Reckless Cruel Heirs

by Olivia Wildenstein

A smile knocked into my mouth, soon turning into an irrepressible giggle.

  “A giant, three-headed—Why are you laughing? He’s dead, Amara. Sook is dead.”

  “No, he’s not.” I tried to calm down. Really, I did, but my nerves were so shot that I couldn’t get a handle on them. “And I’m laughing because I’m never going to let Sook live down the fact that he got munched on by a shark.”

  She frowned, her eyebrows almost colliding over her smooth forehead. “I saw him turn into smoke!”

  “When you die in this place, you resuscitate. Interminably. Trust me. Been there, done that, came back.” I sobered up. “Unless you eat the apple. Then . . .” My gaze rose to the loose circle of cell mates. Kingston was still not among them.

  Giya cranked her neck, finally noticing we weren’t alone. Her lips pressed into a tight line at the sight of Remo. At the sight of Cruz, though, they parted extra-wide. She whipped around and gaped at me, her gray eyes cartoonishly large in spite of her eyelids being puffy from crying. “Did I just see . . .? Am I . . .? Is that . . .?”

  “Cruz Vega?” I supplied.

  Her jaw unhinged farther. “Are you kidding?” she hissed.

  “Nope.”

  “Is he real?”

  “Cruz?” I crooked a finger, calling him toward us.

  At first, he didn’t even react to his name, but then he blinked out of his daze and strolled toward us in that slow, measured way of his.

  “Can you say something to Giya, so she can come to terms with the fact that you’re not a figment of her imagination?”

  He squatted, then extended his hand toward her. “Hi, Giya. I’m not a figment of your imagination. And it’s really nice to meet you.”

  She stared between his proffered hand and his open face.

  “I think she’s in a little too much shock to shake hands,” I told him.

  She slammed her eyes back to mine, then back to his. “Why do you look like you’re . . . like you’re—like us?”

  Sighing, he said, “I’m guessing magic.”

  Her eyes widened, which I honestly thought was impossible considering their current width. “Nima is going to—oh, Great Gejaiwe, she’s going to . . .” She couldn’t seem to find the words to finish her sentence. “And my uncle. Oh, Skies . . .”

  Cruz’s green eyes glided over her face, smiling even though it looked painful for him to do so. Was it talk of Lily, or the fact that, in spite of having inherited her father’s more chiseled features, darker hair, and honeyed skin tone, her eyes and bow-shaped lips were the same as her mother’s?

  “How many cells ago did your brother die?” he asked.

  Her eyebrows writhed as though she were about to break down again. “Two.”

  I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You went through an entire world on your own?”

  Her bloated lids closed, and she shuddered. “Oh, Amara.” When her lids swept back up, her eyes gleamed silver. “It was so horrible. Plus, I thought . . . I thought Sook was gone. Forever. And I didn’t think I’d ever find you, and—” She bawled again, so I hugged her to me, nestling her head under my chin.

  “You should take her to the waterfall. Get her cleaned up, and then bring her to the caves. The . . .” Cruz went silent as though to spare my cousin the news of the furred monsters that were about to descend upon us. “They don’t fit inside the individual caves.”

  I nodded, then stood and helped her up, but her balance teetered, and although thin, she weighed more than my tired arms could carry. Remo, who was standing close, lunged toward us and caught her arm before she could tumble.

  Thank you, I mouthed.

  When she realized whose hands were on her, she spooked and bounced away, stumbling right into Cruz.

  “Easy there, Giya,” Cruz said gently.

  “How come Remo’s here, too?” My usually soft-spoken cousin wasn’t speaking all that softly. “Did he force you inside his grandfather’s prison?”

  A small smile tipped my mouth. “Believe it or not, that bagwa followed me in.”

  “Again with the bagwa,” Remo chided, even though his expression was amused.

  “Do you even know what it means?” Giya snapped.

  “Your brother called me a jackass in Gottwa enough times for me to look it up.”

  I grinned. “Oh, he’s called you a lot worse.”

  A corner of his mouth hooked up. “I don’t doubt it.”

  Giya’s head ping-ponged between us, so absorbed by our easy banter she seemed to have forgotten she was being held up by a ghost. “Are you two”—her nose scrunched up—“friends now?”

  Remo draped his arm around my shoulders and tucked me into his side. “Trifecta finally came to her senses and realized what a catch I am.”

  I rolled my eyes but wove my hand through the one dangling over my shoulder.

  Giya’s gaze fastened on our locked fingers. There had been times where I’d been happy in the Scourge, but having my cousin here, knowing my other one was on his way, and holding Remo’s hand, I felt borderline giddy.

  I craned my neck to look up at my fiancé. Although exhausted, he, too, looked somewhat happy.

  “Not to interrupt your sappy reunion, but the smoke’s getting thin.” Kiera lifted her chin to the crater. “And there’s meat hanging everywhere. It’ll drive the tigri feral.”

  I gave Remo’s hand one last squeeze, then released it and walked out from under his arm. “Hand her over,” I told Cruz.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded, then snuck my arm under Giya’s as she whispered, “Tigri?”

  “Second trial. But don’t worry. You can rest while—”

  “I hate this place. I mean, I’m so happy to see you, but I really hate prison.”

  I shot her grim smile. “You and I both.” As we slalomed through the train debris, I asked, “Does anything hurt?”

  “My head.”

  Worry made me push her hair around, hunting for hidden gashes. “I don’t see any blood. Besides the one coming from the cut on your cheek.”

  “It hurts because I’ve spent the last few days—hours?”—she looked up at the sky—“awake and alert and fucking terrified.”

  “Giya Geemiwa, did you just curse?”

  “Oh, shut up. After what I went through, I get to curse. I also get to rant if I feel like it.” Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched. “What is wrong with you? Why are you still smiling?”

  “I’m just really happy to see you.”

  She shot me a befuddled look.

  “Does anyone else know where we are?” Remo asked, slowing his strides to keep up with our snail pace.

  “Josh.”

  “I meant, besides him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Hey, Farrow!” Kiera called out. “You’re needed to collect the meat.”

  His gaze surfed past Giya and locked on mine.

  “Go. I’m rested. And armed. We’ll be okay.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  “Let him accompany the girls,” Cruz said. “We have enough time to gather all the meat.”

  “Why don’t we dump it all in one place?” Quinn suggested. “The tigri will converge there and be easier to pick off.”

  Kiera chewed on her lip, clenching her fingers around her spear. I wondered if she slept with it. “Seven of them in the same place doesn’t sound like such great odds to me.”

  “She looks familiar?” Giya whispered. “Why does she look familiar?”

  “Because you’re looking at Cole’s twin.”

  “And the man with the beard is their uncle, Quinn,” Remo added.

  Giya’s pupils shrank, which made her irises look impossibly wide. “Kiera Locklear and Quinn Thompson?” she hissed. “Iba and Nima’s torturers?”

  I nodded, glancing over my shoulder at the fine-boned, skinny blonde with the tousled dreads who was at present scanning the darkened expanse of thick palms, squat panem, and curled aloe. “Where the hell is Little King
?” she barked.

  Giya faltered, and I tightened my grip on her.

  As we scraped past a yellow thicket, I said, “Did I forget to mention our dear, dead uncle is here?”

  “He’s alive?” She came to such a sudden halt that she almost slipped from my hold.

  “Yeah.” With a sigh, I looked toward Remo, whose expression turned even graver. “He’s the reason Remo and I had to tie the Cauldron knot. Iba was afraid Gregor was grooming him for a coup.”

  Giya stared between us, then all around. “Wow,” was all she said, but her writhing eyebrows told me she was thinking a heck of a lot more as we took off again. Ducking beneath a liana, she asked, “Any other dead fae lurking around these parts I should know about?”

  I shook my head. I hesitated to tell her that Kingston not only harbored the apple but also an intense desire to turn me into ether. I thought she’d had enough craziness lobbed at her and didn’t need more to process, but I wanted her prepared in case we ran into his deranged ass. “He has the apple and is intent on feeding it to me.”

  She gaped at me, then at Remo, whose knuckles were clenched around his machete, and whose gaze was on the shadows cast by the swaying blue canopy. “He’ll be dead—and I don’t mean field-of-mud dead—before he can even try.”

  She docked her mouth against my ear and murmured, “Are you sure you can trust him, Amara?”

  By him, I assumed she meant Remo. “Yes.” I smiled at my fiancé, but he neither caught my smile or her words, too busy scouring the land for danger, or rather, for Kingston. “I’m sure.”

  “Wait . . . so you guys are like, actually friends?”

  “Believe it or not.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Somewhere between Fake Rowan and Fake Neverra.”

  She frowned.

  Remo tsked, then volleyed, “In the city with skyscrapers.”

  “No, I did not like you then.”

  He side-eyed me. “You cried when I died.”

  “Because I didn’t want to be all alone.”

  “Uh-huh.” He winked at me, which made Giya’s brows jolt back up.

  One more shock, and she would get a kink in her forehead from all the eyebrow squirming. “This is so weird,” she ended up saying.

  “You’re telling me.” I smiled at Remo, thinking: Wait till you hear the whole of it.

  After a beat, my ever-perceptive cousin leaned in and spilled a shocked whisper that threatened to blow out my eardrum, “You like him like him!”

  I whispered back, “Maybe.”

  “I didn’t quite catch your answer, Trifecta.”

  “Eavesdropping is beneath you, Farrow.”

  “You think too highly of me.” His accompanying smirk hit me square in the heart.

  “Wow,” was all Giya said, again, but her eyes never stopped traveling between us as we escorted her to the waterfall.

  38

  The Ambush

  Giya scanned the depths of the frothing pool. “Please tell me there are no sharks.”

  “No. No fish either for that matter. Just mollusks.” I waded up to my knees, not wanting to wet my clothes, and leaned over to scoop up some water. I drank my fill, then splashed the rest on my face. And then, because I was still a kid at heart, I splashed Remo, who was standing vigil on the beach.

  He whirled around. “Oh no you didn’t, Trifecta . . .”

  When he came at me, I took off laughing. He caught up way too fast, grabbing me around the waist, locking my back against his front.

  “Don’t throw me in,” I begged, between giggles.

  I could feel him smile against my hair. “Give me one good reason?”

  “Because then I’d be wet.” I tried to wriggle away from him, but his arms were steel bands around my middle.

  “And?” His voice brushed up the shell of my ear.

  “And this fabric isn’t half as concealing as my suit.”

  “Not a convincing argument, Trifecta.”

  “You’re not the only man around.”

  He grunted, and his arms loosened. “Fine. Consider yourself spared.” He dropped his mouth to my ear again. “But next time . . .”

  I turned in Remo’s arms and stole a kiss.

  “You guys are seriously not some weird hallucination? ’Cause there was this cell where”—she shuddered—“where no one was real.” Her body gave another hard shake, which made the water around her submerged calves tremble.

  What had my poor cousin endured? “We’re real. I promise.”

  She waded in to midthigh, soaking her brown suede leggings while her long, cream chiffon top billowed atop the surface. For some reason, I was only noticing now what she wore and how stained it all was. “So I need to get used to”—she orbited her finger in the air, wrapping us in an imaginary circle—“this?”

  I glanced up at Remo.

  “I’m going to go with a yes for fear of getting smacked.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So dramatic.” As I splashed through the water toward her, I asked, “What’s up with the outfit?”

  She stared down as though she’d forgotten what she was wearing. “I was at Magena and Dawson’s son’s spirit ceremony when I got Josh’s comm.”

  A spirit ceremony was performed when the child became a man or a woman. I’d celebrated mine at twelve. It was supposed to have been a small and intimate affair—only Unseelies—but Seelies had flown over the Valley of the Five to partake in the spectacle of me offering the Gottwas’s Great Spirit a drop of my blood, thus sealing my fate with Hers. Thanks to Remo’s warning about its toxicity, none of the Seelies had drifted too close, but still they’d watched. I wondered if he’d been among the hovering crowd of silk-and-leather spectators. I was about to ask him when a nasal voice skidded over the water toward us.

  “Well, if it isn’t the princess’s little sidekick? All grown up, too. Four years does the Wood women wonders.” Kingston stood beside an aloe thicket.

  I stared at his hands, expecting to see the apple clutched in one of them, but his delicate, fisted fingers held only air.

  “Is more of the family coming? Because I am loving this family reunion. Such fun to see everyone again.”

  “Amara mentioned Neverra’s fool was still alive, but she forgot to mention how stylistically low he’d fallen.” She whistled as she looked him up and down. “I really wish my Infinity was working, because that outfit deserves a picture. Are you trying to launch a new trend, Little King? Not sure this one will catch. And your face. Finally hit puberty, huh?”

  Kingston’s eyes blackened.

  I caught Remo’s mouth twitching even though mine stayed flat, too stressed to appreciate the moment. Giya was calm like Lily until you pissed her off. Then she became like Kajika—a cat with needle-sharp claws.

  Which reminded me . . .

  I glanced up at the sky, at the thin coil that remained on the horizon. “Remo, the smoke’s almost gone.”

  I both felt and heard the weight of his sigh. “We need to get Giya to the caves.”

  “The caves?” Kingston, who’d snapped a piece of aloe off, waggled it at us. “Were you planning on hiding, nieces?”

  Giya rolled her shoulders back and straightened her neck. “No one’s hiding.”

  “But, Giya—”

  “I’m fine, Amara. So how do we defeat them? Do we have to brew a potion with weird-ass ingredients again?”

  I stared at her resolute profile, again wondering what sort of trials she’d gone through to get here.

  “No potion-brewing,” Kingston replied. “Just good-old-fashioned skewering.”

  “I’m guessing I’ll need a spear then.” Giya trod back toward the beach, splitting the clear water with her lean legs. “Where do we get weapons?”

  Kingston stroked his hunk of aloe. “At the caves. I can take you girls since Remo’s all set with his little machete.”

  Remo stalked out of the pool and caught up to Giya. “They’re not going anywhere with you.”
/>
  Even though Kingston stared steadily at Remo, the pulse point strained the skin of his neck, betraying his bogus sangfroid. “Amara has gotten you so well-trained. Bet she offers great treats.”

  My mouth opened to tell him off, but Remo beat me to it. “Were you hoping for another machete between the eyes to avoid becoming tigri lunch? Because, and I speak for everyone here, we’d much rather see you face off with the tigers.”

  Kingston shot him an oily smile that made the welts on his face writhe. “I was going to spare you, but you deserve the apple just as much as your master.”

  Vibrating with the need to shove my dust down his throat, I clenched my fingers and attempted to coax it out one-handedly. Like all of my previous attempts, it failed. Behind my back, I joined my fingers and fashioned a spear.

  As I brought it in front of me, Giya cocked an eyebrow. Thankfully, she didn’t ask where I’d found my weapon. Had she noticed my tattoo? She probably would’ve asked whose wita I carried beneath my skin if she had.

  “Hey, Remo, can I trade you a spear for a machete?” I asked, coming to stand beside him. “I like smaller weapons.”

  “That must be a relief to your guard dog.” Kingston shot Remo a wink that made me want to pop my bastard uncle’s eye out of its socket. Both eyes for that matter. “Being on the small—”

  Before we could trade weapons, Remo jumped on Kingston, smacking him into the sand. And then his hands were around his neck, both thumbs digging into the hollow at the traitor’s collarbone.

  “Remo, take the sp—”

  A deep growl thundered over the waterfall, making my spine snap very straight. I spun just in time to see a purple beast emerge from a cluster of aloe across the horseshoe beach, golden eyes set on the four of us, lips hitched around its shiny fangs.

  Giya took a small step back. “Holy . . . spirit.”

  A snarl broke out of the mammoth cat as it kicked up clouds of white sand.

  “Remo!” I yelled, raising my spear.

  My palm slickened around the long handle, and my bicep trembled. Gritting my teeth, I nocked my arm farther back and then let the spear fly. It hit the tigri’s broad chest, bounced right off. The wild cat snarled. It was so close, its rancid breath tinged the air, overpowering the scent of panem. My heart catapulted into my ribs. The tigri’s hind legs bent and then uncoiled, and the furred monster was airborne.