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“Only the worthy one who sits upon the crow throne shall rule the Otherworld.” – Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

T he crow perched on the fountain’s stone edge, arms folded over his wide chest. Crystalline rivers cascaded around his boots, creating ripples in the water garden below. He cast a formidable shadow, the shade so dark and gloomy it was as if a funeral pall had been thrown over me. I could smell him: woodsy leather, salty sand, and the sweet, tart tang of powerful magic.

I reached for the revolver at my waist.

“Don’t,” he warned, and my fingers stilled. His low baritone struck parts of my ears I wasn’t certain I’d ever used before.

Spite kept me from cowering, but it was a healthy fear that stopped me from attacking. Followed swiftly by an unhealthy terror that rooted my feet in place. A bullet was a poor weapon compared to a crow’s death magic, a wilted flower against a broadsword.

“If you have something to say to me, spy, then say it.” I spoke with a strength I didn’t feel in my heart.

His dark gaze sharpened under his midnight hood. “What are you?”

The question threw me off-balance. I blinked at him, fingers flexing around the hilt of my dagger. “I’m a prisoner here. A witch.”

Wasn’t that obvious?

He shook his head slowly, and strands of snowy hair fell across his brow, catching in his pale lashes. “The women you travel with are witches. But you . . . ? You’re trouble.”

I swallowed hard. Could the crow sense my gray magic with those piercing eyes of his? At full alert, my spirit stirred under my skin, pressing at the cage of my ribs.

“But I am a witch,” I insisted, my voice shrinking in my throat.

“Why did you come to the Otherworld, Trouble?” He stepped down off the fountain. His shadows billowed under him, lifting him above the pool so that he glided over the water’s edge.

I slid back a step, but his shadows pursued me. They crawled out from under his tall boots. Rippling like waves, the darkness lapped at the sand, drying out the earth until it hardened and cracked. It stopped just short of touching the tips of my feet. My spirit filled me to bursting, pressing against the barrier of my skin, wanting to push back at the threat of his nearing magic.

I lowered my dagger and straightened out of a fighting crouch. “If you want to know how I got here, go ask your god.”

“We know how you reached the train,” he growled. “What we don’t understand is why you breached the Otherworld in the first place.”

Then I was right. He was a spy gathering information for Death, not another contestant in the trials. My jaw clenched. “What I did before . . . I wasn’t myself. That assault wasn’t meant for your maker. He just . . . I only intended to pass through his realm. He didn’t need to damn me to this place. I’m willing to make reparations for the trespass.”

He scoffed. “That was more than a trespass. Be honest now. What would you have done if an intruder had ripped the roof off your home, then attacked you?”

Honestly? I would have pointed my revolver at their face and pulled the trigger. If Lisbeth had still been alive, I’d have squeezed the trigger a time or two more, just in case.

“I wasn’t myself.” The explanation felt even weaker the second time around. I rubbed at the space high on my abdomen, remembering how the god fire had burned behind my ribs, how it had fueled my fury.

“Which brings me back to my first question,” he rumbled, glancing down at the amulet hanging around my neck. “Besides trouble, what are you?” His dark eyes roved over me, not entirely black. Flecks of browns and cerulean blues fed into that bottomless darkness, the hue so deep I couldn’t find his pupils.

Gooseflesh prickled my skin.

“Are you going to kill me?” If it came to a fight, I wouldn’t make it easy for him. He’d find my soul particularly difficult to collect.

His shadows pulled back, suddenly reluctant, but his expression remained stony. His head cocked to the side, a raptor considering its prey. “We haven’t decided yet.”

“Would your god accept reparations? Would you tell him that I’m sorry?” It was a long shot, I knew. “Truly, it was not Death I was after. Not his home either. I was trying to get at Hel and the garm who wronged me.”

“Reparations?” His lip twitched. “But that’s exactly what this place is. Justice for the crime you committed against the Old One.”

My spirit shrank into my gut. Gray magic tightened my stomach, tugging my lips down into a deep frown. “Look around you. This place will kill me. What justice is there to be had in that?”

“But you’re not dead,” he said flatly, his expression impossible to read. If he decided to attack me, I wouldn’t see it coming. He was too stoic. “You should be grateful.”

“Perhaps it’s your god who should be grateful. If I had been after him, I would have . . .” My words fell away. Haughty, empty threats wouldn’t save me. I let out a slow breath, caging my temper. “Well then, if and when you do decide to kill me, you know where to find me.”

I sheathed my dagger in my waistband. The reaper watched me gather the water sacks into my satchel, motionless and silent. His shadows rippled and rolled beneath him, an angry black ocean crashing against pale, indifferent stone. I put my back to him, a grave insult to those of us old enough to know better, but he didn’t protest the gesture.

His shadows crept after me again, keeping close but never touching. My spirit was frenzied inside me at its nearness. His magical pursuit stopped as I rounded a corner into the alley. I reached the rubbish bins, and my spirit shrank inside me.

Nola and Ruchel were gone.

I couldn’t blame them—they’d warned me—but my heart pinched anyway. I checked high and low to make sure the spy wasn’t following, then I retraced our earlier path back to the main road, the most direct route to the clock tower. Without a guide, it was my best chance of not getting lost out here.

A whistle cut through the wind at my back. My head snapped side to side, looking for its source.

“Maven!” Ruchel hissed.

I spotted the taller Nola first, peeking around the doorframe of a stout building with a glass front, and I let out a breath. They waved me over. I jogged to them, my heart and steps lighter.

Ruchel hugged me around the neck, the gesture so warm and welcome I held on to her, stealing an extra moment of comfort.

“Did the crow follow you?” Nola demanded.

“I don’t think so, but it’s hard to be sure. There are plenty of shadows about for him to hide in.” I handed Ruchel her water. “Just out of curiosity, how many times did Nola suggest you leave me behind?”

The soldier snorted.

Ruchel’s grin went crooked. “Only twice. You must really be growing on her.”

“Just keep moving, you two,” Nola huffed. “No more delays. We’ve been lucky so far, but Hel beasts will awake in larger numbers the closer it gets to nightfall, and there are too many warlocks sniffing about as is.”

We set off at a brisk walk, keeping close to the buildings and the cooler shade they cast.

“What did the crow want with you?” Ruchel asked, lowering her voice as though speaking too loudly might summon him.

I could have told her I didn’t know. Omitted the truth. I could have avoided lying to the mind witch by remaining vague, but meeting her eager ochre gaze, I no longer wanted to hide parts of myself. I’d lived like that for years with Lisbeth, and look where it had gotten us. If we were ever to become a proper unit, a real coven determined to win Death’s games, we had to have trust. We had to be true to each other.

“The crow is here to spy on me because I tried to kill his god,” I confessed.

Nola had her sack uncapped and at her lips when she stumbled and choked. She coughed out a chortle, water dribbling down the sides of her mouth. Ruchel’s burst of laughter carried on the air. Their mirth stoked the smoldering ember of my spirit energy into a healthy blaze.

“If you don’t want to tell us what really happened,” Nola said, wiping her chin dry, “next time just say so.”

“I don’t think she’s joking.” Ruchel’s bright smile faded. “Crone take you. You really tried to kill the Old One, didn’t you? What would possess a person?”

Nola’s cobalt eyes went wide. “Are you mad? For the Crone’s sake, he’s the god of death .”

“I am a little mad, I think.” My boots crunched over loose stones and hot earth. My toes were rubbing a hole into my stocking. “I’d just lost my sister to a garm. I worked a wild spell trying to get at the one who’d hurt her. Death got in my way . . . Now here I am.”

Ruchel laid a hand on my shoulder, the touch light and soothing.

“Fucking gods,” Nola muttered. “I understand the impulse, mad as it is. Thirteen months ago, my outpost was attacked by an overwhelming force of Sebrak Nationals. It was our job to keep a village out of harm’s way during the conflict, but the Nationals surprised us in the night. I barely made it out of the encampment in one piece. I could hear them then, all the suffering and dying. That sound doesn’t leave you. It sticks to your bones and clings in your ears. And then I too cast up a wild spell. At least the villagers would survive, I thought, even if the rest of us wouldn’t.”

Nola kept her eyes ahead as she spoke. Her tone was unfeeling, but her expression sharpened, jaw hardening. Her fingers dug into the leather of her water sack.

“And that’s how you ended up here?” I guessed. “All those dead soldiers?”

Her laugh was short and breathy and bitter. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? That’s what I assumed when I was suddenly out of the cold and on a fucking bone train. The goddess Irmina loves soldiers. Surely it was her who thought it unsporting of me to murder so many with brutal flame. But no. The sigil burned on the door of my sleeper car was the goddess Elke’s great linden tree.”

“Hang it all,” I groaned sympathetically.

“Your lips to their divine ears,” she rasped, voice gone throaty. “The gods don’t care when we slaughter each other. They don’t lift a finger when the innocent die or the resources don’t stretch far enough to help the desperate. But how dare I scorch a few trees trying to protect a village full of war widows and school children.”

“Fucking gods,” I said.

Ruchel went oddly quiet. I caught her staring at me, studying the amulet around my neck. I wanted to ask for her story but sensed the question wouldn’t be welcome.

The lunch hour came and went. We marched on, stopping at a dry goods store that had already been looted, searching for scraps. A small canvas bag of salt was the only item of value I managed to scrounge. As versatile as the substance was, I hoped it would make a decent god gift at the end of this trial.

Ruchel did much better, her instincts leading her straight to an overturned basket with two dented tins of packed biscuits hidden inside. She shared them with us. Nola ate hers greedily, food being the preferred method red witches used to replenish their energy.

I used the empty tins to safely store my new salt, and I carried my biscuits in my satchel for later. The relentless heat had soured my stomach.

Buildings grew fewer and farther apart, this area of the city dominated by a forested park. An earthen path shrouded in trees guided us around a large lake. From the cover of shade, the water appeared black under a citrine sky. Dark waves lapped against the bank. The image reminded me of the crow spy, and I peered over my shoulder, suddenly suspicious of every hovering shadow.

We stopped to rest at a collection of caves that jutted out from a gravel shore. Nola rinsed the sweat from her face and neck, hunched near the dark waters. I found an overturned log to rest upon.

“Not there!” Ruchel shouted a moment too late.

I crashed through the rotted wood, and tiny Hel beasts came pouring out of its base. No bigger than pixies, their fingers were full of needly claws, their feet talons. Blue manes wrapped their sharp little faces. Iridescent wings buzzed furiously.

They set upon me in a swarm, and all at once they buried claws and talons into my arms and legs. I screamed.

Nola breathed out a ball of flame and cast it at the creatures. Fire caught in the overhanging canopy of a spruce tree, and the tiny garm scattered. Ruchel rescued me, yanking me to my feet out of the wood splinters. One of the flying creatures dug a barbed talon into her cheek. Yelping, she swatted the garm down. Black smoke billowed, the fire spreading.

The buzz of angry beating wings grew to a roaring drone. Darting beasts gathered en masse to circle back between the trees.

“Get in the water,” Ruchel shouted, sprinting for the lake.

Nola hit the waves first. I dove in behind her.

I wasn’t much of a swimmer, but the cold against hot, stinging skin was an instant relief. We cut across the lake, searching for a new path to follow, and—thank the Crone—the beasts gave up on us. They swarmed in the air between the lake and fire, spitting water on the blaze, fighting to save what remained of their home.

Ruchel and Nola floated their heavy packs beside them as they swam. The water was shallow, or my satchel would have sunk me. Wading along behind them, I stubbed my toe on a rock and repressed a groan.

Nola outpaced us with her longer strokes. We slowed when Ruchel spotted a new road through the park. Blood oozed from the small punctures in my arms, clouding the water around me.

“Out of the lake!” Ruchel screamed, her punctured cheek so swollen it slurred her words.

We thrashed furiously toward the shore. When I hit the bank, the silt swallowed up my right boot. Ruchel and Nola tossed their packs onto the grass and sprinted to my side.

“Leave me—I’m right behind you,” I told them, but they ignored me.

Ruchel slid under my arm, bracing me with her shoulders. Nola grabbed me up around the waist and hoisted me. The pull stretched my foot at an odd angle, and I cried out. Together they ripped me out of the muck. I limped after them as fast as my strained ankle would allow.

We hid in the foliage strung between moss-covered oak trees, waiting out the threat that had Ruchel on edge. Waterlogged, I dripped all over. I used a stick to scrape off the sludge weighing down my right foot. My aching ankle puffed up, pressing against the lip of my boot.

Something heavy moved through the trees off in the distance, ruffling leaves and snapping branches. Birds stopped singing. With great caution, I leaned my weight against a slippery, lichen-coated trunk, filling my lungs with the earthy scent of silt and loam. My heartrate slowed to a steady patter as the sounds of movement trailed away. The big creature moved on, none the wiser. The birds sang to one another in the trees.

Large bubbles broke the surface of the dark lake, and my pulse surged. A blue scaled face, eyes yellow and deep-set, peeked out between the ripples. I shivered knowing the water devil—a type of garm—was making a meal of the blood I’d left behind. The creature patrolled the shore not far from us, but it made no effort to pursue.

We retreated to the edge of the park. The nearby buildings were cobbled together with crude stone columns and broad archways. Wet trousers made the chafing at my thighs worse, forcing me to walk with a wide gait. We marched on until the earthen path turned to pavers and my boots and clothes were almost dry again.

My limp slowed us, but we still made it to the clock tower with three hours to spare.

The street was clear. We rested on the stone steps of a great library dedicated to Alwin, just outside the entrance to the tower. A larger coven of witches had taken shelter inside the atrium of the library. They paid us no mind, and we did the same.

The clock was so large, I could hear it ticking above us. Images of the gods in their giant forms were etched into the tower’s dark stone facade.

“Are you hurt?” Ruchel asked.

“The bleeding’s stopped,” I told her. I rolled the sleeves of my shirtwaist up to my elbows. Blisters dotted my arms from the stingers, but none of my shallow injuries seemed worth fussing over.

Ruchel wasn’t so lucky. Her cheek had only gotten worse, now puffy and pink.

I gave Nola the damp biscuits from my satchel, payment for saving me with her red magic. She munched on them enthusiastically, replenishing some of her spent energy. I wiped down my revolver and pocket pistol thoroughly.

Nola and Ruchel emptied their heavy packs, laying out items to dry in the heat. Most of what Nola carried were weapons: daggers, throwing knives, and hatchets. The blanket in my satchel would need to be left behind. It had already started to mold and would be worthless even cut into bandages, but the salt had been spared from the lake by the tins. I kicked my boots off, checking on my torn stockings. The skin was rubbed raw in patches across the tops of my toes.

Ruchel saw the state of my feet and handed me woolen socks from her stash.

“I don’t want to take things from you,” I said, shaking my head. “Keep them. You’ll need them soon enough.”

“Shut your trap, duck,” Nola ordered. “People die out here when they don’t take care of their feet. Good socks are better than gold in Wulfram. Put them on. Now.”

“We’ll find more,” Ruchel reassured me, pushing the set into my arms.

I pulled them on. They were damp but soft. Emotion burned in my throat, the gesture so considerate that it stung me. I was supposed to be proving that I was worth keeping around, and it didn’t feel like I’d done that at all. I wiped at my wet eyes, grateful when neither of my companions commented on the tears I couldn’t stifle. I was too tired to check my grief, too weak and wrung out to conjure up a mental mortar and pestle.

I missed Lisbeth fiercely.

I miss you back, love , her voice said in my head.

Why are you dead? Who took you away from me, Lisbeth? Please just tell me, I begged.

You’ll figure it out. You always do, she said.

Her voice was one of my own making, but it made me cry anyway. I wept until my nose ran. Ruchel and Nola kept to themselves, quietly letting me get it out. Blubbering likely made me less desirable as a coven mate, but I couldn’t stop myself now that I’d started.

Memories of Lisbeth’s early years spun behind my wet lids. We’d had more time together than most, but now none of it was enough. It had passed by much too quickly. I wanted more. I needed it! I needed her! The gods couldn’t do this to me. I didn’t even know who I was anymore without Lisbeth.

I hated it here. I hated everywhere without her.

When the tears finally ceased, my head hurt, but there was a new clarity to my thoughts that hadn’t been there before. My spirit had revived, still pitiful compared to its usual state but replenished even more so than it had been at the start of the trial. In the distance, black smoke streamed up steadily from the trees, tarnishing the golden clouds to a dull bronze.

Nola chuckled. “Choke on that, Elke.”

When the quiet continued, I interrupted it with all the questions that had been whirling through my mind since my arrival. Finally, there was peace enough for me to take a breath and catch hold of some of them.

“When do the trials end and the ‘Crow Games’ start?” I asked.

Nola shrugged. “Your guess is as good as anyone’s.”

“According to Otherworld legend,” Ruchel said, testing the dampness of one of her violet scarves by rubbing it between her fingers, “the games will begin when the moon is finally full and the orb remains visible in the sky during the day, the seas drain, the desert fills with water, and blood rains from the clouds. Then the war for the throne begins.”

I scoffed. “Well, at least there’s no chance we’ll miss it.”

Nola chuckled, but Ruchel appeared pensive, shifting her weight against the stone step, her expression unsettled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Ruchel shook her head. “Those same legends swear the gods feast every night with the damned so that they might choose their favored amongst them and shower them with treasures. It’s all nonsense.”

“We’ve been waiting for this war to start for months now,” Nola said. “It gets to you after a while—that sense of hurrying up to wait for what’s next. It starts to press you flat and test your mind.”

“I don’t look forward to it,” I said with a sigh. “And there are seven trials?”

Nola nodded. “Each trial takes place here in Wulfram but in a different district. The goal stays the same. We have to reach the center of the city and that clock tower before the train leaves. Every trial is terrible,” she warned. “But stick with us and we’ll see you through them. Eventually we’ll introduce you to our other allies. It’s our job to recruit more to our side. Soon it’ll be your job too.”

“Until the sky rains blood,” I said broodily.

I didn’t want to just wait around for the games to start, like another plaything for the gods. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past the divines that these Crow Games were a hoax of some sort. A means to make us all fight for their entertainment.

No, I wouldn’t be building a coven for war.

I would build a coven until we were powerful enough to escape the Otherworld together. I’d torn a hole in it once already. I could tear a way out of it, too. I just couldn’t do it alone. Then , once we were free, there was a guilty god to kill.

“Forget the gods and their games,” I told them. “I’m getting us out of here.”

Nola snorted.

“It’s a nice sentiment . . .” Ruchel started.

“It’s not an empty promise,” I said sternly. “I’m getting us out of the games. Out of the Otherworld.”

“Yes,” Nola said playfully. “Death can go suck an egg with Elke and her trees.”

She wasn’t being sincere, but that was all right. I’d prove myself capable just as soon as I had my bearings. Food and rest would go a long way to renew me. Then we could grow a coven so powerful, Death and his crows wouldn’t know what hit them.

They’d mentioned that sometimes the gods collected a gift at the end of the trials. If I could get my hands on another divine sigil, I could turn things around . . .

Our belongings were dry an hour later, and I was ready to travel again, renewed by the start of a plan formulating. A number of prisoners had entered the tower well ahead of us, but no one had interacted with us. We repacked our bags and headed for the archway. Inside, a stone tunnel lined in metal torches inclined steeply. The walls were decorated with engravings that depicted the gods in their animal and plant forms: Death’s crow, Nott’s black cat, Elke’s great linden tree . . .

In one startling image, the crow feasted on the stars in a vast night sky. According to a legend that reached even the Upper Realm, the Old One had devoured a sky full of stars before the god king Alrick had intervened, forcing him to the Otherworld.

My stomach chose then to rumble.

“Please tell me there will be food on the Schatten,” I begged.

“It won’t arrive for boarding until just before the thirteenth hour, but there will be food,” Ruchel promised.

Nola picked up the pace. “Excellent food! And the tracks are another safe place to wait for the train. Hel beasts are afraid of the Schatten and its reapers.”

The tunnel forked. Voices echoed up from the bottom of the incline. We slowed to a halt, leaving a yard between us and a coven of three huddled before a barrier of black stone.

“What do we do now?” the green witch asked. She was Lisbeth’s age, copper-gold hair tucked under a tall conical hat. The witch beside her with worn paper flowers sewn into her bodice had to be her younger sister, they were so similar, same pointed chin and dimples in both cheeks. The third was the blue witch I’d met that morning, the woman with the lovely silver-streaked hair who’d refused to trade names.

Blue shook her head, knocking together the baubles and amulets hanging around her neck. She carried a torch above her. It cast a long shadow across the floor. In her other hand, she held a forked branch water covens used as wands. “There’s only one thing we can do now . . .”

“Oi,” Nola called. “Why’s the barrier shut?”

The witches spun to face us. Blue lowered into a fighting crouch and brandished her wand like it was a sword. The older green sister grabbed a vial from her satchel and palmed it. The youngest readied a wooden baton.

“It was just a question,” Ruchel soothed. “We aren’t here to fight. Tell us what’s going on.”

“Not your allies, I take it,” I said.

“Actually, they are,” Ruchel whispered.

Well damn. With allies like these, who needed enemies?

“Path is blocked,” Blue retorted, wand still raised. “No one gets in or out unless Nott allows it.”

“Is the god demanding a gift?” Nola guessed.

I reached inside my satchel and touched the tin with my salt inside. Salt had a lot of value. It was such a versatile substance, especially for earth magic. If the Lord of Night and Mischief didn’t take that in exchange for lowering the barrier and giving us a blessing, I’d offer up the pocket pistol from my boot, though parting with it pained me. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The sisters shared a dark look. The youngest lowered her head, rubbing sheepishly at her arm.

“It’s not a gift they want,” Blue explained, lips pursed. “Nott brought his twin Mara, and they have a—”

A roar echoed up from the depths of the tunnel, the sound so violent it shook the walls. Torch flames flickered, the scent of sulfur tinged the air, and my heart leapt into my throat.