Page 75 of The Crow Games
Then his gaze captured mine, and there was something different in it. Something that hadn’t been there before. He leaned in so close I felt his breath on my lips.
Comfort. In that moment, he looked like comfort, and I wanted that desperately.
“What?” I asked him, knotting my fingers in his waistcoat, tugging him down even closer. “What is it?”
He licked his lips. His throat bobbed.
“You have to tell me,” I begged. Maybe I knew exactly what that look meant. Maybe there was a part of me that recognized the longing there because the mirror of it was flaming to life in me.
“I can’t.” Asher rose out of his crouch, pulling away from me. “The timing of it is all wrong.”
But I didn’t want him to go, and I grabbed at the air between us. “If you don’t tell me now, my mind will drive me mad wondering. No one is guaranteed to survive tomorrow in Wulfram. You have to tell me.”
He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, considering me. Asher fished his journal out of his pocket. He flipped through it until he found the page he wanted, then tore it free. Folding it in half crisply, he handed it to me.
“I wrote this the day after you let me into your mind. It will explain it all. Don’t read it now. Eat. Rest.” He squeezed my hand in his over the paper, crinkling it. “Read it later. I’m going to go and make sure Liesel and Emma are settled in for their last train ride. I’ll be back tonight.”
Their last train ride . . . My throat tightened.
Chapter 17
“The one who sits upon the crow throne shall rule the Otherworld.”– Esther Weil, Renowned Folklorist
Iate but barely, the folded bit of parchment burning a hole in my pocket. I returned to the lounge and curled up on the sofa, waiting for Ruchel and Nola to come back. But it was Blue who found me later.
In her hands she carried a set of dark indigo socks.
“Blue is the color of regret where I’m from.” She handed the woolen pair to me. Feet shuffling beneath her, she chewed at her cheek. “Liesel started making them for you as an apology for the nightmare spirits . . . I finished them up for her just now.”
I took them, rubbing my thumb across their softness. “Blue, I . . .”
She wrung her fingers in the skirt of her dress, and her throat bobbed. “Just take them and don’t make a thing of it.”
I nodded. She padded off, retreating from the lounge. An hour later, Nola and Ruchel joined me. They both looked like they’d been crying, eyes puffy, cheeks ruddy. Ruchel curled up in a padded chair with her book, the distance between us evidence of her desire to be left in peace. She wanted quiet company, I sensed.
Nola brought me a drink from the bar, the juniper smell strong in my nose. I held it but didn’t partake, the socks clutched between my fingers like a lifeline. I thought she was going to ask me about what happened, but she didn’t. The soldier was no stranger to loss. She knew better.
“What did you say to Blue that made her . . . nice?” I asked.
“We told her the truth about you,” Nola said, pulling up a stool and sitting beside me. “And that made everything a whole lot worse at first.” She swirled her glass, a line forming between her tawny brows. Then she tipped her drink toward our high witch. “And then Ruchel told her how she came to the Crow Games. She opened up to her, and it calmed Blue. One buttoned-up witch to another buttoned-up witch, finally undoing their buttons and spilling their secrets. That worked.”
Ruchel read in the corner of the room, her legs pulled up under her in the cushioned chair.
“Is that information I’m going to get to hear anytime soon?” I asked. I’d been curious about Ruchel since I met her. Which god had spurned her? I could make educated guesses, but I preferred to be certain. I wanted to add them to my murder list.
“I don’t know.” Nola’s grin was sheepish. “It took a long time for her to share it with me, too. Sorry, old duck. I’d help, but it’s not my story to tell.”
Nola bandaged my head and the cut in my palm. I turned in early that night and read myself to sleep from Asher’s journals, curious about the slip of paper in my pocket but certain that he was right. It was the wrong time. I was a mess. Whatever he wanted to tell me needed to wait for clearer heads.
I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of rain striking the window. A storm rumbled, blocking out the subtle music of the train rushing over the tracks. The next boom of thunder sent my heart jolting. I left my bed to ignite the gaslight and turned it down low, comforted by the warm glow of it.
I glanced at the wall, the pale bone that separated my bed from Asher’s, and my hand went into my pocket with a mind of its own. I pulled out the note, unfolded it, and devoured the words as hungrily as a starved water devil.
Patience be damned. That was his strength, not mine.
I watch life and am in awe of it. I covet creation but not for its power like the hungry gods do. I covet its beauty, its divine splendor crafted by careful, loving hands. For I could never fashion something so lovely. I could only bring an end to what is glittering and bright. This is what I was made for.
Yet still I covet the beating heart of it all. The lushness of rampant life, the like pairs that break off and come together with an intimacy I could only envy from afar. Alone forever. There was never a partner for me in all that majesty, and so I came to believe that life as a whole—a thing I can only watch but never partake in—was my other half. Life is beautiful and vibrant and warm and bright. My opposite. My downfall.
