I walked over, intrigued by what I might find. Ravanna had always been with us in this room, so I had never taken the opportunity to see what she liked to read. But now I could see that almost all tomes were written in runes.
Spell books and texts on the theory of magic, histories of kingdoms, and especially Blackthorne and Elysia. Ancient books about the Marble Wall and the war that nearly destroyed our realm. Odd books from beyond the Crystal Sea. Several books about the Cavolia. And one particularly large book about the Crown of Nine and the magic used to fashion it.
But the book that caught my attention was an identical grimoire to the one I had in my own possession. In fact, it was so similar I worried for a moment that Ravanna had rifled through my things and found it hidden away in my satchel.
But now that I could read runes, I saw that it was her name scrawled across the front. Ravanna Celestly Finnick.
I wished I’d made time to look through my mother’s. The last three days had been taxing, and by the time we’d finished supper late into the night, I’d been too mentally exhausted to do anything but go straight to bed.
“What are you doing?” Katrinka asked from behind me.
I picked it up and brought it to the table where we were working. “Ravanna’s spell book,” I explained. “Look, her name from before she was married.”
Katrinka ran a finger along the binding. “The old way is the true way.”
As my sister spoke the words aloud, they flickered and glowed along the cover. We took a step back, not expecting the book to come to life.
I opened it. Unlike my mother’s book that I’d started from the beginning and was slowly paging through, Ravanna’s opened in the middle directly on a spell.
Pictures of naked men were on one page, and I felt my cheeks grow hot at the sight. Katrinka gasped and reached out to turn the page. But the image directly across from it made me put a hand on hers, stalling her.
There, across from the naked men, was an entire page covered in ravens. Their diagrams were drawn out exactly as the men had been sketched. Anatomy and biology and notes scrawled in someone’s,Ravanna’s, own hand. And at the bottom of the page, the words, “How to raise an army.”
I immediately thought of Crenshaw. Of when he’d thrown himself out my bedroom window after he’d tried to murder me. Of the scene I’d witnessed during Conandra when it appeared my uncle was talking directly to a bird.
Could it be possible?
“I don’t understand,” Katrinka said plainly. “This can’t mean what it says.”
First, you have to make magic possible inside your own head.Ravanna had repeated that instruction countless times over the last three days.Only then can it be possible in the world.
We flipped to the next page. And then the next. It seemed it was not an easy task to make a man turn into a bird. But it wasn’t impossible. At least according to the Raven Queen’s personal grimoire. The most important requirement was that the human must be absolutely willing. Any resistance and the process would end in failure.
So Crenshaw had been made into a raven. I had to believe that was true. But by who? Ravanna? Or Tyrn?
Later in the book, there were diary entries by Ravanna herself. They started when she was only Katrinka’s age. Spells she’d tried and failed, additions and measurements, and the small changes it took for them to become successful.
I did not take time to read through everything, but the entries grew darker and crueler as I flipped the pages. Snippets like “She will not listen to me, no matter how many times I show her the way. I will be more persuasive next time I visit her.”
Or “Mynot visited me again last night. He was drunk and incoherent. He’s worried I’m poisoning him. He’s such a fool. I hope the drink kills him.”
Katrinka pointed at a later entry. “My brother suspects I’m the reason behind the latest attack in Elysia. The potion is nearly complete.”
And even later. “The Bog is attempting another uprising. They are the vilest people with a hag for a queen. I will stomp them into dust before the end of this.” It was dated three years ago.
She had not stomped them to complete dust, but I thought of how they scurried around out of sight. How they fled as soon as they heard birds take flight.
The birds. There were hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. Were they ravens? Or people?
Or both?
Since we arrived in Blackthorne, we had not seen nearly anyone besides the Bog Witch and Mrs. Blythe. But they couldn’t all be... She couldn’t have made them all...
The light moved in front of us again. “Do you see that, Kat?”
She looked up and nodded. “What is it?”
“A ghost?” The word sounded silly on my tongue, inappropriate for such a strange moment. “I don’t know. I’ve seen them before. They’re usually trying to tell me something. Or... show me something.”
