The raven's golden eyes slid from Moth to me, and I felt them like two coins pressed against my skin.
"Run," Moth breathed.
Then the bird launched itself off the post.
Its wings cracked open wide enough to blot out the pale moon. I threw myself flat on the wet sand, and its claws raked the air where my head had been. The wind from its wings slapped me across the face. Sand stung my eyes.
"Get up!" Moth leaped onto my back, grabbed my collar, and hauled. "Do not stop, do not look, do not think!"
"I always think!" I scrambled to my feet. "It is the only thing I am good at!"
"Then think while running!"
We tore along the shore. Black waves slapped the beach on our left, thick as oil. On our right, a cliff of jagged rock rose into the dark. My bare feet slipped on wet pebbles, and every step felt like running through a nightmare.
The raven wheeled overhead and came down again, screaming. But this time it caught me.
Its claws closed around my shoulders. My feet left the ground. The shore dropped away, and the sea turned into a black mirror far below me. I kicked wildly, but there was nothing to kick except air.
"Moth!" I shouted.
He was already moving. He sprinted up the cliff like a cat, jumped off a ledge with a battle cry, and slammed into the raven's wing. Feathers burst everywhere. The bird shrieked, tilted sideways, and its claws loosened.
I fell.
I hit the water so hard the breath left my body. The cold sank into my bones. Something slimy brushed my legs, and I kicked up toward the surface and burst out coughing.
A wooden hull loomed beside me, scraped and old, and a rope dangled down its side.
I grabbed it without thinking and climbed.
When I tumbled over the rail, I landed on a deck made of tied bones. A long, narrow ferry rocked beneath me. Rows of oars stuck out from its sides, and at each oar sat a chained prisoner, pulling in a slow, dead rhythm.
At the very front, one rower stood out. He was twice the size of the others, broad as a door, with horns like curled iron and skin the color of burnt copper. His wrists were wrapped in thick black chains that ran down into the hull. He was not rowing. He was staring at me.
"Soaked rat," he rumbled. "Why are you on my boat?"
"It is not your boat," I panted. "You are chained to it."
His eyes narrowed. A scar crossed his lip, and it twitched as if he wanted to laugh and had forgotten how.
Above us, the raven screamed again.
Moth landed on the deck, bleeding from a cut on his cheek. A black feather stuck out of his coat like a flag. "Ash! It is circling back!"
I stared up. The raven hung in the sky like a sword about to fall, its good wing beating hard. It dove.
There was no time to plan. I had only a second, and I did the one thing I knew how to do.
I looked at the raven, and the world turned into threads.
Hundreds of them wrapped around its body, but one burned brighter than the rest, thick as a rope. It ran from the raven's chest into the dark behind it, toward the black tower I had seen before. That thread was pulled tight as a bowstring.
"Moth!" I yelled. "Grab my belt!"
"What?"
"Grab it!"
He wrapped both arms around my waist. I leaped onto the ferry's rail, reached into the air, and closed both fists around the glowing thread as the raven came screaming down.
It burned like holding a hot iron. I clenched my teeth, planted my feet, and pulled with everything I had.
The thread snapped taut.
The raven jerked in mid dive, as if a giant hand had grabbed it from behind. Its scream turned into a choked squawk. It spun, flapped wildly, and hung in the air only a few steps above my head, its golden eyes rolling in panic.
"What did you do?" Moth gasped.
"I pulled its leash," I said through my teeth. "Whoever owns this bird is far away, and I am dragging him closer. He will not like that."
The raven shook violently. Its beak opened, and a voice poured out, deep and furious. It was no longer calm.
"Let go, bookkeeper!"
"Give me one reason why I should let it go," I said.
"You have no idea what you are touching!"
"Then explain it!"
The thread twisted in my hands and slashed my palms open. I cried out, and the raven used the moment to wrench free. It shot upward, trailing black smoke.
"This is only the beginning," the voice hissed from its throat. "At the third layer, he will not be so patient!"
It beat its wings once and vanished into the dark.
I dropped to my knees on the deck, my bleeding hands shaking. Moth crouched beside me, breathing hard.
"You are insane," he whispered. "You are absolutely insane."
"It worked."
"Barely!"
A deep laugh rolled through the ferry. The big prisoner had turned fully around now, his chains clinking. He stared at my hands, then at the spot where the raven had disappeared.
"Nobody makes a messenger of the Ninth Gate retreat," he said. "Not even the gods."
Moth stiffened. "The what?"
"The Ninth Gate." The giant leaned forward. "That bird belongs to the ruler at the very bottom. And that little woman just yanked his chain like a farmer calling a dog."
My stomach flipped. "Why does the ruler want me?"
"I would like to know that myself." He lifted his wrists, and the chains rattled. "But first, bookkeeper, I would like to ask for something."
I wiped blood on my torn dress. "What?"
"These." He lifted his chains again. "The ferryman says I owe him a thousand years of service. I killed a god's son once, and this is my sentence. But you can see the knots, can you not? I saw you look at them."
I studied the chains. The threads were clear as water now. They wound through the hull, around the oars, and down into the sea, where something huge and hungry waited to collect on the debt.
"Ah," I said slowly. "You are in the wrong kind of contract."
"I have been told that before."
"I can free you." I held up a bloody finger. "But I will not do it for nothing. I need someone strong, someone who will stand beside me instead of behind me."
He studied me with those burning eyes. "You want a bodyguard, huh?"
"Hmm... let say I want a partner."
The giant was silent. Around us, the other prisoners had stopped rowing, and the ferry drifted in a slow circle.
Then the water exploded.
A shape the size of a house surged out of the sea, covered in barnacles and glaring white eyes. It opened a mouth full of teeth like broken tombstones and roared, and the whole ferry heaved sideways. Prisoners screamed. Oars cracked. Moth fell flat on his face.
"The ferryman's pet!" the giant bellowed. "It has come to collect!"
"Free me!" he shouted over the noise. "Do it now!"
I crawled to him across the tilting deck. The beast reared above us, its jaws opening wide.
I grabbed the thickest chain with both hands and let the threads open in my mind. I found the knot tying it to the hull, the loop that held the beast to its contract. I twisted it backward and cut it loose.
The chains fell away with a ring like a bell.
The giant rose to his full height. His muscles swelled. He tore an oar the size of a tree from its socket, spun it over his head, and slammed it into the sea beast's face with a crack that shook the sky.
The monster reeled and sank beneath the waves. Silence fell. The ferry rocked gently, and water dripped from the broken oar.
The giant turned and looked down at me. For the first time, the scar on his lip curled into a real smile.
"My name is Brakk," he said. "You freed me, so I owe you. But I think something else is wrong, bookkeeper."
He pointed at my back.
"There is a mark burning through your dress. It looks like a gate. Nine bars, and the last one is glowing."