“Fie. You’re first.” The girl turned on a heel and walked away from the doorway.
“I’m not—” Fie sputtered as a wave crashed into the boulders she stood on, spraying her with foam and brine. “We’re here forPa, not me.”
The girl poked her head around the doorframe. She blinked at Pa, then vanished again. “Gen-Mara, the Messenger. We can speak in a moment.”
“He’s to keep Gen-Mara’s shrine?” Bawd asked, clapping Pa on the back. Gen-Mara’s groves were another of the great shrines. “Nowthat’sa place to settle.”
“The Messenger’s to keep his own shrine,” the little girl’s voice called from the tower’s depths. “You all wait inside—all but you, Fie or Sebiri or whatever it is you’re calling yourself now. You come with me.”
“That’sthe keeper?” whispered Varlet.
Pa slowly shook his head. His eyes had gone wider than Fie could ever recall seeing. “Lad… that’s Little Witness.”
Bawd and Varlet both swore with equal parts reverence and imagination. Fie stayed stock-still, frozen to the rock, mind reeling. They hadn’t come here for Fie. Whatever this was—she wasn’t supposed to face it, not yet.
Pa nudged her. “Go on, girl.”
The ocean roared round her. “But, Pa—”
“Best not to keep a dead god waiting,” he said, and strode into the tower. Fie had no choice but to follow.
Inside was nothing like Fie had expected. Light streamed in from the open windows, catching on wheels, pulleys, and levers lining the walls, and on shelves cluttered with scrolls and stacks of parchment. Most shrines kept a statue of the dead god whose grave they stood on, and while Little Witness’s tower was no exception, apparently her recent incarnations had felt the statue could serve a more practical use. The crude stone carving of the little beggar girl now bore planks of wood across her outstretched arms, which hosted dusty jars, roughly folded blankets, and bolts of crowsilk. Clotheslines had been strung between the statue’s fingers, splaying out laundry that looked as if it had dried a week ago and simply remained there.
Once all four Crows were inside, Fie heard another creak and snap, and then the iron door’s crooked halves slammed shut behind them. A tiny figure darted over to a wooden platform on the ground as wide and as long as the wagon. Thick ropes were fastened at each corner, stretching into the shadows overhead.
Little Witness pointed at the platform and ordered, “Get on.”
Fie swallowed and stepped onto the planks.
Little Witness hopped on as well and flipped a lever. Fie heard a rush of water below, and then, to her astonishment, the platform began to rise. “Don’t touch anything,” Little Witness shouted to the others. “If you need to sit, sit on the floor.”
The steps, which seemed reasonably easy to climb, coiled in a slow spiral round the tower walls. As they passed level after level, Fie saw one floor covered end to end with sleeping pallets, no doubt to shelter visiting bands; another held what looked like a viatik stash, the largest Fie had ever seen. A whole level was dedicated solely to jars upon dusty jars of teeth—mostly Sparrow to hide the watchtower and Peacock to weave an illusion in its place. That floor made Fie’s own teeth ache and sing in answer, and she was grateful when it sank below them.
“Who put a water-lift in your tower?” Fie asked, anchoring herself on a rope and trying not to look down.
“I did,” the dead god answered shortly.
Fie looked pointedly up at the ropes, which seemed to run all the way to the top of the tower. “Wouldn’t think you were tall enough for that.”
“I used to be. Ten-and-eight lives ago, I fell down the tower steps and died. I prioritized transportation in the next one. And I have time on my hands.” She frowned out a passing star-shaped window as Domarem slipped through its frame. “I was the god of remembering. From the moment I am born, I remember everything, in every life and from all the lives before, Huwim or Hellion or Fie.”
“Except my name,” Fie muttered.
“You’ve worn a lot of names,” Little Witness fired back. “You’ve worn a lot of lives. Ten-and-seven lives ago, you pushed me down those stairs.” She peered up at Fie with a grandmother’s eyes in a child’s face. “See? Now if you push me off, I will take you with me.”
All Fie saw was that, by now, it was a very long way to fall. She tightened her grip on the rope. “I don’t feel like killing a dead god today.”
“You haven’t, the last three times we’ve spoken.” Little Witness smiled in a way that was tired and sweet and bloodcurdling all at once. “You’ve been a Crow those times.”
“Those times?”
The platform drew even with the top of the staircase, and Little Witness hopped off without answering. Fie followed.
“Thosetimes?” she repeated. “I’m a witch. If—if we’re all dead gods reborn, then wasn’t I a Crow god?”
“Aren’t you, indeed?” Little Witness led her up five more steps and into a room that could hardly be called one. It spanned the entire width of the tower, but its walls were stone cut with so many of those eight-point stars that they might as well have been screens. Wind whistled through the gaps, and weak light poured in from the overcast sky, giving the room an unearthly pewter glow.
“What you were doesn’t particularly matter,” Little Witness said, heading for a heap of worn cushions, where she promptly sat. “What matters is what you carry. So first: What will you leave in my viatik stash?”
