“Just feels right,” they said when they caught Cam staring. After a moment, Cam shuffled over and offered a flaking piece of mica to the altar.
The girl kept walking. She didn’t have time to worship the forest, and she didn’t have anything to give.
They hadn’t gotten far when the scent of smoke and sacrifice poured into the grove. A strange shadow flickered overhead. In the distance, a single lidless eye seemed to watch them.
A tree was burning.
The girl clutched at her wrist, feeling the fire in the hawthorn-laced contours of her bones. Thick purplegrey smoke spilled like a sickness over the trees. The forest shook its magnificent mane in fury, and leaves rained down.
“This is wrong,” said the girl. “I can feel it.”
“Fire is forbidden here,” said Kite, her hair whipping around her face. “Even the children would not risk it.”
“That’s not our mission,” said Tav.
“The Coven should know about this,” said Kite. “The Witch Lord will be furious.” Her voice trembled, and the girl with no name wondered what kind of creature could inspire such fear in the girl of salt, the girl who had devoured the red wings.
A piercing sound broke through the quiet and spread from tree to tree. The forest was screaming.
Kite’s body was starting to flicker, becoming less solid and defined. The nameless one could see the shape of vines and flowers through her flesh.
“I’m sorry,” Kite whispered and immediately vanished.
The girl watched in confusion as the glittering threads that bound her to her knives were joined by other threads that led to the burning tree. Kite was gone, but the girl knew how to find her. All she had to do was follow the strands of golden light that stretched between their bodies, threads that followed Kite deep into the forest. As she watched the magic flow between bodies, she understood that she was entering a web of connections and feelings. They drew her to Tav. To Cam. She knew somehow that they stretched all the way to the City of Ghosts.
She hesitated before flipping to her yellow eyes and grinding her teeth. “She’s gone to save the tree. We have to go after her.”
“It could be a trap,” said Tav. “We need to get your knives first.”
The girl with no name offered a lazy smile. “You think I’m only dangerous with my blades and my memory?” She showed off her canines. “You don’t have to follow me. Just don’t get in my way.”
When they found her, Kite had rematerialized behind a grove of silver poplars. The bluegreen light that flowed under her skin was flickering like a flame. She was staring through the slender branches and trembling, her light wavering. Eli looked through the arms of the poplars.
Someone stood under a giant elm, basking in the glow of the fire. Her hands were pressed against the trunk, forcing heat into its body. Silverblack bark was curling and burning to ash.
Pearl tears dripped down Kite’s face as she spoke. “She’s a member of the Coven. I didn’t know it had gone this far. I can’t touch her. I can’t stop her.”
“A member of the Coven,” said the girl. “An enemy.”
“A witch,” said Tav.
“Great magic requires great sacrifice,” whispered Kite. “But who would risk killing the forest? What are they doing?”
The girl reached out and caught a few pearls as they fell from Kite’s eyes. She tossed one in the air and caught it. “It’s time to kill a witch.” She smiled at Tav.
“Have you killed one before?”
“I can’t remember.”
They both laughed.
The nameless one felt the anticipation of the hunt rising in her throat and pooling under her collarbone. She swallowed one of the pearls and felt her senses heighten. She reached out to touch a strand of magic and felt it tremble under her hand.
The witch felt the vibration and pulled back from the tree. The screaming stopped.
The girl with no name grinned at Tav and then walked out of the shadow and into the light.
“Who sent you?” said the witch, frowning. “Whose daughter are you?”
“No one’s,” she said.
“Good.” Flames burst from the witch’s hands. A girl made of hawthorn should be careful of fire. The girl placed another pearl in her mouth and cracked it open. The flame split around a body that smelled like an ocean. Kite’s tears kept her safe.
Suddenly, the girl lunged, scratching out with fingernails turned to claws. The witch vanished and reappeared behind her.
Two hunters circled one another.
More leaves fell, until the trees around them were bare, and the ground was barely visible.
The girl lunged again, this time crouching low, her bite piercing the skin of the witch’s leg. The witch didn’t fall back. Instead, she touched the girl.
This time, the flame caught, singeing her hair and numbing her entire left arm. She rolled away, fumbling for a pearl. When the girl’s tooth cracked the surface, a feeling of coolness washed over her and soothed the burn. But the witch was already reaching for her, the hand promising fire and pain.
A body appeared, crusted with limestone and shale and quartz, shielding the girl. Protecting her. Cam.
Stone doesn’t burn. The witch hesitated for a moment, and that was her undoing. Tav stepped out from behind the elm and pressed a hand against the witch’s back. The body tore open, the witch’s essence bleeding out. The wound spread from Tav’s palm like a sickness across the witch’s body, until the essence hardened and shattered into pieces. The witch collapsed into a pile of white ash.
The girl wondered if she had ever seen a witch die before. It was beautiful.
Kite was weeping soundlessly, strands of seaweed sticking to her face, tiny shells tumbling to the forest floor.
“Thank you,” the girl turned to Cam. “You saved me.”
“I guess I am good for something after all,” gasped Cam. “I thought the witch was going to kill me.” He shuddered.
Tav was staring at their palm, an indecipherable expression on their face. The girl could hear their rapid heartbeat and felt the heat rising in their body. From fear or excitement?
“You opened a door in her body,” said the girl. “You tore her essence apart. Thank you for killing her.”
Tav looked up, curling their hand into a fist. “I didn’t mean to. I just saw the magic inside her, and I reached out and … and made her stop.” The fist dropped to their side. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“You get used to it.”
“Do I want to get used to it?” Their eyes were bright as two suns.
“If you want to survive.” She met their gaze, but Tav turned way.
“What was the witch doing here, anyway?” Tav asked Kite, whose tears had dried up.
Kite shook her head, hair lying limp and flat. “Nothing good.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they were using the life force from the tree for some kind of magic. Big magic. Forbidden magic.”
They all turned to the tree. Already the bark was beginning to regenerate, the dead skin falling to the earth. The sap veins underneath pulsed with golden light. In the distance, another tree lit up with a golden light. And then another.
“It wants us to follow,” said Kite.
The girl let the blackness slowly fill her eyes and found that the glittering black thread of her own magic lead in the same direction as the golden glowing trees.
“They’re helping,” she said.
They followed the golden trees until they came to a great oak tree, its roots shaping a small cavern.
“I’ve been here before.” Her hand remembered the texture of its bark, the smell of lemon zest and iron.
“It sheltered us once, when we needed it.” Kite rubbed her face against the trunk. “When we were hiding from the red wind. It protects its own.”
“You say that like I belong here,” said the girl.
Kite turned her jellyfish eyes on the assassin. “Y
ou belong everywhere.”
Inside the cavern, wound tightly by roots and blanketed by leaves, were seven blades. At the girl’s touch, the tree released them.
“I need to do this on my own. It’s personal.”
“Call us if you need anything,” said Tav, worry in their eyes.
She nodded. They respected her privacy. They left the nameless one alone with her past.
She stared at the knives, the tools of an assassin. Something in her body called out to them, welcomed them, needed them. She ran one finger along glass and felt soothed deep in her bones.
She bent over, hesitated, and then licked the blade. It tasted of dirt and salt and bitter cranberry. It tasted of her. A spark twitched her tongue and with it came a name, although not her own — Circinae. Mother. Maker. Tyrant. A house with a door of charcoal and ash. Cinnamon sticks and sugar cubes. A hand, pushing her into the darkness. Making her fly. The glass blade brought the home that was also a prison into sharp relief. She wondered if she should mourn the lost mother who, in her own way, had tried to save her. But she could not.
She drew back, and the words and images and feelings stopped. There was a tiny cut on the tip of her tongue, although the flat of the blade had been dull. She understood then that some of these memories would hurt. Did she really want them back?
Bracing herself, she picked up a different blade, the frost blade, and licked it. It was cold as ice and burned to the touch. This blade held Kite: desire, loss, sorrow. Blood and bones and revelry. The feelings she had for the Children’s Lair — of grudging respect, of wariness — became illuminated in these memories. She understood that not all memories were needful, but she took them back into her body just the same. She drank the memories from the blade.
Pearl: the taste of fresh coffee and the glow of fluorescent lights. The abandoned stones and hair barrettes in the junkyard that spoke of a damaged bond between human and magic worlds. Great winged beasts and shadows that came to life. The essence of the world that was physical and intangible, feeling and body all at once.
Thorn: every ghost she had ever killed returned to her, and the memories, once bright with satisfaction, were now dull with guilt over the death of the human and the threat to Tav. And behind each ghost was now the knowledge of their own pasts — lost souls from the moon, a people who had lost their home and their lives to the witches’ hunger. Wandering mouths, thirsty for revenge or home, who had found their way to Earth.
Stone: the lingering touch of the forest that saw itself as a protector even as its embrace could harm. The days and nights she spent trapped underground, or in the tallest tree, learning to survive. The feeling of safety on the island or in the Labyrinth. Shelter.
Obsidian: hunger, death, power. A blade that could kill even witches. How had they trusted her with it? Because she had been their tool, and never a threat. Until now. She found herself back in the chamber of the Coven with the floating heads and the painful whiteness of the walls. She found herself full of rage — at herself, at her mother, at the world that made her and used her and discarded her. She was angry, and that anger was life-giving. It was powerful. She could use it. She remembered that feeling of belief, of knowing she had a place. She remembered it, and she rejected it. She had changed, and the blade had changed with her. It understood.
She saved the bone blade for last. She had drunk most of her memories now. If any were missing, had spilled from the blade and her mind, then they were gone, and there would be no retrieving them. That didn’t bother her. She had enough.
She placed the last blade to her tongue and tasted smoke. She knew immediately that this knife contained her name. (The bone blade, the tracker, remembered many names, but its own more than anything.)
Names held power.
She had not chosen her own name.
Once she took this final memory into her body, that name would be re-given to her, relearned, imprinted on her body.
And now she knew who had named her, who had made her, had claimed ownership over her. But she also knew she had grown into the name, had made a home in it, had made it her own. This time, she would choose the name. She would choose the pain of having a mother, the fear of living under the Coven’s gaze. The willfulness of turning away from a future of obedience and toward something unknown and dangerous.
It was, in the end, her name, and no one else’s. She drank the final memories.
Eli sheathed the knives and stood.
She had work to do.
But first — Eli raised the bone blade and cut a handful of hair. Then she carefully wove it around the gnarled roots of the oak.
Thirty-Nine
They were waiting for her in a grove of cedars nearby. She followed their scents. Kite was humming to herself, hair and skirts fluttering around her body. Cam was rubbing a piece of limestone on his neck. Tav’s hands were in their jean pockets, their face grim.
Eli met Tav’s gaze and felt a flush of shame. She remembered standing over their body. That moment when she thought it might be easier if she forgot everything she had learned since meeting them, if she pretended Tav was a ghost. If she let herself be a tool.
How could they welcome her back, after what she had almost done?
“Did it work?” Cam looked up eagerly. “Do you remember me?”
“I remember that you drive like an old man.”
A smile split across his face. “Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping I could tell you all my jokes again.”
Tav raised their chin and walked forward.
“Tav —”
“You’re not my keeper, Cam. Stay out of it.”
He fell silent. Kite watched curiously.
When they were close enough to touch, Tav stopped. “You remember who I am?”
Eli nodded.
“I don’t know where the Coven got my deadname from, but I don’t want to hear you say it. That’s not me, understand?”
“I understand, Tav.”
They exhaled. “Still want to finish your mission?”
Dark eyes. Gold ring around the pupils. Eli didn’t look away. “Now’s my chance, I guess. If I wanted to.”
“Yeah. Is that what you want?” Their voice was light, casual — but it was a challenge, and Eli was mesmerized by the fire in their eyes as they stared down the assassin who had been sent to take their life as punishment for daring to have magic.
“Spoken like a witch,” she said admiringly.
“Spoken like a human,” Tav corrected. “You should give us more credit.”
“You’re right. Spoken like a human.” Eli reached for her belt. When she raised the obsidian blade, Tav didn’t even flinch.
Eli spun it around and offered the hilt to them.
Tav reached out and took it. Eli held her breath. But this time, the blade did not cut or burn the magical part of Tav. This time, the blade rested in their hand, perfectly balanced across the lifeline of their palm. It looked like it belonged there.
Her hand fell across her other knives, a habit she had used to soothe herself since she was a child. The blades were warm to the touch.
“Are you sure?”
“Can’t leave you unprotected again. You get into so much trouble without me.”
“Says the girl who nearly got herself killed.” Tav’s thumb slid across the shaft of the knife, and Eli could feel the gentle touch somewhere under her clavicle. She shivered.
“Helps to have backup.”
For a moment, they stood in silence, staring at the sliver of volcanic glass.
She didn’t say, It’s a part of me.
She didn’t say, I trust you to keep it safe.
Tav knew. Eli could tell by the look in their eyes, and the careful way their fingers wrapped around the hilt. They knew.
So instead, she said, “Don’t lose it. It’s hard to replace.”
Tav grinned. “I’ll try not to.”
Leaves rained down on them, gold and green and scarlet tipped with bronze. The leaves brushe
d their shoulders and faces and fell to the forest floor in a carpet of colour and life and promise. Tav reached forward and picked a leaf out of Eli’s hair. They twirled it once and then released it into the air.
Somewhere, on another planet, there were other trees thirsting for the sun, their deep roots arching under the soil. There was life.
The image of the bleeding Earth blotted out Eli’s vision until all she could see was the steady stream of black essence flowing into the galaxy as the witches drank the life force of the world that half claimed her. The world that had made Tav and Cam. A planet with a life of its own. And every second Eli stood here was a moment closer to Earth’s death.
“What?” Tav caught the shifting mood as deftly as a prism catches the light.
Eli swallowed, throat tight, vocal cords clouded with fear. She could feel rose petals wilting in her sternum.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said. “All of you.”
Horror crept through the party as Eli relayed what she had seen.
“The entire planet?” said Cam, struggling to make sense of the scale of the threat. “All of it?”
“That must be why all the witches are fleeing Earth,” said Tav. “I wonder if the Hedge-Witch knows.” They fell silent, lost in their thoughts.
Kite crooned a quiet song that tasted of ice floes and algae.
“Did you know about this?” Eli turned to the girl with hands like water.
Her pale, pupil-less eyes glowed with an alien light. “I found traces,” she said, fingers rippling in midair. “In the archives. Mentions of moon people and a civilization of light. I don’t know what happened to them. I didn’t know they were ghosts. If those memories were written down, they have been lost or destroyed.” She bowed her head in mourning — although for the dead moon people or the loss of a precious book, Eli didn’t know.
Silence fell like a shroud. Even the golden rays that spilled over the branches felt cold and empty. Tav broke the tension, eyes flashing with righteous anger.
“The Heart.”
Cam looked up. “You think —”
“I think the Heart is the key. If we steal the Heart, they can’t hurt Earth anymore. They won’t have any power.”
The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass Page 17
