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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
It was still dark but edging toward dawn when the Diviners returned to the museum. Evie had called Will from the asylum, telling him only that he and Sister Walker should be waiting for them in the library. The Diviners had answered questions from the police about what had happened to Conor Flynn, who was listed as missing, and to Luther Clayton: Jesus, how did the poor fella end up… like that? Did one of the patients do it? Was it Conor? Detective Terrence Malloy had arrived at last. The Diviners hadn’t seen him since the Pentacle Murders case six months before, when all of this had started. He’d taken one look at Evie and the others and shaken his head. “How come every time I see you folks it’s something nobody can explain but something I know is gonna cause me no end of headaches? Go on home,” he’d said on a sigh. “I got any questions, I know where to find you. Give my regards to your uncle.”
The lights were burning at the Creepy Crawly. As the Diviners descended on the library, an anxious-looking Will and Sister Walker rose to their feet.
“Thank heavens you’re back,” Will said. “What happened out there? We were very worr—”
Evie marched up to Will and slapped him hard. “How could you? How could you!”
“We know everything,” Sam said, coming to stand beside her. “What you did during the war to those soldiers. Your experiment? We know the whole story.”
Will rubbed at the fresh mark on his face. “Somehow I don’t think you do.”
“You’ve been lying to us about everything. Even after we asked you to be honest with us,” Ling said. She could barely look at Sister Walker. “I trusted you. I admired you.”
“Anything we held back we did in order to protect you,” Sister Walker said.
“In order to protect yourselves, you mean,” Ling said.
Evie was sobbing now, and it felt as if she were swallowing down the world and its awful sins along with her broken cries. “He was my b-brother. Your nephew, Will. And you let him die! No—you got him killed. You got all of them killed!”
“It… it was an accident. I swear it,” Will said.
“Oh, why can’t anyone just tell the truth?” Evie pleaded.
“Because…” Will started. “Because it’s so hard to know what the truth is. It shifts, depending on who’s telling it and when.”
Evie’s finger was a dagger stabbing at the air between them. “No. That is a lie you tell yourself so you can sleep at night! You just don’t want to know that you had anything to do with that horror! Well, thanks to poor Luther, I was there. I saw! I know. You can’t take that from me by spinning some new story into butter. I won’t let you! And now Luther Clayton is dead! He’s dead because of your lies, murdered by those horrible beasts and the King of Crows!”
“What happened to Luther?” Will demanded.
“Those wraiths got to him. The King of Crows unleashed them,” Henry explained.
