The oak trees lining the street are filled with cousins, marking my passage as I follow the sidewalk to Raven’s tall house, my boot heels clicking on the concrete. Though they’re mostly crows, I catch the white flash of a magpie’s tail and spy a few rooks and jays. I can hear them gossiping about me, but they don’t call out to me directly, and the business I have is for Raven’s ears alone, so I don’t try to start up a conversation.

I get about a half block from where Raven’s house rears up above the treetops when suddenly all those birds take to the air and fly off in a burst of black wings and raucous complaints.

I turn to see what’s disturbed them and just shake my head. Now there was something you didn’t see too often, a great big lunk of a salmon swimming through the air like he’s making his way through deep water.

I stop and wait for him to approach.

I suppose I should be more nervous—on my guard and ready to fight—but I’m really tired of how long this has dragged on, of listening to the ghosts of all the people who’ve gotten hurt through the years because of this stupid enmity between the two of us. Lizzie wasn’t the first; she’s just the latest. I’m ready for this to be over. It’s long past time we finished our unhappy business with each other. But as I stand there waiting for him to come down, I find myself thinking mostly about how Odawa’s timing sucks, the way it always does.

He changes from salmon to man just before he reaches the ground, landing way more gracefully than a blind man should have been able to. He should have gotten all entangled in that robe he’d taken to wearing. He should at least have had to put his arms out for balance, the way we corbae use our wings on our final descent to a roost. But I’ve learned over the years that you never get what you expect from Odawa.

It’s no different now. I can’t get a reading from him. No way to guess his emotional state. No sense of what he has planned, how he’ll attack.

“Your wife cursed me before she died,” Odawa says as he approaches me, his voice conversational. “She cursed me to wander forever, but never reach my destination.”