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“Stay away from my brother!” Memphis was nearly chest to chest with the King of Crows. He drew in a sharp breath. This close, the strange man was even more terrifying. Flies crawled along the shifting vein work of his mottled skin. His lip curled, revealing a mouthful of thin, pointed teeth. But his eyes… it would be easy for any fella to lose himself in the power of their dark pull. Memphis felt as if he stood with one foot over the edge of a new grave, in danger of falling. Instinctively, he took a step back, blinking till his eyes ran with tears.
“And at last we have the healer.” The King of Crows said, drawing out the designation. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”
From deep in the trees, Viola Campbell emerged, nearly swallowed by the shroud of her feathered dress. Her eyes were large, her face full of grief.
“What would you give me for your mother’s freedom?” the King asked.
Viola started. “Don’t make a bargain with him, son. I told you, you should never bring back what’s gone—”
The King of Crows pointed his clawed hand in Viola Campbell’s direction, and her words turned to squawking.
“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.”
