Page 70 of The Crow Games

“A god-born mind warlock could make the garm behave that way,” I muttered. I pressed my face into the terrycloth and breathed in the tart scent balmy air and citrus had left behind.

“You’re all paranoid,” Ruchel said, joining us under the tree. Then she sighed. “But so am I.”

I helped the sisters repack their soaps, wrapping them in brown paper. We hid most of them under stones that we kept near the trunk of the citrus trees. Blue used her sway with the water to catch fish easily.

Nola stuffed the mouths of the peacock bass with sliced citrus, and Emma roasted them on a spit over a fire lit with red magic. I helped Ruchel hunt for wild greens and pick tomatoes from a vine that grew farther down the basin. We gathered colorful mushrooms—another god experiment abandoned here—and made a salad topped in sliced tomatoes, shredded edible roots, and oil we squeezed from the vibrant fungi.

I ate roasted fish and salad until my gut was heavy and happy and my hair had dried.

“Hide,” Ruchel shouted, and paradise was over. The trial had begun again.

We were no strangers to the massive blind beast that haunted the park. Some trials, we never came across him at all. Others, he lumbered by, and we were able to sneak around him. But the beast was in a mood today.

He threw his weight about, crashing into trees. We broke into our groups of three. The sisters followed closely at my back. We headed in the direction of the black lake before cutting down a path that would take us out of the park. I didn’t have a bullet left, but I’d use my gray to keep us alive if it came to that. I’d deal with the ramifications and explanations later. The others had separated from us to take the opposite path. We’d meet on the train later.

The sisters and I went to ground when the garm came too close, hiding in the brush, and I saw him clearly for the first time as I peered between the saplings and the knotted overgrowth, my breath trapped in my lungs so he wouldn’t hear every panicked puff.

The creature was as big as the giants who dominated the desert, and resembled a bear covered in black fur. His hands were eerily human, with long dark claws. The reddish mane of a lion circled his neck. His ears were furry and pointed like a bat’s, and tall bracketed horns sprouted from the dome of his shaggy head.

The shredded remains of a red hood and a black uniform dangled from his broad mouth, both dripping blood, and I understood now what had enraged him. The beast had been caught in a skirmish between the covens.

Someone had put out the creature’s eyes. Puckered scar tissue had healed poorly over what remained of his lids. A spear had been shoved into his side, his flesh and fur long grown over it. He huffed out a breath that lit the air with the scent of sulfur, and he charged on all fours, in a rage.

An oak tree came smashing down, narrowly missing me. Its branches scraped my side and scratched my face, and I threw myself out of the way of crashing limbs.

Emma let out a whimper that pierced my heart, a pitiful sound that caught in my chest like a thrown dart.

Was she all right? The fall had knocked the air out of me, and there were branches everywhere. I couldn’t find her and was afraid to call out. We didn’t need the creature coming after us next.

I shoved limbs aside and found her standing and whole, thank the Crone.

“Emma?” I whispered.

Where was Liesel?

I reached for Emma, but she shoved me off.

Then I saw her sister at our feet, the pale, slender arm sticking out from the heavy trunk, the only part of poor Liesel not crushed beneath it.

No, no, no, no, no.She couldn’t be gone. Not like that, not so quickly. My stomach plummeted.

Emma let out a choking sob.

I leapt to her side and grabbed her up in my arms. “Don’t make a sound,” I begged, covering her mouth with my hand.

Jaw slack, Emma stared down at the ashen hand, blues eyes welling, that limp arm, still reaching for her sister in her final moments. Emma pushed me off, then threw her body against the trunk, grunting with the effort of trying to move it.

It didn’t budge.

There was no chance Liesel had survived that, but when I tried to draw Emma away, she took a swing at me. I helped her instead, shoving with all my might at the great fallen tree. The beast wreaked havoc in the distance, felling more forest, sending smaller garm fleeing, taking his rage out on all that happened into his path.

Tears welled in my eyes, spilling over as we pushed and shoved. I lowered my shoulder and heaved with everything I had.

Emma pulled her sigil out of her satchel, the one of the bear etched into a block of pale ash wood. She squeezed it in her palm, and the wood bent to her will. It glittered green. The magic released.

Her eyes, red-rimmed, went vibrant as emeralds. She used the strength of a bear and her connection to the earth to roll the trunk off Liesel.

Was this really happening? My mind was a sluggish thing, refusing to catch up with the rest of me.

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