By the time they found a Crow shrine, Fie had gnawed through the better part of three mint plants. Like Maykala’s shrine, this one lurked in the safety of trees and teeth, shrouded by both fat-leaved shrubs and Sparrow magic.

At first, Tavin and Jasimir just gaped when Fie plucked a vine from the trunk of a massive red flaybark tree and began climbing. Not that she blamed them; their hair wouldn’t stand on end like hers did here, on the burial grounds of a Crow god. To most of Sabor, this would appear as one more stretch of forest.

“We’re dead men, Jas,” Tavin said. “She’s abandoning us after all.”

Fie briefly contemplated whether scalping a member of her band would make her a bad chief.

“If you’re just going to laze about, then aye, I’m abandoning you.” She hoisted herself up to a branch thicker around than she. “Shrine’s this way.”

There was a pause, then she caught, “We’re definitely dead men, Jas. She’s completely addled.”

Fie ignored him and kept climbing.

Once she broke through the wards of Sparrow misdirection and a touch of Peacock glamour, the shrine itself showed clear enough. Wooden rafts coasted on swells of smooth red boughs, staggered like a poppy-sniffer’s notion of Cheparok. Palm thatches tented over low walls and woven screens. A wood-carved figure twice Fie’s height perched above the platforms, lashed to the tree by thick vines that wound round its crossed legs and the four wings it had in place of arms. Four faces stared her down with eyes carved like four-pointed stars, each mouth twisted into a mask of fear, wrath, mirth, or sorrow.

“Cousins.” The voice struck from beneath a palm thatch like a viper, thin and swift. “What brings you to the shrine of Crossroads-Eyes?”

It was an innocent question by the ear of any other caste. Fie knew better.

“The dead gods’ Covenant led us here.” She’d learned the words at Pa’s knee. “And the dead gods’ mercy will call us onward.”

A woman emerged from the shadows of the highest thatch. A faded crowsilk tunic hung loose from her wiry frame, and a twist of rag looped to cover one eye and knotted in short gray curls. The other iron-hard eye fixed down on Fie as she pulled herself onto the lowest platform.

“You’re young for a chief,” she observed.

Fie got to her feet. “You’re old for a Crow.”

The shrine-keeper’s mouth cracked into a smile more tooth than humor. It skewed toothier when the boys climbed up behind Fie. “And who’re these, then?”

“My band.” Fie jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Mongrel and Pissabed.”

“You leave your packs below?”

“Haven’t got any. We’re here for a restock.”

The woman’s eye narrowed. “What happened?”