Page 28 of The Crow Games

Nola’s responding bark of mirth lifted my spirits.

But Ruchel wasn’t laughing. Her easy smile was gone. “I don’t often agree with Blue, but there’s one thing she likes to say that always rings true: Hope is a dangerous business, and it doesn’t belong in the Otherworld. It’ll get you killed here just as swiftly as having too kind a heart.”

It broke something in me to think of all she’d endured as a prisoner to believe such a thing. It broke me even more that there were parts of me that found the sentiment relatable. “Ruchel, I won’t—”

“I’ll do it. I’ll use you,” she said. Her lips pursed, and a muscle jumped in her cheek. “At this point, I’ll use everyone I’ve got to if it keeps me out of the dirt. That’s the only true choice any of us have left down here. Live or die.”

Ruchel ordered us not to share the revelation of my true nature with the others. She felt they weren’t ready for it, and I agreed. She was also worried that if news spread I was a gray, the established covens would either wish to recruit me by ruthless means or wish to annihilate us all immediately to quell the threat I posed. I would need to be careful in the trials.

In more detail, I told them how I had earned my place in the games. And I explained why they shouldn’t surprise me in the night with blades anymore. It wasn’t my intention to add to Ruchel’s discomfort with what I was capable of, but it needed to be said.

“I’m out of practice,” I confessed, and Ruchel’s face fell. Nola looked a bit green around the gills. “I’ve been in hiding a long time, but I’ll get better. I’ll have more control again eventually. Be patient with me and keep your blades to yourselves in the meantime. That goes double for you, Winola.”

* * *

When I woke again, false light shone in around the curtains. I’d made a mess in my compartment searching through the luggage before bed, but all of that was gone now. Curious, I went looking through a chest and found all-new items that hadn’t been there before, items worth adding to my satchel. The fresh shirtwaist was my favorite find, even if the linen was a cream color that would show every stain.

I pulled back the curtains and gasped at the sight before me. Giants as tall as trees walked the sandy dunes dressed in leathers and moss-covered furs. Great cloaked crows swooped around them, herding them away from the train and back toward the desert. The way their magic billowed and moved, the reapers looked just like massive black birds.

A coven of green witches bartered with others for goods in a dining car just beyond the sleeper cabins. Boots and fresh linens exchanged hands. Then a fight broke out between two men over a pair of socks, one a horned beast-born and the other a blue witch wearing a water amulet. Fists were thrown. Revenants swarmed the car, and I was shoved against a wall in the panic. Witches took refuge beneath the tables.

The aggressor who’d thrown the first punch was dragged kicking toward the exit by the faceless attendants. He grunted and bellowed and thrashed. The bone doors opened wide, hot sandy wind whipped against my face, and the water witch was thrown from the moving train. I watched out the window as we sped by, his body suddenly a speck in the distant sand.

While the blood was still pounding in my ears, the green witches went right back to bartering. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my throat, but the others were unfazed.

Was this my future? This indifference?

Prisoners gathered with their covens in various cabins, eating what had been left out from the feast the night before. I found my coven bickering in the last dining car and knew immediately I had been the topic of the spat. Whatever story Nola had invented to cover for me regarding my battle with the beast must not have been well-received.

“Hold your noise,” Ruchel ordered the group, and a reluctant silence fell.

Young Liesel made a hasty retreat into the lounge. Nola sent me a reassuring wink, then went after her. Emma bristled at my nearness, but she was too busy reapplying a garlic and oil poultice to Ruchel’s swollen cheek to escape me. The puncture had worsened in the night.

Blue emptied a glass of water into the nearest pitcher and held it out toward Ruchel. “Go piss in this and bring it back to me.”

Ruchel blinked at her. The blood vessels around her injury had burst, dotting her cool brown skin in burgundy splotches. “You want me to what?”

“Are you being thick-headed or is there something wrong with your ears too?” Blue shook the glass at her. “I need to read your urine. Go relieve yourself into that cup. The more piss, the better.”

Emma rubbed the last of the pulpy mixture onto the wound, then cleaned between her fingers with a cloth napkin. “Leisel and I were in training to become midwives before all this mess. I can help you, but I need to know if the poultice is working. Perhaps you need different ingredients.”

“And we need to know if you’re going to drop dead anyway and we’re just wasting our resources,” Blue said flatly. She acknowledged me then with a sidelong look. “You were attacked too by the garm pests, weren’t you? I saw your arms yesterday.”

I plucked at the sleeve of my new shirtwaist and shuffled my feet. “I was, but I’m not having the same reaction. I wasn’t hurt as deeply, I suppose.”

God blood likely had more to do with it. I didn’t age. I healed quickly and was rarely ill. The limp from my injured ankle was already gone. I pretended to favor it when I thought they were staring.

She sniffed at me scornfully. “Hm. You were stung several more times, but you’re not sick. That’s just more good luck, though, I suppose.”

“Blue,” Ruchel groaned, “didn’t wejusttalk about how you weren’t going to be a cunt this morning?”

She lifted one sculpted silver eyebrow. “We did.”

“So why are you being a cunt, then?”

Blue shrugged her shoulders. “Better to be a cunt than a fool. Now go piss in this cup before I change my mind. Maybe I’ll save my energy for something more worth my while.”

Ruchel struggled to stand. I helped her back to her car so she could relieve herself privately. When she was finished, I carried the half-full glass back for her. Ruchel shambled behind me weakly. It took her ages to reclaim her chair.

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