by Marjorie Liu
I was finally, irrevocably, numb.
Oturu towered over me, immense and stark, his cloak flaring wildly. “Hunter. There is something else.”
I did not move. I was going to rest here until I grew roots. Dek and Mal wrapped their tails, loose and warm, around my throat, and hummed a faint riot of Bon Jovi’s “Keep the Faith.” The other boys pressed against my legs and waist, holding my hands. Brave little soldiers.
I watched a long tendril of Oturu’s hair sink into the abyss of his billowing cloak, which was not mere cloth but made of shadows that seemed to be pockets of other spaces—perhaps the void I traveled through when traveling from here to there—or something different: energy and flesh and other dimensions colliding to create Oturu.
He had told me he was the last of his kind. I wanted to know why. Maybe I would have asked, except I looked closer at his cloak and saw faces skimming the surface, fleeting outlines of contorted heads pressing outward from the abyss, mouths open in silent screams.
I saw a face I recognized.
Tracker.
Looking at him reminded me of a horror movie—his face, the abyss molded to his features, slick as oil and crawling down his mouth. I didn’t know if he could see me. I reached out, ready to try and pull him free. Zee grabbed my arms, stopping me.
“Leave be,” he muttered.
I tried to shake him off, but he refused to let go. I attempted to speak, and my voice broke. On my second try I managed a hoarse, “What are you doing to him?”
Oturu tilted his head, contemplating me. “You feel pity.”
“He’s in agony. All those people are. You have no right.”
“We have every right. There are reasons.”
“Reasons—” I began, but Zee’s grip tightened, and he gave me a warning look.
“Justice,” he said. “Justice and promises.”
I shut my mouth.
Oturu’s hair slipped free of the churning shadows inside his cloak. Clutched within the dark tendrils was a small stone disc the size of my palm. Simple concentric lines had been etched into its surface, and even in the night, it glimmered with a translucence that burned from within. I stopped breathing when I saw it, my heart lurching like it wanted to tick-tock its way right out of chest, or into my stomach.
Seed ring. A fragment of the Labyrinth, like the armor on my hand. Only, a seed ring stored memories, an imprint of souls: energy, leaving a permanent etching of a life. I had been told this seed ring was small, capable of holding only a year’s worth of memories. A year. To capture the essence of an entire existence.
This one had belonged to my mother—and it held her life. She had left it to Jack to pass on if I ever found him. Relying on fate—or perhaps a future she’d already known would come to pass.
I’d found my grandfather. I had used the seed ring to see some of my mother’s memories. But I’d been forced to give it to Oturu for safekeeping.
I held out my hand. My fingertips were cold. Homesickness filled me, desperate and overwhelming, until it was hard to breathe. “Thank you for bringing this back to me.”
Oturu held back the disc. “You must take care. The last time you held the seed ring, you left this time for another. You traveled where you must not.”
Four times now. Four times I’d traveled through time. Four times breathing the same air as women who were dead.
“Nothing happened,” I told him. But that was a lie. I had never said much, those few times I had found my mother and grandmother—but maybe I had traveled more than I yet realized.
Maybe my mother had known more than I realized about the life I would face. A life still in my future.
A life she had tried to prepare me for.
Oturu still withheld the seed ring. “If you are not careful, you will tear time again. The seed ring has no power, but what you wear on your hand is what you must fear.” His hair coiled through the air and brushed against my armored right hand. “Labyrinth-born and hewn,” he said softly, his mouth hardly moving. “Crafted from ore mined in the heart of the maze.”
“A key to any door, in any time and place,” I said, remembering his words, from before.
“A key that reflects the desires of its bearer,” Oturu finished, then, even more quietly: “You must be trained to control your thoughts. You cannot be left long with such power. Not with the hunt at hand, or what sleeps within you. Not without control.”
“The hunt,” I said, ignoring the rest. “Do you know about the demons I encountered?”
“We felt them.” Oturu’s hair twitched, a violent, lashing motion. “We remember the Mahati when they were free. They do not hunt to become reborn in death but merely to breed pain.”
“They want me, as the vessel of the Reaper Kings, to lead them.”
The corner of his mouth curved. “Will you be their Queen?”
You already are, said that deep voice, from the darkness.
I shut my eyes. Zee murmured, “Maxine.”
Whether you choose to be, whether they are fools not to believe.
Silken hair caressed my brow.
As there were Kings, now there is a Queen.
“The veil is open,” Oturu said, in his hushed voice. “And so the dreamer speaks.”
“I wish it would shut the fuck up.” I rubbed my face, feeling cold, and very alone. “It’s ridiculous. Even the idea of it is crazy. I won’t lead them.”
Oturu’s mouth still held that hint of a smile. “Why not?”
Zee hissed at him. I stared. “They’ll hurt people.”
“When the veil falls, they will do that anyway.” Oturu tilted his head. “With the veil now cracked, they will begin. Someone must control them. If not you, then one of their own. Who do you trust more, to be the leader of the hunt?”
I tore my gaze from him, looking down at Zee, Raw, and Aaz. All three demons crouched very still, staring at their feet. Dek and Mal were quiet.
“You five,” I whispered. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Another life, another dream,” Zee rasped, closing his eyes. “What entered us, we became. Only because we knew no other dream.”
I knelt in front of him. “This thing inside me now . . . entered you? Possessed you?”
“That is too simple,” Oturu murmured. “There are no words to describe what inhabits your soul. What inhabited theirs.”
I flashed him a hard look. “How come you’re the expert?”
He stilled. Zee gave him a mournful look. All the boys did.
“We will not tell you,” he said, his voice so faint I could barely hear him. “We will not.”
I wished I could see his eyes, but the quieted movements of his hair and cloak told a story, as did the pain in his voice. Enough to make me look away and murmur, “Fair enough.”
I extended my hand again. After a brief hesitation, his hair lowered the seed ring into my palm.
I did not disappear. No explosions. Nothing wild. I held the disc in my hand and wondered if this was the same as holding my mother’s hand—not that we’d ever done much of that after I turned eight. I still wanted to be a kid again, little, when she was the one bearing the world.
How much did you bear? I wondered silently, thinking of my mother, and what Oturu had said.
I traced those concentric lines with the tip of my finger. The armor tingled. I stayed in control. My finger wound closer to the center of the disc. Zee and the boys did not move.
I touched the center.
Nothing happened.
I wasn’t sure why I had assumed something would. Hope, maybe. My mother had left me the seed ring for a reason, and if she had known about the big dark secret of our bloodline, and if she had been in the Labyrinth—then perhaps there was something else I needed to know. Something that could help me.
Or just make me feel better.
I looked at Zee, who shrugged. Raw and Aaz watched with large eyes. At some point they’d managed to pull a giant tub of fried chicken from the shadows and wer
e eating from it with a nervousness that made me want to curl up beside them for a leg.
I tucked the seed ring into my vest pocket. “Last words of advice?”
“There is no saving yourself from what is coming.” Oturu drifted close. “We came not to save you. But to ease you.”
His cloak flared, and the tangled tendrils of his long black hair flowed around my body like the first threads of a cocoon.
“You are not alone,” he whispered.
Not alone. Not alone against an army. Not alone against the expectation that I would somehow hurt the world. Not alone, in living.
I touched my chest and felt my heart beat. Such an ordinary human thing.
The second heartbeat was not so ordinary.
Just out of sync with mine. Quiet, strong.
Grant. I imagined his voice in the wind, and when I closed my eyes, I saw him as silver light, and golden, and the sun, pouring like a river from the night into my chest.
“Ah,” Oturu murmured. “Ah, young Queen.”
He sounded wistful, and for some reason that saddened me. Maybe it meant I was an idiot, too, but I didn’t care. I had broken all the rules I was raised on. I was a broken rule.
But I was still me. Maxine Kiss. No horns on my head. No fire on my breath. I’d wake up tomorrow and still love music from the eighties, and hot chocolate, and the rain. I’d love cowboy boots and Clint Eastwood movies, and steaks so rare they could lumber off the plate. I would still miss my mother, and I would still love the boys, and I would find some way to make a life with the man living so strong in my heart.
You’re naïve, I told myself. You’re fucked.
All the way, replied another part of me. I wasn’t raised to stop living.
I reached for a strand of Oturu’s floating hair, wrapped it around my fist, and kissed it.
He froze. I said, “Thank you, friend.”
“Always,” he murmured, bowing his head. “Forever.”
CHAPTER 15
I had walked for hours to reach the spot in the pine forest. I didn’t want to wait that long to get back to the farmhouse. I tapped my right fist against my chest and slipped into the void.
I found myself, moments later, beside my mother’s grave. Grant was there, seated in the grass. I couldn’t see his face, just his back. His clothes were rumpled. No one else around. Clear sky, stars, and the oak leaves whispering in the breeze. I saw lights on in the house, and Zee, the others, huddled together to stare at the grave.
Grant was singing, very softly. I didn’t recognize the melody, but it rose and fell with the wind, and seemed to scatter light like falling stars when I closed my eyes to listen.
Raw and Aaz hugged his stretched legs, resting their cheeks upon his knees. He leaned forward and patted their heads.
I watched that, and I watched him. Imagining myself as the woman I had been yesterday, before the blood and pain, and those terrible truths. Remembering pie, and laughter, and candles burning.
I felt unsteady as I walked to Grant. I sat carefully beside him on the grass. He finally looked at me, and stopped singing—last note hanging in the air. We stared at each other a long time. I searched his face for fear, but his only signs of stress were a deepening of the lines in his brow, and around his mouth, which made him look grim.
“Small part of me was afraid you weren’t coming back,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have.” My fingers dug into my jeans. “I hope you haven’t been out here all this time.”
He didn’t say anything. Just leaned over to slide his hand around my neck, and kissed me. It should have been awkward. His mouth didn’t land exactly where it should, but his lips found mine, and it felt so natural to kiss him back, so warm, like I was coming out of a snowy night into a golden home.
Grant pulled away, just a little, his breathing rough as mine. I wanted to speak but couldn’t. No words. No voice.
“You don’t remember that, do you?” he said. “Me . . . kissing you.”
I brushed my lips over the corner of his mouth, savoring his scent: cinnamon and sunlight, and everything warm. I glanced down, at his hands. Strong-looking, with long, lean fingers. I wanted to hold his hands, and soothe them, and touch his wrists and arms. I wanted to lean against his chest and listen to him breathe. I remembered those things, but they seemed very far away and new—a thousand years, another life.
My mouth twitched. “What I don’t remember is how that first kiss in your stairwell ever convinced me to stick around.”
Grant stilled, staring. “Really. You don’t remember that.”
“Not at all,” I said. “And I don’t remember that dangerous duet we planned at your piano—”
“A sonata,” he interrupted.
“—or that magic line of yours—”
“I want to take you to my bed.” His voice was low, strained, and an ache roared through me from my heart down, as he kissed me with impossible gentleness, barely a touch on the lips that I felt in my toes.
“You remember,” he said, against my mouth.
“Some things.” I closed my eyes, stroking my lips over his jaw, trailing my fingers down his strong, lean throat. “More and more.”
He hauled me into his lap and buried his face in the crook of my neck. His arms were incredibly strong, but tremors rolled through him, and the sound of his breathing was occasionally rough.
He held me like that, saying nothing—saying everything—for a very long time.
THE farmhouse was quiet. I didn’t see the Messenger, but Jack sat in the kitchen, at the table, staring at the bloodstain on the floor. I couldn’t breathe when I saw that and fumbled for Grant’s hand. He pulled me close, then led me back outside to the porch.
I had to lean against the rail. “I can’t hate him. No matter what I hear, no matter what he holds back from me . . . all those secrets, all the things he’s done . . . I still love him.”
“He loves you,” Grant said. “I can’t begin to understand his kind, but he loves you, Maxine. He loved your mother. He loved your grandmother.”
I pressed my face against the old wood column, flakes of peeling paint floating down to the porch boards. Dek chirped, licking the back of my ear. “Of all the Hunters in my bloodline, why Jean Kiss? Why did he fall in love with her?”
“You’re not all the same, you know.” Grant leaned close, his chest warm against my back. “Maybe you look similar, but you’re different women.”
I thought of Jack, sitting in the kitchen, staring at the spot where his daughter had died. “He’ll outlive us all. It’ll be the blink of an eye, compared to the rest of his life.”
“No, it won’t. Not a blink.” Grant covered my hand with his, winding our fingers together. “Time is relative. And relative to a million, ten million years, what he had and lost with your mother, grandmother, and you, will last much longer.”
“He’s alone,” I said. “Out of all of us, he’s the most alone.”
Grant sighed. “Come on. Let’s walk.”
“Where’s the Messenger?”
“Upstairs in a bedroom, last I checked. Staring at the walls.”
“You left her alone with Jack.”
“She’s not going to hurt him. Or take him.” Grant rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. “She’s engaging in a period of self-reflection.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Free will.” Grant tugged me into the yard. “Let’s go.”
I allowed myself to be pulled toward the barn. “You act like you live here.”
“I listen when you talk. And you’ve talked so little about this place, I listened very hard when you did. Plus, I had time to look around. I was curious about where you grew up.”
“I didn’t grow up here.”
He glanced at me. “You tell people you’re from Texas. Must feel a little like home.”
“I was born here. In that house.” I watched Raw and Aaz tumble through the shadows ahead o
f us. “Zee delivered me.”
Grant stumbled a little. “Wow.”
“I know.”
The barn hadn’t held an animal larger than a cat or mouse in over a hundred years, and my mother had always kept it swept and clean. The old station wagon was parked inside.
I ached when I saw it. Trailed my hands down the dusty brown hood and stared through the windshield at the front seat. I could almost see my mother behind the wheel, and me, beside her, in pigtails and overalls, and my little red cowboy boots. Ghosts, in my mind.
Even the boys were reverent, licking the metal and pressing their cheeks against the doors. Dek and Mal sang the melody to “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and Grant joined in counterpoint, his voice soft, sad.
The doors were locked, but Aaz flitted through the shadows and opened the car from the inside. A musty leather and plastic smell wafted out. I thought about sliding into the driver’s seat, but stopped at the last moment and climbed into the back. I slid over to make room for Grant. Paper crunched underfoot. It was dark inside the car, but my eyesight was good at night, and I glimpsed maps, hotel pamphlets, loose-leaf drawings made with crayon and markers. Old memories. We had stopped driving this car when I was ten and parked it here. My mom and I had never cleaned it out.
I picked up one of the drawings and smoothed out the paper on my leg.
“I’m putting that on the refrigerator,” Grant said.
I smiled, tracing my finger over five sharp splotches with red eyes, set in the middle of oversized purple flowers that were almost as tall as the stick figure with long black hair that had “mommy” written underneath and towered over the second figure, which was just a head and legs and two jutting arms with hearts for hands. I’d written “me” to the side.
Dek and Mal slithered down my arms to examine the drawing. I let them give it a good long look, then leaned forward to place it carefully on the front seat. I glimpsed old cassette tapes, more papers, a knife or two—and then slid back to sit beside Grant.
“This was home,” he said.
