This road had trapped her, trapped Pa, trapped them all in the way only roads could—no going back now. For her ma, for her kin, she would walk it to the end.

Or, part of her whispered into the night, she was bound to die trying.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TWELVE SHELLS

Pa kept more Pigeon teeth than they could ever hope to use. After all, teeth were the easiest and cheapest viatik at hand, and city folk of any caste seldom parted with anything valuable without a knife in their face to encourage them. With the Birthright of luck, Pigeon teeth could bend fortune in the smallest ways: a timely look to catch a pickpocket, a spare three-naka coin in the gutter, a solid guess on six out of twelve gambling shells.

Pigeon witches, though, could play fortune like a flute. They wrought havoc or blessings as they willed, inviting a flush harvest as easy as a citywide scourge of rats. Lucky for Sabor, witches of the Common Castes were among the rarest, and their wayward teeth even rarer.

And at dawn, Pa hoisted the only Pigeon witch-tooth he had into the clammy air, knotted his fist around it, and closed his eyes.

Fie saw no change, but after a moment Pa lowered his arm. “Done.”

Hangdog just shook his head and began walking down the road. He’d called it a waste; he’d been the only one. The rest of the band knew that with half their supplies burned up in the ruined wagon, they were sore overdue for good fortune.

“What comes now?” Tavin asked, standing behind Jasimir.

The prince knelt in the packed dirt of the flatway, face turned to the east and the rising sun, lips moving in a silent prayer. Barf sat beside him, tail flicking in the dust. Fie had heard the Phoenix caste kept rituals to honor the dawn. At the moment, she would have rather honored some breakfast.

“No telling,” Pa answered, rubbing a hand over his beard. “But we’ll know when it finds us.”

His eyes locked on the empty road behind them, where naught lurked but dirt washed in dawn-gray shadow. Then he slung a weighty sack from his back and fished inside, emerging with two teeth.

“Fie.” His hand twitched toward her.

She took the teeth. Twin Pigeon sparks burned inside—not witch sparks but the plain kind.

“It’s time you learned to use two at once. That was too close last night.” That should have been his Pa voice. Instead it was his Chief voice, quiet, immovable—unsettling. It rose as he turned to the rest of the band. “Swain. How far left to go?”

The lanky Crow tweaked a rolled-up map jutting from his pack. “We’re near the coast. One day until we walk the Fan region proper. From there, two days to the Cheparok fortress.”