Page 51 of The Crow Games

Asher watched Lisbeth dancing for a time, and the corners of his black eyes crinkled. “What lesson is that?”

My throat and nose stung. I swallowed the scratchy feeling down. “He wants me to walk away because, no matter what I do, no matter who I kill, it won’t bring my sister back to me.”

Asher pushed down his hood. His snowy hair spilled loose and wavy over his shoulders. “If you know what Alwin wants, why are you still here?”

My next inhale filled my chest to bursting, and my eyes welled. “Because,” I choked, transfixed on the memory of lovely Lisbeth lighting up our dim little shop, “it’s just really nice to see her again.”

“Ah.” He sat down beside me, crossing his legs under him. Shadows billowed up between us and pooled inky black on the bone floor all around me.

We watched Lisbeth dance together.

“You should talk about her,” he said.

I felt my brows pull closer together.

“Do you remember when the high witch was ill?” he explained. “Remember how the coven took turns pushing her in the wheelbarrow and the burden was less because of it? The concept is the same here and now. You should talk about your sister. Share the burden of losing her.”

The very thought immediately made my throat tight. But who was I to doubt the wisdom of an ageless man who knew grief, loss, and death so intimately?

“She gave the best hugs,” I rasped. “When she hugged you, she used her whole body to do it. Not just her arms. And I miss her laugh. It was loud, and if you got her going good enough, she would snort like a boar and . . .” I chuckled at the memory of it, the rest of my words cut short by the emotion constricting my lungs.

Silent tears leaked from the edges of my eyes.

“I remember her,” he said, chin at a tilt, taking in her dancing with a broomstick.

My eyes snapped to him. “What?”

“She was on the train—the other part of the train. Not the prisoner cars. They all come to the Schatten in the end to be ferried to the life after. I don’t usually remember them. There are so many, but she made an impression. Her soul had a shine to it. She caught my attention.”

“How was she?” Scooting closer, I fired questions at him. “What did she say? Was she all right?”

“She was fine.” He grinned in that lopsided way of his that was peculiarly appealing. “Better than fine, I think. She made fun of my waistcoat.”

A cackle slipped out of me, disbelief and relief mingling to warm my heart. “That sounds exactly like what she would do.”

He brushed a hand down the horn buttons of his double-breasted lapel, his lip in a charming curl. “She was a plucky thing. She told me I didn’t look old enough to be someone’s grandfather so I should stop dressing like one.”

I hung on his every word and begged him for more, even made him repeat the details twice of how he’d spotted her seated in one of the passenger cars at the back of the Schatten, the glow of her divine blood sunshine-bright against the padded chair. He described her with the elegance of a poet.

Asher leaned back. His shadowy hood pillowed his head against the bone walls. “Usually, the recently deceased beg me for answers about what comes next. Souls on the Schatten are nervous—understandably so. I do my best to soothe them, but your sister didn’t ask me any of those questions. Instead, she told me all about the things she would miss in life. I liked that.” His black eyes softened. “I didn’t realize it until now, but she was talking about you.”

The sob took me by surprise. Surely I didn’t have any tears left, but they caught in my throat and choked off my breath. I pulled my collar up over my face to stifle them.

Always patient and never in a hurry, Asher lounged beside me, unbothered by my small breakdown. After all his millennia with the recently departed, he was inoculated against such things, I supposed.

“Unless,” he added breezily, “Lisbeth has another bossy, overprotective older sister with a very, very big heart?”

I coughed a breathy laugh into my shirt, blotting at my wet lashes. “No,” I said miserably. “Just the one.”

His darkness trickled up my arms and across my shoulders. I released my droopy collar. A brush of his magic cooled my hot cheeks and helped me dry my eyes. Asher pulled out his leather journal from an inner pocket in his waistcoat and worked on his verses, writing right to left, the silence comfortable between us.

I worried my lower lip. “Am I going to miss the train?”

“You have a little time. Visit with your sister a while,” he said.

I stretched my legs out in front of me, letting the dark pool engulf the rest of me in a blanket of night, and I watched Lisbeth. I let myself remember her. It hurt, but the burden did seem just the tiniest bit less after sharing her.

“Would you make a death pact with me?” I asked, surprising myself when I spoke the words without thinking on them much at all. I did feel oddly indebted to him now, though, grateful for the comfort he had shown Lisbeth and me. Considering how often I’d wrongly accused him of being a spy, I wanted to extend him a little trust. A small gesture.

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