“Can you see it? Can you see these rare and powerful things?”
A Feather. About three feet long, covered in gold and opalescence and glittering jewels. It curved gently, like the lash of a great eye. Like the curve of the horizon under a starry, sunset sky.
There were so few of them on the earth. So few that it would be a rare person indeed who may have seen one.
Or a citizen of Ordinary. Someone who may have walked into the community center and met our very own Valkyrie, Bertie.
This was her Feather, usually displayed on the shelf behind her, recently stolen.
Anyone could have taken the Feather so openly displayed. Even I had been in her office that day, had seen it on the shelf with her other collectables.
Next to the Feather was a statue wrapped in the blanket. My breath caught, my ears rang. I knew that statue. A black wolf surrounded by other wolves, carved out of the heartwood of an ancient tree.
The stolen Wolfe clan Heartwood.
“The wing of the Valkyrie, the heart of the wolf. You have done so well, Delaney.”
I wanted to look him in the eye, and tell him to back the hell off. But my head would not move. My feet would not move. My mouth was stitched.
The world held too still, or we were moving so quickly that this moment was accelerated and wedged between other, steadier moments.
“Now,” he said, “the sweat of Death’s brow. I didn’t know how you would come by it, but oh, how you’ve come through for me. So many others would not have been able to do this at all. Not find one of these ingredients, much less all three. And here you are, more than capable of gathering all three within the span of a week. I had been prepared to wait for years, many years.”
My hand stretched out, fingers uncurling so that the tissue dropped on top of the Heartwood.
It settled there, like a square of used gift wrapping, wadded, smoothed out, folded. Waiting to be useful again, hidden away with the other treasures, a secret, rare and valued.
Something not to be shared.
“Fuck,” I breathed, the only word I’d ever spoken in his presence. Or I hoped it was the only word. My memory had obviously been tampered with. I knew he was the one who had been doing the tampering. For all I knew, we’d had long conversations. Yelling matches.
“Had your soul not been owned by my nephew just recently, I wouldn’t have seen you. Seen the opportunity that you present. Seen the tiny fissures in your soul I could compromise, small cracks in yourself, your power that I could exploit.
“The vortex opening in Ordinary was a window thrown wide, and oh, how the sunlight poured through.”
I could hear the smile in his voice, and I hated it.
“For all of these factors to fall into place so neatly, it might make me suspicious that other hands were involved, other forks in this pie.” He paused, thinking it through.
“No, when there is justice to be done, the heavens, the earth, the worlds above and below are simply wheels that need greasing to turn in one’s favor.
“Tonight, when the moon is dark, you and I are going to have a celebration. Won’t. That. Be. Interesting?”
He didn’t touch me but his voice, his will over me and my soul—or the fissures in it—made me want to bathe in bleach.
The instant that thought went through my mind, he stepped away, creating space between us. I could breathe again. It was an odd thing for him to do. Almost as if he were trying to ease my distress.
“Tonight,” he said gently. “You have my word this is business only. You will not be harmed. This will soon be over, Delaney Reed. You have my word on that, too.
“Put this away. Cover everything.”
I watched as my hand dragged the blanket back over the crate.
Death. Feather. Wood. Death, feather, wood. Death, feather, wood.
My hand closed the Jeep, then I stood there, waiting for his orders. I hated it.
I hated him.
