Page 66 of The Crow Games

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.

Chapter 15

“The God of the Sea didn’t see fit to fashion a proper spirit for the giants. He animated them with a half-soul easily turned to wickedness.”– Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

After the feast that night, we gathered as a coven in the lounge car. I took my sister’s pretty pocket pistol apart and wished I had a more efficient way to help renew my spirit. Movement in the shadows caught my peripheral view, and the scent of earthy leather and woodsy cedar filled my nose. I closed my eyes, relieved.

“Asher,” I whispered.

He was there a moment later, filling up the chair across from me, perfectly groomed, not a single snowy hair out of place. He set to putting the mess of pistol parts to rights, neatly ordering them.

“Trouble,” he greeted.

“Traitor,” I said fondly.

I was glad to see him, and it could have been my imagination, but the way his magic enthusiastically reached for me had me thinking that just maybe he was equally pleased. And that made me feel . . . things I’d rather not dwell on.

“News on Bram?” Ruchel demanded, lowering her book written by the first air coven. “His rotten tax at the clock tower is going to start off another war that will get us all killed.”

“Bram is not in the Otherworld currently,” he said. “I’ve been searching for him for days, and I’m certain of it. But it wasn’t all for nothing. I caught a conversation between his favorite lieutenants. The god king sent him to the Upper Realm on a mission. It’s unclear when he’ll return. When he comes back, he’s expected to have a massive number of new recruits with him, all sworn to him and Alrick. They’re hoping to overwhelm the red-hooded fools en masse.”

If Bram was the son of the god king, that put Alrick very high on the list of divine suspects responsible for Lisbeth’s death. Although, that would also put any god wanting to interfere with Alrick’s plotting to have his son on the crow throne high as well. I sighed. I needed to talk to Bram again, but with his abilities, I wasn’t certain how wise that was.

Darkness crept across the windows, the temperature dropped, lights flickered, and the lounge emptied.

“Is the Old One feeling curious again?” I asked, holding my ground out of defiance more than respect.

“No,” he said, his lip tugging up at the corner into a crooked grin that had no right to be so pretty. “That was me. I wanted to talk to you alone for a moment.”

Then he went quiet, staring at me in that way that made me feel seen through. Muscles low in my belly quivered.

The weight of his gaze pulled me from my project. I sat the frame of the pistol down. “What are you doing?”

“I got distracted trying to decide whether your eyes are brown or hazel.”

My stomach swooped. “What the devil for?”

“I don’t know.” A furrow deepened between his brows. “Seemed like an excellent use of my time.”

“No,” I said. Briefly my mind went blank before I settled on glaring at him. “You are not flirting with me.”

“Is that an observation or a command?”

“Both,” I ground out.

He raised an ashen brow at me. “Why am I not allowed to flirt with you?”

“Because . . . Because I . . .” I expected the words to come to me easily, but there I was, gaping like a suffocating fish. He was making me think of all those thoughts I’d rather not dwell on.

His grin grew, and my face heated.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, granting myself a reprieve from the bottomless black gaze that had distracted me from sense. I shook my head until something sprang loose. “It’s self-preservation, of course. How many times have you plotted my demise? How many times have I thought about yours?”

His lips quirked. “You thought about me?”

Speech failed me for the second time that day. I should have just given up, but we had much to discuss. He’d been gone ages, it felt like. I picked up the frame of the pocket pistol and momentarily forgot how to put it back together.

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