“I would say that you were wrong to do that to me,” said the Crow Girl. “I would say that when you let me go, you never said anything about tricking me back one day. I would say a strong king doesn’t need to play that kind of game with the people he claims to be protecting. I would say it wasn’t fair. The children don’t belong to you, and that means you shouldn’t be using them for bargaining. But I would say that if that was the price, I’d do it. I’ll never be yours. I’ll never be still, or quiet, or good. But I would stay.”
The King of Cups sighed heavily. Zib shivered, inching closer to Avery, as if he could protect her from the cold.
“Fine,” he said. “All of you, get gone. I want nothing more to do with you.”
“But—” began the Page of Frozen Waters.
He turned and looked at her, and she became very still, like a rat facing the narrow-eyed gaze of the family cat.
The Crow Girl grabbed Avery by one arm, and Zib by the other, and ran, as fast as she could, for the edge of the cliff. The children let her haul them in her wake, until she ran past the end of the stone, out into empty nothingness.
The fall was sharp, and short, and brutal. Zib screamed. Avery wailed. The Crow Girl burst into birds, all the pieces of the murder swirling around them in a skirl of dark feathers, wings beating frantically, until the children realized they were no longer falling but were rolling down a bridge of birds, their descent slowed to something stately, something almost kind.
When they reached the ground, the Crow Girl re-formed, dropping to her knees on the rocky shore and panting. Finally, she looked up through her feathered bangs and smiled wanly.
“See?” she said. “Got you out. I’m clever.”
“Yes,” said Avery. “You are.” He looked to Zib, then. “But what happened?”
Zib took a deep breath, and said, “I met an owl…”
ELEVENWHERE ZIB WENT, AND HOW IT HAPPENED
Oak soared on vast red wings, and Zib snuggled into the owl’s feathers, warm and safe and lost. It was strange, to think that she could be safe and lost at the same time; the two conditions felt as if they ought to contradict one another, leaving her either safe at home or lost and in danger, but with the owl all around her, the world seemed like a kinder place.
The fog was more shades of gray than she had ever thought possible, pale as a pearl and dark as a stone after the rain. She watched it swirl around them until her eyelids felt heavy and her whole body felt thick, the way it sometimes did when she stayed up too far past her bedtime. She couldn’t think of how long it had been since she’d slept.
Surely the school day was over by now. Surely her father was home from dropping off other people’s children, stepping into the living room, hanging his coat on the peg, and calling, “Where’s my little piece of pumpkin pie?” with the expectant air of a man whose questions were answered more often than not.
Her mother, wrapped in her painting as she so often was, probably wouldn’t have noticed that she had never come home, had never grabbed an apple from the counter or called hello before rushing back off to the woods, back to her private adventures. She’d say that Zib had been there, surely Zib had been there, and so neither of them would worry. Not until the sun was going down and she was still nowhere to be seen.
How long would it be before they moved from confusion to anger, and then finally to fear? Would they call their friends—surely they must have friends, friends couldn’t be a thing that ended with childhood, no one would ever choose to grow up if they couldn’t be adults and have friends at the same time—and go into the woods looking for her?
Would they find the wall?
Zib didn’t think they would.
She was so sunk in the owl’s warmth and in her own uneasy thoughts that she didn’t notice the air getting colder around them, or the fog getting darker, until it was less pearl and more stone, until she could barely see through her almost-closed eyes.
Then Oak cried out, a high, pained sound, and fell out of the sky, twisting around and around like a leaf caught in a sudden gale. The great owl slammed into the ground, Zib cushioned by the feathers of its breast, and she gasped, the wind knocked out of her by the impact.
“You shouldn’t be here, bird.” The voice was old, and cold, and almost disdainful. Zib opened her eyes and beheld the man who stood above her.
He was tall, and thin, and looked even older than he sounded, as old as wishes, as old as winter. His hair was white and his eyes were blue, and ice formed and cracked on his eyelashes, falling away every time he blinked. His robes were heavy velvet patterned with cascades of water flowing from weighty chalices, and she knew him for the King of Cups, and she knew she was in danger, for all that his attention was wholly focused on the owl.
“I was helping the girl,” said Oak, one wing curling protectively around her.
The King of Cups tilted his head before turning his attention on Zib. “Were you, now?” he asked. “Hello, child. You must be precious indeed, if old Oak would risk capture for your sake. What is your name?”
“Hepzibah Jones,” she replied, before she could stop herself. She didn’t want to give the King of Cups her proper name—had not, in fact, intended it—but something about the way he spoke left no room for argument, no room for hesitation.
“You are not of my protectorate, are you?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Sir.”
The King of Cups laughed. “A polite child is a rare treasure! Tell me, child, do
