Inga continued to wail, but the brute hesitated. “What?”

  Isaac pointed to the pyre. “That’s your son right? He spoke to me, before I found the key, I heard the voices from the void and I could understand one of them.” Isaac’s mind raced, the people in the courtyard moved one by one to surround them. “It was a young boy, clear as day.”

  The giant man stepped closer. “You lie.”

  “No! It’s the truth, I swear.”

  “Magnus did not know English. He was too young.”

  “What? But—” Isaac’s confidence faltered. Then what had he heard?

  Aster moved to keep the people from getting behind her but Inga’s daughters moved to block her. She faced them head on. Feathers sprouted from all over her skin. Her fists clenched. “Back. OFF!” Two large shockwaves burst out from her and the other women jumped back in alarm. They surveyed her warily from a distance but didn’t move to block her off again.

  They were afraid of her, Isaac realized. Even Inga had stopped crying long enough to keep tabs on Aster. What kind of person could put such fear into the hearts of a whole village?

  This would explode like a pressure cooker if Isaac didn’t do something. He only had one road left to go down. “Magnus told me to look for the tower!” he shouted at Inga.

  She whipped her gaze back to him with a sharp motion. “What did you say?”

  “He told me to find the tower where it all started.”

  Some rapid exchanges went between Inga and her older son. If Isaac guessed right, the large man didn’t believe him. But something he’d said had sparked a memory in Inga.

  Aster moved closer to Isaac and Inga. She kept her feathers out still and they made her look like something out of a horror story. Isaac noticed for the first time that the whites of her eyes had turned black. The dark edges made her stare look quite menacing. “We don’t have time for this. Inga, will you do it or not?”

  “Why do you have my son’s familiar!”

  “There was no familiar! I found the key in the river, I swear!” Isaac said.

  The giant of man behind him rumbled his disapproval. “Or did you find a weakened familiar and decided one small sin couldn’t outweigh the benefit?”

  “No! I would never— it was a key! A voice spoke to me and so I followed it!”

  Inga scoughed. “A likely story. How could you bond with a key that fast, you must’ve transferred the familiar to you.”

  “Transfer? I don’t even know how I would do that!”

  Aster made a frustrated noise. “Inga, would you listen to me?”

  The old woman crossed her arms. “The familiar stays with us.”

  “For fuck’s sake! Forget about the familiar! Would you use your power on him already?”

  Inga’s face turned red. “Thor’s hammer! Will you leave it be, girl? Stop pestering me!” The wooden cat on her shoulder hissed. It sounded like a rocking chair.

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  Isaac angled himself between the two women and held his hands up to mollify them. “It’s okay, Aster means well.” Isaac hesitated. He might be pushing it considering the tense situation but he couldn’t make himself give up on the chance to learn more about Finn. “She just wants you to find my brother on my behalf. Perhaps we could come to some sort of arrangement?”

  Inga grimaced. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe Dwayne can stay here with you while me and Aster go and get my brother. You get to keep your son’s familiar, I get my brother, and once we’ve gotten Aster’s key we can all return here and defend this place. What do you say?”

  Inga looked very confused. She turned to Aster, then back to Isaac. “You foolish boy, I don’t find people.”

  Isaac stammered. “But— Aster said—”

  “It’s true, I see the people connected to your key. Your family.” Inga sighed. “But I don’t see where they are. I merely see that they are there.”

  “Wait what?” Aster didn’t look sheepish or guilty or even sorry, she looked angry. “Did you know this?”

  “She knows of my powers, yes.” Inga joined Isaac in scowling at Aster.

  “Of course I knew, that was the whole point of coming here.”

  A coldness seeped through Isaac. “Then you lied. Why?”

  “You know what, I’ve had it with carrying you through every damn situation. From now on you’re on your own.”

  Isaac shook his head as if to clear up his ears. “I carried you out of that church.”

  “Yeah? But not before knocking me over into a flying rock.”

  The indignation entered Isaac almost like a physical force. “If I had let you stand where you were Crassus would’ve ripped you apart! I knocked you out of the way. I saved your fucking life!”

  “The only thing you saved is yourself, Isaac. You’re too weak to save anyone else. Just admit it, your brother is dead. If I hadn’t been there you’d been dead the second you arrived. Think about for two seconds and you know I’m right.”

  “Oh look who’s acting all high and mighty now! You don’t care about me at all, so don’t pretend you’re some saint for saving my skin. The only thing you want is my key, I’ve figured out that much. I may be weak but I’m not stupid.”

  “Huh, could’ve fooled me.”

  Isaac clenched and unclenched his fist several times. He knew he should be scared but the fog of anger made it difficult to care about anything other than the mental image of punching Aster’s stupid face in. He couldn’t believe he’d trusted her. He’d even cared for this person!

  Birk shouted down at them from the watchtower. He spoke rapidly in his language. Isaac couldn’t understand but whatever he said it sure got a reaction out of everyone else. Inga, who seconds before had seemed ready to explode, now ignored them. Several people moved towards the walls. Some of the other younger kids climbed Birk’s tower as well.

  “What’s happened? Inga?” Aster shouted at Inga’s back but she got no answer.

  Isaac took the distraction when it was offered to him. He’d never liked being angry. He gestured to Dwayne and the enormous creature picked him up with a hand the size of a man-hole. He climbed up the hand onto Dwayne’s back and pointed in the direction of the wall.

  Others in front of them had reached the wall now and they spoke between themselves with agitated motions. They shouted back to the other people down in the courtyard who couldn’t see. At least three languages were being spoken, none of them English, but one word stuck out like a beacon: Chaaron. Isaac felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  He cleared the rubble making up the base of the wall by using Dwayne’s arm as an improvised ladder. He stepped onto the tallest part of the wall and stared out over the landscape beneath the hill. Except there was no landscape to be seen.

  “Not this shit again.”

  Isaac followed the poison clouds with his eyes all around the horizon. The clouds stretched from the base of the hill to several miles out in every direction. As far as he could tell, they were completely surrounded. Just one small gap about a couple hundred yards across stood clear of the poison gases.

  In that gap, Isaac saw the sun reflect off the golden armor of countless soldiers. A huge golem rose up from between them, it carried a man in its hand, and even from that far away, Isaac was sure beyond a shred of a doubt that the man was laughing.