Chapter 1 The Raven's Letter

Tori POV

The raven arrived at my window just as I decided the soup I was heating up was beyond saving.

I stared at it from across my small kitchen, wooden spoon suspended above the pot, while the bird stared back through the rain-streaked glass. It was large enough that, for one foolish moment, I wondered whether the village baker had finally found a new way to collect the money I owed him.

Then the raven lifted one black foot and I saw the letter tied to it.

I swore, turned down the fire, and crossed the room. In my experience, letters delivered by raven rarely carried good news.

My apartment occupied the two rooms above a narrow shop at the end of the village market. The shop below sold candles, lamp oil, cheap paper, and other necessities at prices I could usually afford. I had rented the rooms above it for three years because they were cheap, dry, and came with a back window large enough for the herbs I kept forgetting to water.

The raven rapped its beak against the glass.

“All right. I'm coming.”

It remained where it was, not even flinching as I opened the window.

Rain blew immediately into the room, carrying the smell of wet stone and wood smoke. The bird stepped onto the sill with the confidence of something that had never once been told no in its life.

Up close, I recognised it.

“Morwen.”

The raven clicked her beak.

“Of course.” I sighed to myself.

Morwen had been with Aunt Miriam for more than twenty years. I had never worked out whether she was magical, but her age and alarming understanding of insults suggested she probably was.

I untied the letter from her leg and pulled the window down.

The seal on the folded paper made me pause. A black bird pressed into dark red wax sent a shiver down my spine. Morwen watched me closely as I broke it and unfolded the paper.

There were four lines.

Victoria,

Come at once.

There is something I must do before I die.

Miriam.

I read the letter again, then again, hoping to glean more from it with each pass. Morwen made a low, impatient sound.

“Yes, yes, I read it,” I muttered as she pecked the window frame. I looked at the rain. Then back at the letter.

“Do you know how much I hate it when she writes like this?” Morwen fluffed her feathers. I took that as agreement. Aunt Miriam had always preferred dramatic entrances. If she wanted me to know something was important, she could have written a longer explanation. She could have told me what was wrong, how ill she had become, or why she apparently intended to die before I reached her.

Instead, she had sent a bird. I looked around my apartment. There was not much to see. A narrow bed stood behind a faded curtain at one end of the main room. My table occupied most of the available space beside the window, covered in jars, dried herbs, an old ward stone Miriam insisted I keep, and three books I had promised myself I would return to the village library before the librarian came looking for me.

I lived alone. Nobody was waiting to ask where I was going. Nobody would notice if I didn't return that night. The thought settled uneasily in my stomach.

Morwen continued tapping until I huffed out a breath. “All right. I'm going.” She tilted her head, apparently satisfied. When I opened the window, she immediately launched herself into the rain.

I stared after her. Ten minutes later, I had changed into clean clothes, braided my hair, packed enough food for the journey, and locked the apartment behind me. My landlord's shop was closed for the afternoon, leaving the narrow street quiet except for the occasional splash of wheels through mud.

I borrowed a horse from the village stable because walking would take too long, and I suspected Aunt Miriam had chosen her wording carefully.

At once.

By the time I left the village, the rain had become steady.

Aunt Miriam's house stood north of the Barnett Estate, far enough from the Hall that she could pretend she had escaped the responsibilities attached to our family name, but close enough that she still knew exactly what happened on the land.

She had spent most of my life insisting that one day the estate would be mine.

I had spent most of my life telling her she would most likely outlive us all.

Apparently, I had been wrong about that.

The road became increasingly difficult as I left the village behind. By the time I reached her house, my horse was steaming, my boots were soaked, and worry had worn through most of my irritation.

Morwen waited on the fence beside the garden gate.

“You could have warned me about the weather.”

The raven ignored me.

The house was silent.

That frightened me immediately.

Aunt Miriam's home was never quiet. Something was always happening inside it. Jars rattled. Herbs dried. Wards whispered beneath the floorboards. Once, when I was sixteen, a cupboard had developed opinions and refused to open for anyone wearing blue.

Now I heard nothing.

I climbed the steps and knocked.

“Aunt Miriam?”

No answer.

I knocked again.

The door opened. By itself.

“Aunt Miriam?” I called, as I stepped over the threshold.

“In here, dearest.”

Her voice came from the sitting room. I followed it and stopped in the doorway. The room had been cleared.

The furniture had been pushed against the walls, leaving an empty space in the centre where candles burned in a wide circle of blood. Symbols covered the floor between them, drawn in ash and salt.

I recognised enough of the markings to understand that I did not like what I was seeing.

Aunt Miriam sat in the centre of the circle and for several seconds, I could only stare at her.

She looked far worse than I expected. Illness had stripped the colour from her face and left her skin stretched tight over her bones. Her grey hair had escaped its usual severe knot, and blood stained the cuff of one sleeve.

“Victoria.”

I crossed my arms. “What have you done?”

Her mouth twitched. “You always did know how to greet people.”

“You wrote that you were dying.”

“I am.”

“You are sitting inside a circle of your own blood.”

“I am also doing that.” She inclined her head, her face grave. I stared at her until she sighed.

“Victoria.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“I know what a calling circle looks like.”

My aunt had taught me that much before I refused to learn anything else. Magic had taken my parents and my brother, or so I had believed for years. Miriam was the only family I had left, and now she was bleeding onto a floor covered in symbols I could barely read.

“Tell me that blood isn't yours,” I said.

She looked down at her stained sleeve.

That was answer enough.