Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen Page B

that were white and even and perfect, and Sarah wondered what she had looked like when the rest of her had matched her teeth.
    There is no such thing as a perfect beauty, her mother would have told her. Only magic.
    â€œWill I see him?” Sarah asked.
    Nanna stared past her, eyes narrowed.
    Sarah resisted the urge to look behind herself to see what the old woman was looking at. The skin on her neck began to itch. She could well believe the half-fallen castle was as thick with ghosts as it was with dust and cobwebs. Even the air smelled like fog and fallen leaves and moss.
    Then Nanna blinked and shook her head. “Perhaps,” she said, in a way that Sarah already knew meant no.
    After her grandmother left, Sarah stood in the middle of her new bedroom and gazed numbly around her. The walls were grimed and spotted with continents of damp, and a carpet of ashy dirt covered the floor. A colony of spiders had softened the corners of the ceiling, knitted up the dust with thick skeins of silk. There was nothing caught in their webs.
    Warm red light from the setting sun flowed through the narrow windows, and the lines of shadow were growing longer, creeping toward Sarah across the wooden floorboards like spilled ink. She stepped away from one particularly dark tendril and counted under her breath.
    It didn’t help. The tears she’d been fighting against ever since her father had told her to pack her things finally came flooding out. Sarah unzipped her suitcase, half breathless with tears, and pulled out Steg and Hedge. She didn’t care if it made her seem like a frightened little kid right now. All she wanted was something familiar and cushiony to hold. With her arms wrapped tightly around the stuffed animals, crushing them against her chest, Sarah collapsed onto the small bed and sobbed until her face stung and her eyes ached and her throat felt like it had been scraped out with a fork.
    When she lifted her head, the shadows were swirling all about her, and the last few red-gold gleams of the sun were just outlining her windowsill. The raven was there, cloaked in fire.
    Sarah sniffed and sat up, the toys falling to the rough blanket. The raven shifted. Its claws ticked against the stone, and the sunlight slipped away, leaving the bird looking like a smear of bluish gray against the darker indigo of the sky.
    â€œYou should clean your face,” the raven said in its incongruous womanly voice. “There’s water in the bowl, and towels in the second drawer.”
    â€œHow long were you watching me?” Sarah rubbed at her eyes and cheeks with her knuckles, then pulled one sleeve over her hand and used that to wipe her face again. “Ugh, gross.” There was gunk sitting in her nose and throat.
    â€œA few minutes only,” the raven said. It sounded a little sad. “Your grandmother sent me to call you down.”
    â€œAnd you’re her messenger or something?”
    â€œHer eyes and ears and voice, if I need to be. I am bound to her.”
    â€œCreepy,” Sarah said. She slipped from the bed and padded to the table. There were the towels, neatly folded in the second drawer as the raven had said. Ice crinkled the edges of the water in the bowl, but after the shock of the cold against her cheeks, Sarah found that wiping away the heat and shame of her tears was almost exhilarating. She glanced across at the raven, which was still watching her patiently from the windowsill. “So you’re basically a spy.”
    The raven made no move. “Light the lamps,” it said. “Unless you want to return to darkness.” It spread its wings, then paused as if it was debating with itself. “By the laws of my curse, I am bound to tell her all the things I see, hear, and say within the castle,” it said. “If she asks.” With a crackle of feathers, it launched itself into the night.
    Sarah looked at the empty place where the raven had stood and touched one