Page 37 of The Crow Games

I didn’t know how he did it, and I didn’t care. Lisbeth accidentally revealed herself to an ambitious warlock, and that same night she was dead. That wasn’t a coincidence. My hands made fists that shook. Revenge was mine, and it demanded I act now, ask questions later. Rage made me feel as powerful as if I still had god magic burning in my chest.

Go make him spit blood, Lisbeth’s voice said in my head, and that sounded like an absolutely brilliant idea.

Bram was gone as quickly as I had spotted him, swallowed up by the crowd, but I’d seen enough. That was undoubtedly him dressed in silks, surrounded by desperate people who had nothing, being fawned over by a starry-eyed coven.

I pushed what magic I had into my hands until my fingers went gray, and I reached for my dagger.

Nola grabbed my elbow. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to go shove my hands inside his chest and demand a few answers,” I said coldly. Smoky death magic wound anxiously around my sleeves, darkening my dirty clothing. “I’ll make him confess his crimes in front of all of his followers—the ones that don’t flee in fright at the sight of a gray. Then he’ll shout my sister’s name, beg her for forgiveness, before I cut his tongue out. Just as a start.”

Nola jerked my elbow, rattling me until I let go of my dagger. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt us.”

I blinked at her, my vision red-tinged and narrowing. “Get the others and go. I’ll wait until you’re gone.”

She pulled me closer. “You promised you didn’t have god ambition.” Her voice broke.

“That’s not what I’m—”

“If you attack him here and now,” she whispered, her breath warming the shell of my ear, “the Guardians will come for all of us. Then you’re just another one of the weeds that crops up down here. Another powerful bastard who starts a war no one wins.”

“Nola—”

“Was I wrong about you? Are you one of them?” She pulled away from me and adjusted her belt, tucking her shirt in where it had lifted, her movements curt. “It’s your move now, ducky. Either way, I’m getting the others and leaving here. I hope you find your senses and come too. I hope I wasn’t wrong about you.”

I watched her push through the crowd, frozen. The fire in my chest had been smothered once again. My arms went inert at my sides.

Of course, I knew exactly the sort she was describing. Hadn’t I watched people with too much might sacrifice those beneath them to gain even more in the Upper Realm? Wasn’t that exactly who the gods I hated were? Too powerful to answer to anyone. Too selfish to be useful.

Asher’s magic touched the back of my neck, and a shiver cascaded down my spine. Muscles low in my belly trembled. The scent of woodsy leather hit my nose moments before I felt him whispering directly into my ear out of his darkness.

“Always so vicious,” he drawled. “I especially liked the bit about cutting out his tongue.”

“Bram is the one person in this realm I’d like to put a bullet in even more than I’d like to put another one in you,” I told him. There was no heat in my words, just truth.

A husky chuckle curled into my ear. “Should I be jealous?”

“There’s just so much I don’t understand,” I breathed, needing to get the anxious thoughts out no matter who my audience was. “I don’t even know where to begin. How is he here? Why did he pretend? How do I get at Bram now when he has such a massive coven?”

“What if I helped you get at him?” His darkness shifted behind me, moving so I heard him over the opposite shoulder. “I don’t kill, mind you. I meant that. I won’t be putting a bullet in him, but I could be helpful in other ways.”

“What ways?”

“You need information. I need information too. We could stop trying to get one over on the other and make a fair trade instead.”

“I don’t see that working out well.”

“You won’t know until you try. Come on, Trouble. You tell me something, and I’ll go and get you something useful as payment. A fair trade. No games.”

I bit my lip, trying to think out my options, but my mind wasn’t being helpful. It just kept replaying images of Lisbeth dead, the coppery scent of phantom blood stuck in my nose. Me with my hands shoved inside Bram’s chest and the world on fire all around us. “What do you want to know?”

“Why do you call yourself a witch?”

I scoffed. “Because I am one. Haven’t I answered this before?” I moved away from the stall, and Asher’s shade followed me out into the street, keeping me cool in the heat. I didn’t want to lose pace with my coven completely. I needed to catch up to them, but walking away from my new target made my feet heavier. It hurt me putting my back to Bram, leaving him behind.

What if someone else killed him before I could? Nola said coups were common in Wulfram. That would crush me.

“You’ve got more in common with me than you do the other witches,” Asher said. “You don’t age. Mortals change just a fraction all the time. You don’t, and I saw you touch that garm’s soul. You held it like only a ferrier can. Yet I sense no connection to the elements in you. Nothing that would explain such power.”

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