They needed to feel her body against theirs, needed to hear the thud of her human heart, needed to run their hands over her body to check that she was alive and here with them. Eli stiffened in their arms, and then relaxed. Tav buried their face in Eli’s neck, smelling laundry detergent and ripe hawthorn berries.
“Sorry,” murmured Eli into their hair. “But it’s not my fault you’re a worrier.”
Tav pulled back, eyes searching Eli’s. “The risk. We can’t —”
“We have to. This doesn’t change anything. I’m back, aren’t I?” Eli’s eyes swirled black and yellow. The spiralling pupils made Tav dizzy, and they had to look away.
“You two are so boring,” complained Clytemnestra. “I liked it better when you were trying to knife each other.”
“We can always play target practice with you, if you’d like.” Eli pulled the frost blade from its sheath and tossed it in the air. She caught it with the blade down. When she opened her hand, Tav expected to see a deep cut, but she was unmarked. The blade had chosen not to harm her.
“We have to get to the Coven,” said Tav.
“Of course you do. Isn’t that why you’re here? You didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. I know you” — Clytemnestra pointed at Tav — “know how to have a good time.”
“What fun?” broke in Eli.
“Oh, it’s going to be the best game.” Clytemnestra wriggled with excitement. “We’re going to destroy the Coven. You came just in time for the war.”
“The Earth —”
“Can wait,” said Clytemnestra. “Tonight is for harm. You can heal tomorrow — if there’s enough of you left.” Her smile was cruel and taunting.
“There isn’t time —”
“When the Coven has fallen, it will be safer,” said Tav quietly. “We can wait until then, can’t we?”
Light flooded Eli’s body. “Hurry up and finish your war. We have work to do.”
Quick as a cobra striking its prey, Clytemnestra lunged for Eli. She snatched Eli’s hair and forced her head back, so their faces were pressed together.
“I don’t take orders from you,” she hissed. She laughed, and it echoed through the Labyrinth. Then she vanished, her laughter still dancing in the room.
Forty-Eight
THE HEIR
Kite could still feel Eli’s teeth on her fingertips. The thrill sent shivers of excitement up her spine. Strands of hair like twisted seaweed drifted in front of her face. The walls melted away before her, welcoming her into their secret chambers and passageways. The sacrificial tears were devoured by stone. Kite plucked a few hairs and added them to the offering. She didn’t want to owe the Labyrinth a debt — it had saved Eli twice now.
She’s back.
The Beast nipped at her ankles with love bites. He was still invisible. Kite’s excitement was contagious; she could see it in the aquamarine swirls of light that bloomed from each step, from each breath; she could see it in the walls that darkened with seawater as she passed, trailing a finger on the damp, cold surface.
She pressed a palm against rock, and mossy seaweed studded with black pearls crawled through the cracks. The Labyrinth was reshaping itself around her emotions, studded with shells and sand and the fossils of crustaceans.
Kite watched as her joy spread down the corridor.
It stopped.
A small hand, no bigger than a child’s, was pressed against the wall. Slowly, the seaweed began to dry, matting like unwashed hair. The shells crumbled into dust. The water evaporated, leaving only traces of salt like frost on the pure white alabaster.
Clytemnestra.
“Feelings,” the baby witch growled, fingers arching into claws.
Kite’s hand dropped to her side. “Must you?”
“Yes.” Clytemnestra picked up a piece of fossilized seaweed and ate it. “Did you tell her about the Witch Lord?”
Kite’s hair fell limp against her shoulders.
“Good.”
“You seem very pleased that the Witch Lord knows the Heart has returned and suspects that we have it.”
“She’s scared, and she’s making mistakes.” Clytemnestra ripped a toenail off and started picking her teeth with it.
“You mean the invitation.”
“The invitation will open a door.”
“Only for the delegate. Then it will close.”
“And while she’s distracted, we go through the library. You will open that door for us.”
And let the children rampage through the stacks. The thought made Kite sick.
“You know, I’ve heard things. Rumours.” The Warlord hovered closer, until her lips were an inch from Kite’s ear. Her breath was hot and sticky. “Whispers about the Witch Lord’s powers. Powers she could share with the Heir Rising.”
Kite stepped away, her hair swirling up in a protective layer around her face. “I’m not the delegate you want.”
“Oh, I know that. It was never going to be you — a watered-down copy too afraid to use her powers. I thought I might have to sacrifice one of the children. But now I have a better idea: we’re sending the human.”
“Whatever happens, you can’t let Eli near her.”
“I promise.”
Kite arched her neck elegantly, letting beads of water run down, catching on her collarbones. “I need to talk to her.”
“No. You talk to the human monster. I’ll make sure our little assassin is safe.”
“I really think —”
“Stick to your books,” said the Warlord, “politics isn’t your style.”
Kite chewed on a piece of her hair and then spat it out. She met the little witch’s gaze. “No manacles this time.”
“Cross my heart.”
Kite nodded once, and then swept past Clytemnestra, head held high. After a few steps she heard a yelp.
“Beastly creature!” the witch shrieked. “When I catch you, I’ll eat you!”
Kite’s lips curved into the shape of a scythe. “Good boy,” she whispered.
Forty-Nine
THE HEART
“We didn’t come here to fight a war,” said Eli.
“Didn’t we?” Tav’s eyes shone with fervor. “Don’t you want to see the Coven burn for what they did to you?”
“Yes. But —”
“We will, Eli.” Passion burned in their voice, and they grabbed Eli’s wrists softly. “We will make them pay for what they did to you. We will make everyone pay.”
Eli felt the Heart warm under Tav’s touch, felt its magic creep along her forearms toward the boi with an obsidian blade and nerves of steel. A boi thirsting for power and destruction. What would happen if the Heart was transplanted into Tav?
Eli pulled away.
“You’re scaring me,” she said, and turned away from the hurt and confusion in Tav’s eyes.
Stay away from me, she thought. This Heart could kill us both.
THE HEALER
Eli pulled away, and Tav saw fear skittering from the corners of her eye like a daddy long-legs.
The draw of the Heart like the whispered promises of schoolchildren in the dark. If Tav reached inside her, they could take it.
They could almost see Cam shaking his head at them, his eyes grey and sad.
Cam.
They had forgotten about Cam — they hadn’t even asked the witch-demon to look for him.
They hated themselves in that moment.
A glimpse of red like a single autumn leaf caught their eye. “Eli?”
“It’s fine.” Eli was fumbling with her shirt. Her hand came away slick with blood. “The fault lines —”
Tav stared at the bared torso on her friend and lover. A crack was forming, a fissure in her body. Through the break in the skin Tav could see the glitter of a granite rib cage.
“Not now,” Eli muttered through gritted teeth. “Not yet —”
She collapsed on the floor. Her glasses fell from her face, a jagged crack splitting across one lens.
Tav fell to their knees, fumbling with Eli’s shirt, pushing the fabric out of the way. They pressed their hands against the fissure and tried to ignore the warmth of the Heart that would soon need a new home.
A trickle of gold flowed through Eli’s veins and arteries. As Tav tried to focus on knitting skin and bone together, a single droplet of worldblood touched their hand.
Images burst across their brain:
A field of jewel-green moss hanging from silver birch branches, blossoms blue as heartache with gold centres opening to the moon. Skin.
An ocean, inhaling and exhaling against a cliff face. Lungs.
A wall of granite and quartz growing through the core. Skeleton.
A planet with a heartbeat.
The afterimage of blue-and-gold petals lingered on the backs of their eyelids.
Sorrow hung around their neck like a stone.
Now Tav understood why the Heart kept calling out to them, why it seemed ready to abandon the girl who had rescued it from the Coven’s chains.
If Eli died, the Heart would die with her.
Unless it found a new host. Unless it was somehow freed. And Tav could free it, could tear the light and magic from the corpse of a made-thing. Could open a door in the magic of Eli’s making.
Tav stared at the small body of the girl who was the life of a world.
It wouldn’t be a surgical incision, small and neat. It would destroy her.
Whispers swirled through their brain.
You’re stronger than Eli.
You’re more powerful.
With this power, you would become a god.
They stared at the perfect curve of Eli’s ribs, at the loose petals in her chest cavity. Purple-and-black smoke curled around their wrists and lingered in the beds of their fingernails. Slowly, the skin grew together, tendrils of flesh and bone reaching out, growing, healing. The scent of burning rose petals.
Tav drew back, and the whispers stopped.
Eli was breathing, but still unconscious. Tav pressed their forehead against her stomach.
I can’t do this without you.
“You can’t help that thing,” a low voice crawled across the space. Tav shuddered — they hadn’t heard anyone entering the room.
“What do you want?”
“The help you promised me,” said the Warlord.
“When she’s better.”
“The children will look after her. And it’s you we want, not her.”
“Me?”
“We need you.” The little girl’s voice was grave. “The world needs you.”
Tav swallowed, watching Eli’s chest rise and fall softly with the pattern of her breathing. If they did this, if they helped the Warlord, then Eli could stay here and be safe.
“If I come, you won’t make her face the Witch Lord? She won’t have to fight?”
“No, she won’t.”
Relief bubbled up in their chest like seafoam. They turned, facing Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra was twirling a lollipop so fast it was only a blur. But she had prepared for war — her teeth and fingernails had been sharpened to wicked points, and her buckle shoes had sensible flat heels.
Tav met her porcelain irises and nodded. “Whatever you need, I’ll do it.”
The Warlord’s eyes burned pure white with anticipation, flames dancing where pupils might have once lived. “Haven’t you always wanted to meet the Witch Lord?”
Fifty
THE HEIR
Kite turned the invitation over in her hand. The stolen magic swirled up inside her, and when she turned the card at a certain angle to the light, she could see the glossy fingerprints of the Witch Lord’s power that called out to Kite’s essence. After all, they were the same.
She thought about loyalty, luck, and lineages. She wondered what it might be like to no longer be the Heir, to no longer have her existence tethered to another body. One corner of the card snagged on the roughened skin of her thumb and made a quick and calculated cut. Hissing in pain, Kite stuck the finger in her mouth and sucked the algae leaking from the wound.
The Beast sat on her skirts.
“I’m sorry my love, I wasn’t thinking.” Kite offered the wound to the creature, who lapped up the last green droplets on her finger. Steam rose from the wound — the Beast’s saliva was cauterizing it.
“Thank you, darling.” She bent down and kissed the Beast’s head.
Soon she would see her mother again. Soon, the Witch Lord would know of her betrayal. Kite wondered if she was strong enough to resist, or if her mother would drain her essence as she had so many other witches.
She felt strangely calm. She had done it: she had helped Clytemnestra raise an army. She had shattered the steps of the Coven, freed the made-daughters, and brought the lost things home.
Each betrayal lead to the next. Kite had not known she was capable of this rebellion, this recklessness, this intoxicating choice.
Eli had shown her.
Eli.
She had to keep Eli away from the Witch Lord, whatever the cost.
The Beast barked once, and Kite patted his head. “You’re right, precious, we have work to do.”
Pocketing the invitation and wiping the grime of power on her skirts, Kite walked through the wall. As the stone and vines unfurled themselves before her, ushering her deeper into the Children’s Lair, Kite felt like a mourner going to a funeral. With a shake of her head, she shed those thoughts like rain. She couldn’t get lost in her head now.
She had one more task to complete before returning home.
Kite’s homecoming would be a death sentence.
The room was filled with scraps of crushed velvet and silk scarves riddled with holes. A crow was nesting in a pile of half-finished crochet projects. In one corner a rat was chewing on a bedazzled denim jacket. A mahogany vanity stretched across the far wall, the large and stately glass mirror tarnished and spiderwebbed with cracks. Mechanical birds and windup toys of all kinds littered the floor, and Kite had to make her way carefully through the clutter to reach the boi sitting in the plush pink chair, staring at their shattered reflection.
The silver earrings that lined both ears were glowing in the light of the moon. Their hair had been styled to one side, the undercut sharp and clean. The violet tips of their hair looked like embers glowing in a dying fire.
Tav was beautiful. Kite could see why Eli had fallen in love with them.
“Clytemnestra asked me to get you ready for tonight.” Kite moved without making any sounds, but her presence filled the air with the smell of sea salt. Beside her, the Beast licked his forepaw. Kite reached down and stroked his head.
“I didn’t know the Heir followed orders.” Tav was playing with an empty perfume bottle, the glass tinted a delicate pale pink. Kite could smell the lingering notes of black orchid and pomegranate.
“She leads the children, and I am a child.”
“But you’re not a soldier.”
Kite smiled, watching her mouth split in the broken mirror. “No, I’m not a soldier.”
“And Eli?” Tav almost choked on the name.
“We will keep Eli safe.”
“Safe like when you tried to kill her? Or safe like when your friend chained her up?”
“Safety is different in this world, earth-creature. And witches don’t have friends.”
“We call chains ‘safe’ in our world, too, witch.”
“You’re starting to sound like Eli,” Kite observed.
Tav placed the perfume bottle back down on the vanity.
“Why is she sending me?” they asked. “Because I’m replaceable?”
“Because we don’t understand you. Which means the Witch Lord won’t understand you.”
“Understand me?”
“We don’t understand what you are. What you’re made from. How a human has the powers that you have.” Kite could hear Tav’s heartbeat accelerate as she spoke, in excitement or fear. Did they know where their power came from? Did they h
ave secrets that only Eli had tasted? Kite imagined opening the boi’s rib cage to see what was inside, like unwrapping a gift or smashing a pinata.
What would she find at the core of this creature? A human heart beating blood and oxygen through an animal body? Glittering onyx and amethyst like the core of a geode waiting to be cracked open? Smoke and feathers?
“Stop looking at me like that.” Tav swivelled in the chair to face the blue girl. The obsidian blade hummed in warning.
“Like what?” Kite’s hair coiled in on itself, drawing closer to her scalp. The memory of the Witch-Killing Fields was too close.
“Like you want to vivisect me.”
“I only want to vivisect things that interest me,” Kite said earnestly, hoping Tav could hear the compliment.
“Is the Witch Lord going to vivisect me?”
“Maybe.” Kite let her eyes slide over Tav’s neck, shoulders, chest. “But she’ll want to play with you first. You’ll be an enigma for her, a mystery she’ll want to unravel herself.”
“I’d rather not be unravelled.”
“Then don’t give up your secrets,” said Kite, leaning forward and reaching over Tav for the perfume bottle. Her skin brushed against Tav’s, and she could feel the ice and fire burning in their veins. The dark stain of frostbite spread down Kite’s forearm from where the two had touched, the skin mottled purple and blue for a moment before fading back to bluegreen. Kite shivered, but not from the cold. She drew back, the pink vial clutched in her hand.
“If you keep the Witch Lord curious, you may still be alive when the children come with their justice. Don’t let her get bored with you.”
White teeth. Dark eyes flashed gold. “I’m never boring.”
Another shiver. The desire to be burned by them. Kite brought the pink bottle to her mouth and licked the tip. Bitter coated her tongue and reminded her why she was here.
“Let’s get you dressed for your audience with the Witch Lord.” Kite dropped the vial and enjoyed the cacophony as it smashed on stone. Then she knelt down and gathered up the pieces, using her magic to knit the broken glass together with velvet and copper and spiderweb. She had always enjoyed making things.
The Boi of Feather and Steel Page 19
