“We’re not going to hell, are we?” Max said, scratching the back of his head at the sight of the old woman heaving. “Even as a kid, I never hit old ladies…”
But Iris had no qualms about doing it and didn’t feel bad at all about the guttural yell that escaped the woman’s throat.
“Miss Lucille!” a girl cried from behind the cage. Mary. “Stay right there, I’ll heal you—” The girl gasped and covered her mouth. Apparently she was meant to keep her own powers a secret.
Lucille rolled her eyes and charged in with her knife again, only to be blocked by Jinn’s blades. After flipping her aged body back, she smirked. “My, my, this first attack was quite the failure,” she said.
The more Iris thought about it, the faker her “old maid” voice sounded. And then she remembered what Adam had written.
“Shape-shifter.” Iris’s accusation was met only with a twinkle in the old maid’s eye.
“Shall we retreat, then, my doves?” the woman said.
Team Iris had been so focused on the unusually nimble old lady that they hadn’t spotted Henry sneaking out from his hiding spot. Now he was out in full sight next to the lions’ cage. “Not before causing a little mayhem.” He spat gum into his palm and stuck it to the lock.
His team bolting from the area was enough cause for Iris to realize his plan. And once the cage lock blew open, Team Iris was running as well, with ravenous beasts hot on their trail.
“Max!” Iris cried, and she didn’t have to say another word. Iris blinked twice, sucked in several breathes—and suddenly the three of them were behind a refreshment stand watching the lions barrel down the cobbled path toward the elephant house. Out of sight.
“You realize how heavy you are, mate?” Max said, his back against the wall next to Iris.
“Excuse me?” Iris said, trying to catch her own breath.
“I meant him.” Max flicked his head toward Jinn. “You still have it?”
Jinn nodded. It. The key. As long as they had that, they were still in the game.
Iris bent over. Exploding toys, knives, lions. It hadn’t even been an hour yet. Well, Fool did say anything goes. Seemed like everyone had decided to set their morality ablaze if it meant getting that massive cash prize. Or maybe it was easier to do if you thought everyone else would be doing the same. How were they going to keep this up to the end?
“Iris,” Jinn hissed, and when Iris looked up, her blood chilled.
Fool. Fool was crouched in the tree directly behind them, curiously writing in a pocket book. His cape billowed in the wind, which grew stronger by the minute, as the gold paint on his harlequin mask glittered beneath the stars. He was recording the events for the club.
“Enjoying the show?” Max spat.
At this, Fool stood up on his branch, bowed, and made his way through the branches.
“We can’t hide here forever,” said Jinn after a while. “We need to think. Get on the offensive and start doing the hunting.”
It was all well and good but proved easier said than done. Someone dashed out from the shadows just as a flash of blinding light burst around them. Iris protected her eyes with her arms, but soon she could tell something was wrong with her vision. The zoo was shrinking and expanding, the starry sky above closing in on her with a shocking suddenness. She dropped her bag. The grass shifted one way and the ground another. Dizzy. She felt dizzy—too dizzy to fight off the hand that gripped her mouth and began dragging her away from her team.
Someone was yelling for her, but she couldn’t tell who. Her mind swirled as the stars above dipped and danced around her, making a mockery of her senses.
Her senses. It was like they’d gone haywire.
And as if to confirm it, her sight went dark
23
IRIS’S SENSES RETURNED IN TIME to feel a thick rope tying her to the rough bark of a tree. She could see bits of the moon between the treetops. Once her dizziness subsided, she realized she was sitting on the grass and could hear the rough panting of a deep voice, followed by a smack and a grunt.
“Stop heaving like a fat bloody hog in heat, it’s disgusting.”
Two goons in dark suits argued with each other, one holding his bald head from the blow it’d just received, the other holding onto his bowler hat as his partner prepared to retaliate.
“Stop.”
A young woman stepped out from the darkness. Deep brown skin. Long golden skirt swishing back and forth across her shins as she moved elegantly into Iris’s line of sight. A black jacket open just enough so Iris could see her brassiere of pearl-colored beads. Long rivers of braids streaming down her back, stray strands loose over the yellow veil covering her face.
It was her.
Her black hat and yellow veil covered her well, but Iris could still see the scars of battle on her hands as if lovingly crafted. Iris tensed. Even if she weren’t tied up, this would be a pickle to get out of. This girl wasn’t one to fall so easily.
She Who Does Not Fall, whispered the girl’s voice in her memories.
“Oi, Rin!” The man with the bowler hat grabbed her arm, which, though toned, was slender enough to almost fit inside his grungy palm. It was then that Iris remembered how young she must have been, though her delicate ferocity seemed ages beyond her. “We brought the girl here.”
“Almost killed myself in the bloody process,” muttered the bald man, still holding his head. The flash of light and the disruption of her senses. It was their doing, without a doubt. Iris remembered those two from Adam’s list.
“Now what?” Bowler waited, but received only a slight shift of Rin’s head in response.
“Idiot, she doesn’t understand English, remember?” said Baldie, only too happy to return the strike he’d received. “Just keep using French like you did before. Bellerose said she understands a bit of that.”
“I already told you I’m not fluent. Damn it. Feels like I’m gargling cotton balls. Whose stupid idea was it putting this filthy wog on the team?”
“Bellerose said she’s an Amazon.” The bald man smirked. “Bollocks. Just remember, once we win, we’ll kill her and take the money for ourselves. Beats grave digging.”
It was astounding how brazen people were when they thought those around them couldn’t understand. Perhaps the girl called Rin really didn’t, but she wasn’t stirred much either way. After the hatted man tried to speak to her in French, she turned so sharply toward him that he nearly stumbled back and fell in horror.
“Her teammates will be looking for this girl, but I will not be interrupted.” She spoke in the same language she had in the auction house. A language Iris understood—a relic of her past. “Separate them and attack individually using the dark as your cover.”
She gave orders like a seasoned general, but it didn’t matter to two thugs who had neither the language skills nor the intellectual capacity to understand them. At the look on their dumbfounded faces, Rin let out an almost imperceptible sigh—the only time when her youth seemed to crack through her icy veneer. “Divide,” she said in broken English. “Attack.” And for good measure, she grabbed their shoulders and shoved the both of them in opposite directions, using short hand gestures to make it clearer.
“I think she wants us to attack the others,” said the bald man.
“Hold on a bloody second.” Bowler angrily wiped his long nose with the back of his hand. “Why do we even need to take orders from her in the first place?”
At that, Baldie gave her a shining grin. “Might just kill her now and be done with it.” He moved toward her, flashing yellow teeth. “What do you say, old bo—”
Iris wondered why he hadn’t noticed the long blade strapped to the back of Rin’s jacket. Long with a large wooden handle, its razor edge was now pointed at his neck, grazing the tip of his nervously bobbing Adam’s apple.
But Iris knew from their last battle—that was not her true sword.
The two men stumbled back and ran, disappearing into the trees. Iris hadn’t th
e time to worry about the others; Rin’s gaze had already returned to her.
Quietly, Iris reminded herself as she continued to search the dirt until she found a sharp little rock she could use as a makeshift knife. Living in a circus, she’d seen enough escape artists to pick up a few tricks of her own. But she’d have to be extraordinarily careful not to be caught by the girl watching her from behind the yellow veil.
“My name is Olarinde,” said the girl in her native tongue, easily flipping the heavy sword around so its tip pointed toward the grass. “Rin. Youngest among the Nyekplohento.”
The Reaper Regiment. That was what the word meant.
“Oh-laa-rin-day,” Iris whispered, committing the name to memory.
“I’ve been waiting for this opportunity to speak with you, Isoke.”
There was that name again. Familiar and foreign at the same time. Iris tried to keep her heart rate steady as she continued cutting her binds.
“I know you can understand me.” She lowered her head. Iris kept her lips pressed tight. “Do you know why I’ve come to this gaudy land of gears and sickness?”
“I remember,” Iris said. “To bring me back to your… your king.”
“Stop speaking that ridiculous language,” Rin spat out in disgust. “You are from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Speak your tongue: Fon. Or are you ashamed?”
Fon. Yoruba. What other languages did Iris know? Just who was she in the past?
Rin took a step closer, inspecting her with interest. “No. You’ve been in this land for so long you’ve lost your tongue, haven’t you?”
There was no contempt in her tone; only the sympathy that came from understanding loss. Iris tried to form words in Fon, but she simply did not have the muscle memory to speak the language.
What she wanted to ask was: Why? Why did this girl want to take her? Rin was a clue to who Iris was before that fateful day in South Kensington. She was a piece of the truth that Iris both feared and wished for.
“Half a century you’ve been missing from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Some believed you’d died a final death. But the king, the military—those who’d seen you in battle—always believed we would find you again. Who else could survive but She Who Does Not Fall, the warrior who could withstand any blow dealt to her? And now you reappear here like a lost animal caught in a thicket. But you’re not as I expected.” Rin straightened her back. In that moment, she understood. “You’ve lost your memories.”
It was not just her quick assessment of her situation that surprised Iris, but how casually Rin accepted that a woman could live for fifty years without aging.
Rin held the wooden pole of her blade with two hands, staring down its sharp length.
“Ever since I was transformed, I’ve been able to sense the white crystal, faintly,” Rin told her.
White crystal? Iris furrowed her brow.
“I followed it to the mining site in Yorubaland. Then to this land, where I met Bellerose. When she told me about this tournament of monsters, I somehow knew I would find you here. You who once fought more monstrously than anyone.” Rin turned her back to her, just as Iris felt the rope loosen. “Tell me. Why do you fight now?”
Finally, the ropes fell. Iris rose quietly, nimbly to her feet. Her goal was to slip behind the tree while Rin wasn’t looking, but she hadn’t taken two steps before Rin spoke again.
“It’s to know yourself, isn’t it? To know your past.”
Iris froze. Rin didn’t turn, even though by now she must have heard Iris move. The light of the moon continued to filter through the treetops.
“What else could you want?” Rin said.
And, after spinning around, launched the sword at her.
For a moment, Iris’s heart stopped, but the blade dug into the ground just at her feet.
Then Iris saw it—the hilt of Rin’s sword, her true sword, burrowing out of her chest until the bloodless white blade exited her body, sparkling under the starlight. A sword as tall as Rin was.
“If you wish to know who you are, then pick up the sword at your feet and fight me.”
Iris hesitated, staring at the weapon.
“No? Then let me give you further incentive.” Rin reached into her jacket pocket and placed her skeleton key around her neck. The iron rested flat against her dark chest. “You need this to win the first round. Me? I couldn’t care less. I have my mission in front of me.”
Iris’s hands squeezed into tight fists as her eyes lapped up the sight of the key.
“Fight me, Isoke,” Rin said again. “You may not remember your true self. But trust me: your body will.”
24
AS RIN EXPECTED, IRIS’S BODY remembered: how to hold the heavy wooden handle—long like a pole, with a razor-sharp blade at the top; how to wield it so she could meet each of Rin’s blows with surprising precision. It was a one-on-one battle in the night, both of them dodging and charging, aiming and searching for vulnerabilities.
Iris’s blood began to boil from the thrill of it as something dangerous stirred deep within her. She could tell Rin was holding back. Somehow knowing that angered her. And as her weapon clashed against Rin’s pure-white blade, Iris’s body shook with dread, fear, and excitement; her bones were telling her something: a secret from her memories.
Soon, Iris cornered Rin against a tree. Without hesitating, Iris launched the blade at her, shocked at herself the moment it left her hands. What was she thinking? Iris wasn’t interested in a battle to the death. How had her excitement turned into a lust for bloodshed so quickly?
Rin easily dodged with a leap and the blade plunged into the tree. Landing catlike upon the ground, she flipped over her sword and waited. Struggling to regain herself, Iris moved quickly over to the tree and pulled the weapon out only to be met with Rin’s sidelong look.
“Once upon a time,” Rin said, “there were two girls who lived in two different eras under two different kings but were given the same name: She Who Does Not Fall.”
Iris’s weapon trembled in her grip, her breaths short as she tried to calm herself. But Rin, far more in control of her body and emotions, used Iris’s hesitation to attack again.
“The first girl was kidnapped and taken to the Dahomey people from a neighboring Yoruba tribe.” Rin cocked her head. “That was sixty years ago. Do you remember, Isoke?”
Shaken, Iris lunged for Rin, only for the warrior to jump and land on top of Iris’s sword hilt with her thick black boots, causing Iris’s arms to buckle. As the tip of the blade plunged into the earth, the girl pointed her sword at Iris.
“She was trained as a warrior, a raider. She was a woman who could not die no matter how many battles she fought. An unimaginable and terrible power that many thought was gifted to her by the moon deity, Gleti.”
Iris swung the pole again, using her nimble body to force the girl back.
“Favored among the ahosi,” Rin continued after meeting Iris’s blade with hers. “Favored by the previous king, King Ghezo. She Who Does Not Fall. Child of the Moon Goddess.”
Iris didn’t remember, but she knew Rin wasn’t lying. She could feel it. They clashed swords again, Iris leaning back when Rin charged, dodging by the skin of her teeth.
“But was it the goddess who gave her these gifts or the necklace of white crystal, always around her neck, that kept her safe?”
Iris’s eyes followed the unnatural white of Rin’s blade, then suddenly remembered Doctor Pratt’s cuff links. Blinding-white stone.
“And so brings us to the second girl.” Rin jumped back, pointing her sword to the ground. “I too came from the Yoruba tribe. Captured in a raid and marked as a slave. It was only after I transformed, after I was gifted this soul sword, that I was given a chance to survive. With this sword, I became unstoppable in battle. Another She Who Does Not Fall, of sorts. I was trained to surpass you who had disappeared all those years ago.”
Iris shook her head. It was too much information to take in at once. She stumbled back, the pole nearly falling from h
er grip.
“It wasn’t until an explorer visited our lands that my king began to believe you were still alive. That explorer seemed obsessed with your mystery. His name was John Temple.”
The pole finally fell from Iris’s hands. She stared into the girl’s yellow veil.
“You’ve heard of him,” Rin said. It wasn’t a question. “Isoke, did you know that you were brought to the Dahomey merely weeks after the Day of Darkness?”
“The Day of Darkness?” Iris repeated in a faint whisper.
“A global eclipse that plunged the world into night. Our astronomers had their theories. It wasn’t until Temple came to us that we were able to corroborate them. So is it a coincidence? Or is your very existence foretold by the gods?”
“Stop it.” Iris gripped her forehead.
“And yet you belong to the king. To the Dahomey Kingdom. You’re for us alone to use.”
“Use.” Iris bowed her head. “Use. Everyone thinks they own me, don’t they? But this body is mine…”
She thought of Coolie. The auction house. The Committee and their tournament. And—
Doctor Seymour Pratt. Memories of him fell around her like shards of glass, a man of science grinning over her body as pain flooded her senses. His white crystal cuff link…
“This body is mine.”
Iris trembled with frightening rage until her weapon was back in her hands and she was slashing at Rin’s body with a bloodlust that felt as natural as it did otherworldly. Even Rin was unprepared. The girl did her best to meet every lunge with her sword, but Iris could tell that she was overwhelmed. Good. Good.
“Stop toying with me,” Iris grunted, and then threw her weapon to the ground. “All of you, stop toying with me!”
She lunged at Rin and, with one guttural yell, grabbed the girl’s yellow veil and pulled it violently from her face. Rin stumbled back in shock, her sword flying from her hands and shattering into smoke against a tree. Then she fell to the ground when Iris leaped on top of her. Iris looked into the girl’s surprisingly delicate young face. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. And it wasn’t until she noticed those features—the small chestnut-brown nose, thick brows, and a scar rendering her right eye useless—that Iris snapped back to her senses, realizing her hands were around Rin’s thin neck.
The Bones of Ruin Page 24
