Bex’s head shot back up. “Another way to what?”
“There’s another way to break the barrier and attack Gilgamesh without retrieving your crown,” Agatha clarified. “I’m not the one most fit to explain it, though. My expertise is witchcraft, the magic of the living world. But despite the fires of life my son poured into you, you are still a queen of Paradise, Ishtar’s divine creation. To address your situation, you need a god.”
“I don’t know,” Bex said skeptically. “The last god I met wasn’t very helpful.”
“This one will be,” Agatha promised as she took Bex’s arm and started pulling her away from Adrian’s cauldron toward the cabin’s front door. “Despite starting out on different sides, the two of you have been working toward the same goal for a long time now. I think you’ll find you have a lot in common once you start talking. We even took the liberty of paying for her ticket.”
Before Bex could ask what in the Hells that meant, the Witch of the Present held out her hand to show Bex the freshly healed stump where her right pinky finger once was.
“Adrian isn’t the only one who paid for this day,” she explained when Bex gaped. “My sisters and I all sacrificed, but it’s up to you to make it count.”
“Make what count?” Bex demanded. “What do you want me to—”
Before she could finish, Agatha used her four-fingered hand to shove Bex out the door. That shouldn’t have been possible for a human, but the witch was a lot stronger than she looked, and Bex had been caught by surprise. She still only stumbled a few feet, but before she could yell at Adrian’s mother for pushing her, a giant black talon shot out of the fir tree’s shadows and wrapped around Bex’s waist.
“Well, well, well,” a croaking, inhuman voice chuffed above her. “If it isn’t my son’s remorseless murderess. This should be rich.”
Bex barely had time to cock her head back to see the absolutelygiganticcrow perched on the cabin’s roof before the bird flicked its giant claw and threw her off the porch, sending her plummeting down the center of Adrian’s enormous new heart tree.
CHAPTER 4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BY THE TIME BEXgot her bearings, she’d already hurtled out of the fir tree’s thicker upper branches and was now falling through the open air beside its skyscraper-sized trunk. She was so high up, her eyes had trouble making out the canopies of the smaller—but still gigantic—trees she was falling into. She had no problem seeing the shadow of the giant raven diving after her, though.
“Ho, ho, ho,” the bird croaked in a smug, rasping voice. “Didn’t Ishtar teach you to catch yourself? It’s a good thing my precious witchlings vouched for you. You’d be eaten in a second if you came into my forest with such sloppy moves.”
Bex’s reply to that was to slam her hands toward the ground. Flames blasted out of her palms a second later, creating enough opposite thrust to turn her fall into a hover. She was still trying to get the balance right when the giant talons closed around her body once more, stopping her flight and flipping her over before bringing Bex face-to-face with the most monstrous bird she’d ever seen.
It was similar to a crow with jet-black feathers and a sharp black beak, but no mortal bird had ever had such a delightedly bloodthirsty gleam in its beady eyes. The thing looked like it was getting ready to pick every bit of flesh off Bex’s bones, but when she swung her burning hands up to grab it, the bird smacked her fists away with a flick of its beak.
“There’s no call for that,” it croaked, spreading its giant wings to check their fall. “Your mother and I never could crosspaths without trying to tear each other’s eyes out, but the two of us have a shared enemy. That makes us allies of a sort, so I will overlook your participation in the callous murder of my son and greet you, youngest daughter of the fool known as Ishtar.”
Bex lowered her burning hands cautiously. The giant bird’s arrogance certainly matched the other gods she’d spoken to. But while she didn’t appreciate being talked down to, Bexreallydidn’t want to get into an aerial battle with an opponent who was clearly better equipped for it. She also didn’t want to waste her energy fighting anyone who wasn’t Gilgamesh or his sons if she could help it, but that didn’t mean she was going to roll over and take this.
“Who are you?” she demanded, leaning against the crow’s talons to show she wasn’t afraid.
“Some humility would serve you well,” the crow scolded, turning its enormous head to look at Bex with each of its giant beady black eyes in turn. “But I know better than to expect manners from a child of Paradise, so I won’t waste my breath except to say that you may call me the Morrigan.”
Bex had thought so. The Morrigan was the crow goddess Adrian had told her about, the one who’d eaten the crazy prince Leander had sent to kill him. She’d also eaten Adrian’s finger, but saving his life and their attack on the Anchor balanced that out, and Bex wasn’t exactly in a position to hold a grudge right now.
“Okay, ‘the Morrigan’,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What do you want, and what does it have to do with throwing me off a tree?”
“I threw you because you were distracting my sweet Agatha,” the goddess replied, tucking Bex closer to her feathered belly as she swooped in a spiral around the fir tree’s giant trunk. “She needs all of her attention to save the life of her delicious son, whose flesh I very much look forward to sampling again.”
Bex’s scowl deepened.
“As for what I want, that’s easy,” the Morrigan continued, turning her sharp beak toward the golden palace hidden behind the glittering shield. “I want Gilgamesh to die in agony for the harm he’s heaped upon my forest and my witches.”
That was a plan Bex could get behind, but she still didn’t understand. “Are you the goddess of witches?”
“Never,” the crow snapped. “Those who belong to the Blackwood need no gods. I’m more of a benevolent neighbor. I help the witches in return for payment and the advancement of our mutual interests, which include you at the moment.”
“Why didn’t you help me before I lost my horns, then?” Bex asked bitterly. “It’s a little too late now.”
“Now is the perfect time,” the goddess promised. “My sweet Muriel is never wrong about these things. Helping you earlier would have tipped our hand, but losing your crown, sword, and name was what caused Gilgamesh to ignore you long enough to allow your incursion into the Hells and their subsequent destruction. That’s heaps more than any of the idiot Rebexas before you ever managed, so clearly, your horns aren’t as important as you think.”
“Not as important?” Bex squawked. “I can’t draw my sword!”
