Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(69)

But now I understood, because I was willing to do the same.

It was all so obvious—so stupidly apparent when I thought about it. Marcus knew we would follow him because we always did. Because, in the end, Joseph and I wanted the same thing that Marcus wanted. As such, all that Marcus had to do was imagine what he would do in our shoes and then lay the trap accordingly.

I bent forward, planting my hands on my knees and watching our balloon. Daniel scrabbled up the ladder, ready to take us south . . . exactly as Marcus expected.

I dropped my chin, staring at the pebbles on the crumbling stone. At the blood and dust on my boots.

If I were Marcus and my prey failed to walk into my next—and presumably final—trap, what would I do?

I would go after them. I would hunt them down and finally claim the one thing I had wanted all along: retribution.

As the realization solidified, I shoved off my thighs and tipped my head back to bask in the sudden surge of ideas.

The Spirit-Hunters, Oliver, and I were weak; Marcus knew that. He had beaten us time and time again, and now he had an invincible army of mummies. If he were to raise the Black Pullet, there would be no stopping him—not in our current, devastated condition.

And that meant we needed to even the odds. . . .

I dug my knuckles into my eyes, reveling in the Egyptian sun warming me so completely—and Oliver’s magic, strong and sure.

There was a way to win this war, and all I needed to do was think it through. It was like Elijah’s eight-queens puzzle from chess, but this was real. We needed a location we could defend and a way to defend it. . . .

And who defends the queen? An army.

Hunger spasmed in my belly, fierce and insistent. It was our turn to pull the strings—our turn to move the pawns on the board. We would raise an army of our own, and we would pick the place to defend.

“It’s a good plan,” Oliver rasped, lolling his head back against the Sphinx’s paw. The airship creaked overhead. Less than an hour had passed since Marcus and Allison had fled, yet it felt like days.

Oliver had finished healing Jie, and now she slept. Daniel, Joseph, and I had toted her down the Great Pyramid on a makeshift stretcher of sheets from the airship beds. Then we’d hauled her rung by rung into the cargo hold.

And ever since then, Oliver had been resting. Even now, almost an hour later, his cheeks were much too sallow. His chestnut curls dull—though that might’ve been from all the dust.

I hunkered in the sand beside him, enjoying the airship’s drifting shade. “But we will not know when Marcus returns.” I pursed my lips. “It might be hours. It might be months.”

“Call up a scout. A corpse scout.”

I turned a frown on my demon. “I have no idea how to do something like that.”

“You woke up something before,” Oliver went on. “In Paris.”

As he said that, an image of a teal-carpeted hallway—the Hotel Le Meurice in Paris—filled my brain. And scurrying through it were dead rats and cats and . . .

“Birds,” I whispered.

“Exactly,” Oliver said. “A bird corpse under your control could follow that balloon.”

I chewed my chapped lip, considering where I could possible find a dead bird—or if I had enough power left inside me to raise one.

“I will give you what magic I have,” Oliver murmured, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“Which isn’t much since you can barely stay awake.” Gently, I laid a hand on his forearm. “I . . . I think I understand you now, Oliver.”

“Really?” He snorted and cracked open one eye. “I highly doubt that since I do not even understand me.”

I sighed. “Perhaps, but what I meant is that I cannot in good conscience take any more magic from you.”

“Not in good conscience?” A laugh tickled over our bond. “That’s a first for you.”

I groaned tiredly and shoved to my feet. At least, despite the horrors of the morning, my demon still had his sense of humor.

I offered him my hand, my shadow slinking over his face. “Thank you, Oliver. For everything.”

His eyes flashed, briefly brighter than the sun’s light. “Don’t thank me. Not yet.”

“Then when?” With a grunt, I towed him upright.

He rolled his shoulders and set to brushing the dust off his suit. “How about when you free me? Perhaps then one of us will have sorted out exactly who I am.” His eyebrow rose. “In the meantime, shall we summon a scout?”

I nodded, my jaw setting. Even if he didn’t accept my gratitude, at least he knew he had it. “Help me find a scout, Oliver. Sum veritas.”

Our spell to find a scout was a strange, unexpected success. Rather than raise many animal corpses—as I’d accidentally done in Paris—when I sent out the call Awake!, Oliver helped me focus my magic. Together, we narrowed the necromantic leash from an almost weblike wildness into a single, targeted arrow.

And that arrow found a dead falcon. The magic plunged into the corpse, then with a gentle nudge—Awake—my necromancy latched on tight and sparked the body back into life. Suddenly I felt the falcon—its ragged wings, its ancient rib cage—and I sensed its surroundings of crypt-like darkness and other dead birds. And then, just as suddenly, I had absolute control over the corpse, almost like some extended limb.