by A. R. Kahler
“You will be my most prized possession,” she says. How can I hear her so clearly?
My lungs scream. Tiny bubbles spill from my nose.
She places a hand on the glass. I cover my mouth with my own, try to keep the oxygen in.
“Just breathe, dear,” she says. “Embrace your destiny.”
The pressure builds. I hold back as long as I can, until my vision swims and lights and shadows dot the edges of my sight. Then I let the breath go. Let water fill my lungs.
It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t feel like drowning.
Water fills me. I breathe.
“Very good, Penelope,” she coos, stroking the glass. “Very good. We will see the world, you and I. I will make you a star.”
And I realize there is webbing between my fingers, and when I look down, I see my legs have fused into a tail. She’s trapped me. Trapped me forever.
Oh God, what have I gotten myself into? I didn’t mean to sign that contract . . .
The boulevard fills with people, all staring, some pointing, all watching the freak on display. I punch at the glass, try to batter myself against the lid. Rage builds inside me as people walk on, as night turns to day and dips back into night again. I can’t escape this tiny cell. This is my future.
No, an inner voice seethes. Remember this. Remember this pain. And remember what you must become. You will make them beg. All of them. For their words. For their disgust. You will make them pay. Remember who you are. Remember what you must be.
I scratch at the glass. Scratch in my name. To remember. To remember. As the days pass, as the years pass in this prison, I must remember. I will get my revenge.
My bloodied fingers turn the water pink.
And every time I scream, the only sound that comes out is singing.
Twenty-Two
“You really are quite helpless,” Lilith says.
She’s standing in the tank beside me. There is no water, and there are no mannequins or pedestrians. Just a tank filled with the remnants of Penelope’s struggle, the reminders of her hatred.
“What happened?” I try not to shake, but I can’t get rid of the anger I felt. The sensation of years dragging through my bones. I can feel Penelope’s anger. The need to not lose herself. To reinvent herself. To become a weapon.
It’s a sensation I know all too well.
“You touched something.”
I can’t look her in the eyes.
“How does this place not affect you?” I ask.
“I have spent a very long time in this level of the netherworld,” she says, hopping up on the seashell as nimbly as a cat. “I have learned how to avoid its tricks.”
“I found her name,” I say. I gesture weakly to the glass. I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to get pulled back down. Even with Lilith here, I don’t know if I’d escape again. My body begins to shake with terror.
“I would hope so,” she says. “You nearly brought the whole place down in the process.”
“So how do we get out of here?” I ask.
Before I can react, she steps over and grabs my throat.
“You had to cause a great deal of pain to get here,” she says. It’s not my imagination—her eyes are glowing in the fading light. “To get out, you’re going to have to endure it.”
Her grip tightens. Fire courses through my veins. And before I get the chance to scream, I black out from the pain.
I come to shivering.
It takes a few moments to realize where I am. Kingston is a few feet away, curled up in the fetal position and rocking back and forth. Lilith is beside him, examining her fingernails. And Eli stands a few feet away, arms crossed while the snow whips around him, a cigarette flaring between his lips.
“Took you long enough,” he mutters. The snow around us is fierce, and it’s covered our summoning circle in at least five inches of accumulation. For the most part, it’s hidden the remains of what we’d done. Save for a few splotches of pink and red blossoming under the white. I try not to stare at those and instead focus on getting warm.
“How long was I out?” I ask. I snake a bit of magic down the runes along my spine. The relief that floods through me is as palpable as the heat; I don’t think I’ll ever take my magic for granted again.
“Maybe half an hour,” Eli mutters. “But time is precious. We had to return pretty quickly. This one couldn’t handle it.”
Kingston doesn’t respond, just keeps shaking.
“Jesus. Did you break him?”
Eli takes a drag and flicks the cigarette away; it turns into a moth and flutters off into the storm.
“Not quite,” he says. “Turns out he has more internal demons than we thought. Though it was fun to break him in.” He smiles at his joke, but before I can tell him to get his mind in the game, he asks, “Did you find it?”
I nod.
“Well then,” he says, “what happens next?”
“We destroy the contract,” I reply. “Preferably somewhere warmer.”
“The prophecy said she must be destroyed where her shadow began, yes?” Eli asks, walking over to crouch beside me. He seems completely unperturbed by the blizzard raging around us, just outside the safety of our circle.
I nod. “But there’s somewhere I need to go first. Back to the theatre.”
Eli smiles. “And here, I worried our entire trip would be without a show.”
I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel like shit when Eli portals the two of us back to the theatre. Lilith took Kingston to the circus to prepare—I told him what I needed done. I just have to hope he can do it in time.
I’m not just here doing recon. I’m here as a decoy.
The theatre is still a mess, but at least they got the dead bodies out of the auditorium. The place is all taped off, and a few lone construction lights cast sharp pools through the dark. Scaffolding forms a strange spiderweb over the stage. I don’t want to go up there. I don’t want to stare at the symbols that Roxie made in blood, don’t want to look at the spot where Roxie met her end.
“So what did you see down there?” Eli asks.
I glance at him. His voice echoes in the darkness, his eyes casting everything in a pale haze.
“That’s a little personal, isn’t it?”
He shrugs.
“I feel like you and I have no boundaries anymore. I think we lost the last of them during our first bacchanalia.”
I grin despite myself, despite the hammer in my chest and the fear that grows with every footstep toward the stage. I feel her watching. Every second, I feel her drawing closer.
“This feels like the end, doesn’t it?” Eli muses.
I don’t bother to respond.
“You know, when you first summoned me—what was it, ten years ago?—I spent a great deal of time wondering how I would like to see you die.” He chuckles, keeping a slow pace beside me as we walk down the aisle toward the stage. “I realized then that I was much more creative than I ever gave myself credit for. An artist, really. I always meant to thank you for that. But that would screw up our relationship.”
“So why are you telling me now?”
My stomach twists and not just because of the stage and its memories. Eli doesn’t talk like this. Eli doesn’t grasp what sentimental really means.
He reaches over and clasps my hand. It’s only then that I realize mine is shaking.
“We are going to die, Claire.”
The concreteness of his statement stops me in my tracks.
“Impossible. You’re immortal and so am I. You’re stuck with me for eons.”
He squeezes my fingers, urges me forward. “I was just saying that to make you feel better.” He makes a gagging noise. “Christ, I can’t believe I just said that. You really have messed me up, you know.”
“But—”
“Claire, the only reason you came back to life is because Penelope didn’t realize you had an immortality clause. If she had, she would have disposed of you like she did Mab and
Oberon. I’ve said it before—even immortality can be brought to an end.”
I don’t know what to think. There are two warring emotions in me: one saying that finally this will all be over. The other screaming that my life hasn’t even begun.
“What about you?” I ask. Keep the attention off of me. Don’t think about what I know to be fact.
“I can be killed,” he says. “Just not by anything from this plane of existence.” He sighs. Not sadly. More quizzical. “Lucky for you, Penelope is not from this plane. She will end me as easily as she ended Mab.”
He drops my hand then and hops lightly up the steps to the stage. When I don’t follow, he turns back and stares at me.
He looks . . . gods, he looks stunning in that moment. Haloed by the spotlights, his white suit immaculate. Eli has always been a presence in my life. He was the first astral creature I summoned and bound to my will. And he’d been off in his guesstimate—I first summoned him when I was ten.
Fifteen years together.
Shit.
“Come on, love,” he says. I don’t know if he’s intentionally mimicking Mab, or if the words are his own. “It’s time we end this.” He holds out his hand and I reach to take it.
“Yes,” comes Penelope’s voice. I jolt and look behind me. “It is time, isn’t it?”
She strides from the shadows, seemingly peeling from the dark in folds of white. Every bit the regal queen, but now, there’s something different about her. It’s not even that the bitch found herself a crown. She stands taller. Her aura blazes. And when she smiles, light cracks from the edges of her lips, as though her skin is crisping, as though it can’t hold the fury in.
Shit.
She wasn’t supposed to get here this quickly. I glance to the stage floor; despite the explosion, despite the clear attempts by the CSI team or whatever they are, the marks Roxie left behind are still stained into the wood. The floor is blackened with crisscrossing lines and various symbols and sigils. My head hurts just looking at them, but I memorize anyway.
Penelope chuckles.
“They’ve been working at that for ages,” she says. “I do hate ruining a perfectly good venue. But for some reason, every time the cleaning crew comes in, they end up going mad before they make a dent in those stains.” Her smile widens. She’s ten feet away, and even from here the burn of her energy sends sparks down my throat. “Mortals are weak. So perhaps I should thank you for what you did here. Ending the life of that pitiful woman.”
She takes another step forward, and between one movement and the next she is transformed; her skin crackles, lines of light crossing over her pale flesh, turning skin to ash and ash to ember. Like burning concrete made flesh.
Like a demon.
I step back and stumble over a dip in the floor. It’s only then I realize that Eli is nowhere to be seen. What the fuck? Did he run off? My heart wrenches with the betrayal.
“You don’t have to do this, Penelope,” I say.
“Do what? This is your doing. You ended the life of my mortal self.” She stretches her arms up to the sides as she says this, flames like feathers burning halos in their wake. “And now, I am no longer bound by her mortal failings. No more fear. No more weakness. No more restraint. For that, my dear, I will grant you a quick death. My final act of mercy.”
Fire writhes from her hands like snakes, drips down to the floor, hissing against the earth. The fire is dark, curling like waves that crash toward me, shapes and faces riding the flames.
“Not so fast,” bellows a voice.
Eli stands at the railing of the mezzanine, illuminated by a spotlight I know he angled there just for this moment. But he isn’t alone. Lilith and Kingston stand beside him. Lilith has her hands folded across her chest, and Kingston seems to have regained control over himself—sparks flicker around his body, and the golden Quetzalcoatl tattoo twines above him.
“I always wanted to make an entrance like that,” Eli says, grinning down at me. Like he isn’t facing down a creature he admitted he couldn’t harm. He’s as cocky as ever, and I can’t tell if that makes me feel relieved or terrified.
The flames don’t stop, but they don’t progress. They lap against the stage, wood and upholstery crackling as the fire eats away at the theatre.
“You brought backup,” Penelope says. She sounds pleased. “Good. This saves me from hunting the rest of you down like dogs.”
“You really must work on your clichés,” Eli says. He leaps over the banister and lands by my side, light as a bloody feather. He winks. “Thought you’d gotten rid of me?”
“I wasn’t certain,” I mutter back.
“I have been waiting a long time for this,” Lilith says. Her eyes are narrowed, glowing green in the shadows of her curls. “I have hated you from the day I met you.”
“My, how you’ve grown,” Penelope sneers. “And yet you’re still the same little girl you’ve always been. A few hundred years and you’re still a pitiful wretch. Weak. What’s the matter, still miss your kitty?”
Lilith’s hands clench on the banister, fire racing over the wood. Kingston puts a hand on her shoulder. He winces when he does so, as though her flesh burns.
“Let Claire go,” he calls. His voice is firm, nothing like the quivering mass he was a few minutes ago. But I guess that’s what three hundred years in show business can teach you—how to pretend.
“Or what, dear Kingston?” Penelope looks from him to me. “Is he sleeping with you as well, dear? This is the best you could do—your two lovers and a child with a grudge?” She laughs. “You are more pathetic than I thought. This is your army? A snap of my fingers and I could have a thousand Fey in here, all of them ready to die at my command. You have nothing. You are nothing. If anything, you have simply made my life easier.”
Without another word, the flames she’s held at bay burst up over the stage, flooding toward me in a wave.
Eli moves in front of me in the blink of an eye. Fire billows around us, absorbed by Eli’s flesh. From here, I can smell the scent of his burning skin, hear the crackle of it.
I have to stop this. Have to . . .
I open my mouth to utter her true name, but before I do, Kingston is at my side, one hand raised against the flames. Magic pours from his fingertips, a cool blue light that shields the three of us.
“No,” he says. He glances toward me, his arm flung behind him, toward Penelope and the roar of fire. “Not yet. Not here. You have to . . . you have to bring her there.”
And I know he’s right. She must end where her shadow began. It wasn’t in hell, wasn’t in this theatre. The curse that is the Pale Queen began in the circus that imprisoned her. And that’s where she has to die.
I’m not about to doubt the Oracle’s prophecy.
Power cracks. Kingston stumbles back as his shield is pressed closer, as Penelope’s flames writhe against the magic like dragons, snapping and biting in the waves of fire. I can barely see them through the light, but I see Lilith floating forward, rising above the mezzanine, and hovering behind Penelope’s back. Fire swirls around her, but it’s not from Penelope—this fire burns within the girl, and coats her in a cocoon of power, crisping her skin, turning her clothes to scrap.
“I have survived much longer in hell than you, Penelope,” Lilith says. It’s not the voice I’m used to—this isn’t the voice of a little girl in Gothic clothes. This is the voice of a monster unleashed, and it scratches up my spine like a curse. “It will take more than fire to destroy me.”
Lilith screams then, and her voice is an explosion of power. Fire curls back from her, her halo of flames somehow burning against Penelope’s, forcing the woman’s magic back, turning the tide against her.
All around us flames writhe and power crackles: the theatre is ablaze, the air filled with the scent of burning wood and brimstone. Eli is at my side then, kneeling down so our lips are close enough to kiss.
“You know what to do,” he says, patting the side of my face.
; I nod. My eyes water against the light and the heat of the blaze; my lips crack.
“I release you from your bonds, Eli. Until the Pale Queen is killed. Or I die and our contract is voided.”
He smiles and leans down, for all the world as cool and casual as if he isn’t surrounded by flames and our greatest enemy isn’t within arm’s reach and only momentarily distracted.
“Let’s hope it is the former. I can only imagine the victory sex this will entail.”
Then he kisses me on the lips and stands.
“You may want to leave,” he says. But not to me. He’s staring straight at Kingston.
I don’t know what happens next. My eyes squeeze shut from anticipation of what’s to come, of the hell that releasing Eli will unleash. There’s a hand on my shoulder, a flash of power that pales in comparison to the momentous magic around us.
And then it is really fucking cold.
“Come on,” Kingston says. He grabs my arm, tries yanking me up to standing. My limbs still aren’t my own, but he pulls me up and drapes my arm over his shoulder.
“Where are we?” I ask. My voice is harsh. Dry.
Snow surrounds us, everything a wind-whipped froth of white and grey. And black. Charred black. Boxes and stumps, like burnt copses of trees and boulders. My stomach drops. He brought me exactly where I told him to.
“This is the show?” I ask.
“What’s left of it,” he mutters.
I look around. This can’t be right. This can’t be all that’s left.
The only saving grace is the large, shadowy shape behind me.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I ask as we head toward the remains of the chapiteau.
“This was your plan,” he replies. “But . . . it’s the best we have.”
I want to tell myself that it’s okay, that I can just come back and try again next time. But I know this is pretty much our one and only shot. I’m playing all of my cards, and if Penelope kills me, I’ll be dead for good, contract or no.
We hustle toward the big top. Large steel and aluminum pillars rise from the pitch, angled in toward each other like broken spider legs, the four posts covered with tattered fabric. Wind and snow howl around us, but when we reach the tent, the chaos stops.
