by E Hall
Soren lands his blade on Scriv’s wrist, flicking the weapon from his hand. Before I can grab it, a wave washes it into the water.
Like a bull, Scriv charges, knocking into Soren with his shoulder. They tumble to the ground, sending up a spray of black sand. Soren punches him in the side of the head and he reels into me, knocking us both onto the damp ground. I twist onto my back and then kick him in the chest with both feet, landing on top of him and punching him in the eye. With one boot on his chest—my own heaves—, Soren appears at my side with the blade aimed at Scriv’s neck.
“I’d have had better luck with a torch. I thought you were ghosts. Where’ve you been, Soren?” Scriv says as if they weren’t just fighting.
“Away,” he answers.
“I heard,” Scriv says. His eyebrows waggle suggestively when he takes me in.
“Then why’d you ask?”
Scriv leers. “She’s prettier in person.”
I snarl, recalling the thin woman in the street mentioning someone named Scriv.
“We need to get into Raven’s Landing,” Soren says.
“Not wise, but why?” Scriv asks. The lines around his eyes suggest he’s already calculating what might be in it for him.
Soren glances at me quickly and lowers his weapon.
“We have something for the king, but we need to deliver it to him in a,” he hesitates, “in a particular way.”
“I’m a particular kind of guy,” Scriv crows, getting to his feet and dusting off his jacket.
“I’m aware. You’re a man of details, in the know, on the inside. No one, not even a lousy mullocker can get a fish out of you without paying the price. I have a few dukhs you might like to add to your pocket if you can help out.”
“What kind of gift are we talking about?” Scriv asks.
“The gift is irrelevant. What we need is the package.”
Scriv raises an eyebrow.
I grip Soren by the jacket and tug him a few steps away. At a whisper, I ask, “Can we trust him?”
“No. But we need to get into Raven’s Landing and obviously, he has a way if he got out here. And there’s the issue of the giant wooden raven. He deals in the strange and forbidden.”
“Fish?” I ask, not convinced they’re strange or forbidden.
“Poison fish,” I say. “If you want a fish from Scriv, it’s not the kind you want to take home, cook, and serve to your guests. Well, unless you’re having the king—” He stops, catching himself before continuing, “Him over for dinner.”
“Are you sure Scriv is okay?” I ask with a wary eye in his direction. He reminds me of a toad.
“He’s the kind of person who looks and sounds like he has great skill and charm. He gives people the sense of confidence, friendship, and trust, but then he turns around and scams them, stabs them in the back—”
“I don’t stab,” Scriv says. “I slice.”
“And choke,” I mutter. “This isn’t convincing me.”
He closes the space between us. He’s not quite as tall as Soren, but twice as wide—obviously, having found a store of food the rest of Raven’s Landing has yet to discover. “Listen, I know my reputation. I’ve made an effort to keep it that way, but I’ve also wanted to bring the silver king some stiddlies for quite a long time. Whatever it is you need my help with sounds equally appetizing.” He leers.
Soren leans in and whispers that he needs black paint and a lot of it. “As dark as a raven’s wing,” he adds.
“Don’t you have enough of that?” Scriv asks. His laughter rolls over the water as he indicates the tattoos on Soren’s skin. Nonetheless, he straightens and holds out his hand, waiting for payment.
Soren drops several dukhs into his palm.
“I can’t get you ink. What else do you need?”
The ribbon of my patience runs thin and I square off in front of him. “But you just took his money.”
“You have much to learn in the skill of trade and bartering.” Scriv pockets the money.
“Lying and stealing.” Soren corrects and exhales with irritation.
“Same thing. Look, I deal in the living and breathing, well, formerly living and breathing and last I checked, ink isn’t alive,” Scriv says.
“Well, in that case, we need wood. Trees were alive.”
“Okay. Close enough. That I can do. A little? A lot?”
“Enough to hold ten men and women.”
“Ten plus ten or just ten. As you know, much of it was burned on Hallowtide.”
“As much as you can manage.”
Scriv nods and then starts walking along the coast toward Battersea.
“Wait,” Soren hisses after him. “We’re hoping you can lead us in.”
Scriv shakes his head and chortles. “The two of you? You’re lucky she,” he juts his chin in my direction, “knows how to fight, otherwise, I would be a wealthy man right now.”
“So we can’t trust you,” I say. A statement, not a question.
“I’ll do this job, see to it that you get your wood, but I’m not taking you into Raven’s Landing.”
“Why?” Soren asks.
“There’s a price on your heads, and it’s too tempting.” His laughter fades into the fog as he ogles me.
I formulate a plan of attack, feeling rage like I have never before at the sight of his hungry look, not with desire like Krebs, but with greed. Fists lifted, two steps, jab. Left arm cross, punch, pivot, and kick. I certainly do know how to defend myself, but never expecting I’d be in this forsaken place and have to use it. Then I realize that, like with the sword practice, if I combine my magic with my fighting skills, I’m doubly dangerous.
Soren sharpens his expression in Scriv’s direction as though dismissing him before he also takes his fist to flesh. “See you there at dawn with the wood.”
Scriv disappears into the bleak mist.
“Sketchy dealings,” I mutter.
“Let’s hope for the best because hope is the one thing we’re wagering the people in Raven’s Landing haven’t burned, buried, or otherwise destroyed.”
When we get to the base of the breakwater, Soren keeps his finger to his lips. The sand squelches under our feet, suctioning to our boots, but we remain undetected as we sneak along the lane in front of the tall houses on the edge of Battersea.
He pauses in front of one house, holds his hand over the door as if to knock, but doesn’t as though he thinks better of it. He takes me by the hand and around the back of the remaining row of thin, tile-like houses all lined up and hiding the burned remnants of the past.
“I should tell you that before we met I’d become quite adept at finding my way in and out of structures such as this,” he says with a guilty grin as he lifts the window of a dark house.
For years, I was so consumed with landing a position on the Police Force, I didn’t pay attention to guys and probably scared a lot of them away. But Soren excites something in me when he talks like that, making me warm and fluttery all over. My goodness, he’s hot.
He lands silently inside the house and extends a hand to help me through.
“Does someone live here?” My voice is rough when I speak.
He nods. “My aunt.”
“Oh. Well, great,” I say, relieved she won’t be sounding an alarm on us. Hot and clever.
“She hates me,” Soren adds.
...and foolish, apparently.
As I climb through the window, my coat catches on the frame with a quiet rip. Soren pulls me loose, and we sneak through a dark room. The floor creaks loudly under our feet.
I hear a thud, a groan, then a candle flickers, illuminating a severe woman with sharp eyes, and Soren knocked out on the floor by my side. Hot, clever, foolish, and unconscious.
I summon my power, ready to fight back. It crackles along my fingers like veins of ice in a frozen lake.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the woman says.
Chapter 23
Soren
Th
e world is a white ache, and I’m shivering. My eyes burn from the bright gray clouds. I close them, rolling over, forgetting where I am.
“It’s going to rain,” a familiar voice says.
My eyes fly back open. “Gerda?”
“Not Aunt Gerda to you anymore?”
I glower. “Not when you hit me over the head with a—” I rub the lump on my temple.
“A metal pan. Next time knock. Sneaking in through the window is for thugs and thieves.”
I sit up slowly, knowing well enough that if I move too quickly, I’ll get dizzy and she won’t forgive me if I get sick on her floor. “I’m not a thug or a thief.”
“Oh no?” she asks, her voice a sarcastic air of surprise.
Kiki sleeps across the room, curled up in a chair. I scrub my hands down my face. I hope that Gerda didn’t strike her with a blunt object too.
“I knew she was fae the second I saw her. Dangerous, Soren.”
I’m not awake enough yet to say something to protect her from my aunt’s distaste for magic.
“They’re looking for you,” Gerda warns. “They’ve looked here.”
I raise an eyebrow. Ouch. Bad move.
Gerda brings me a ball of snow for the swelling on my head. I follow her slim lines to the tight coil of her light hair. Her hazel eyes meet mine, and I wonder how much of her appearance she shared with my mother. The only thing I have left is the shard of the mirror I took from the hut on the hill before we fled the Roost.
The cold soothes the welt from the pan but drives the chill in my bones deeper. “Thank you,” I mutter. “You didn’t tell them—?”
“Despite what you may think of me, I’m not stupid. You earned that title by coming here and who knows how many other dumb, thoughtless things you’ve done over the years. Shall we take a tally?”
“You can try, but then I might overstay my welcome,” I counter.
“You already have. Why are they looking for you anyway?” Her gaze drifts over to Kiki. “Never mind.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“She said that she didn’t know you. That you kidnapped her and were bringing her—”
My heart skips a beat.
Gerda wears her slyest smile. “I’m kidding. You look like you saw a ghost.” Her voice takes a leap across the water.
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head and repeats, “Never mind.”
“I want to know.”
She stalks over to me and leans close, her nose nearly bumping mine. I wonder if she and my mother smelled alike. “I’d have to trust you in order to tell you, Soren. You made it clear that you don’t care enough to make it any of your concern, Blackthorne.”
I get to my feet, disregarding the spinning. “Don’t call me that.” No, I can’t imagine Gerda is anything like my mother.
She grunts.
“Whatever you’re alluding to in the past about waiting for Kiki, it’s my concern now. We just came from the Morgorthian Mountains. I remember the old stories…The Hero’s Horn, the ravens, and kings. You told me it was a bunch of garbage, stories the weak-minded tell around the fire to keep the ghosts away…”
She hisses, “I wanted you to learn to think for yourself, Soren.”
“Vespertine said—”
Gerda shuffles backward. “Vespertine?” she whispers and goes very still as if the name itself is as cold as the mountains.
“She really didn’t tell you?” I ask, gesturing to Kiki.
“No, she was tired and concerned about you; not that she should be—”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I told her not to trust you, that you’re a rowser with no regard for his family.”
Ah, I see. She grips the old grudge, refusing to let it go.
“I thought the book belonged to my mother,” I say defensively. I just wanted a piece of her aside from the broken mirror.
She scoffs, but then her eyes blaze the way they have every time the subject of my mother comes up. They were sisters and apparently bitter enemies. “I tried to be your other mother, even though I’m not her,” she says with venom.
We’ve had this conversation so many times I can’t blame my head for pounding.
“I tried to take care of you after you lost her and then again when your dad died. And your repayment? Run off with Trotter to gamble away the one thing—”
“But Dad…” I don’t finish. Instead, throw my hands up in the air. I can’t win this battle; I’ve tried and I’m too cold and worn out to make another attempt.
She bears her opinions as clearly on her skin as I do mine.
“So tell me, what are you doing here?” Her voice is frosty.
“I’m going to run off to Trotter again as soon as I can, but not for tiles. I’m back because we’re uniting the people.”
“Are you now?” Gerda asks with a hand on her hip, but her eyes soften as though she’s been waiting for someone—me—to say this.
Kiki stirs and looks at me apologetically. She rubs her eyes and says, “What did I miss?”
“Breakfast. Are you hungry?” Gerda asks with unusual politeness.
We move to the table and she serves Kiki a bowl of warm porridge. I help myself, dowsing it with syrup, salt, and spices.
Gerda fusses around the kitchen while we eat quietly, both of us still tired and slightly stunned.
When I push my bowl away, Gerda leans over the table, bracing herself with her knuckles and says, “You’ve eaten. Now, when do we fight?”
“We have been fighting,” I murmur.
“When do we rise?” Gerda asks.
“I’m sorry I slept in,” Kiki says, having missed our previous conversation. “And thank you for the warm breakfast.”
“Well?” Gerda asks, inching closer to me and ignoring Kiki.
I remember the old doctrines of the rebels well enough; those who wanted to overthrow the king became too scared, too old, or too broken to do much good. But not my aunt.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Gerda says to me and then turns to Kiki.
Icy rain stabs the windowpanes and the lantern on the table flickers.
Kiki straightens, as though having fully sloughed off sleep after the long journey.
“How many are there who’d join the cause this time?” I ask, trying to figure out how to explain my way around the situation without exposing myself to more ink.
“Enough,” Gerda says.
“What do you mean this time?” Kiki asks.
“Gerda is the original rebel. Tried to lead an uprising. Failed. And now we all bear the punishment.” I clench my fist and angle my lower arm toward Kiki, arrayed in ink.
“I can’t say that I’m sorry. There is no shame in having words on my skin that show my disloyalty to a terrible king.”
“Wait, do you mean the silver king cursed everyone with ink because of—”
“Because of me. Yes. And I’m not sorry.” Gerda smirks.
“We’re going to break the curse,” Kiki says.
I glance toward the window. “I was supposed to meet Scriv at Trotter’s Tavern at dawn.”
“Already failed have you?” Gerda challenges. She’s as hard on me now as she ever was.
Kiki gets to her feet, her face stony. “We haven’t failed. We won’t fail. We have no choice but to succeed as long as we don’t give up.”
Gerda scans Kiki as though sizing her up in the gloomy light of day. “Maybe you won’t, but Soren?”
“I thought you said you were waiting for him.”
“With something like dread,” Gerda snarls.
“Whatever beef you two have, leave it. We have work to do.” The corners of Kiki’s lips lower into a mean frown.
“I like her,” Gerda says.
“Me too,” I mutter as we all get to our feet.
“But why Scriv? Could you do any worse?” Gerda asks.
“They used to have a thing,” I say, pointing to Gerda and in a vague direction
. “Gerda and Scriv that is.”
“We did not. He’s a liar, a thief, and a worthless piece of—”
It’s all true, but I just like to get her riled up. I suppress laughter.
“We need your help,” Kiki says.
“I know,” Gerda answers with her hands on her hips. “I’ll gather everyone I can. We’ll meet at dusk. That will give you more time. I want to know everything.”
“Wait, you were the one who told me that no one person should know everything.”
She snorts. “Then you were listening after all.”
I smirk.
With hats and hoods over our heads to protect ourselves from the driving sheets of icy rain piercing the streets and lanes of Raven’s Landing, we set out: Gerda to spread the word about the gathering and Kiki and me to meet with Scriv at Trotter’s Tavern.
Trotter gives me a bear hug.
“Nice to see you too.”
“Scriv delivered the wood.”
“Ordinarily, I’d assume that’s code, but in this case, I hope it’s good wood. Do you have a place where we can work?”
Trotter rubs his hands together. “Indeed I do.”
The tavern is like a rabbit warren with dim, narrow, winding hallways leading past closed doors and guttering candles. The air cools and the rain continues to pound when we cross through the central courtyard with projects in various stages of completion.
“The weather isn’t cooperating, but we can work in the shed. I’m hoping there’ll be enough room. I had Scriv leave the wood back there. You get started, and I’ll be back to help.” Trotter dashes through the rain, leaving us in the shed.
The stack of wood is a hodgepodge of mismatched pieces, no two the same length, some half rotten and others with large knots and still more grubby from termites. I sigh. “Well, I guess I wasn’t specific about quality.”
Kiki stares at the pile dumbfounded. “We’re building a raven. How do we start? I didn’t exactly learn woodworking in New York City.”
“Luckily, Dad was handy and Trotter, well, the tavern started right here in this shack, when he was my age. Although I don’t think there’s a single straight wall, it’s still standing after all of these years. We’re building a bird. How hard can it be?”
Famous last words. Turns out hard isn’t the sum of it. We barely have a wing constructed when Trotter appears, heaps his arms with wood, and then says, “They’re gathering. We best make swift work of this.”