Page 6 of The Crow Games

I was aboard Death’s train, the Schatten, madeofthe deadforthe dead.

Bile burned the back of my throat. I used my hand to shield my eyes from the bright glow of the wall sconce, blinking until my gaze readjusted. My skin was clammy and paler than its usual sandy shade.

“Don’t panic,” I whispered to myself, but my body ignored the command. My heart took off at a mad gallop, and my skin pebbled and prickled.

There was blood on my clothes. Lisbeth’s blood. She was all over me.

I wanted to curl up and cling to the last of my sister’s essence. I’d sleep there and never wake. Rest forevermore. Let the Schatten carry me straight to the life after and whatever awaited me beyond its ethereal gates. But Lisbeth would hate me like this. She would shout at me for wallowing so shamelessly that I’d put myself in great danger. I could almost hear her voice, my memories of her were still so fresh and vivid.

Knock this off,she’d say.Pick your sorry self up right now. You’ve things to do.

She was right. There was a guilty god I needed to end and a murdering garm to rip apart. I couldn’t accomplish either of those things here.

I took in air through my nose and blew it out past dry, cracked lips, retraining my lungs to breathe normally again. When my thoughts tried to stray toward my grief, I imagined the pain inside me as the dark green herbs I worked with in the shop so often. I dumped my sadness into a mental mortar and crushed those sour feelings to smaller more manageable bits with an imaginary pestle, grinding my fist into my open palm.

Down and down, I stuffed my grief until the sinking sickness softened and all I felt was numb and hollow. I let the survival instincts I’d honed after years in hiding stitch me back together into something resembling composed. If I dwelled on Lisbeth even a little, I wouldn’t have the strength to avenge her.

You need a coven, the voice in my head said, sweet and crystal clear.

I needed off this train, and I couldn’t do that alone.

“Oi! Is anyone up there?” I asked, voice weak and small like I hadn’t used it in ages. I prodded at the bunk above me with my boot.

No one responded. I eased off the bed, rising slowly on legs that felt like pudding. I lifted onto my tiptoes to peer over the railing. The top bunk was disappointingly empty, no potential ally in sight. I dropped back down on my heels, deflated and alone.

A wooden plaque stretched across the ceiling.

“Judgment,” I read the single word aloud. “Well, fuck you and your judgment,” I ground out.

Headed for the window, I swayed on my feet like I was walking across the deck of a ship being tossed by the sea. I hadn’t yet found my equilibrium here. I pulled back the brocade curtains, and faint unnatural light poured inside. There was no sun in the sky, just a strange gilded glow interspersed with puffs of clouds.

A city blurred by, or the image of one did. The longer I stared at the brick and gabled buildings, the more alien and unreal they appeared. There was no life out there. No traffic on the streets, no carts or horses or pedestrians. A massive clockface sat inside a large central tower. Only, this clock had thirteen hours, not twelve. Whatever the train was circling, it wasn’t some peaceful cityscape. Wulfram, the ancient legends called it. A place of arbitration.

I shut the curtains.

The sliding door that separated my small sleeper cabin from the rest of the train had a fading mark melted into it. Shaped like Death’s crow, an oily sigil lingered from the divine magic used to bring me here.

My fingers scraped roughly across what remained of a dark wing. I didn’t dare grab for this power with my gray magic, remembering how easily Death’s essence had smothered me before. After it faded, I tried to turn the brass handle on the door, but it was locked.

“Hello?” I shouted, knocking my fist against the wood. “Is anyone out there?”

Where were the others awaiting judgment, the magic-rich people who had infuriated the gods as I had? How strange it was to spend so much of my time these last few years shoving people away as hard as I could. Now here I was, desperate for any one of them.

When no one replied, I gave up on the door and went searching through the luggage tucked under the bunk, looking for supplies. I didn’t know what would come next, but I wouldn’t be caught unprepared.

I braided my hair into a long plait to get it off my neck. Not sparing a thought for who owned what or where it all came from, I pulled out a traveler’s chest and found assorted clothing inside. Most of it was nonsense: lone stockings and shoes without a partner. The brown trousers I found were too long for me, but they would serve me better than my shop-wear.

I pulled off my thick skirt and the crinoline beneath it. After stepping into the trousers, I tucked the lengthy pantlegs down into my boots and adjusted suspenders over my shirtwaist to keep them in place. I’m short but hardy. Cut for a man, the fit was tight around my thighs, but the fabric was light. It gave me more range of motion and was better suited to this heat.

I still had a pocket pistol at my ankle, but it wasn’t loaded. Wanting it closer at hand, just in case, I slipped it into the waistband of my new trousers, against the blood-soaked cotton at my navel. Perhaps I’d find ammunition somewhere, if there was such a thing in the Otherworld.

The door clicked.

I hurried to it, and this time it slid open cleanly. I eased out into a brightly lit hall that smelled of kerosene. Across from my room, a woman hunkered down near another bunk. Perhaps she’d been the one to free me. In her fifties with light rosy skin and sunken cheeks, she picked through luggage, throwing clothing and bed linen behind her and out of her way. Brown hair shot through with silver peeked out from a blue-green scarf.

She was attractive. The more years I saw, the harder it was to find anyone appealing unless they at least had crow’s feet at their eyes and some silver in their hair. They looked like children to me otherwise. Her tattered dress was a sea-shade favored by water covens.

“Hello?” I whispered, and the woman’s head snapped toward me.

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