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“Before there were humans, the gods made the garm. They fashioned them from lost nightmare spirits called shades and the bones of the great beasts of old.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

W e exited onto a platform made of ebonized wood. A signpost that hung below a dull burning gaslight numbered it trial three of seven. Dark boards lined up before a foreboding set of cast iron gates. Shaped in the metal to form jagged letters were the words Crow Games .

Despite the heat, a full-body shiver started at the back of my neck and cascaded down my spine, pebbling my skin.

Behind me, Death’s ghostly pale train stretched as far as my eyes could see in each direction, but the platform was only wide enough to hold the few hundred prisoners who exited the cars around us. Soon it was so crowded, I could barely see over the press of bodies.

The train whistled. Steam billowed into the air, and it was off again, moving at such a high speed the bone cars blurred by, leaving us all behind. While I was on the train, my goal was to get off, but now I felt lost and oddly weightless, like whatever anchor had been pinning me to this plane was gone now.

I peered past the platform to the tracks, searching for an escape, breathing through this new vertigo. Beyond the railway, there was nothing but sand, a forebodingly barren wasteland.

“It’s not worth trying,” Ruchel warned me, her tone hushed. “You wouldn’t be the first to think the desert would serve you better than the trials, but you’d be wrong. There’s nothing but hungry giants out there.”

My heart thundered in my chest. Giants were extinct in the Upper Realm. We’d killed them off ages ago to stop them from feasting on the rest of us.

The hushed crowd increased the intensity of the balmy heat. Wulfram sprawled behind the gates: quiet building after quiet building of black wood, white trim, and high gables. This city of the unliving felt entirely wrong. It was too clean, too still, its buildings too uniform. Not a place crafted by mortal hands. The eeriness brought to mind the moment I’d opened the shop door and discovered my sister, the quiet horror that had greeted me.

My stomach churned, and I put a hand over it.

“See the central tower there with the clock?” Ruchel said in my ear. She wasn’t much taller than I.

I shook my head to clear it. “I see it.” Impossible to miss, the clockface was a massive snow-white oval against a golden sky.

“To complete the trial, we stick together,” Ruchel said, “we stay alive, and we reach that tower. Sometimes there’s a god or two waiting at the end, demanding a tribute before they’ll let us back onto the train. We’ll gather a few things along the way just in case to try and win their blessing.”

“What if we don’t want back on the Schatten?” I asked, as a restless crowd herded the three of us closer to the gates.

“We want back on,” Nola said quietly. “We have to reach that tower and the second platform it conceals before the 13 th hour, or the bone train leaves us behind.”

“The trials of Wulfram are challenging during the day,” Ruchel warned, “but at night they’re hopeless, crawling with nightmare creatures. You need the support of a massive coven to attempt such a thing. Otherwise, the train is the safest place to sleep. There’s good food. There’s water and—”

“There’s liquor,” Nola said.

Ruchel rolled her eyes. “And there are other comforts. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than whatever else you’ll get in this realm.”

“You have allies?” I asked hopefully. “A coven that could shield us?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Nola hissed. “Survive the trial first, then we’ll see.”

But I still had so many questions! When did the games start? If we didn’t form a coven now, what chance did we stand to win our freedom?

Win the games , I remembered the plaque saying. Serve the gods . This was our punishment: trials designed to pit us against each other and please the deities who spied on us for their amusement. They claimed to want a champion, but I suspected they just wanted entertainment.

I hated it. I hated this Otherworld and its horrid gods with such passion I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached. Just beneath my rage, grief haunted my spirit. It scratched at me, reminding me of its might. I ground it down, calling to memory my mental mortar and pestle. I couldn’t fall apart again. Not here. Not if I wanted to live long enough to bring down the guilty god.

The clock chimed as the hand reached the first hour. My stomach swooped, and the gates parted with a loud screech of metal.

Witches and warlocks and assorted beast-born rushed the opening. I tried to follow suit, to keep up with the push of bodies. Surely there would be strength in numbers—we all wanted the same things here, didn’t we? We could stay together, shield one another, and better our odds against whatever evils lay hidden in this city. An army was stronger than a unit all by itself.

“Hold on there, ducky.” Nola caught me by the strap of my pack and hauled me behind her, interrupting my efforts to cling futilely to hope. “Let the eager new ones try their luck first.”

Where Ruchel and I would have been trampled, the crowd made way for the tall soldier, weaving around her and us by extension.

There was no unit here. No army. Small groups parted from the collection of prisoners. Desperate loners broke from the pack, dashing down side roads, and the spark of hope in me died a quick death.

Half the group made it through the gates when the screaming started. I pressed my palms over my ears, trying to shut out the gut-wrenching sounds. Hostile garm—creatures more beast than man—charged out from behind the large buildings. They snapped at prisoners with sharp teeth.

I watched, feet inert, as more scales and hooves and claws appeared beside whipping tails and gnashing fangs and so much blood. Ruchel’s face blanched, but otherwise she and Nola seemed unaffected by the fighting and fleeing, the thud of bodies falling, the crunch of bones, the wet sounds of slaughter.

It was too much for me. My stomach plummeted, and the pulse in my ears became a dull roar that made everything sound far away.

I needed to get out of here. The fear that seized me went bone-deep and turned me cold.

I’m going to die.

Windows shattered. Wood splintered. The resounding crack of a revolver pierced the air. Its sulfur scent stung my nose. I tried to retreat, but Nola slung her solid arm around my shoulders and kept me in place.

“Running attracts them,” Nola warned, and I froze, throat tightening. “Best to hold still, save your energy, and fight only if you have to.”

Garm built like huge animals dragged screeching prisoners down alleyways and into buildings while I shut my eyes and resisted vomiting. In the Upper Realm, garm were Frid—half human. They had families. They joined covens.

These creatures were the nightmare-born beasts of Hel.

The last of the garm retreated or were killed. Silence followed—an unsettling, hopeless silence—and the crowd began to move forward once more, sprinting around the fallen bodies, their pace panicked. My heart raced, the thump of it so strong my pulse surged at my throat and wrists. Prisoners knocked into me in the rush.

Nola steadied me.

Lisbeth’s voice was in my head again. I was so accustomed to having her with me, I knew immediately what she’d say. What are you doing being afraid? A powerful witch like you—they should be the ones scared.

“There’s usually a few hungry garm waiting near the entrance of this trial,” Ruchel said gently. “But now we can go.”

“I need a minute,” I said, shaky on my feet. I wanted to do Lisbeth proud, and vomiting on my shoes seemed like a terrible place to start.

Nola prodded me forward. “When Ruchel says go, you go. Don’t think. Never second-guess her instincts. Just do it and thank the sacred Crone later that she kept you alive.”

I dipped my chin in solemn agreement. Hand pressed to my churning stomach, I took up a jog to fit the pace of the crowd. We passed shops with glass fronts and fully stocked shelves, though there were no workers inside, no signs of civilian life at all.

Prisoners looted the buildings for supplies, which seemed like a wise idea to me, but Nola and Ruchel urged me onward. I didn’t dare question them. We pulled quickly ahead of the group. I’d been awake all night. Already my feet were tired, but neither of my companions looked as worn and drawn as I suddenly felt. Their hardened gazes were fixed ahead on the tower, their goal, even as more chaos erupted behind us. Prisoners fought over their finds, and more dead littered the roads.

I dug inside the lip of my satchel, preparing for battle. More and more of the crowd thinned as groups broke off. The knife I readied belonged on a kitchen table, not in war, but it would have to do.

“Now you’re just embarrassing me.” Nola snatched the dull blade and threw it over her shoulder. She removed a dagger from the inner pocket of her lapel and shoved the hilt at my chest. I fumbled it a moment as we picked up speed, headed for a four-way intersection. We’d finally broken free of the larger group.

“Oh, but this is pretty,” I cooed, examining the curved blade. It glinted in the ambient light. One side was serrated, the edges as sharp as shark’s teeth. Lisbeth had loved pretty things that glittered and could be worn in her ears. I liked those too, but this was my personal favorite kind of shiny.

Nola flashed her teeth at me. Ruchel gestured for us to slow, and we fell in behind her. At the center of the intersection, a massive olive tree blossomed, its winding trunk as thick as the overturned horse carts nearby.

A skirmish broke out down the street between a group of warlocks and a gang of witches. Arcane fire and storm magic flew in wide arches, adding heat to the dry air. The warlocks marked themselves as one coven, wearing red hoods pulled over their heads like executioners.

I needed no context as they battled over the body of a fallen witch and the dead garm she’d taken down with her. Though many warlocks were male—as they all were in this coven—it wasn’t their sex that made them warlocks. It was their ability to use relics. Witches created power sources by overexposing absorbent items to their magic. Items like copper and bone.

Unfortunately, this meant that witches often became such relics. Our skin and bones were sought after for just that.

At a safe distance, we watched the fight play out. The witches were cornered, outnumbered. But if the three of us joined them . . .

Nola caught me by my pack again. I hadn’t even realized I’d charged forward a step.

“Not our fight, ducky,” she scolded.

But witches were strongest together, I wanted to protest. And wasn’t the goal of these trials to make allies to survive the games with? If we didn’t help now, it could be us, our bones those warlocks defiled someday soon, our skin they harvested while we still lived to increase the vigor of their castings. Ambitious warlocks like these had forced my sister and I into hiding just as readily as vicious gods had.

Heat burned in my chest, reigniting the faint memory of the god-fire that had once been there. They all deserved to pay.

I opened my mouth to argue with Nola, but a shadow fell over the battle. A hush descended across the street. The fighting broke apart, and witches fled. Even the most eager of the warlocks rushed for cover. As they retreated into buildings, they pulled the hoods from their heads, an effective means of concealment for when they were once more amongst the crowd. Just like Nola and Ruchel were concealing their allegiances.

Perched on a gabled roof, a mass of curling and unfurling darkness cast a growing shade over the cobblestone streets.

A gasp caught in my throat as the shadows parted, revealing Death’s favored.

“Reaper,” Ruchel breathed.

Nola grabbed our arms and yanked us into the intersection. We crouched behind the trunk of the great tree.

“What’s a crow doing here?” Nola whispered.

I peeked through the tangle of thin limbs and found the reaper, an ageless force of nature, staring right back at me. Hiding was doing us no good. He knew exactly where we were.

“Perhaps he’s a prisoner like us?” Ruchel whispered hopefully, then she shivered. “I can’t sense whether he means us harm. I can’t read him at all. He’s too . . . not human.”

Nola shook her head. “In the months I’ve been stuck down here, I’ve never seen a crow anywhere but on the train. If he’s not a prisoner, it’s more likely he’s a—”

“Spy,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Death’s spy.”

Was he here for me? Did his vengeful maker want to know how I was faring with my punishment? I gripped my new dagger so tightly that the metal fixtures in the hilt bit into my palm. If this crow had come for me, I’d show him and his god exactly how I was faring. Gray magic stirred in my chest, my spirit readying itself.

A shadowy hood hid most of his hair, but a few strands of bone-white fell across his brow. There was no wind, but full of Death’s gifted magic, his cloak billowed and rippled like angry waves caught in a maelstrom.

We waited for him to act, but the reaper didn’t flinch. He perched like the crow he was named for, sharp chin cocked to the side.

The glow of the unusual sky brought out the blush undertones in his fair skin. A leather waistcoat, double-breasted from a fashion era long past, covered his chest. Bottomless black eyes stared straight through the web of branches to pin me in place. In an instant, I felt picked apart and seen through. My skin pebbled. I wanted to disappear into the sandy dirt under my feet.

I tried to be as formidable as he under the press of his scowl, but my bravado was forced. It was sheer spite that kept me from withering.

I glared back.

A trail of sweat dripped down my neck, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. I grew tired of this standoff. Nola had pointed her middle fingers at me earlier, but there was a more ancient way to show disdain that seemed appropriate for an ageless being like him.

I crossed the middle and forefinger of my left hand and waved them at him, a gesture wishing bad luck and treachery upon its target.

“Have you lost your mind?” Ruchel caught hold of my sleeve and jerked my hand down. “Don’t antagonize the crow.”

Nola chuckled. “Stop making me like you, ducky. The odds of you surviving your first trial are not in your favor. I prefer to like you less.”

The crow’s back pulled up straight. For a split second his cloak stopped rippling. It reminded me of the way a feral dog’s tail went still when the animal became agitated. The shadows returned, billowing up from the bottom of his cloak to cover him fully. Then his darkness melted into the gables like mist evaporating under the burn of the sun.

In a blink, he was gone.

We didn’t move for several long seconds. It was Nola who stood first, parting from the tree to better search the area for danger. She beckoned for us to follow. We took the path where the skirmish had broken out between the warlocks and witches. Out of respect for the dead, Ruchel did not touch the fallen.

Nola and I had significantly less respect.

Nola found a better set of boots. She kicked her worn pair off and gifted them to Ruchel, whose mismatched set wouldn’t do much longer. I found a half-empty canteen and a revolver in the coat pocket of one of the warlocks.

“That’s a great find,” Nola said, a hint of envy in her tone.

“Did you want it?” I offered, eager to create more goodwill between us. If they had allies, I wanted to be amongst them fully.

“I don’t need one,” Nola said, her smile smug. “I’m my own firearm . . . Does it have any rounds?”

Aiming the short barrel safely at the ground, I slid back the latch and swiveled the cylinder free from its frame. “Four cartridges,” I told her before locking the cylinder back into place with an audible click.

“Use those very sparingly,” she cautioned.

I moved the pocket pistol my sister had given me back into my boot where it belonged.

“That’s a pretty thing,” Nola said, eyeing my boot longingly.

“No ammunition, though,” I told her. “It’s hard to find specialty rounds small enough even in the Upper Realm. I bet I’ll have a Hel of a time finding more down here.” I tucked the loaded revolver into the front of my waistband, keeping it close at hand.

“It would make a decent tribute if there’s a god at the end of this trial,” Nola said. She removed her woolen coat, then the shirt beneath, stripping down to her camisole before trading for the fresher linen of the fallen warlock at her feet.

I flinched. “It was a gift,” I said softly. My stomach turned at the thought of handing it over to a god to play with like some trinket before tossing it aside, bored. Too many of the gods had the temperament of a child. “My sister gave it to me, and I haven’t much left of her . . .”

The metal amulet hanging from my neck felt suddenly heavy.

“Staying alive beats being sentimental,” Nola said, and though I knew there was wisdom in that, her words cut anyway. “If we need it to get back onto the train, then—”

Ruchel grabbed Nola’s arm, silencing her. “We’ll find something else,” she said, ochre eyes full of a warmth I felt in my chest.

“Irrationally soft-hearted,” Nola muttered under her breath.

“Stop making me like you, Ruchel,” I teased.

She winked at me.

It didn’t feel right picking through corpses like carrion birds, but the warlocks would have done much worse to us if they could have. Ruchel sang a prayer over the dead witch, wishing her spirit a safe journey to the life after. Beside the body, a Hel beast who resembled a lion lay motionless, a fat purple tongue hanging out of the creature’s mouth between teeth as big as daggers. I shifted closer cautiously, afraid it would leap to life and go for my throat, but I wanted to be near. Ruchel’s soothing song washed over me, reminding me of a time long gone. I stood as witness in honor of the fallen.

The creature stayed dead, thank the Crone.

And as Ruchel sang the ancient words to wish the witch well on her next journey, I wondered if she hadn’t been a priestess. Temples of old had been replaced with great libraries. Over time, priests and priestesses traded their stoles and statues for books and scrolls. Priestesses were scholars and academics now, much like this mind witch.

But what god had she served, and who had scorned her by sending her here? It was hard to imagine an academic doing anything dangerous enough to be sentenced to a place like Wulfram. A soldier I could imagine well enough, especially if the damning divine had made themselves patron over the opposing side.

But Ruchel? Warm, inviting Ruchel? It was a mystery.

We marched for hours down streets that were too quiet and clean, the air balmy and unforgiving. Nola removed her uniform coat and stuffed it into her knapsack. I untucked and opened my shirtwaist to cool myself.

I was rarely idle around my shop, but my body was unprepared for this type of exertion. My thighs chafed. My feet ached. It never got this hot in Kosh, even in the summer, and I finished off my new canteen trying to cool myself. My satchel had felt so light at the beginning of the trial, but during the journey it had doubled in weight.

We kept to the outskirts of the city. It would take longer to reach the tower this way, but the route was safer, Ruchel assured us.

The splash of splattering water caught my ear, and my mouth went dry. I hadn’t had a drop to drink in over an hour, and I needed more. Ruchel and Nola were accustomed to all this marching. I was slowing them down, and the water sacks they carried at their belts were nearing empty as well.

I needed a rest.

I needed to dunk my entire face in whatever was making that delightful splashing noise . . .

But when we broke away from the back roads to make for the flow of moving water, the city grew busier. We hid from other witches, uncertain of their intentions. To avoid a coven of warlocks, we cut down an alley and spotted a Hel beast shaped like a giant scorpion. His face was eerily human, and his arms were massive claws. He scuttled about on great scaled legs. From behind the cover of two rubbish bins, we watched the garm prowl.

In the open square, a water garden and small fountain burbled temptingly. We were so close I could almost taste it on my sticky tongue. The air was cooler here. I licked my cracked lips.

That nightmare creature was all that separated me from relief, and my irritation and discomfort grew so great I considered taking the garm on all by myself. My spirit stirred weakly in my chest as my fingers formed into fists. The heat and exhaustion had gotten to me. I’d worn myself ragged. All this straining and sneaking about had made me weaker still.

The beast must have sensed us in some way, because he patrolled the roadway, protecting the water at its center, unable to spot us with his beady eyes.

“What if we took it on? What are our chances?” I asked Ruchel, dagger ready in my left hand, finger on the trigger of the revolver in the other. Images of ripping the creature’s head off firmed in my mind.

“Terrible,” she whispered, and the violent images in my head evaporated.

“There’s three of us and one of him,” I insisted, though I lacked all confidence. My spirit was too weak.

“It’ll pick its teeth with our bones,” Ruchel said. “We won’t last a second.”

“It doesn’t move very fast,” I noted. “We could flank it.”

“It doesn’t look like it moves very fast,” Nola cautioned.

Sweat dripped from my hairline, catching in my brow. There were hours still to go before we reached that damn tower. The clock leered at me from its great height, bathed in golden light. I didn’t want to be more of a burden on these veteran survivors. Especially not when what I really needed was a moment of peace to dunk my whole head into that crystalline pool of free-flowing ambrosia.

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Then we should just keep going.”

“See, this is why I’d rather not like you.” Nola heaved a sigh. “We should just keep going. I should save my energy for when I need it next and let you collapse from heatstroke . . . But why don’t I create a distraction instead. When the beast fucks off, you can make a quick run for that fountain.”

“Aw, Winola,” Ruchel cooed, “who knew you could be so—”

“Don’t you start with me,” Nola snapped, and Ruchel hid a secret smile in the twist of her lips.

“Will a distraction work?” I asked eagerly.

The mind witch squinted off into the distance like she was reading something written in the air I couldn’t see. Then she nodded. “I feel much better about that than I do about trying to fight that thing, but I’m more attuned to what puts me at risk than I am others, you see.”

“I’ll take it,” I told her.

“If you get caught,” Nola said, “don’t expect us to stick our necks out for you. Not even red magic is getting through that beast’s thick shell. If it catches you—”

“I get it, I get it,” I chanted, eager to start while I still had the strength to stand.

Nola swiped a bit of sweat off my cheek. She rubbed the salty moisture between her cupped hands, then she blew into them like she was warming her fingers. Hot air built between her palms, adding to the humidity coating my skin. Red magic—pure arcane heat in all its forms—built between her fingers. She stretched the crimson puff of cloud into a red-tinged storm small enough to fit in her palm. It crackled and sparked.

Nola waited for Ruchel to give the word, then the soldier leapt to her feet and launched the cloud off down the street, away from the fountain. She dove back behind the bins, and her magic doubled in size before erupting into a fit of lightning and thunder. It flew off between the buildings, making a ruckus like sheets of metal being slapped together.

The scorpion garm screeched and hissed. He shot off after the storm, moving on his many limbs at a blurring speed my eyes could barely follow.

“We’ll keep an eye on that one and whistle for you if there’s trouble,” Ruchel said. “Now be a dear . . .” She stuffed her water sack into my arms.

Nola gave me hers, too. “Go on,” she said, shoving me to my feet.

I stumbled a step, halting when I reached the corner of the alley to watch for the return of the garm. When I was certain the way was clear, I made a mad dash for the fountain. I dropped to my knees before the burbling water garden and dunked my entire face directly into it.

The water against my dry, cracked lips was bliss. I drank exuberantly, slurping and sipping, sucking it down until my throat was soothed and my body felt full. I refilled the water sacks and my canteen quickly, then I dropped my braid into the fountain, letting it soak the back of my neck, darkening the bronze strands.

A whimper parted my lips, the relief was so sweet. Gray magic warmed my chest, revived by my lifting spirits, replenishing some of my lost energy.

A sharp warning whistle cut through the air.

I burst upright, wet braid whipping over my shoulder. Dagger at the ready, I launched to my feet. I expected to find the garm scuttling toward me, but no. What came for me was so much worse.