“Memphis,” Isaiah whimpered. “Memphis, it’s Mama.”
“Let her go,” Memphis demanded.
The King of Crows sighed and the feathers of his cloak sighed as well. Their fringed spines curved and wriggled as if trying to break free. “Ah, poor mother. Death should offer freedom from life’s trials and tribulations. Its… injustices. It should offer rest at long last. Would you not agree, healer?”
Viola struggled in vain to speak. But her voice had been taken by the King’s magic.
“I said, leave her be.”
“She could rest in peace, you know. But I’ll need something from you first.” The man held up a long gray index finger. His yellowed fingernail was sharp as a scalpel’s point. “A promise. A bargain struck in good faith. In time. In time… For unlike some, I honor my word. This”—he swept his arm wide, gesturing to the ravenous dead—“is not my doing. It is theirs. What they did. Choices have consequences. Tell me: What is most valuable in any world? Where does power lie? In wealth? In titles?”
When no one answered, the King of Crows stuck out his arms. His hands were tightly clenched. “Information,” he said, drawing out the word. “What we tell. What we hold back. Truth…” Slowly, he opened his right hand. In it rested a newborn chick, slick with afterbirth. “And secrets…” He opened the left. A slim green garden snake wound between his spread fingers. “You wish to find the Eye.”
“Yes,” Evie answered. “Do you know what it is or how we find it?”
“Information,” the King of Crows repeated. He closed his fists. The chick and snake disappeared. He hooked his thumbs beneath his lapels and paraded before the Diviners. “Let us play a game to see if you are worthy of my largesse.”
“We’re not playing anything with you,” Sam said.
“The game is already in play, little thief, whether you join in or not. But ask yourself—who has held the truth from you? Not I. You have no idea what they have done. What they continue to do. You are in great danger, Diviners.”
Once more, he swept his hand against the air, and a picture appeared of two men in gray suits, hats pulled low across their brows. The men drove, and behind them, the roads of America stretched long as shadows. The King of Crows blew out a puff of air and the scene was gone.
“Very well. I shall offer you a small something to show good faith. Tell me, when you”—he fluttered his hand—“dispatched my dead just now, did you feel a surge of pure power?”
“Yes,” Ling answered. It made her feel a bit dirty to say it. But then Evie said, “You, too?” And one by one, the others nodded.
“Did they not tell you that with each wraith you destroy, your powers grow? Ah, I can see from your faces that they did not.” The King of Crows clicked his tongue against his teeth. “So many secrets. Like how the Eye came to be, its terrible purpose, and what it has to do with your brother, object reader.”
“Please, oh, please…” Evie started.
The King of Crows pulled at the tattered, smudged lace of his long cuffs. “That is not my story to tell—not without a price. It is yours to find.” He looked out over his sea of dead. “You wish to know truth of it, then seek the answers from the dead. Of course, they may not give the information so willingly.”
“Are you asking us to destroy your ghosts?” Theta asked.
The King’s thin lips stretched into a semblance of a smile, cruel and mesmerizing. “I ask nothing, fire starter. I tell you nothing. Your choices are yours alone.”
He took a few steps back.
“But I have tarried too long. Tonight is for introductions only. We will meet again, most assuredly. In what manner—ah!—that remains to be seen. Aaah, Conor Flynn. Son of the streets. Finder of lost things. There you are. You’ve been trying to hide from me, have you not? Someone has helped you with that.”
Conor trembled.
“Let us up the ante in our game. Checkmates and balances and whatnot. I shall take this one with me. As leverage.”
The King beckoned and Conor stumbled forward as if compelled until he collapsed into Viola Campbell’s motherly arms.
“Shhh, baby,” she said, holding him close. “Shhh.”
“Let him go! Conor has nothing to do with this! That isn’t fair,” Evie demanded.
The King of Crows glowered. He spoke through tight teeth. “You speak to me of fairness?” His fingers toyed at his lapels and a bit of history’s unbearable shine threatened at the edges. “Fairness. Very well. I shall give you a bargain: Find the answers you seek from the dead, and I shall return him to you. Awake, my children,” the King of Crows commanded in a voice that was not loud but demanded full attention. “Rise, my army.”
Broken and rotting and hungry, the dead crawled from their graves and gathered behind their leader. Lightning split the clouds.
“As for you, Luther Clayton,” the King said. “You were owed to me, and I would have payment for their sins. That is justice.”
Luther’s head rolled from side to side. “No,” he whispered again and again, his voice rising to a scream. “No!”
Evie charged toward Luther. The King of Crows put up a hand, and she felt as if her breath were turning solid in her lungs, weighing her down.
“Would you come for me so soon, object reader? You might save your strength for a battle yet to be.” Something awful pulsed in the King’s face as his mouth set into a grim line. But just as quickly, he let Evie go. She coughed, pulling the putrid air deep into her aching lungs. “We’ve only just begun our dance.”
The King of Crows smiled at Luther Clayton. “Have your fill, children. For we are the storm. We are come to claim what is ours. I alone will care for you. I alone give you what you require. Feed.”
Luther screamed as the dead rushed forward, jagged mouths open. The King of Crows tugged at the brim of his tall hat in the slightest of gestures. “Happy hunting, Diviners.”
With that, the Diviners were jolted from the vision. It seemed as if they tumbled through space until they stood once more in the potter’s fields. The rain had stopped. Across the river, the city’s neon bloomed. Several ferries were arriving at the pier. Firemen and medics hurried toward the asylum with stretchers and hoses. The fog was gone. So was Conor Flynn.
And atop a disturbed grave was what little remained of Luther Clayton.
MISTAKES