Page 10 of The Crow Games

The train whistled. Steam billowed into the air, and it was off again, moving at such a high speed the bone cars blurred by, leaving us all behind. While I was on the train, my goal was to get off, but now I felt lost and oddly weightless, like whatever anchor had been pinning me to this plane was gone now.

I peered past the platform to the tracks, searching for an escape, breathing through this new vertigo. Beyond the railway, there was nothing but sand, a forebodingly barren wasteland.

“It’s not worth trying,” Ruchel warned me, her tone hushed. “You wouldn’t be the first to think the desert would serve you better than the trials, but you’d be wrong. There’s nothing but hungry giants out there.”

My heart thundered in my chest. Giants were extinct in the Upper Realm. We’d killed them off ages ago to stop them from feasting on the rest of us.

The hushed crowd increased the intensity of the balmy heat. Wulfram sprawled behind the gates: quiet building after quiet building of black wood, white trim, and high gables. This city of the unliving felt entirely wrong. It was too clean, too still, its buildings too uniform. Not a place crafted by mortal hands. The eeriness brought to mind the moment I’d opened the shop door and discovered my sister, the quiet horror that had greeted me.

My stomach churned, and I put a hand over it.

“See the central tower there with the clock?” Ruchel said in my ear. She wasn’t much taller than I.

I shook my head to clear it. “I see it.” Impossible to miss, the clockface was a massive snow-white oval against a golden sky.

“To complete the trial, we stick together,” Ruchel said, “we stay alive, and we reach that tower. Sometimes there’s a god or two waiting at the end, demanding a tribute before they’ll let us back onto the train. We’ll gather a few things along the way just in case to try and win their blessing.”

“What if we don’t want back on the Schatten?” I asked, as a restless crowd herded the three of us closer to the gates.

“We want back on,” Nola said quietly. “We have to reach that tower and the second platform it conceals before the 13thhour, or the bone train leaves us behind.”

“The trials of Wulfram are challenging during the day,” Ruchel warned, “but at night they’re hopeless, crawling with nightmare creatures. You need the support of a massive coven to attempt such a thing. Otherwise, the train is the safest place to sleep. There’s good food. There’s water and—”

“There’s liquor,” Nola said.

Ruchel rolled her eyes. “And there are other comforts. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than whatever else you’ll get in this realm.”

“You have allies?” I asked hopefully. “A coven that could shield us?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Nola hissed. “Survive the trial first, then we’ll see.”

But I still had so many questions! When did the games start? If we didn’t form a coven now, what chance did we stand to win our freedom?

Win the games, I remembered the plaque saying.Serve the gods. This was our punishment: trials designed to pit us against each other and please the deities who spied on us for their amusement. They claimed to want a champion, but I suspected they just wanted entertainment.

I hated it. I hated this Otherworld and its horrid gods with such passion I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached. Just beneath my rage, grief haunted my spirit. It scratched at me, reminding me of its might. I ground it down, calling to memory my mental mortar and pestle. I couldn’t fall apart again. Not here. Not if I wanted to live long enough to bring down the guilty god.

The clock chimed as the hand reached the first hour. My stomach swooped, and the gates parted with a loud screech of metal.

Witches and warlocks and assorted beast-born rushed the opening. I tried to follow suit, to keep up with the push of bodies. Surely there would be strength in numbers—we all wanted the same things here, didn’t we? We could stay together, shield one another, and better our odds against whatever evils lay hidden in this city. An army was stronger than a unit all by itself.

“Hold on there, ducky.” Nola caught me by the strap of my pack and hauled me behind her, interrupting my efforts to cling futilely to hope. “Let the eager new ones try their luck first.”

Where Ruchel and I would have been trampled, the crowd made way for the tall soldier, weaving around her and us by extension.

There was no unit here. No army. Small groups parted from the collection of prisoners. Desperate loners broke from the pack, dashing down side roads, and the spark of hope in me died a quick death.

Half the group made it through the gates when the screaming started. I pressed my palms over my ears, trying to shut out the gut-wrenching sounds. Hostile garm—creatures more beast than man—charged out from behind the large buildings. They snapped at prisoners with sharp teeth.

I watched, feet inert, as more scales and hooves and claws appeared beside whipping tails and gnashing fangs and so much blood. Ruchel’s face blanched, but otherwise she and Nola seemed unaffected by the fighting and fleeing, the thud of bodies falling, the crunch of bones, the wet sounds of slaughter.

It was too much for me. My stomach plummeted, and the pulse in my ears became a dull roar that made everything sound far away.

I needed to get out of here. The fear that seized me went bone-deep and turned me cold.

I’m going to die.

Windows shattered. Wood splintered. The resounding crack of a revolver pierced the air. Its sulfur scent stung my nose. I tried to retreat, but Nola slung her solid arm around my shoulders and kept me in place.

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