by Scott Hale
“This way,” James whispered.
They slipped back into the thick of Nyxis. These buildings, which were mostly empty storefronts built around what must’ve been a park at some point, had to have been older than most. They wound with the alleys, scattering several Snake Cats that’d been balled up in a gutter, until, coming to an opening, James held out his arms and stopped them.
“Building to the right.”
Felix crouched, looked past James. A small shop with a faded sign that read “Harrington Handmades” hung lopsidedly across a window where a single candle burned. There was a man sitting on a crate beside the front door, and another man on the corner, picking his teeth.
“Most of the Marrow Cabal’s hideouts are in Harrington-established businesses. They’re all over the Heartland,” James said. “He was a rich entrepreneur. Also, Hex’s dead husband.”
“That’s how Hex funded the Marrow Cabal?” Felix asked.
Both Will and James shrugged.
“How’d he die?”
“Don’t know,” James said, “but your guess is the same as mine. We need to distract those—”
The five Holy Children took off. James grabbed at one, but got only a handful of its robe, instead. He quickly let go before the whole thing slipped off.
Felix broke out into a cold sweat. The adrenaline turned on him, turned his stomach. He drew his daggers. Will clumsily unsheathed his short sword. James rolled up the sleeve on his good hand, and waited.
“Hey, you lot, turn back around,” the cabalist at the door said.
The other sentry on the street corner flicked his mouth dregs into the shadows and joined in. “You kids ought to be in bed.”
The cabalist at the door, clearly unable to see the statues’ faces, gave them another second before losing it. He kicked off the building, tore his sword out of its scabbard, and screamed, “Scram, you shits!”
The corner sentry cackled. “Come on, Marcus, have a little heart for the little—”
The statues rushed forward. Before the cabalists had a chance to react, they were on them. The Holy Children went up to the men and two dropped them to the ground with a single punch each. They lay in the street, comatose, their jaws unhinged and shattered, choking on their own blood.
“That works,” Will said.
They hurried to Harrington’s Handmades while the Holy Children hauled the men into the shadows. Felix turned one of the men over on his side, and James, seeing the worry in his eyes, did the same to the other. Hearing the cabalists cough, seeing their flabby jaws swell to the point that bones began to protrude, again, Felix turned his attention to the abattoir.
“Fuck it, just do it,” James said.
A Holy Child punched the lock off the front door.
“Element of surprise is shot, anyway.”
“I thought you weren’t staying?” Will said.
James glared at him. “You and your mom didn’t give me a choice.”
Felix ignored them. He didn’t have time to ask them what they were talking about, not with the crowd’s shouting in the distance dying down. Instead, he sent two statues to each side of the house. To the Holy Child he was pretty sure was the one from the carriage he swore to help, he waved for it to follow them into the building.
James, shaking badly, went first. Will kept close to him. Felix and the statue lingered farther back. Harrington’s Handmades had to still be a functioning business. Stuffy and poorly organized, it was filled with furniture, pottery, children’s toys, and other knick-knacks that were neither covered in dust or cobwebs. A chalkboard at the back of the shop showed the daily specials, which included ten percent off rugs. As far as Felix could tell, it’d been a hit. They were sold out.
James grabbed the candle from the windowsill, lit another nearby, and pressed on further through the rooms. Despite how careful they were being, the floorboards couldn’t have cared less. Every step they took sounded as if they were splitting the wood in half with their weight; and after every step they took, they stopped and listened. In the dark, the small candle flame their only light, the silence and the violence it might’ve held was suffocating.
James pressed his finger to his lips and nodded at the door at the back of the building, around the bend. The door was triple locked; too small for the frame, light bled through the gaps between it and the doorway.
The statue stepped up to the task, but Will held him back.
James blew out the candle and went to the door. He pressed on it gently, and it gave. Now, he drew his weapon—a massive butcher’s knife that he’d somehow stowed down his pantleg. Felix and Will couldn’t help but grin at the ridiculousness of it.
Sticking the knife’s blade into the door, he pushed it open. It creaked open to a small room filled messily with books and parchments. In the middle of the room, a square table, and sitting at it, a dead man, throat sawed to the bone.
They hurried inside, shut the door behind them.
“That’s…” James went to the corpse, pulled the head back by its jet-black hair. What little flesh was left around his neck tore apart, and his head came off in James’ hand. “Allister.” He said, dropping the head, surprised. He mouthed an apology, and then: “That’s Allister.”
“Looks like he wasn’t supposed to be delivering those letters,” Will said.
Felix covered his mouth. He said behind his hand, “Let’s grab anything that looks important and get out of here.”
Will took a deep breath, smiled at James, who didn’t smile back, and went to the table, rummaging through the bloody papers that covered it.
James took to the bookshelves, pawing with his nub of a hand through the tomes.
Felix went to the ground, trying to find anything useful in the crumpled parchments there.
The Holy Child statue, however, had no intention of staying. Instead, it turned on its alabaster heels, opened the door, and walked out of the room.
Felix cried, “What the hell are you doing?”
But the statue didn’t answer, not that they ever did. A moment passed, and he heard the front door open and close. Felix gave chase, before stopping in the storefront. All five of the Holy Children had gone. He caught but a fleeting glimpse of the shadows from their star-shaped heads moving along the city.
Felix hurried back into the room. “I don’t know what that’s… We should go.”
“Wait,” Will said, pulling away from the table. “Listen.” He put a letter close to his face. “‘Ichor is fertile. The seeds are slow to digest. Shave them, spread them. They’ll be untraceable.’”
“Seeds?” Felix said. “Like seeds of heaven?”
James shrugged. “I don’t know. There, what’s that say there, Will?”
He handed Felix the letter, then grabbed the scrap James was talking about. “It’s a daily tally.”
“Let me see that,” James said, grabbing it. He studied it over, his face growing darker and darker with every passing second. Finally: “Some of these numbers… they match up with the victims of the bombings on Narcissus. Someone’s been keeping watch the whole the way. Son of a bitch.”
Felix’s breathing became shallow. “The Compellers and the Marrow Cabal have betrayed us. I knew it. I… I knew it. I fucking—”
The front door to Harrington’s Handmades swung open. The voices of two women came through.
“Are you sure it’ll be tomorrow?” an old voice warbled. He knew that voice. It was Sloane’s. “It has to be tomorrow.”
“Where are the watchers?” the second woman asked. Oh god, he knew that twangy drone. It was Hex. It was Hex’s voice. Hex was here. Hex… was here. “Sons of bitches.”
Felix looked at Will and James. There was no way out of the room. And, by the sounds of it, the traitors were headed their way. Then…
A scream. A burning hiss lashed the door to this office. Choking. Drawn steel singing to dry skin.
“Surprise,” a third woman said, laughing.
Felix, James, and Will
crept towards the door, put their eyes to the various peepholes that littered it.
At the storefront, Sloane was down on the ground, a boot in her back. The boot belonged to a bald woman with no eyebrows, and a smile drawn on by the scars that covered her face.
Hex was standing, but barely. Her body was covered in arms, eight of them; eight hairy, hard, color-streaked arms belonging to the drooling Arachne behind her. Its fangs were centimeters away from her neck, and when it breathed, it dripped its acidic saliva onto Hex’s bared neck.
And off to the side, hip cocked and one eye fixed on the way out, was Isla Taggart.
“How was the Dead City?” the bald woman asked.
Hex grinned. “Missed my flight.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Edgar has his ways, I have mine.”
The Arachne jerked back on Hex with its greedy appendages. “It’s King Edgar to you, whore.”
The bald woman dug her heel into Sloane’s spine until she squealed. “Ikto has a daddy complex, Hex. Pay him no mind.”
Ikto clicked in agitation.
“We…” Sloane’s silvery hair fell across her sweating face. “We… can help. We have new seeds. We have intimate details of the Holy Order’s…”
“Did you think killing both sides would save you when the Disciples or the Holy Order finally caught you? You’ve been raiding seed farms. You’ve been poisoning the populace through our food pantries. You aren’t helping shit.”
Hex laughed. “I know about you, Lotus.”
The bald woman let off Sloane. “Oh?”
“Come to your senses. Get while the getting’s good.”
“No thanks,” Lotus said. “I’m trying to set an example for young Isla over there.”
Isla rubbed the back of her neck. “Let’s go.”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” Lotus said. “Hex’s ghosted the Cabal for the last few months. No one’s coming to keep an eye on her. What was I saying about setting an example?”
Isla stared at her.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.” Lotus reached behind her back, put a gun to Ikto’s head, and pulled the trigger.
A flash of light, a swell of thunder. A bullet exploded out the side of Ikto’s head, spraying Isla, standing beside him, in the Arachne’s blood and skull fragments.
Isla stumbled backwards, screaming.
Ikto dropped to the ground, his arms still around Hex, taking her with him.
Hex fought her cage of limbs. When she broke free, the smoking muzzle of Lotus’ gun was now pointing at the back of her head.
“Ikto thought he could come from the Nameless Forest and claim some kind of birthright because his pathetic brood had shoved its brood down Edgar’s throat. No matter how important you think you are, Isla—”
Isla, hyperventilating, ripped the stringy chunks of gore off her face.
“—you’re not. Now, get up, girls, and show us the goods.”
It took Sloane and Hex a moment to get their bearings, but once they did, Lotus and Isla drove them towards the study.
A cold chill swept across Felix. Not realizing Will was no longer beside him, he backpedaled, tugging on James’ shirt as he did so.
“What do we do?” he said, barely audible.
But James didn’t answer. Because he wasn’t looking at Felix, but something behind him.
Felix spun around, choked on his surprise.
Another figure had entered the room. It held Will’s hand. It was a woman. A woman with long blonde hair that ran out from underneath a large hat and covered her face. It wore a leather jacket and leather buckled boots. In its free hand, whose nails were painted pink, there was a shepherd’s crook, and wrapped around the tip of it were bindings covered in dark runes.
“Will…” James cried, not trying to keep his voice down.
“It’s okay,” Will said, squeezing the shepherd’s hand. “Death said we could stay a little longer as long as we did something useful.”
Felix’s jaw trembled. “What are you…?”
The door behind them was kicked open.
Lotus yelled, “Who the fuck are you?”
And the shepherd answered. With three smacks of its crook against the boards.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
With the final hit, the shepherd sent out of an icy nova that sent Felix and Will, and Lotus and Isla, and their prisoners reeling. Lightning, like cartilage, struck Will and the shepherd from the floorboards. Hitting their bodies, it turned them to mist. When the mist thinned, they were gone.
Felix didn’t have time to think, or to act. Stunned, he lay on the ground, inches away from Isla. A hand grabbed his. James told him to get up. Out of body, out of his mind; out of shits to give, he did as he was told, and ran with James out of the building.
By the time they got back to camp, Narcissus was organized, ready to go to war. Barely able to speak—he’d said nothing to James on the way—he kept repeating, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
He didn’t know where the Holy Children were, but he knew they were around. If they’d gone anywhere, it was to Justine’s side. He’d deal with them later.
He had to get to Clementine. To tell her what happened. She had to hear it from him. She had to. She just had to.
Shouting down soldiers to get the fuck out of his way, Felix finally made it to Clementine’s tent, threw back the flap—
And there she was, sitting on her bed, sharing it with the shepherd beside her. This shepherd’s fingernails had been painted lime green.
“Did he go?” Clementine asked, dreamily.
Felix couldn’t speak.
James, coming up behind him, could. He said, “Yeah, he’s gone.” James broke into tears. “He’s gone, Clem.”
“It’s okay, my boys,” Clementine said.
My boys.
“I thought I’d have a little more time, but truth be told, I’m glad I don’t.”
Felix’s legs threatened to buckle as he went into the tent. “No, please, don’t…”
“Oh, Felix, would if I could, but I can’t. Never was supposed to be. Came back for Atticus, but he never came back for us.” She patted the shepherd’s leg. “Death said I had to do something useful. She’s not so impartial anymore. Guess my husband got Her thinking.
“Couldn’t figure what that might’ve been, being useful. Then it hit me: got to let Will go. Now, guess it’s time for me to go.”
“No.” Felix reached for her. “No, don’t.”
“You don’t know me. This isn’t me. Will and I didn’t come back right. I hope we were useful to you.”
He shook his head really hard. “You… you were.”
“Learned a thing or two?”
“I… I did.”
“It’s Death’s game. She always wins. Herbert’s waiting for us, right?”
The shepherd nodded.
“Alright, then.” Clementine pressed her hands to her lips and blew Felix a kiss.
He caught it, and had no intention of ever letting it go.
“I’m sorry, Felix. You came into things when they were already in motion. I’m glad you were here, though. I would’ve never left your side, otherwise.”
He wiped his eyes.
“Sometimes, it’s best for things to end.” She smiled, her freckles coming together on her cheeks. “Turn around, now. You’ve seen this once. Don’t need to again. Not for a while, at least.”
Felix did as he was told, and went one step further. He left the tent, closed the flap behind him. He heard the snap of that strange lightning, and saw the even stranger mist rolling out from underneath the tent. She’d been here, and now, she was gone.
James came out of the tent. Felix fell into his arms. His shirt was soaked with Felix’s tears in seconds.
“Get out of here,” James said.
Felix sucked down his snot. He glanced up, thinking James was talking to him. But he wasn’t.
He was talking to
Warren and Gemma, who were standing with several soldiers converging on them.
“Felix?” Gemma tried to go to him, but Warren held her back. “Felix, you have to come with us.”
“Now, your Holiness,” Warren said. “Trust us.”
Something inside Felix snapped. He pushed James away, towards Warren and Gemma. “T-Trust you? T-Trust the Marrow Cabal?” He laughed and spat at them. “Get away from me. Get away from me!”
The soldiers quickened their advances.
Warren shook his head. Gemma pleaded with her eyes. And James tried to go back to Felix, but something stopped him.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Felix cried.
And with that, he ducked back into Clementine’s tent, got into her bed, and held the piece of rune-engraved wrapping the shepherd had left behind. It was cold, sandy, and smelled like clementines.
CHAPTER XL
Audra stood at Edgar’s bedroom balcony, watching Narcissus wind its way through the city towards Ghostgrave. Her brother had blocked off the roads, to give the Holy Order a clear route to the keep, but it wasn’t enough. Protestors and fanatical Disciples by the hundreds spilled over the barriers and the soldiers manning them, trying desperately to get to the carriages in which the Holy Child and Mother Abbess rode. They hurled rotten fruit and insults, and at times, their own bodies at the army, doing everything in their power to provoke Narcissus. But it was Edgar’s soldiers who responded. Protestors were pulled away, restrained, and arrested; and fanatics were either beaten to a pulp, or dragged off into the swell, where they’d disappear forever on this historical day.
