wielded by magical folk who had no allegiance to any god.

I liked this Ruchel immediately.

“She’s covered in blood,” the soldier grumbled. Thick fur lining peeped out around the edges of her tall boots. In the northern reaches of the Upper Realm, in a country called Sebrak, the land was colder in the hills and there was an ongoing civil war over limited resources. “We need coven members who can help keep us alive in the coming games. Not witches who require a nurse.”

Neither of them bothered lowering their voices, despite how clearly I could hear them. I picked at the strap of my bag, trying to think what Lisbeth would do. If she were here, she’d already have a whole flock of new allies ready to band together to plot their escape from Death.

“She can’t be that hurt, Nola,” Ruchel said. “She’s walking fine, and she’s the first new witch we’ve seen come out of that hall who didn’t look like they were about to vomit.”

“Perhaps I already vomited,” I offered, tired of being talked about instead of to.

Ruchel grinned at me. Nola scowled fiercely into her glass.

“I’m called Maven,” I said.

“We’re not looking for new friends,” the soldier retorted, cutting Ruchel off.

“Sounds like you are,” I countered. “And I’m not hurt. All this on my clothes—it’s not my blood.”

“See there? She’s fine.” Ruchel extended her slender hand, and I took it. We shook briskly. “I’m Ruchel. I’m a mind witch from an air coven, or I was before I got dumped here. Admittedly, most of my divination abilities are best suited to academia, but I have unnatural instincts. I’ll use them to keep you alive so long as you listen to me out there during the trials.”

Out where? What trials? I wanted to ask, but my mind took off like a shot and began to whirl.

Ruchel nudged Nola’s arm encouragingly.

The soldier rolled her eyes, drained her glass, and plopped it onto the table. “I’m Winola, a witch of none-of-your-business, from a coven of—” She pointed both middle fingers up at me.

I liked her immediately as well. I didn’t need her to like me back to want her help, and she didn’t have to share who she was. The crimson pendant at her collar gave the red witch away.

“What about you?” Ruchel asked me.

“Oh?” I rubbed a hand down the back of my head, fingering my braid. “Right . . .”

“Coven of origin?” Ruchel prodded. I was slow to respond. Now Nola was staring at me too.

I swallowed. “I don’t have one.”

The soldier snorted dismissively, then returned to her drink, refilling it from the decanter on the table.

“Anymore,” I added briskly. My sister had been my coven. It was an odd witch who didn’t have a proper one.

Ruchel’s ochre eyes softened. “You lost them?”

Absentmindedly, I ran a hand down my blood-soaked shirtwaist. “Garm attack.”

I had to be careful of my words around a mind witch. She’d sense it if I lied to her. But I couldn’t go telling her the full truth of what I was either. Gray witches were feared by all, and Nola was already uncertain of me. Too many gray practitioners had become warlords and murderers and worse with their spirit magic. They’d be convinced I was a villain who’d earned my place here committing horrid atrocities. Sadly, that wasn’t entirely off-base.

On the floor of my old shop with my sister’s corpse cooling in my arms, I nearly had become a villain. If Death hadn’t stopped me, an entire city would now be ash.

“And what’s your specialty?” Nola demanded, looking me over.

“I . . .” Instead of spirit, I wanted to say I practiced green magic, but my limited skills in that area wouldn’t impress these two. “I’ve dabbled in this and that . . . I know some earth spells and some—”

“Throw her back, Ruchel,” Nola groaned. “She’ll be of no use to us.”

“No.” Ruchel’s gaze trained on me so hard I could feel the weight of it. “I sense she’ll be useful.”

“That’s the one I want,” Nola said, loud enough to interrupt the prayers of the witch in the corner. “We’d still take you with us, Blue, if you’d stop being so pig-headed.”

The blue witch sat forward, releasing her sea pendant so that it clattered against the other baubles draping her neck. Her flinty eyes trained on Ruchel. “I won’t partner with a woman who insists on insulting the divines by wearing the symbol of a dead goddess. We need the blessing of a god to win the games, not their contempt.”

Ruchel squeezed her torch amulet in her palm. “You lack loyalty, Blue. It was Fria who made you a witch, and I will always honor her sacrifice.” The passion in her words stirred me. “If her symbol upsets the gods, so be it. It’s Fria’s tears that fuel your abilities, not the hungry sea deity you insist on serving even as he abandons you here. What has Unger ever done for you? What have any of them ever done for us?”

“At least Unger comforts me,” the blue witch huffed. “He may one day decide to save me from this place. A dead goddess can do nothing for no one. Keep talking like that and you’ll win the favor of none of them.”

“I hope this symbol angers all of them.” In solidarity, I pulled free my amulet and let it fall against my chest. Lisbeth’s blood had dried upon it. “The gods already hate us. That’s why we’re here. They can all go suck an egg, I say.”

Ruchel beamed at me. Nola’s laugh was low and sounded more like she was clearing a stuffy nose than expressing mirth, but I took it as a promising sign.

The clock on the wall struck the 13 th hour and a bell chimed. The melodious peal seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Time to go,” Ruchel said as the bell sounded again. “Are you traveling with us or not, Blue?”

The witch shook her head with enough vigor her scarf slipped, revealing more lovely silver-streaked hair. She left the lounge, headed for a door into the crowded car one over.

“Stubborn woman,” Ruchel bit out. “Come on. Get in line.”

Taking the lead, she guided me toward an exit at the bottom of a small set of bone stairs. The bell chimed a third time, and the train began to slow. More prisoners gathered at various doors, falling into queues.

“Trial number three isn’t so terrible. It’s not the best, but it’s a decent one to get started in,” Ruchel said. Her reassurance did nothing to calm my nerves. I felt thrown to the wolves, with more questions than answers. So many questions, in fact, that they all tangled on my tongue before I could voice any of them.

Ruchel called over her shoulder, “Hurry up, Winola!”

The soldier climbed slowly to her feet, broad-shouldered and impressive at her full height. “I still haven’t agreed to let the new witch travel with us.”

“Stop being a little shit and get over here,” Ruchel rumbled.

“All right, all right.” Nola trotted up behind me. “We’ll see how she does at least.”

Being boxed in by the two of them settled me a little, quelling some of the worry and chaos trying to take root in my chest.

“I’m surprised you let anyone boss you around,” I said to Nola, masking the anxious tremor in my voice with a playful tone. Perhaps if I acted unafraid, the rest of me would follow suit. “If I was a soldier, maybe I’d grow accustomed to following someone’s orders, too.”

Nola’s mouth tugged up at the corner into a handsome grin. “I served in the Sebrak Republic army, but that’s not why I follow her orders. I’ve always had a tender spot for pushy women.”

The sniffles of the fair-haired girl drew my notice across the cabin. She was Lisbeth’s age, a young twenty-something. Leaning around Nola, I watched her curl into herself. She lifted her chin to wipe her nose, and a scaled tail whipped out from behind her, a sign of garm heritage. The pain radiating from her mirrored my own loss, and for a moment the hollowness inside me cleared just enough that I ached with her. I tapped Ruchel’s arm and pointed at the beast-born.

“I already tried. She’s not coming,” Ruchel said quietly. “She lost her whole coven last trial. They’d gotten large enough to attract the attention of one of the more established covens. That’s why it’s best to travel in smaller groups. It was brutal. She’s giving up.”

My stomach dropped. “Maybe we could—”

“Not you too,” Nola said sourly, pressing me closer to the door as brakes squealed and the bone train came to a hard stop. The grainy scent of the alcohol on her breath mingled with the smell of kerosene from the lanterns. “I already have to deal with one irrationally soft-hearted witch. Let that girl be.”

“But what will happen to her if she stays aboard?” I demanded.

Just then, one of the attendants pushed a cart through the lounge, another faceless creature that turned my stomach.

“That’s a Schatten revenant,” Nola said, in answer to the unspoken question that had my blood roaring in my ears. “And that’s what happens to you if you stay aboard. Soulless servitude to the dead and damned. She’s chosen that fate. Now get off or join her.”