Hezram smiled. “Do you think you’re worthy of mountain love?” Jod shrugged. Hezram sniggered. “I like your grit, but you’ve got blood and bird shit on your robe. Clean yourselves. Leave her be.”

Awa clicked thanks at the crows. The young men grumbled and filled basins with water then removed outer robes. Hezram dumped Awa near the cauldrons. Pots bubbled day and night, filling the temple and Rainbow Square with a nauseating smell. Spirit slaves had to be fed constantly to maintain Hezram’s Dream Gates, Nightmare Gates, really.

“No one will do what I do,” Father said. Hezram held up another bag. Father snatched it. Sky rocks spilled out. Whatever he did was worth a fortune. “Why the same dance every time?”

Collecting turquoise nuggets from the ground, Father caught sight of Awa. Blood drained from his face; his lower lip trembled. Did he recognize her? Awa wasn’t a plump child anymore. Still, the snake birthmark was hard to miss. Brother Kenu had one on his cheek. Where was Kenu now? Perhaps he also built transgressor huts and Nightmare Gates.

Rage ambushed Awa and she spit anger at Father. Sentinel bees from the temple hive swarmed him. He took off with his bag of sky rocks, barging through half-naked acolytes. Awa crawled in a recess behind a blood cauldron and hugged her knees. She tried to calm herself and friend bees. Nobody should lose a stinger over Father. He and the acolytes scrambled outside trailing a trickle of angry sentinels.

Hezram dropped down beside Awa. Shrieks faded. Hezram peeked around the cauldrons, chuckling. Bees returned to their hive in a cathedral trunk tower. Hezram stood up and mixed tree oil with Awa’s blood before pouring it in a cauldron. “Why are you still sitting there?” Hezram looked ready to drag her into shadows.

Awa coughed and cackled distress. A crow with a few white feathers in its blue-black wings flew in his face, scratching and pecking. “Zst!” He cursed and flailed. “I’m not dead meat yet.” The piebald crow flew to the window that looked out on a glacier. The cold gray eye of god glared down on priest, citizen, and transgressor alike. Hezram sighed. “The gods must love crows.”

Awa bit her tongue. Ice Mountain gods loved only themselves.

“They’re a plague.” Blood from a claw- or beak-wound trickled into Hezram’s eyes. “Afraid of a few bees and crows?”

“I fear bees more than crows.” Awa spoke truth. The banana smell of bee alarm, a buzz of wings by her ears, or a drop of honey on her tongue might land her on the other side of smoke for hours, for days, for who knows how long. Hezram and his witchdoctors hunted smoke-walkers and turned them into empty-eyed spirit slaves. That would be worse than the transgressor huts.

“Crows are welcome to my dead flesh.” She clutched the throbbing leg wound.