Page 73 of The Crow Games

“I have to get rid of this water guardian before Unger realizes what I’ve done. He’s already harassing the train with his giants. This will push him over the edge and kick off the games before anyone wants it. The reapers and I have been trying to slow the gods down, stop them from full-on attacking each other. Unger favors guardians. A dead one will undermine all of that,” he said, and though he remained stoic, his shadows moved in panicked waves, jerking this way and that. I hesitated, too many questions overcrowding my mind. “Go,” he urged.

I was on my feet seconds later, rushing back through the trees. If he said I should go, then I should go. I couldn’t trust my own thoughts just then. Intrusive feelings more complicated than gratitude blossomed there beside my heart, things I couldn’t parse or make sense of. Feelings that only made me even more tired and confused.

When I reached the clock tower, my socks had dried in my boots and my hair no longer dripped. The Guardian force had doubled, and some of my rage had dried up and gone hollow. The energy to feel anything but exhaustion had been sapped from me by heat and grief, feet that ached, muscles that had gone rubbery, and the shock of almost dying again and again. I was overly aware of every noise and sudden movement.

A witch I recognized from the train waved at me, and I nearly pulled my revolver on her. Every columned building was full of uniformed soldiers, the same warring bastards who’d angered the beast and caused Liesel’s death with their nonsense fighting. A bustling market lined the pavers, one growing even more elaborate than the market within the maze.

I pushed through the crowd and ignored the line, eager to be far away from them all.

“That’s her.” The voice belonged to the green warlock I’d once held a knife to, the new commander.

Two bulky Guardians headed me off, forcing me to the side of the clock tower. They patted me down. I was not cooperative. I threatened to rip their faces off and eat their tongues. Sparks of gray leaked from my fingertips, but these warlocks didn’t know magic as intimately as I did. They wouldn’t see it.

They shoved my cheek against the stone and made me bite my lip. When I fought back, they dragged me to the dirt, pinned me there, and stole my boots.

“Give them back!” I reached for the right one, the one hiding Lisbeth’s pistol, the only thing I had left of her.

Commander Aiden the Green fished inside the fur lining and pulled the pocket pistol out. It looked small in his larger hand. “Right where he said it would be.”

The guardians that held me down chuckled.

The commander shook the pistol in my face. “The high warlock says if you want this back, you have to come and ask him for it.”

Bram had returned to the Otherworld. That explained the surge of new bodies.

“You tell Bram he doesnotwant me to come for him. The witches in my coven are more fearsome than any nightmare creature, and we do not take prisoners. That’s the only warning you’ll get, sir.” My nostrils flared and my fingers bunched into fists so tight my hands ached. “He thinks he wants us to come for him. He doesn’t. You tell him I said that.”

They sent me down into the tunnels in my socks. My feet were damp again before I reached the train.

I found the others waiting for me in the lounge.

“Where is . . . ?” Nola started to ask, then she took in my face, my missing boots, my torn brow and cut palm, and she knew. Her face fell.

“Fuck,” Ruchel breathed, falling into the cushioned chair.

Blue’s chin trembled. “But you’re alive,” she said accusingly. “You lived again somehow. You—”

Nola caught her by the back of her torn dress and spun her. Ruchel was out of her chair, her arm around Blue’s shoulders a second later.

But Blue was right. It should have been me. I knew that. I couldn’t even argue with her. I belonged in the games, not Liesel. I’d even promised Emma, and now I’d broken that promise . . .

“We need to talk,” Ruchel said, ushering Blue down the aisle. “This conversation is long overdue.”

Nola fell in on Blue’s other side, stopping her from pulling away. Ruchel sent a fleeting look full of regret over her shoulder, and then they were gone. I was alone with nothing but my own feelings of loss for company.

I collapsed into a padded chair. My socks were filthy. I swiped at my brow, and my fingers came away bloody, but I barely felt any of it. My small injuries were nothing to the gaping wound in my soul.

“I wish you were here,” I told Lisbeth, uncertain she could hear me. I liked to think she could, but sometimes it just felt like my words were bouncing off the walls for no one.

Her voice didn’t respond. For once, I didn’t know what she’d say to me.

I wanted to fight back at the Otherworld, but the will left my body in a rush of weakening limbs. I was too depleted. Too lost. Too heartbroken. I sunk in my seat. I couldn’t save them. I’d had all the gray I needed, and I couldn’t save any of them.

I had been the goddess of magic, but I couldn’t do a thing. What was the point of so much might if I couldn’t use it to protect anyone who mattered to me?

The car filled with cool magic and dark shadows. Asher loomed over me, blocking out the light with his shade. He was clean and dry, his hair pulled back. Cold coursed through my veins, and my breaths came in shallow rasps. In my mind’s eye, Lisbeth lay on the floor in a broken heap in the shop we loved, her brown gaze open but not seeing.

And then Lisbeth was poor sweet Liesel, her limp arm jutting out from beneath the tree that had claimed her. Then Emma, her body torn, her teeth pink with her own blood . . .

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