“But it’s just a crazy story! There is no witch and no crow people and no portals into the earth—” I stop talking before Julian catches my thought. He doesn’t, but Sonja does.
She stares at me, eyes ebony black. “How did you get here?” she asks.
I glare at her, then turn away from them both, staring at the tangles of wire and their crumpled metal locks. Not wires. Bars. Images flick through my mind, open to Dr. Anders’ office, sunlight streaming in the window, glancing off the thin bar of a birdcage, illuminating a decorative latch.
“He sacrifices the crows?” I whisper. My throat is closing, and a chill slides over my skin, like molesting fingers.
“Mems, don’t you get it? We are the crows!”
“No,” I whisper as all the images in my brain fade to icy white. This is what fear feels like. I’d forgotten. “No.”
“Yes,” a voice says from the shadows. “And separate, you are useless, precocious children with no understanding of the powers you’ve inherited.”
Anders steps from the tunnel, disheveled as always, carrying another cage like a lantern. A woman breaks free from his other hand and rushes to Sonja, kneeling on the floor. She’s got dark, shiny skin and close-cropped hair. I recognize her from last summer, at the closing ceremony, and from pictures on Sonja’s Facebook page; Miriam, her mother.
“What do you want?” I ask him. “You’re insane! What powers? Are we supposed to give you our minds, our ability to dream?”
“Ah, but this is not about cognitive ability, you oblivious child.” He speaks like he lectures in class, with that same half smirk. “This is about blood.”
“No,” Julian says, flailing in the chains.
“Your brother understands, or he is beginning to.” Dr. Anders smiles at him, turns back to me. “I was quite impressed, actually. No one has ever drawn the connection to Johann Vangarde before, though it was quite amusing to be accused of plagiarizing my own book.”
“You’re trying to tell us you’re over a century old?” I say. If I weren’t so terrified, I’d laugh.
“Oh, I’m much older than that, Muninn, my dear. A millennium of centuries.”
“You’re bonkers,” I tell him. “You’re fucking nuts.” I turn to Julian. He’s white as a wraith, staring at the birdcage.
“I am a god, actually. Born in Asgard.” Anders’ face doesn’t change. “A little respect from you would make things much easier for both of us. Now, before I fetch the fifth member of our little family, we have some business to take care of.” Anders sets the cage down, and opens the little latch.
The bird inside dodges his hand in a flurry of feathers, a dark explosion of hissing and claws straight for his face. Dr. Anders grunts as the claws rake his cheek, but the bird’s tiny talons tangle in his beard, and he grabs its feet in his fist, holds it at arm’s length, upside down. The little crow twists, curling up to peck at his fingers, and his knuckles whiten as he grips harder. It stills.
“Don’t hurt it,” I whisper.
“Now why would I do that, Miss Erikssen? There’s no need for anyone to be hurt, as long as we all cooperate.” He wipes the blood from his face with the back of the empty hand, looks at Sonja’s mother. “Mimir trusts me.”
Miriam is whispering into her daughter’s ear, ignoring him, but when the bird cries in pain, she looks up. The professor is gripping the struggling bird by its wings, pulling them away from its body.
“Don’t look,” Sonja tells us, and hides her face in her hands. Her mother cradles her closer, shielding her with her body.
Anders wrenches the crow’s wings, tearing outward, jerking its bones straight, and the bird screeches louder than I do, a vicious scream that rips through the cave, echoing back in with another voice, higher, a female shriek of pain, as the crow’s wings stretch impossibly long and thin, black feathers folding into sable wool, sweater sleeves covering the arms of a petite girl.
Faye writhes in his grasp, kicking and twisting, trying to bite his forearm, until he yanks her wrist behind her back, and she quiets.
I still scream.
25
Exclusion
“Good afternoon, Mr. Tyrell. Or is it still morning?”
“Professor Anders,” I say, as though everything is normal. Like it’s not weird that I can still feel the warmth from the sunshine on my back and Memory’s kiss on my lips from twenty minutes ago. Or that I’m inside a chapel that’s turned itself into an underground cavern.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, though I know he hasn’t. He’s out of breath, and a trickle of blood runs from a scratch on his cheek. The liquid is still sloshing in his kerosene lantern.
“For me?”