He hadn’t seen a single crow in Valentina’s camp. Not once. Dancer was seeing a piece of nature he wasn’t. Not a rag moth. Not a horned wolf. Not something teetering on the line between real and imagined.
Plain old crows.
Unless they weren’t plain old crows.
Unless something was actively preventing him from seeing them.
It was obvious, like the moment you realized the sunglasses you misplaced were still up on top of your head.
The memory replayed, Catskill at his side, the impossible bird perched on the No Parking sign. It croaked deep and dark as the small hours of the night.
If you must call upon our court at this early date, find us in the wilds.Unlikely. In plain sight. At the temple tree, above the place of memories. Yet, we would rather you did not. We have fulfilled our part.
Those words had seemed like gibberish. Then, they hadn’t seemed relevant as the spore-log rattled his bones. They seemed like a riddle for another time, especially as Valentina spoke frozen words about time running short.
At the temple tree, above the place of memories.
Why was I drawn to this mountain? To this camp?
He thought of Valentina’s few rules, the only prohibitions she mentioned when offering an apprenticeship.
You will not open locked doors. You will not enter my living quarters uninvited. You will not fiddle with any equipment you don’t understand. You will not visit the roof of the library.
Green set his jaw.
He entered the hatch and earned anI thought I dismissed youlook from his teacher.
“Just passing through,” he said.
He climbed the rope ladder and opened the narrow hatch to the roof. Bits of twig and dry leaves rained down and itched in his collar as he pulled himself up onto the ridged metal roofing.
“Mr. Green! Stop! Get down from there!”
He ignored her.
The roof was grimed with lichens and littered with debris. High above, the silhouettes of several crows perched on the upper branches like outriders of full dark. He hadn’t seen them from the ground.
The Crow King’s words echoed in his mind.
Yet, we would rather you did not. We have fulfilled our part. And dealings with you are always rather complicated.
He slammed the hatch and stood on it, clinging to a branch for balance on the slick pitched roof. Below him, he felt the vibration of Valentina pounding on the hatchway. Her muffled words drifted up, but he couldn’t understand them.
“Okay. I know you’re here,” he said. “Show yourself.”
For a long moment, the words hung in the air.
Nothing happened.
He was a man in a tree scolding the sky.
Then, it all changed.
A falling oak leaf froze in place near Green’s cheek and déjà vu hit him like the first fat drops of a downpour. All around him, the world was locked in sudden stillness.
The Crow King spoke.
“Not the most polite request for an audience we have ever received. We were not expecting you yet.”
