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Ali’s outfit was cute—new dress covered in sequins, metallic clutch, flower-design jewelry, seven-inch heels—but it had not been made for waiting in a tiny wooden room long enough that she’d mostly sobered up. She’d been cold and her feet had ached when she was shoved into the definitely-some-kind-of-cell, and that was before she realized there was no chair, no other exit, and no window to climb out whatever bullshit prison this was. The only object in the room was an actual flame-in-lantern copper hurricane lamp high enough on the wall she couldn’t reach it.
She’d been planning on using the lantern as some kind of improvised weapon to break over the head of the next person to walk through the door, but even with heels she wasn’t tall enough to reach it. That was fine, she still had the next best option—a shoe. A plastic platform heel was sure to make a dent in someone if she swung it hard enough, right?
A key scraped in the lock and Ali scrambled to her feet, weapon held ready. If those bastards came back in here with a little bit less of the fucking glowing spears that had surprised her last time, she’d be ready for them.
When the Uber driver had stopped the car and refused to go further, she’d still been happily tipsy from celebrating a friend’s promotion. The fog had been too thick to see anything, but the driver—a guy who embodied the look and demeanor of someone named Chet—had insisted that they were close enough to her apartment, pointing repeatedly to his maps display and ignoring her protestations that she couldn’t see any landmarks. It hadn’t seemed worth the argument and he’d seemed really set on this, so she’d grabbed her stuff and headed into the fog.
And the fog had just kept going.
She’d begun to suspect that she’d somehow missed her apartment building and ended up in a park—there were way too many fucking trees she kept walking into—when she finally saw the looming shape of a building ahead. The fact that it was made up of vertical logs and not brick had been more confusing than anything in her tired and half-drunk state, as she approached what turned out to be—of all things—a wall and a gate. And then some kind of alarm had started ringing, and another, and another, and figures with strange animal-mask heads were yelling at her to stand still while they pointed glowing blades at her, and then they were hurrying her through a door and down a flight of steps while she tried to explain she was sorry, she didn’t know where she was, she’d be happy to leave if they just pointed her in the right direction for Baseline Apartments?
She was not sorry any more. She was pissed.
A figure in a wooden wolf mask and tooled leather outfit stepped through the open door and Ali lunged forward, taking a swing at him with her shoe. “Let me fucking leave, you bastards,” she snarled, only to be thrown backwards as wolf-mask threw up a glowing hand and an invisible wall slammed into her.
“Deadly threats will be dealt with with appropriate force,” the guy said. His hand was still gleaming, little rivulets of light curving around his fingers like spilling water. She couldn’t see his face behind the mask, but his tone sounded the kind of disapproving you got from a teacher telling you you’d failed an exam. “Why did you come to Coveholm?”
She wasn’t quite ready to deal with the implications of invisible walls of force or people with glowing appendages. That could be unpacked later. Ali picked herself up off the floor, glaring at the bastard in the mask. A frontal assault was off the table. She was going to have to fight her way out of here some other way. “I was trying to get home,” she gritted out.
“And why were you wearing that?” The lip-curl was clear in the man’s tone as he looked her up and down.
Oh, and that was just fantastic. Another fucking man who was going to pass judgement on the length of her skirt or the amount of her cleavage, never mind that the same fuckers invariably thought it was great when they thought they’d be the beneficiary of her outfit. “I was at the club with friends,” she spat. “The idea is to have a good time.”
“I’m going to give you one chance,” mask-asshole said, as though offering her a great concession. “Take off everything you’re wearing and drop it in the corner, and then we can get you something decent to wear.”
They wanted her to—oh. Oh no way in hell. “Go fuck yourself,” Ali said, enunciating every syllable as clearly as possible as she balled her fists at her sides. “I don’t know what kind of fucked up cult you’re running here, but I won’t be cooperating, asswipe.”
It had to be a cult, right? Masks and outfits, strange weapons, offended by her clothes. She eyed the asshole by the door. His leather jacket covered most of his arms, but his neck and hands were still uncovered, and if he got close enough to grab her that meant she was close enough to bite him on her way to kneeing him in the balls.
“I didn’t want to have to do this,” the man said with insincere regret, “but I’m going to have to call in the Crow.” He stepped aside, the door opening up behind him and speaking to someone on the other side of it.
Ali barred her teeth at him, trying to get into as solid a stance as she could in a sequined sheath dress. Bring in whoever this fucking Crow was, she’d bite him too. A figure stepped through the door, and she paused.
It might be time to return to the concept of the glowing weapons and other inexplicable things that had been happening over the last few hours, because the person who’d just entered the room had dark wings behind his back, and they were moving like they were part of him. His fingers sported talons, hands darkened as though dipped in ash, and his ears came to a point. That wasn’t a costume—this guy wasn’t human.
The definitely-non-human figure looked at her, expression serious. “Will you come with me?”
Was she sleeping right now? Had she hit her head? Despite the absurdity of everything that was happening, there had been a degree of internal logic to her evening which made her think that she wasn’t dreaming. Which meant that she’d somehow stumbled into some sort of magical realm. Ali eyed the Crow. “Why would I do that?” she said, sarcastic.
He wasn’t holding himself threateningly, he was just standing on the other side of this small room with his hands slack at his sides. “Well, it doesn't seem like the back room of the Lupine Guard is the most fun place to be.” The crow-man’s voice was deadpan. He raised his eyebrows, nodding in her direction. “You’re wearing a lot of toxic materials, but I’m safe from them. I can take you to a place where you’re not going to be poisoning anyone and get you something safer.”
Ali stared at him. “Toxic?”
“Plastic, chemicals, paint,” the six-and-half-foot-tall crow-man on the other side of the room said. “You’re from the other side of the Wild Barrier, and artificial things from your world are poison here.” He tilted his head back at the hallway where the wolf-mask man was. “You set off a lot of alarms.”
Holy shit, she was really in some kind of fae realm.
And she was in trouble with the law for wearing a sparkly dress.
Ali waved a hand, the exhaustion of the evening stoking her anger. “Fucking send me back, then!”
“The portal isn’t open all the time,” the Crow said. He squinted for a moment, eyes unfocused as he did some kind of mental calculation, then looked at her again, expression faintly apologetic. “You’re stuck here for three days, I think.”
“Just grab her!” Wolf-Mask’s voice said from the other side of the door.
“I don’t tell you how to bully shopkeepers,” the Crow told him, and then looked back at Ali. “I can get you better clothes and set you up with a place to stay, if you follow me?”
Amid everything else, this seemed to be her best option. “If you try any funny business I’ll claw your fucking eyes out,” Ali told him.
“Absolutely,” the Crow said, and held the door for her.
She wasn’t really drunk any more, but platform heels were tricky on a dirt path. Ali focused on not tripping, the crow-man staying a careful arms-length away from her. “So,” he said after they’d left the buildings at the wall and headed down a moonlit path between trees. “How did you come to be wearing that much plastic and chemicals?”
About forty percent of her concentration was taken by not turning an ankle on the road. “It’s a party dress,” she told him. She waved in his direction. “For dancing.”
“I always think it’s a party when I wear toxins,” the Crow said, deadpan. There was a pause. “Haven’t tried to dance in a while. Maybe that’s the secret.”
“It’s not toxic to me, fuck you,” Ali shot back, annoyed and amused. The crow guy was staying very carefully hands off, and his tone had been a joke and not judgement. It sounded like he was just trying to have a conversation. “I was out with friends to celebrate a work promotion.”
“It’s very pretty,” he said, sincerely enough that she was startled. “Very sparkly.” He waved a hand. “The colourful hair is nice.”
Ali looked at him for a moment, then grinned. Despite her outfit’s status as hazardous materials, apparently, the crow-man did sound like he appreciated the look. Finally someone with taste. “Yeah, I’m going to get a second job as a disco ball after this.”
She was used to being a little bit cold whenever she went out, but the early-hours temperature had dropped to the point where she was pretty sure she had goosebumps. A breeze gusted through the trees, and Ali shivered.
“I do not know what that is,” the crow-man said soberly. “But I take it it’s very shiny.” He reached up to his neck and unclasped something, removing a cloak that had been hanging between his wings. He held the bundle of fabric out.
Ali paused, but he didn’t have the expression of someone intending to earn a favour later. Just an offer against the cold. She took the cloak and pulled it around her shoulders, the fabric pooling around her ankles, and lifted the front of it so she didn’t step on the hem.
The sound of a rushing river was audible through the trees, as the path emerged from the forest and ran alongside the water. Amid the mist, she could see a looming shape in the midst of where the river started to run down over the rocks.
The crow-man stood on the bank and touched a symbol carved into the front of his leather chestpiece, light pooling under his fingers and then skipping off into the fog. Where the light hit, flat rocks rose out of the river and shed water until they were dry. A minute later, there was a path of stepping stones leading towards the large shape in the fog.
“This way,” he said, stepping onto the rocks.
A bit lost for words, Ali followed.
The shape in the middle of the mist turned out to be a stone house, foundation set directly amid the rapids. The crow-man’s stone path headed for a door in the wall. Ali followed him in and stared, wide-eyed, at a hall that stretched further into the distance than seemed plausible. It was all polished wood floors and stone walls and vaulted ceilings, and along both walls there was a double line of crow-person statues carved out of a shining black substance. The statues were all genders and ages and builds, wings flared and faces staring warningly into the distance. Ali stepped closer to the nearest one, a middle-aged woman with lines around her eyes and a defiant expression.
They were really astonishingly detailed. As she peered at it, Ali swore she could make out the vanes on the gleaming black feathers.
“Here you go,” the crow-man said, emerging from a door she hadn’t seen. Ali blinked at him. He held out a bundle of dark fabric. “If you can just take off all your plastic and put it in the string bag, and then you can put on the other stuff, and then bring it back and I’ll get rid of it.”
This had been a brand new dress, but she was a little less attached to it after being threatened with weapons. Ali took the clothes. “Alright,” she said. “Where do I change?”
The clothes were made for someone about a foot taller than her who didn’t have boobs or hips. Not the most flattering getup she’d ever been in, but through hauling on the fabric, cuffing the hems, and judicious use of a tied belt she made it work. When in Rome, do as the Romans, and when stuck in a magical land, do as the only person who’d been polite had asked. She stuffed her things into the bag and went back to the hall, shoving it at the crow-man. “Here,” she said, a little shortly, and then tilted her head at him as a thought occurred to her. She raised her eyebrows, inquisitive and a little challenging. “If all of this is so toxic, how come you can be around it?”
The crow-man blinked at her. “Oh,” he said. “I’m cursed.”
“You what?”
His fingers went to his sternum, as if touching something under the leather armour. “There’s a spell on me.” He shrugged. “Means I can handle elements from the other side.” The crow-man held up the bag of clothing and shoes to illustrate. “So this doesn’t hurt me. Comes with other side effects, but—” He shrugged.
Ali squinted at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “What sort of side effects?” Did he breathe fire or not sleep or something? God, she could use sleep right about now.
“Oh, you know,” the guy said evasively, which was really not an answer. He cleared his throat. “Uh, could I have all of it, though?”
“I gave you all of it,” Ali said. Her tone got sarcastic. “Everything I own, in fact.”
“Uh,” the crow-man said. He was very pointedly looking at the wall above her head. “I—the curse means I can sense—you have more plastic, and the bad metal.” His ears were going red. “Under your clothes.”
Ali’s hands went to her chest, where she’d tucked the essentials she’d taken out of her bag. “You mean my phone? I have to give you my phone and my ID?”
The crow-man’s hands gestured vaguely to her whole torso, still staring fixedly at the all over her head. “Kind of this whole—area.”
What the fuck. “You want my fucking bra?”
“It’s made of toxic materials, so,” the crow-man said, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to escape from this conversation.
That made two of them. Ali was so tired, and fantasy world sucked. She glared at him. “How fucking toxic is it, anyways? There’s been a lot of people telling me a lot of things about how everything I own is poisonous, but not a lot of goddamn proof.”
The crow-man’s expression was slightly miserable. “I mean, I can’t show you the effects, cause it won’t work on me, but I have to live out here so that it doesn’t affect anyone—the nets in the water so it won’t wash downstream—” He cleared his throat. “If you go back into Coveholm like this the alarms will set off and the guard will be out again.” There was a pause. “Sorry.”
This wasn’t a fight she could win. The phone was still under warranty, so she could get a replacement, she’d gotten a new ID when her wallet was stolen before, and it wasn’t like she could call anyone for help in fucking fae realm or wherever she was. She’d seen enough signs of magic so far that it was legitimately plausible that her clothes did something bad here. Ali put her arms up the back of her shirt and unlatched the bra, and grimly put the items in the crow-man’s hand.
Thank god she’d been on a 100% cotton kick for her underwear.
“That should be all of it, you can—you can keep the rest,” the crow man said. He cleared his throat, clearly trying a joking tone. “Not sure why you’d want to wear plastic under your clothes anyways?”
She was really not in the mood for jokes. Ali hiked her boobs higher, staring him in the eyes. “The girls are heavy,” she told him. “They need to be held.”
The crow-man turned a truly fascinating shade of red. “Uh,” he said, holding eye contact like looking away from her face would cause him physical pain. “We can head to the village now, it’s about twenty minutes walk away, or—” As if unwillingly, his eyes darted down to her bare feet. “Or I can set you up in the front room?”
Right now she wanted to inconvenience this guy as much as possible. And she really wanted to stop walking. Ali bared her teeth at her host. “Sure, show me to the guest room.”
Things seemed more bearable in the morning. Ali blinked at the wooden ceiling of the room she’d been shown to, knitted blankets pulled up to her chin. So, she was stuck in a magical realm for a long weekend.
She’d been stranded in foreign countries before because of disaster while travelling, and at least this time she had a time for an exit and she wasn’t left sleeping on a floor. Assuming nothing else went wrong, all she had to do was make it through a couple days and leave, and then start the process of replacing all her stuff. She’d tell the driver’s license people her bag got stolen or something. It wasn’t that far from the truth.
She could hear the rushing of the river out of the window. The room she’d been shown to was up under the eaves of this strange house, with rapids below it. It was soothing.
She could also smell some kind of breakfast, which was a decent sign for crow-man’s hospitality. She was still annoyed at him for having taken all her stuff, but at least that had kind of been what it said on the tin when he said he was the guy who got rid of plastic. The dress had been from SHEIN, so that was kind of expected. Ali’s stomach rumbled.
As decently comfortable as this bed was, she didn’t feel like staying in a small room forever. She had a crow-man to bother. Ali got out of bed and hauled the pants back on, bending down to cuff the hems high enough that she could walk.
Thank goodness she’d gotten LASIK last year as a celebration for having paid off her student loans. If she’d had to give up her glasses to the fantasy hazardous waste crew, she would have definitely started biting people.
She almost didn’t recognize the crow-man when she followed the smell of food to a kitchen. The wings and talons of yesterday were gone, just leaving a tall dark-haired man with tattoos cooking sausages on a gleaming copper stove. He looked up when Ali entered the room. “Oh, morning,” he said. He pointed the spatula at a table to the side, where a mug of something steamed under a tiny knitted cozy, and a basket lay hidden under a dish towel. “Food’s over there, I’m about done with these.”
She sat down and investigated—puffy fried bread filled the basket, and the cozy was hiding a mug of tea. There was cream and honey and jam on the table. Ali looked at the crow-man. “You sure this is a fantasy world? This is what you eat in the morning? In the world where sequins set off alarms?” She’d eaten very similar things in hotels, though a lack of instant oatmeal was a nice change.
He cracked an egg against the edge of the pan, which sizzled as it hit the grease. “People come through the Wild Barrier and stay, every so often, so I was guessing about what you were used to.”
Well, that was decent of him. Ali doctored her tea. Really would have been nice if it was coffee—without her meds she was going to be reliant on caffeine for any focus at all—but she’d coped with worse. She eyed her host as he added a few more eggs and poked them. “Did you cook all of this?” She grinned, tucking some hair behind her ear as an idea occurred to her. “Can you get delivery in fantasy world?”
“Normal people can get food delivered, if they want to spend money,” he responded. “People won’t deliver to me, though.” He looked over his shoulder to smile briefly at her. “When I first became the Crow I was living entirely on burned oatmeal, and that got old for some reason. Had to learn how to cook.”
Ali sipped her tea. It tasted a little different, some flavour note she wasn’t used to, but it was warming and clarifying as she swallowed. She closed her eyes to appreciate it, then opened them to investigate the fried bread. “I wouldn’t know,” she told him. “I live on cereal for my mornings, mostly.”
The egg was flipped, and he looked at her again. “Cereal? Like—porridge?”
The breads were mostly hollow, like sopapillas. If she drizzled some honey on them, that sounded exactly like the sort of healthy breakfast she was in the mood for. “It’s cold, comes in a box,” she said. “You just add milk and syrup and eat it.” Ali paused. “Well, the syrup is optional. Fruit’s a better idea, bananas and shit.”
“All you have to do is add milk...” the crow-man said, as if this was a revelatory concept. He slid the contents of his pan onto a plate and sat down on the other side of the table. “Help yourself,” he said, nodding to the eggs and sausages.
Ali did, and then considered him. He didn’t have the talons any more, and the discolouration on his hands was gone as well. Aside from the pointed ears, he looked almost human. “What’s up with the wings?” she asked.
The crow-man blinked at her, fried bread held to his mouth. “Hmmm?”
“Yesterday you had wings, now you don’t,” she said. She raised her eyebrows at him. “How does that work?”
“Oh.” His hand went to his chest, and curved tendrils of shadow emerged from his breastbone and his back, wrapping around his chest and his arms. His fingers lengthened into talons, skin darkening, and his shoulders shifted and widened under his shirt as wings unfolded to spread out behind him. It was one of the clearer displays of magic she’d seen since she’d gotten here. And it was also pretty hot, if she was being honest.
The crow-man did not appear to know that he’d just done something attractive. “They kind of make sitting in chairs difficult,” he said, a dryly amused expression on his face. “Not to mention bed, I mean.”
There were little specks of black feathers on his temples like this, and she could see the ink curves on his neck had grown. It really wasn’t a bad look, now that he was just sitting on the other side of the kitchen table feeding her. Ali was still wary, but she had eyes. “Well there’s your issue,” Ali said. “What are you doing sleeping in a fucking bed? A nest is the way to go.”
His face closed a little. “Not a huge fan of that,” he said dryly. “Despite the curse, I do like being a person.”
That felt like a sensitive topic. Okay, noted. Ali drank more of her tea. “What’s on the schedule for today?”
The crow-man nodded at her as he ate a bite of egg. “I need to get you clothes that fit, and I can find you a place to stay in town until the Barrier opens up again.”
Well she wasn’t going to say no to clothes that fit. Town might have more of the assholes with masks and spears, though. Time to find out if they would be nicer when she was wearing approved clothes. For some reason she didn’t think that was likely, that kind of idiot was always the same. Ali nodded, cutting into her sausage. “Sounds good.”
In addition to making breakfast, the crow man had dug a pair of felt boots out of somewhere, and she did not have to walk alongside the river in bare feet. She wasn’t the biggest nature person, but it wasn’t a terrible journey. Small creatures in the underbrush darted across their path, and the birdsong sounded like the morning outside her apartment, but richer. The tiled roofs she could spot through the trees as they approached the town gleamed in the sunlight.
“Alright,” the crow-man said, sounding like he was bracing himself for something. He touched his sternum again and tendrils of shadow wrapped around him, wings unfurling in the space behind him. “Clothes first.” Now that he had his wings out, they curved wide enough to almost touch Ali. “Oh,” the crow-man said, stepping to the side. “Sorry.”
Ali eyed him. For all that the wings were evidently part of some kind of curse, they looked soft, and she wouldn’t mind touching them. She still remembered being 13 and doodling angel-boys in the edges of her math homework.
Even though touching fae guys was probably a bad idea.
She didn’t mind bad ideas, like, recreationally. On the weekend.
“It’s fine,” she told him, and grinned.
“Right.” He cleared his throat and shifted his wings behind his back, ink patterns on his neck moving interestingly as he swallowed. “It’s just over here.” He pointed at the buildings through the trees which they had very clearly both seen.
“Ah-huh,” Ali said, amused. Had he gotten nervous because of the lightest prospect of touch? She did enjoy having that effect on people. He was still some kind of a cursed fae creature who she was dependent on right now, so she probably shouldn’t push it, though. She turned her attention ahead, taking in the town as they got closer. Colourful tiled roofs, a bell tower that loomed over the town, and buildings decorated with carved and painted wood. The few figures she could see in the distance were dressed like re-enactors, in long skirts and tunics.
On the outskirts of town, a man with a sword at his side roused from where he’d been snoozing under a canopy and stepped forward with his hand on his weapon. “Alright then, that’s close enough, Crow,” he said, glaring officiously at the man beside Ali. “What brings you to town? There haven’t been any alarms going off.”
The crow-man lifted the string bag he was wearing in explanation. “Shopping, and I need a place to stay for a visitor from the other side of the barrier.”
“Hmmm.” The guy glared at both of them, sucking in his cheeks till he looked skeletal. “I guess—but don’t cause any problems.” His hand tightened on his weapon like he wanted to pull it despite the loop of string holding it in the sheath. “And be out of town in an hour.”
The crow-man seemed to think this was entirely normal. He nodded.
Ali had a few more opinions about this guy’s attitude. “Where’s your mask?” she asked.
“What?” The man with the sword looked at her with an expression roughly akin to someone reacting to a dog having spoken.
“Your fucking mask.” Ali gestured the shape of wood carved into a wolf’s head. “Don’t all the guys who’re trying to make up for no one wanting to touch their dick have wolf masks?”
“Why—you—” The man started spluttering, going purple with remarkable speed.
“Ori’s not part of the Lupine Guard, he just does this to help out,” crow-man said, which didn’t seem to mollify the other guy as much as it was intended to. He got, if possible, more purple. The crow-man started walking into town. “Out of town in an hour, sure thing, we’ll do it,” he called over his shoulder
Ali grinned at the guy, who said something that was definitely intended to be a cutting insult but he did not enunciate properly, so she didn’t have to acknowledge it, and hurried to catch up with the crow-man.
That had almost definitely been a bad idea, but she had enjoyed it. What was the point of being stuck somewhere if she couldn’t tell some pompous idiots what she thought? That guy absolutely looked like someone whose “job” was a self-appointed task ordering people around, and she generally liked telling those people no.
As they got deeper into town, there were more people in evidence, colourful clothes and accoutrements. Universally, they caught sight of wings and flinched away, people backtracking up alleys or stopping where they were to let Ali and her companion pass them by. Someone who looked like a teenager in a green tunic grabbed the arm of a younger child to stop them approaching.
Ali looked at the crow-man. “How come people’re acting like you’ve killed fifteen people?” She tilted her head in challenge. “Something I should look out for?” The crow-man had been reasonable to her so far, but he was wearing a weapon that was not tied down, and she’d rather know sooner than later if she should be running.
“Oh, it’s the curse.” He didn’t seem especially thrown by this line of questioning.
The mysterious curse that gave him the wings. Ali squinted at him. “And?”
“You know.” He gestured illustratively with his hands, talons gleaming in the sunlight. “The curse that means I handle things that kill people. They’re afraid that if I touch them I’ll kill them.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And will you?”
“No,” the crow-man said. He paused. “I mean, I could, but I don’t think that’ll help anything.” A thought visibly crossed his face as he glanced in her direction. “I think I couldn’t poison you though, even if I wanted to, cause you’re immune to plastic.”
Alie grinned slightly at him. “Ah-huh.”
The crow-man looked stricken for a moment. “Not that I want to! I don’t want to do that for anyone!” They’d made it into a small town square, with booths opening into tented stalls. He pointed at one of them. “Clothes!”
Right, she did want to get out of this ill-fitting black-dyed nightmare. Ali followed him across the square, watching people visibly double-take and turn around, and stepped into the booth.
“What do you want?” a woman in the back demanded, not getting up from the chair she was sitting in. She was wearing a blouse patterned with autumn leaves and an intricate necklace that glowed faintly in the dimness of the booth.
“Looking for some clothes for a guest.” The crow-man waved a hand at Ali.
The woman’s face changed into immediate concern. “Oh, for shame, look at you.” She rose from her chair in a flurry of skirts. “Oh no, that’s not going to do at all. That’s not your colour, let’s get you something better.” She bustled over and gestured Ali closer, whipping a measuring tape off her neck. “We’ll get you fixed right up.”
“A set of daily clothes, I was thinking,” the crow-man said. “And also uh, do you have anything with the shiny metal threads? A half-cape?”
“Silk lamé, yes, we can do that,” the shop woman said reprovingly, moving Ali where she wanted while measuring. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to spend time around him,” she said to Ali in an undertone. “You know you can’t trust them.”
Ali held still while her arm was measured and frowned at the shop woman. People warning her away from someone was normally something to pay attention to, but the exact way this person was doing it was—not great. In her experience, the Crow had been told to pull her clothes off and instead he’d treated her carefully as a guest as best as he could, bar the plastic thing. Why was this woman all but warning her about ‘that kind of person’?
“I mean, he’s been fine to me,” she said, as noncommittal as she could.
The shop woman paused for a moment. “I mean you wouldn’t know, since you’re new here, but their touch kills.” She pursed her lips. “And they’re bad luck, you know. Cursed. Never know if they’re going to go crazy.”
The shop-woman’s friendliness had taken on a distinct tone of condescending judgement. Ali decided that sure, the guy with the freaky black-dipped hands and shadowy wings might be dangerous, she wasn’t ruling that out, but she did not approve of this woman’s whole deal when telling her about it.
“Yeah,” Ali said. “But he’s great with those hands.” She winked significantly, grinning. “If you know what I mean.”
“You touched him?” The shop woman said in horror. She stared at Ali, disdain clear on her face. “After you just met him?”
Okay, fuck this noise, Ali decided, staring back. She would touch anyone she wanted to, as soon as it came up—what was this lady’s fucking problem? Not that it looked like getting the crow-man out of his pants was a viable option—given the current panic on his face he looked like he might break down if she told him she was thinking about his dick. Unfortunate, given his general height and build and sense of humour, and her increasing suspicion that the people in this town were weird to people for no good reason.
God, small towns could be just the worst.
“We can just take the clothing and leave, we don’t want to be a bother,” the crow-man cut in. He held out a bag of coins. “Whatever it costs.”
The shop woman snatched the bag, sniffed significantly, and turned to pull a few clothing items from shelves, topping it with a piece of shiny fabric. She turned back and paused, eyes darting between the crow-man and Ali, visibly not wanting to touch either of them.
Ali gave her her best insincere customer-service smile and took the fabric. “You’re so kind,” she said.
“Have a nice day,” the shop woman said, with a distinct tone of ‘get out of my shop’.
Which Ali was happy to do, this lady wasn’t enriching her day at all. She headed out into the square again, holding up the pieces to investigate them. A long under-dress thing, a girdle thing, a wide skirt, and the shiny fabric.
“So, that should be some clothes that fit,” the crow man was saying. “And I can set you up with a room at the inn, they take guests from beyond the barrier sometimes.”
The shiny fabric turned out to be a gold capelet that would come down to her elbows, the fabric glittering in the sunlight. Thin metallic threads were knitted into the fabric, and the whole thing glowed faintly. “This is beautiful,” Ali said, looking up at her host. “You—I’m not here long. You didn’t need to do that.”
“Well, I mean.” He shrugged. “I didn't want you to have to get rid of the sparkles entirely, it looked good on you.” The crow-man smiled at her, cautious and uncertain.
Right. How come someone on the other side of the square from her visibly had their hand below the edge of the booth on a weapon, when this guy just seemed to be trying to do his best? Ali squinted at him. “Okay. Crow-guy.” She paused. “Do you have a name other than that?”
“Uh, people normally just call me Crow now.” He cleared his throat. “But I used to be called River.”
“River, right,” Ali said. She tilted her head to the side, the shining capelet heavy in her hands. “What would you say are the odds of you going crazy and killing people? Happened before, happens with the curse, anything like that?”
The Crow pressed his lips together. “Some people have, but the curse doesn’t make you do that. It—” he cut himself off, then smiled crookedly. “No worse odds than you going crazy and killing people.” His smile grew a bit. “I mean I saw the way you looked at the guard last night, you might be at a higher risk to kill someone than I am.”
It didn’t sound like he meant it in a bad way. Good. Ali had had her fill and more with men who got intimidated when they learned she could fight. “They were assholes,” she protested.
River grinned at her.
“Do I have to stay in the town?” Ali said abruptly. “Are you going to be busy with like, all the plastic things?”
“Normally people don’t want to be around the plastic,” he said, dry.
“Plastic fucking fears me,” Ali told him. “I’ll touch it all day long.” Changing into the clothing wasn’t going to work out in the middle of the square, but she could swing the gleaming capelet around her shoulders and button it.
The crow-man watched, attention clearly caught by the shining fabric. “I’ll have things to do, but uh, you’re welcome to stay longer if you want.” His eyes went to her face. “My life isn’t the most fun, between the toxic materials and the curse, and you seem like a fun sort of person. So I figured you’d want to leave.”
“We can make it fun,” Ali said, and then watched with an interested smile as River face went red. She tilted her head at him, tucking her clothing bundle under her arm. “And you had groceries to buy too, right?”
As unexpected stays somewhere off the edge of the map went, it wasn’t the worst unscheduled vacation she’d ever had. Ali had once been on a rural bus that broke down so catastrophically she’d had to sleep on the floor of a classroom for two days, and this time she got her own room with a bed, and she didn’t have to shower in a locker room. There was running water, thank goodness, and the food was good, if not as spicy as she was used to. And the company wasn’t bad either.
She spent a little while trying to send signals that she was open to it if River wanted to have a little extra fun, but unfortunately the crow-man kept moving from sending appreciative signals to going wide-eyed and skittish, turning colours like no one had ever put a hand on his bicep and made a positive noise. She considered sitting in his lap and telling him his shirt looked uncomfortable so they should take it off, just to see the response, but she was a little bit concerned he might actually pass out if she was that obvious. Ali was pretty sure he was interested—she’d caught him looking at her a few times, and there was the way he responded to her jokes—but it seemed he wasn’t used to people who didn’t flee when he walked into the room. Which was fine, she wasn’t going to push it if he wasn’t going to seize the opportunity offered by a cute girl in his house. She’d just flirt lightly, in passing. Ali was having a decent enough time sleeping late, eating food a handsome man had cooked her, and hanging out learning to do things like enchant metal and tool leather. She missed her phone, but she’d made her own set of braided leather bracelets with little glass beads on them, and she was back to real life soon.
“You’re sure you’ve got a timer set for the Barrier opening back up,” Ali asked him as River straightened from sanding wood.
He nodded to the elaborate contraption of inter-connected hourglasses on the side of the room. “Three more turns, I won’t miss it.”
Ali sighed, stretching her arms up over her head. “You’d love phone alarms, they make a noise when they’re done. You don’t have to watch a fucking sand machine for hours.”
“Hey, this one’s connected to the river current,” River told her, a small smile pulling at his mouth. “It’s a sand and water machine. Important distinction.”
“So sorry, I was underselling the technological advancements built into your house,” Ali said. “You have a chimney for the fire and everything!” She settled back into the chair she was sprawled in and grinned at him.
“And pots to boil water with, that’s vital,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “I take it you’re not gonna come back to visit.”
Ali laughed, then held up her hands in a “wait” gesture. “The company’s good!” she said. “I just—I’ve got responsibilities back home, friends, life, the internet—“ She tipped her head a little, grin going conspiratorial. “The rice bowl you made yesterday was fucking great, though. I’m gonna miss that when I go back to eating my own cooking.”
“I’m glad my rice cooking could make up for being cut off from your friends,” River said, amused.
“It’s fine.” Ali nodded emphatically. “I’m gonna tell them so many stories about my crazy weekend. The guy I met, too.” She winked.
She couldn’t identify the expression that flashed across his face, but it certainly looked complicated. As fast as it was there it was gone, the crow-man nodding as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’ve gotta go do something in the cellar, be back in a bit,” he said. He smiled fractionally at Ali, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I made cookies when you were taking a nap earlier, if you want some.”
Ali blinked at him. Speciality baking, now? “You know—you know you don’t have to do all that? You’re letting me stay in your house and I’m having fun just hanging out. I mean I appreciate it, but—” She grinned at him. “For your next guest, I mean.”
He nodded as though taking this to heart, and headed for the exit. Ali frowned at the door he’d passed through, then headed for the kitchen. She wasn’t gonna miss out on fun baking if it was being offered.
There was a plate of cookies in the kitchen, covered with a dish towel on the table. Ali bit into one and tapped her fingers on her leg, thinking. Not that she was eager to get back to work and explain that she’d been stranded off-road with no cell service, but she did have to go back to real life. She did not have time to properly unpick exactly why River would flirt along and then abruptly flee when she said something that had gone over well ten minutes earlier, even if she had started to have more-than-idle curiosities about if he’d be so polite in bed. He’d look good on his knees, she’d decided, and she was developing the theory that he would take direction in a way they would both enjoy. Except, she would have to take a lot longer than the time she had here to figure out how to broach the subject in a way that didn’t make him immediately have to leave the room about two-thirds of the time.
Going to have to chalk that one up as one that got away when she went back to the regular world. Ali picked up an extra sugar cookie. He’d said he was going to the basement, right?
There was a door in the main corridor that she’d seen him disappear down a few times, tucked between the creepy statues. She followed it down a spiral staircase, the sound of rushing water getting louder as she descended. The light at the bottom was dim, filtered through a waterfall behind glass, and channels on the stone floor carried glowing liquid that marked out concentric patterns on the floor. At the centre of the room there was a dais with a stone altar, and the stuff she’d been wearing when she got here heaped on it next to what looked like picnic garbage. River was standing in front of the altar, wings out.
As Ali stepped into the room, River reached out with a small knife and carved a strip of fabric off her dress, the precise move of a butcher trimming a steak. He picked up the scrap of sequins and swallowed it, the ink patterns on his neck lit by the glowing light from the floor as his throat moved. His eyebrows drew together in pain, and he took a moment, head bent over the pile of plastic items as the patch of shadow between his shoulder blades roiled. Tendrils of darkness broke out and crawled over his back and wings, the ink patterns on his neck spread a little further, and the darkness around his hands got a little more profound. The crow-man breathed for a few heartbeats, face twisted in a way that did not look pleasant, then shook his hands as if they were numb and reached for the dress with his knife again.
He was eating the plastic, and it was fucking him up? “What the actual fuck,” Ali said.
River jumped as he looked in her direction, and then his gaze flipped between Ali and the items on the altar in front of him. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said hurriedly, holding up his hands.
“Oh, really?” Ali moved further into the rooms, hauling the long fantasy world skirts up to get over glowing channels of water. It was like stepping into a fridge down here. “Cause it looks pretty fucking bad!”
“Look, no,” River said helplessly. “I just have to dispose of the plastic, that’s my job. It has nothing to do with it being your clothes, I promise.”
Oh. Ali paused. She’d been focused on the visibly magic curse that seemed to be twisting him into something less himself, but that was an element too, yeah. Fair to be concerned about. “That’s whatever,” she said, waving a hand. “You can apologize for that later.” Ali jabbed a finger at him. “The stuff I was worried about was you eating the fucking stuff that everybody says is toxic, and it—it’s doing bad shit to you, isn’t it? I saw that fucking shadow thing on your back!”
River stood with his hands limp at his sides as she approached. “I mean, technically, this is what the curse is for, so it’s not so much bad as—intended.”
“Intended?” Ali put her hands on her hips and stared up at him. “It’s intended for you to eat the things everybody’s so scared of, why they treat you like you’re poisonous? And it fucking hurts you?”
“The curse can break it down if it’s inside my body, enough to make it non-toxic and safe, so that’s my job.” He swallowed. “For a certain span of time.”
“For a certain span of fucking time?” Ali repeated, incredulous. “And then what?”
River waved a hand vaguely. “And then a new person will be selected to take on the curse.”
“And what happens to you?” she demanded.
“Well.” River tried a smile at her. “Technically I’m in company with everybody who’s had the curse since they decided it was necessary.”
The statues in the hall, the long lines of people glaring defiance or sorrow or rage. Ali’s eyebrows went up, fists balling at her sides. “It turns you into a fucking statue?” she burst out.
“I mean, I’m told you’re not—” he swallowed. “Aware. Any more.”
“That’s something you’re not sure about?” Ali’s voice was getting loud, but this seemed like a yelling situation.
“I mean, I didn’t pick this job, but someone’s got to do it,” River said. He did not sound enthused.
“Let me get this straight.” Ali pressed her hands to her lips. “You didn’t pick this job. It’s turning you into a fucking statue. And you’re just doing it?”
“Well when you put it like that it sounds bad,” River said, deadpan. He smiled crookedly. “But they come and find you and put the curse on you, and then you can’t really—stay with normal people, so there aren’t a lot of options.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes and shrugged. “My family already had my funeral. I’m just killing time, technically.”
Oh, she hated this. She’d convinced her friends to leave bad workplaces before, but this one took the cake. Ali stared at him, a thought occurring to her. “Plastic isn’t toxic for you. Does the curse statue you if you don’t eat plastic, or the—the toxic metal? Do you have to do this?”
“Well I mean, the point is the eating it,” River said. “If too much builds up here the Lupine Guard comes and makes me—”
“Do you have to feed the curse,” Ali cut in.
River paused, then shook his head. “When nobody comes over the Barrier or nothing washes up here, sometimes people’s tenure as the Crow can last for a long time.” He grinned ruefully, gesturing to the heap of plastic on the table. “Or sometimes it’s quite short.”
Well, that was something horrifying she would unpack later. Or not at all. Ali pointed at him. “Come back with me.”
The smile dropped off his face in clear shock. “... What?”
“I’m leaving tonight,” Ali said. “In three turns of the glass. Come back with me. I have a couch that’s long enough for you to sleep on and like, we’ll find you a job. Do you have skills?”
River stared at her. “I can read and write?” he offered.
“We’ll find you a job,” Ali told him. “Modeling, if nothing else. Maybe construction.” She waved a hand. “We’ll make it work.”
“People need me to do this job…” River started, but he didn’t sound like his heart was in it.
Ali raised her eyebrows at him. “People can find a better way to fucking deal with it than killing random people.” She still had that cookie in her hand. She waved it at him. “Come on, we’ve got spices that’d blow your fucking mind. Wait till I give you coffee.”
River pressed his lips together, and then he put the knife back on the stone altar. “Okay.”
Ali held her fists up in triumph. Another victory for Ali telling people what to do. “Okay?”
River smiled at her. “I mean you brightened up my house for a bit, best I can do is inflict myself on yours.”
Ali grinned, holding out her hand to the crow-man. “It’s gonna be very different. I don’t cook and I live in an apartment building.”
He took her hand. “I look forward to learning what that is,” he said seriously.
The fog in the woods got higher and thicker as they approached the gate, until Ali could barely see in front of her. It was almost a shock when the path they were following abruptly ran into a gate, other buildings looming through the mist. Something moved in the shadows. “Who’s there?” a voice said, the point of one of those fucking glowing spears coming out of hiding.
“I’m going back through the barrier, back to the human world,” Ali said, running on the theory that stopping to fight the cops would only slow her down. “I’m the human.”
“Who’s with you?” She could just see the carved outline of the wolf mask.
“Ri—” Ali cut herself off, glancing up at her companion. “The Crow.”
“Don’t come closer,” the guard at the gate ordered. “Human can come through the gate if there’s no plastic.” His voice got suspicious. “You did get rid of the plastic, didn’t you, Crow?”
Man, she wished she had acrylic nails on right now, she’d love to rake them over this guy’s face. “No, I need Crow to come with me to see me off,” she said, as innocent as she could manage, and pressed back into River. “We’ve been having a torrid affair.” She hissed under her breath at him. “Touch me.”
River made a strangled noise, his hands hovering just around her body. “I don’t want to overstep—”
“I am giving you permission to touch me,” Ali hissed. “I want it to happen.”
“Oh, mercy,” River said, in the attitude of a prayer, and then put a hand on her hip and one on her boob.
Oh amazing, he could take direction. She was gonna remember that. The guard was getting closer, glowing spear in hand, and another figure was approaching with a lantern. Ali leaned back into River and reached up to twine her arms around his neck, sparkling cloak falling around her neck as she smiled significantly at the approaching guards. The lantern stopped in front of her, light diffused by the fog.
“You’ve been allowing him to touch you?” A voice sounded incredulous. “You’re—making yourself available to the Crow?”
Wow! Another winning personality taking on the job of ordering people around! These guys sucked! Ali cocked her hip in the long skirt and kept smiling her best customer-service smile. “He’s so dark and dangerous and dreamy,” she said.
There was a pause. “Well, I guess humans don’t have standards,” the lantern guard said. He moved aside and went to open the gate.
“Is it okay if I stop touching?” River said in Ali’s ear, a little strangled. “Not that I don’t. Enjoy. Your boobs. They’re great. But this is kind of a lot.”
Ali laughed and grabbed his hand. She was getting out, taking her crow guy with her. She could vividly imagine the guard getting punched in the face later. “Let me show you to my place.”
It seemed to take less time to emerge from the fog than it had to get through it a few days ago. There was a hard surface under her felt boots, and Ali realized she was walking along the sidewalk. She recognized these buildings, her apartment building was just around the corner. “Made it!” she said, relief washing over her.
River touched his chest, and his wings curled back into shadow and vanished. There was just the tall dark-haired man who’d let her pick glass beads from his stash for her crafting. And he looked flushed and stressed about something. “I’m sorry,” River said miserably, looking at her. “I knew you were doing something, and I thought about what you said about how they were—heavy—and that was definitely rude of me. I’m so sorry.”
Ali stared for a moment, trying to figure out what he was apologizing for when they’d just escaped his literally-toxic workplace, and then burst out laughing. This guy really hadn’t had people expressing interest before, had he.
She squeezed his hand, still in hers. “It’s fine,” she told him, grinning. “I told you to. Besides.” Ali tipped her head to the side. May as well go for broke. Would he immediately panic this time? “You’ve got good hands. Could do more of that, I wouldn’t mind.”
The blush on River's cheeks darkened, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “Uh. If you wanted.”
“I do want.” She nodded. “I like that in general.” Was explicit permission the problem? Ali squeezed his hand in hers. “No pressure, but you could kiss me, if you wanted.”
River's voice was a little strangled “I do. Want. If that’s a thing that we’re doing now. If I’m not gonna die on you.” He cleared his throat. “But I don’t have a lot of experience at that. People weren’t lining up to kiss the Crow.”
Oh, that made sense on his reticence. Which meant that now, now that he wasn’t being petrified by a curse, they were full speed ahead for her getting to climb her new house guest like a tree, maybe if she gave him some instructions first. Fantastic souvenir from her vacation, along with some historical-reinactment clothes and a cape a cute guy had gotten her because he wanted her to shine. “Well, you’re not the Crow now if you don’t want to be,” Ali told him. “And I can teach you all kinds of things, if you wanted.” She was gonna have to make sure to take it slow, she didn’t want to scare him off, but the omens were good. She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know how to cook, but I know lots of other things. Wait till I teach you about Netflix.”
“Not sure if that’s a subset of kissing,” River started, and then smiled down at her when she laughed. “Sure. That sounds good to me.” He sounded lighter than he’d been since she met him. “Is—here good to start?” His voice got dry. “Since you did save my life and sneak me past the Lupine Guards and show me into another world.”
She did do that, not a bad end for her evening. She hadn’t gotten to punch those guard guys, but she did steal their crow-man out from under their noses. And he wanted to kiss her. “Absolutely.” Ali nodded. “Here’s good.” She tipped her face upwards, smiling at him.
River cupped her cheeks in careful hands, smiling down at her like he couldn’t believe this was happening, and then kissed her. Ali wound her arms up around his neck and delightedly kissed her no-longer-a-crow-man back.