Into The Crooked Place

by Alexandra Christo

  Though sometimes Wesley thought it was possible that his family had survived the magic sickness and he’d passed them on the streets a dozen times over, and they hadn’t recognized him and he hadn’t bothered looking down to see them.

  Maybe they were just glad he left.

  Maybe they were ashamed he’d ever been there in the first place.

  Either way, Wesley couldn’t share in Tavia’s pain.

  “You’ll get yourself killed,” he said.

  “This is Creije,” Tavia echoed. “People die all the time.”

  Wesley took a step back.

  She was ridiculous. He had a plan—strategies and endless hypotheticals for how he might go about taking Ashwood down—but though Wesley was prepared for war and all the consequences it brought, one thing he hadn’t prepared for was Tavia being part of the battle. She’d only get herself killed trying to be righteous and good. But if Wesley left her to her own devices, she’d probably get killed that way too.

  There was no winning.

  With a sigh, he said, “If I let you come, then you do exactly as I say. No running off to play the hero by yourself. And Ashwood is mine to kill.”

  Careful, the ghost warned. Rabid dogs get put down.

  Wesley loosened his tie, suddenly feeling like it was suffocating him.

  “Don’t we also need an army of our own before we get carried away?” Tavia asked.

  “I have some buskers in mind,” Wesley said. “But we need more than people for hire. We need fighters with loyalty, integrity, and just the right amount of bloodthirsty drive.”

  Any hint of a grin vanished from Tavia’s face as she took in the implications of Wesley’s words.

  A fighter, but not a busker.

  A killer, but not a traitor.

  Tavia grimaced. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  She ran a hand through her hair and let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t see that conversation going well,” she said. “Karam is a little rough around the edges.”

  Wesley only shrugged. “Loyalty goes a long way.”

  “Who says she’s loyal to you?”

  “I wasn’t just talking about me.”

  Tavia studied him. “Well then,” she said, no more hesitant than usual. “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a plan.”

  And just like that, they were a team again.

  SAXONY HITCHED FOUR WINEGLASSES between her fingers and sighed as lipstick smeared onto her thumb. If she had to spend one more night at the Crook, cleaning up after magic addicts and morons, then she was going to lose her damn mind.

  She almost wished the elixir had knocked her out for a couple more days, so she could get some reprieve.

  “Brandy,” one of the newer waiters said. “You have guests in the VIP lounge.”

  “I’m unavailable,” Saxony told her. “Tell them to come back when I’m not sweating through my underwear with”—she set the glasses down and sniffed her hands—“strawberry lipstick all over me.”

  “Yeah,” the girl said, pulling her hair off her collarbone. “I’m not telling them that.”

  Saxony sighed and wiped her hands, bending over to untangle the heels from her feet, hidden beneath the flowing green dress that was a favorite of hers.

  She liked the way it swayed when she walked, like there was wind under her feet, carrying her through Creije. And it was green. Saxony wore green a lot, whenever she could help it. It reminded her of home, of the forest she’d grown up in and the ivy towns in Rishiya’s center.

  It calmed her, keeping the fire within at bay.

  Saxony hooked the straps of the shoes around her finger and walked barefoot toward the VIP lounge, tired and in no mood for drunken patrons. Whatever people had the indecency to hang around after closing were going to be as unimpressed with her as she was with them.

  In fact, she strode toward the lavish sofas with every intention of telling them that any drink they wanted had run out, along with her patience, and they’d better get moving unless they wanted to see how well armed Wesley liked to keep his people.

  Except, when Saxony reached the lounge and saw who was actually waiting, she didn’t think they would respond well to that.

  “Do you guys need a referee or something?” Saxony asked.

  The somber silence she was met with told her everything about the direction this conversation was going.

  Karam, who had been standing with her arms crossed beside the sofa, like she’d rather be anywhere else, stepped forward.

  Saxony’s smile was unavoidable.

  Karam was dressed in an outfit that looked like blood and water, which was not all that unusual, but she was accompanied by two very unusual people.

  The first was Tavia, who wore fingerless black gloves and a pair of new boots that Saxony quickly planned to steal. Her tilted smile rippled through the room, which was probably the most busker of all her outfits, and she lounged across the sofa, twirling a pocketknife like a baton in her hands.

  But it was the second person who struck Saxony as the most unusual, and it was not because Wesley was at the Crook after closing instead of busying himself with the ruination of someone’s life. It was the dark maroon bow tie clutched around his jugular. A bow tie that meant this was an odd day.

  And Wesley Thornton Walcott on an odd day was always a curious thing.

  “Brandy,” he said, thick Creijen accent spinning like sugar. “I’d like you to do me a favor.”

  It took Saxony every effort not to laugh in his face.

  If there was one thing to be said for Wesley, it was that he enjoyed being polite.

  Growing up in Rishiya, Amja always told Saxony there was no place she needed to go that a little courtesy couldn’t get her. Kill them with kindness, Amja said. Saxony suspected Wesley did a lot of that. The killing alongside the kindness. Maybe he even said please and do forgive me when he carried out the Kingpin’s dirty work.

  “Why are you calling her Brandy?” Tavia asked.

  “It’s her Crook name,” Wesley said. “Something to keep the customers out of her business. Most of my people have one. Don’t you pay attention?”

  Tavia whipped her head to face Saxony, mouth agape. “You never told me you had a Crook name. Or that it was Brandy.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “I’m just pleased she didn’t call herself Bloody Mary,” Wesley said. “It would have killed business.”

  “How are you feeling anyway?” Tavia asked her.

  She was trying very hard not to look at the mark on Saxony’s neck, hidden somewhat beneath her hair, which meant that Tavia was pretty much avoiding looking at her altogether.

  Saxony propped her collar up. “Why? Do I look that bad?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Good. I still feel like I got hit by a train though, in case you were concerned.”

  “Well, I still feel like I got hit by a bunch of dirty magic,” Tavia countered.

  She was joking, of course, but it didn’t make Saxony feel any less shitty.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Tavia said. “Since I kicked your ass and left you for the amityguards, I’d say we’re even.”

  Saxony didn’t hide her grin. “So then why are we all gathered in this weird friendship circle?”

  “Wesley and I want you and Karam to help us overthrow the Kingpin,” Tavia announced. “And we have a stamp of approval from Doyen Schulze to do it.”

  Saxony waited for the punch line, but it got quiet enough that the only sound she could hear was the fabric of Tavia’s trousers squeaking against the sofa.

  Overthrow Dante Ashwood?

  Saxony was waiting to do just that, if by overthrow they meant bringing down in a shower of fire and unimaginable pain.

  But Wesley leading the charge and allying with Schulze?

  Saxony wanted to ask what kind of game he was playing and if he really expected her to be part of it, but all she said was, “Both of us?”

  “
You and Karam are a package deal,” Tavia said. She gave Wesley a sour look. “Apparently.”

  Saxony let a smile spread across her lips. She liked the sound of that.

  “Buy one crook and get another free?” she asked.

  Karam folded her arms across her chest. “I am not a crook,” she said.

  “And since both of you work for me, I don’t think I’m getting anything for free.”

  At the sound of Wesley’s voice, Saxony leveled Tavia with a stare that was probably a little too judgmental for someone who had tried to kill her so recently.

  “You really trust him to turn against Ashwood?”

  Tavia only shrugged. “The enemy of our enemy.”

  “The Kingpin isn’t Wesley’s enemy.”

  “He is now that Creije is on the line,” Tavia said.

  Wesley cleared his throat, looking a little irritated. “You can both stop talking about me like I’m not even here.”

  Tavia sighed, walking toward Saxony so that she stood as a buffer between them. “He’ll help us save the realms from the Kingpin.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Wesley scolded, taking Tavia’s seat on the sofa and kicking his legs up as she had done. “I’m saving Creije.”

  “What are you talking about?” Saxony asked.

  “The elixir you took is new magic,” Tavia explained. “Some kind of mind-control. Ashwood plans to use it to create an army to usurp Schulze. When the shadow moon comes, he’ll use its power to wage war.”

  Saxony stilled at the mention of the shadow moon.

  The Crafter Moon.

  The old legends said that the first of her kind were created under one, and though she didn’t know if that was true, she did know that the power the shadow moon brought amplified Crafter magic beyond compare. On the rare instances it had occurred during her lifetime, shielding the sun from the realms and plunging them to darkness, Saxony felt eternal. Her magic, finally, after so long hiding, felt freed.

  “If the Kingpin is using the shadow moon, that means he’s taking Crafters again,” Saxony said.

  Just uttering the words made her stomach drop.

  That was why the elixir felt so strange—it truly was new magic. The Kingpin was collecting what few Crafters remained, like trophies and daring to use a shadow moon, their most sacred gift, to turn them into an army.

  Saxony was going to be sick.

  It was like the War of Ages had never even happened. Everything her people had gone through, being stolen from their homes and left to rot by Realm Doyens who simply called it an epidemic. It meant nothing.

  Zekia.

  Her sister’s face surfaced in her mind.

  Zekia had been gone for years, but what if the reason Saxony hadn’t been able to find her in this city, in the place she was last seen, was because Ashwood had her this whole time?

  Saxony’s staves thumped against her chest, the silver symbols of her specialties and achievements in the craft tattooed onto her skin in the language of magic.

  They felt like war drums on her heart now.

  The sweat slipped from Saxony’s brow to the corner of her lip, burning like lava.

  Karam started toward her, but Saxony held up a hand.

  Her skin practically sizzled. If Karam were to touch her now, then Saxony’s magic might just burn a hole through her.

  “Are you okay?” Tavia asked.

  Saxony swallowed the magic bubbling up inside of her. When she spoke, her voice burned against her tongue. “Why do you think I could help?”

  Wesley stepped slowly in front of Tavia.

  “The Kingpin thinks he can build himself an army from my city, and the elixir he calls the Loj is the first step,” Wesley said. “I can’t be fussy with my crew when the shadow moon is only weeks away, and I know that Karam won’t leave you in Creije without her protection.”

  “I do not remember agreeing to help you,” Karam said.

  Though Saxony knew she would. Even if Wesley liked to front about Karam’s loyalty to her, they both knew that she was just as loyal to him.

  Saxony hated it.

  She hated that Wesley had been the one to sharpen Karam’s warrior edges. She hated that someone she disliked so strongly had helped to shape someone she cared for so deeply. Karam would fight in this battle, not just because of Saxony, but because of her family and her underboss. Because of who she was and who he had made her.

  Saxony tried not to let that get to her.

  She tried to home in on the sound of Karam’s voice, hoping it would will the anger and flames inside her to subside so that she could concentrate, but her vision was swimming with her sister’s face and the possibility of her capture, and thinking of Karam only made her think of those misplaced loyalties.

  Saxony couldn’t control her magic.

  She wasn’t Zekia.

  For every second her sister was a steady river, Saxony was a volcano. It was why Zekia had been chosen to lead the Rishiyat Crafters, despite being six years younger. Her brand of tranquility and wisdom was necessary to be Liege.

  Zekia was a prodigy and Saxony was a calamity, whose magic begged to be let loose on her enemies.

  She had been so blind. So stupid.

  All this time thinking her sister was lost, or that she had hidden herself away for some unknown reason, because she feared being Liege or hated being trapped in the forest, when really she had likely been in Dante Ashwood’s clutches for years.

  Saxony was sure the skin around her staves had started to melt.

  Her magic boiled, embedding under her skin.

  She needed to calm down and—

  “Do you want Karam to splash some water on you or can we continue this discussion without you burning a hole through my sofa?” Wesley asked. “Aren’t Crafters supposed to have control over magic?”

  The flames inside Saxony went out like a light.

  Her skin lost its red hue.

  Her power dimmed, unused and bitter, and she opened her eyes to an impatient-looking underboss.

  Wesley knew what she was.

  “You’re a Crafter?”

  And apparently Tavia didn’t.

  Her friend quite literally stumbled back from the shock.

  “You never told me,” Tavia said.

  Saxony took in a ragged breath. When she spoke, her voice was cracked, one half of her struggling to get the words out and the other fighting to keep them in.

  “I didn’t know I could,” Saxony said. “Look at your face right now.”

  Tavia exhaled, trying to push away the shock, but she was doing a poor job.

  “That’s how you were so fast when you attacked me at the temple,” she said, as though it were some sort of a comfort to know Saxony hadn’t gotten the jump on her because she was sloppy. “You didn’t have charms. You had true magic.”

  Tavia scoffed a little, like that somehow made Saxony a cheat, and turned to Wesley.

  “You knew?” she asked.

  “Nothing happens in Creije without me knowing,” he said. “You think I agreed to get her out of the amity precinct just because she’s your friend? She’s a valuable resource.”

  “What she is, is a total idiot,” Tavia said.

  Saxony raised an eyebrow. “Rude.”

  “This city has the best black magic trade. It isn’t an ideal hiding place for a Crafter,” Tavia said. “You could have been caught.”

  Karam nodded in agreement. “That is what I told her.”

  Oh great. Now they were tag-teaming.

  “She knew as well?” Tavia pointed to Karam in disbelief.

  Saxony ignored her and looked back to Wesley. “You didn’t give me up to your Kingpin.”

  “Like I told you, you’re a resource. One I’m glad I kept for myself. If you help us bring down Ashwood, I’ll owe you one,” he said. “And a favor from an underboss is a powerful thing. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

  Tavia grimaced. “Nobody wants you anywhere near their back
in case you stick a knife in it.”

  “I’ll do it for Zekia,” Saxony said, before she could stop herself. “I’ll help if when we find Ashwood, we make her our priority.”

  Wesley raised an eyebrow. “Should I know who that is?”

  “She’s my sister and our future Liege,” Saxony explained. “She disappeared three years ago and was last seen in Creije. I came here to bring her home, but no matter how hard I looked, how much magic I tried, she was just … gone. But after everything you’ve said, I think the reason I couldn’t find her was because she was taken by Ashwood. Zekia has great power, so if the Kingpin is imprisoning Crafters, she’s probably one of them.”

  Saxony expected this to strike a chord within Wesley, but all it did was make him sigh.

  “Look, I sympathize,” he said, though Saxony suspected he had never done such a thing. “But I’m really not interested in your family drama.”

  The glare Tavia gave him mirrored the anger inside Saxony perfectly.

  “Besides,” Wesley said, “I don’t think the Crafters with Ashwood are prisoners. He seemed to think they backed the idea of his new future.”

  That accusation nearly set Saxony on fire all over again.

  “You know nothing about my people,” she said.

  Wesley let out a long sigh and then clapped his hands together. “Fine,” he said. “If your sister is with Ashwood, then we save her. That’s two birds with one stone. So you’re in?”

  She was.

  This was Saxony’s chance to do more than just spy on the Kingpin’s empire, like Amja had ordered. Her grandma and the rest of the Kin may have been scared of the kingpins and their magic, but Saxony wasn’t. She could fix everything. Bring Zekia home and get revenge on the man who destroyed her family.

  She could make it right.

  She could save them all.

  “Four crooks against a Kingpin isn’t an army,” Saxony said.

  Karam let out an indignant huff. “Stop saying that I am a crook.”

  Saxony smirked. “Well, you do fight in the rings where they pair the matches so unfairly that the smaller man always loses.”

  “I never lose,” Karam said.

  “You’re not a man.”