“Okay,” I whispered, my breath clouding before me, “I want to talk.”
In response, a single raven flew down from the branches behind me, landing in the snow five feet away. It peered up with blank onyx eyes. Not Munin, then. But I knew he could still hear me.
“I want you to keep Ethan safe,” I said. “From whatever’s happening. He seems to think he’s going to die next and I won’t let that happen.”
The bird cocked its head, but that was it.
“This is crazy.” I shook my head and looked around, positive there would be some kid out here watching and laughing. No one was out, however. Just me and the birds. “I don’t even know why I’m out here.”
What will you bargain with?
The voice came from nowhere, deep and resonant and vibrating against my bones. Munin. Suddenly, this stopped feeling like a stupid fantasy or delusion. This was real. And this was life and death.
“I’m not bargaining with you,” I said. “You want me alive. I want Ethan alive. I think you can fill in the blanks.”
It is not in my realm to save him, the raven said.
“You’re a god,” I hissed. “Or something close to it. You can keep him safe.”
You can keep him safe. Not I.
“How? This doesn’t have anything to do with me—I never summoned you; you came to me. I can’t prevent you—”
You were different.
His words stopped my tirade in its tracks.
“What do you mean, I was different?”
You we came to by choice. These are not interventions. These are sacrifices.
My blood went cold as the bird stared up at me, motionless.
“Sacrifices? But who would do that? Why?”
To bring the end, Munin said.
Then he flew off. Behind me, the trees erupted in caws and spiraling birds.
? ? ?
I didn’t stay by the shore. The moment the bird flew off, I jogged back up the slick path toward the academics concourse, crows swarming around me like angry bees from a hive. They cawed and circled and swept past me in a fury of shadow and talon, grazing my skin but never actually touching. Their screams were terrifying.
As was the complete silence that followed the moment I left the forest.
I paused on the path just outside the woods and looked back. No crows thrashing in the trees, no flurry of feathers. Just silent white pines and the empty shadows waiting within.
“What the fuck?” I whispered to no one.
Maybe I was going crazy. Maybe that would be for the best.
I headed straight to Jonathan’s classroom. The silence was almost suffocating. Why wasn’t anyone out here having snowball fights or singing show tunes? Why did tonight of all nights feel like I lived in a mausoleum?
My stomach was in knots when I knocked on the classroom door.
“Kaira,” Jonathan said when he opened the door. He smiled.
“Hey, sorry I’m late. Got a bit distracted.”
“It’s fine. You’re right on time. Come on in, we were just about to get started.”
He held the door open for me and I stepped past him, taking in the room. My heart thudded in my ears, and if not for him standing behind me, I would have turned and left.
The desks were all pushed against the walls, and a few of my classmates—five in all—lounged against them. There was Tina, the silversmith girl who did all of the rings. And Kai, whose thesis completely blew the rest of his work out of the water.
And there, in the center of the room, was a black circle painted in ink.
“Excellent, friends,” Jonathan said behind me, the door audibly locking shut. “Now we can begin.”
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
Jonathan put a hand on my shoulder and guided me into the room. I was too shocked to put up a fight.
“This is our independent study,” he said calmly.
“But what—”
“I told you, this is where we explore the more arcane aspects of what I teach in class. It’s one thing to read about communing with the gods. It’s quite another to take part in the ancient practice.”
“It’s you?” I asked. “You’re the one killing people?”
Jonathan didn’t speak, though. It was Tina who came forward. Tina, with her reddish-brown ringlets and smoky eye shadow and plethora of handmade jewelry.
“We’re not killing anyone,” she said. “Those deaths were just suicides.”
And I knew, then, just from her voice, that she thought she was telling the truth. She hadn’t seen the circle around Jane or Mandy. She had no idea there was a correlation with the black ring in the center of the room and the bodies that were beginning to litter this campus.
I looked to Jonathan, who raised an eyebrow very calmly and gestured for me to sit down. I didn’t. I couldn’t move.