Bait?
I grabbed my wing, and swept it in front of me.
Nobody there.
She might be Other, but she’s a practitioner too.
The cawing continued in the distance, mocking, ugly sounds.
Her flock of carrion birds didn’t have much of a presence here, not while we were making so little noise.
“Corvidae might be dead!” I called out. “That would mean she needs one more to make three! Don’t broadcast your location!”
The rule of three was an invention, maybe, but she’d said enough things to suggest she didn’t eschew all human inventions.
I wasn’t as afraid of being touched as the others had reason to be. No heart with which to suffer a heart attack.
I was just about the only one who could move freely.
If she wanted to target me, how would she do it? Fire wasn’t her style. She had to do something if she wanted to do a lot of damage to me in a short span of time.
The mirror.
Was she after the mirror?
I picked up my pace.
Assuming Corvidae hadn’t moved, the direction he’d thrown…
I made more noise as I ran, wings extended, tips tracing the snow.
I found Mara’s tracks.
I ran, charging along the tracks, trusting her to have chosen the path with the best footing. My feet didn’t sink into deep snow, and they didn’t break the icy crust. I covered ground fast, almost without noise.
If I happened to run headlong into her, then all the better.
She could kill with a word or a touch, but I had to hope she couldn’t kill me without giving me life first.
Same for Evan.
As he was so fond of saying, he was already dead.
When the path turned and I didn’t notice by the change in footing, the wingtips that traced the snow were able to feel the bumps and broken snow to one side.
I ran headlong into a flying bird. It cawed at me, beating its wings against me, until its struggles let it break free, flying away.
“Stop,” Mara spoke.
I stopped.
The opaque cloud of birds above us parted. A circle, ever-widening.
I saw the light. Passing down through the opening, not bright, but compared to the darkness before, bright enough. A warm light. A sliver of dawn.
That light came down as a diffuse shaft. The others were vague figures in the distance, at various points at the periphery of the clearing, barely visible, still shrouded by the flock of birds and the trees overhead.
It served as a spotlight, illuminating only Crone Mara, me, and her hostage. The rest weren’t included in this.
Time moved normally, since she’d banished the effect. We were outside of Jacob’s Bell. The sun had started to rise, while we fumbled about in darkness.
I took in Mara’s hostage. Alexis knelt in the snow. A circle of blood and black feathers surrounded them. Only five or so feet across.
Had Rose sent them around to flank? For another purpose?
The crone stroked Alexis’ throat, but her expression was cold. A glare.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Blake!” Rose screamed my name, from the opposite end of the clearing. Closer to her group.
“Alexis?” Evan asked.
“If you speak,” Mara said, leaning close to Alexis’ ear, “It will be for the last time.”
Alexis nodded slightly.
A tear welled in her eye.
“What do you want, Mara?” I asked.
Mara glanced to one side.
I followed her gaze.
The Hyena, retrieved and brought here, left with the blade impaling the earth beyond the circle that surrounded her.
“One slain by that won’t return,” she said. “You can end her existence, and damn her to misery and darkness. You know what would await her, there, where you came from, but it’s better than what awaits her here. ”
Alexis was shaking her head. Mara gripped her jaw, hard, and Alexis froze.
“You could also end your own,” Mara said. “I could be convinced to offer the previous deal once again. One life, for one being freed to leave.”
I no longer had blood that churned in my veins, no stomach to turn food into calories, into energy.
All of this was clear to me, as I realized just how cold I was. No different from my surroundings.
I found myself looking back at the others.
“They can’t help you,” Mara said. “The circle will protect me from workings. If a gun is pointed at me, I’ll know. I’ll hear the gunshot and move before the bullet hits me.”
“Why… this? The display?” I asked. “You could have just…”
I paused.
Then I answered my own question. “You wanted to see me react.”
“Yes.”
I met Alexis’ eyes. Wanting her to signal. To blink, to look in a direction.
She only stared into my eyes.
“Alexis,” I said.
“No goodbyes,” the crone cut me off. “It would be my pleasure to deny you that much.”
I clenched my teeth.
I turned, and bent down to pick up the Hyena.
“Blake,” Evan said. “You can’t.”
“I can,” I said. “It’s kind of a rule for me. Paying people back.”
“You mean-”
I heard a muffled thud.
Spinning on the spot, I saw the Crone standing over Alexis’ body.
“The last thing she saw was you turning your back on her,” the crone said, looking down at the body. “Were you close?”
I lunged for her. My hand hit the barrier, a wall of air. I stabbed it, and achieved nothing.
“I feel like tonight wasn’t a complete waste,” the crone spoke, her voice matter of fact, words unrushed, “That expression of yours is a good one.”
Quiet, patient rage, I thought. Peter’s words.
I stabbed at the barrier again.
Extending a hand, the crone made a swirling gesture, skyward.
The cloud of birds overhead began to close.
Darkness began to overtake us again.
She would slip out of the circle. Pick another to attack.
Taunt us, prey on us.
“Behaims!” I shouted. “Turn back the clock!”
Empty words.
If the lesser Behaims had that much power, I wouldn’t be standing here.
I extended my wings, reaching out, encircling her small circle. But I couldn’t reach all of the way around. There was an opening, a doorway.
In the growing darkness, I saw her turn her head, as if noting that very same fact.
I moved, but every movement came with cues. The crunch of snow. With years of experience, she would know, she’d intuit exactly where I was in respect to her.
Above all else, she was patient. I had little doubt she could wait in there for an hour, before I gave some cue and she saw a chance to exit.
I had to do something. To let her kill Alexis and then get away unscathed? It would be the worst kind of loss for me. Exactly what she wanted.
Evan was shouting something, rude words, but I didn’t hear it. My focus was elsewhere.
On Mara.
She was as blind as we were, but she knew the environment, and had years of experience.
But she was as blind as we were. She couldn’t figure it all out.
Reaching up, I took hold of my weaker wing. The one with the section that needed my arm to support it.
With all of my strength, pulling, tearing, I ripped it from its socket.
My head hung, forehead touching the barrier as I leaned forward, one wing outstretched to the left, my arm outstretched to the right, gripping the base of the wing, so it could extend around to the far side of Mara’s circle.
Just a bit more reach.
I was nearly blind, staring down at the ground, panting for air with lungs that had a hundred holes in them. Staring down at the circle of blood and black feathers.
“Evan,” I said.
“Wicked old bitch! Alexis was cool!”
“Evan!” I said.
“What!?”
“The corpse of the crow,” I said. “Bring it here.”
“The corpse-”
Mara moved.
I’d guessed right. The dead crow was critical. Somehow.
Mara moved, and kicked the wing I’d torn free of my back. I raised it, and she tripped on it. Staggered just a bit.
I moved around. Two long strides. Evan was still on my shoulder.
I caught hold of Mara’s hair. The Hyena touched her throat.
I’d won. I didn’t feel like I’d won, but I’d won.
It was over.
Hollow victory.
“Do you still want me to get the dead crow?” Evan asked.
The dead crow.
Part of the reason it felt so hollow. There were things I didn’t get. Why had she killed the bird? Corvidae?
“I can, if you want,” Evan said.
That little body, so far from this one.
To deny us the chance to ask him?
Why, if she’d expected to win?
A decoy?
Corvidae couldn’t move. Not until he was freed.
Or no longer bound.
“I-” Evan started, speaking to the silence for a third time.
I moved.
Stabbing.
Striking at open air.
I found flesh.
“Kàgàgi,” Mara said.
Above us, the birds started to clear.
Light filled the area. More than a sliver of dawn this time.
Corvidae stood before me. Hand extended, an inch or two from Evan. His arm went limp, and he dropped to his knees. He broke up into feathers. I saw only a glimpse of a lock of hair in one hand before the hand disappeared. Letita’s hair. Glamour.
I checked. Alexis was no longer in the circle.
The second time I’d nearly been fooled, tonight.
A second breach of trust.
To make use of him like that, she’d killed him. That much was true.
But she was a practitioner.
She’d called him right back.
Disguised him.
“You’ve won,” she told me. “You killed him. You’ve caught me.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Kill me, then,” she said.
I could see the others gathering. Some were turning their heads, shielding eyes as they looked skyward.
One was pointing.
I looked.
Off to the west. Smoke.
And where there was smoke, there was fire.
Peter and his cousin.
When she realized…
“No,” I said. “I’m not that kind. Now come on. You have some questions to answer.”
My eyes were on Rose, as she hurried over, her priority finding the mirror, not Mara.
Twice tonight, an ally in the guise of a friend had turned on me.
Would it happen a third time? An important time?