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“Yeah? What does the bird say about me?”
“He says—slow on the switchbacks, cheap with the whiskey, but a good heart. For a dead man.”
I grinned. Maybe that old crow wasn’t so bad.
Exu squawked again.
“I can show you the Gates, boy.”
“Ethan.”
“Ethan.” He hesitated, repeating my name slowly. “But you have to give me something in return.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “What do you want?” Obidias had mentioned that the Gatekeeper would expect some kind of gift, but I hadn’t really put much thought into it.
He looked at me thoughtfully, considering the question. “Trade is a serious matter. Balance is a key principle within the Order of Things.”
“The Order of Things? I thought we didn’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“There is always Order. Now more than ever, the New Order must be carefully maintained.”
I didn’t understand the details, but I understood the importance. Wasn’t that how I got into this mess in the first place?
He kept talking. “You say you need something to take you home? The thing you desire most? I say, what brought you here? That is what I desire most.”
“Great.” It sounded simple, but he might as well have been speaking in riddles or randomly written Mad Libs.
“What do you have?” His eyes glinted greedily.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and pulled out the one remaining river stone and Aunt Prue’s map. The whiskey and the tobacco—Exu’s stash—were long gone.
The Gatekeeper lifted his hairless brows. “A rock and an old map? Is that all?”
“That’s what brought me here.” I pointed at Exu, still perched on his shoulder. “And a bird.”
“A rock and a crow. That is difficult to pass up. But I already have both of those things in my collection.”
Exu pushed off from his shoulder and flew back up into the sky, like he was offended. Within seconds the crow disappeared.
“And now you have no bird,” the Gatekeeper said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t understand. Is there something specific you want?” I tried to hide the frustration in my voice.
The Gatekeeper seemed delighted by the question. “Specific, yes. Specifically, a fair trade is what I prefer.”
“Could you be a little more specific than that?”
He tilted his head. “I don’t always know what will interest me until I see it. The things that are the most valuable are often the ones you don’t even know exist.”
That was helpful.
“How am I supposed to know what you have already?”
His eyes lit up. “I can show you my collection if you would like to see it. There isn’t another one like it anywhere in the Otherworld.”
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What could I say? “Yeah. That would be great.”
