Page 38 of The Crow Games

My power didn’t come from any element. It flowed from my god-born spirit. “I’m not a reaper. I don’t belong to the Old One.”

“I know that. I just want to understand you. I need to learn your ways.” His pause came with a lingering exhale. “I need your help.”

I stopped then, sliding to a halt in loose gravel, surprised by the admission. “Help with what?”

“Keep answering my questions, stop plotting my demise, and I’ll tell you.”

Chapter 9

“The sea is a hungry creature made by a hungry god.”– Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist

Icaught up with my coven near the edge of the forested park. The maze ended and the tower was close at hand. We took turns pushing an exhausted Ruchel in the wheelbarrow.

When my turn ended, I kept my distance from the group. We marched through rows of linden trees, the black lake on our right. The skies were starting to darken, the unnatural light fading to gray. We’d taken too long fighting through the maze.

Our pace quickened.

Asher stayed near me, always letting me know he was close with a brush of misty shadow against my shoulder or cheek. In the heat, with the forest filling with frightful movements, I didn’t mind him near. He drilled me with questions, unraveling the aspects of my life I was willing to share.

“Your father was a god?” he clarified, his voice a cautious murmur in my ear.

“The god of travelers,” I whispered.

“I’m not familiar with him. I mean no disrespect. I just know very little about the gods who live in the Upper Realm. They don’t often visit here.”

“That’s all right. Except for a few legends, I don’t know anything about the Otherworld, and my father doesn’t matter. He never stays in one place long enough to be worth remembering. You can disrespect him all you like.” None of these inquiries revealed his motivation for the interrogation. On that front, I was growing impatient.

“Mind you, I don’t doubt that you’ve god blood,” Asher muttered in my ear, like he was thinking through an equation with a solution he couldn’t solve for. “You’re too powerful to be anything else. And yet I sense no divinity in you. Not even a drop.”

I’d already answered all of this. His incessant questioning was going in circles now. “How is any of this supposed to help you?”

He went quiet for so long I thought he’d gone, then another silky brush of magic tickled my neck. “You did something I’ve never seen done before. Something I was convinced was impossible. Now that I know it can be done, I’m hoping I might be able to do the same.”

I stopped and searched for him in his darkness. Billowing night curled around me, grazing my hip, but I found him where it pooled darkest. I couldn’t see him, but I sensed the intensity of his gaze there. “What did I do?”

“You ripped a hole into the Otherworld. You even made it look easy. Ripped the roof right off and came in with your spirit. I seek to do something similar.”

“But you’re a crow. What do you need a hole to the Upper Realm for? There isn’t anywhere in any realm you can’t go. Your kind bounces from shade to shade with a thought. You . . .”

His shadows shifted, the movements uneasy. “That’s true for most reapers. But I cannot leave the Otherworld.”

My eyes went wide. “You’re a prisoner here.”

“I am,” he confessed. “I’m a traitor. Not a spy.”

A traitor? Unless he was lying to me—and that certainly was still on the table—that changed everything. I’d thought we were on opposite sides, but if we both just wanted freedom, the possibilities were endless. “Which god did you betray?”

“All of them.”

A thrill shot through me. “How?”

Though it shouldn’t have been feasible, his shadows grew darker, colder. “The gods think of reapers as servants. Glorified messengers with no concern for where they send us or how we’ll be treated once we get there. They force us into the center of their disagreements and care not if we’re hurt for it.”

“That sounds exactly like them,” I admitted. Crows weren’t known for telling lies, but that mattered little. They weren’t well-known period. Especially not in the Upper Realm. As tempting as it was to believe him, I was no fool. He’d have to prove himself first.

“I grew tired of their indifference,” he said, “and stopped doing as I was asked. Now the Otherworld is not my home. It’s my prison.”

A thousand more questions flooded my mind at once. It was difficult to pick which to voice next, though none weighed heavier than this: If the gods were his enemy as well as mine, then what did that make us?

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