Page 46 of The Crow Games

“A recruitment tactic?” Emma guessed.

“They say he’s god-born,” Blue warned. Her flinty eyes flickered toward me. The gesture was subtle but as accusing as always. “It’s like I keep warning Talia: you can’t trust god blood, no matter how little they have. Mortals aren’t meant to wield such power. It corrupts them.”

“Power has corrupted the gods just as readily,” I said.

Ruchel saluted me with her cocktail in agreement, and I wondered, not for the first time, what had been done to this once devoted scribe of Alrick to make her abandon all the gods.

I tipped my drink back into my throat, letting the gin burn its way down before I continued. “I take your point, though, Blue. We can’t trust him.”

“But Bram is promising freedom from the games,” Emma said. She took her sister’s hand from beside her in the cushioned chair they were sharing, and she squeezed it. “How could we turn that down?”

“He’s offering Maven freedom. Who knows what he’d do to the rest of us? And even if that promise wasn’t a lie, it’s a hexen relic we’re talking about,” Nola said, grimacing. “I want my freedom as much as the next witch—but at what cost?”

“Ruchel,” I said, “you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”

She swirled her short glass. Gaslight danced along the rim.

“Ruchel?” I asked after the silence grew long.

Nola hushed me. “Let her think it through. It’s best not to interrupt her when she’s like this.”

So we waited.

“We can’t trust him,” Ruchel said finally. “When we saw him at the market, he felt trustworthy—too trustworthy. No one is that true. Everyone holds something back. But if we don’t try for the hexen book, he’ll get it another way. It’s only a matter of time with people like him. Best way to ensure he doesn’t have it is we secure it ourselves. For us.”

“But we can’t use relics,” Nola pointed out.

“We can’t.” Ruchel tipped her glass toward the corner of the room, where Asher leaned against the wall so still and silent he’d been forgotten. “But he can. Is that what you were thinking about, Asher? The more you’re around, the easier it’s becoming to read you.”

All eyes fell on him at once. His spine pulled up straight as a post.

“Can reapers use relics?” I asked him. He could sense them. He’d identified the divinity in Bram’s circlet. If he could detect them, it stood to reason that he could use them just as warlocks could.

“I’m worried I shouldn’t,” he said, his words measured. “If I tried, I might simply smother the magic and kill the relic.”

Blue spoke up next. “There is one warlock I trust.”

“Youtrustsomeone?” Nola teased.

Blue pointed her middle finger up at her fondly. Instead of gin, she drank tea flavored with lemon, her favorite for replenishing her energy. “She would meet with us if I asked, but this warlock is a survivor. We would need to make it worth her while to help us.”

“Freedom isn’t enough?” Liesel chimed in. “We could get out of here if we’re successful. She could come with us.”

“She’ll want assurance that we’ll make it worth her while even if it doesn’t work out,” Blue explained.

My hand dropped to my chest where my amulet hung beneath my shirtwaist, a powerful god-made relic no warlock could say no to. I fingered the engraving through the linen. “I can make it worth her while. If you set up the meeting, I’ll help convince her. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We don’t even have the book yet.”

Drink won the night. Even Blue was seduced into partaking. Nola kept our glasses full and potent. Grudges and worries were forgotten, and laughter came easily. Even mousy Liesel spoke unabashedly at Asher, telling detailed stories about the pet serpents she kept in her gardens in the Upper Realm.

Emma took the empty chair beside me then, and her stern expression was immediate confirmation that notallworries were forgotten. “Have I told you yet,” she said, “how Liesel and I came to be on the train?”

“No,” I said cautiously. Emma did her best to avoid me, but I bit my tongue instead of pointing that out.

Her blue eyes were glassy from drink, and her neck was flushed. “Liesel stole a cow from a neighboring blacksmith. The family was devoted to the god Hilt. It was his hammer on the ceiling of our sleeper car when we arrived.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said, uncertain where this conversation was headed.

“I wasn’t looking for sympathy.” Emma crossed one leg over the other. The knees of her trousers were heavily stained. “You see, Liesel is so sweet she couldn’t stand watching an animal be poorly cared for, even if they were only being raised to be eaten. She stole the cow to treat the beast better.”

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