The Wind Between Worlds

by Julie Hutchings

  “I have what I need to live.”

  Lux wasn’t stirring, but he was alive. I felt his slow, deep breaths through the stars that cradled him.

  The trapped Elementals followed my eyes to Lux. I felt the women wriggle in their starlit shackles as if they were in my own hands.

  “Mom,” I mouthed to her. There was nothing more to say. With a flick of my wrist, the band of stars threw the Elementals far into the woods. I knew the earth would catch them, make them safe. It was I who needed protection. And him.

  I drew my hands close to my chest as if clutching something precious, and the expanse of stars carefully brought Lux to me, his body suspended at my face height. His thin, bow-shaped lips were paler than usual. His cheeks were no longer just extraordinarily white, but now lifeless. I focused on his fluttering eyelids, closed against the pitch hair in them. All the things that made him look dangerous and sharp now made him look fragile.

  Pushing my hair behind my ears, I bent to kiss him, my autumn-chilled lips to his deathly ones. Even behind my closed lids I could see the starlight that held him glow, get stronger, but he stayed still, cold. Dead.

  “No,” I whimpered into his lips. “You can heal, I believe that with all my heart.”

  And then he kissed me back.

  “Celeste?” he said, voice still creamy as always, breath tickling my nose. I smiled, running my finger down his cheekbone.

  I swallowed hard at the sound of his voice, and had to look away. I’d thought maybe I’d never hear him again. The idea was like taking birdsong out of the morning. “You’re okay now,” I said softly. “I’ll make sure you stay that way.”

  He squeezed his eyes tight and twisted his head so quickly his neck cracked. “I can’t hear my brothers. They’re quiet.” His eyes snapped open. “I can only hear you.”

  Forcing myself to meet his eyes, to see if there was more devil in them or distress, I said, “Can you hear how afraid I am still? How much I need you?”

  Lux smiled, gentle and present. Lovingly. “You wish for wonders but you dream of a demon.”

  I smiled back. Because he’d smiled at me and it felt nearly as good as the kiss. “Yeah, and sometimes it hurts. But, Lux, right now I have to get you somewhere safe. The Elementals will come for you again. They aren’t far.”

  His face darkened. “Spirit wants me more than ever. Her lust is a demon in itself. It has dirty intentions and clean motives.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we gotta go, Riddler. Come.”

  The stars dissipated, carefully pulling apart, becoming themselves, the dark between them setting Lux on his feet. I whispered for them to go, and they flew back to the sky, sparkling, celestial birds.

  Night grew darker around the Demon Prince, as he projected a blacker glow. Black ribbons of smoke curled out of and back into his body, leaving black gashes against his pale skin where it was exposed. Glittering, slicing darkness that tore through him in a chaotic dance.

  He was smiling.

  The dark was healing him.

  Lux stood tall, brushed off his tattered suit, smoothed his uncontrollable hair and jutted his chin high. His eyes burned into me, the blue of them ice cold against the midnight sky.

  “So strong,” he said, stretching. “This, I can heal.” He motioned to his lithe body. “But not—” he trailed, pointing at his head.

  “There’s nothing to fix there. You’re perfect.”

  “Perfect,” he repeated, caressing my cheek. An image moved into his eye, only briefly startling me. I’d grown to expect the demons that haunted him; his own idea of family. At least his family stuck by him, kept him whole. This time the demon in his eye stood still and looked out, only a black silhouette. It was then that Lux picked a morning glory from the ground and tucked it into my hair. “The blooms are star-shaped, but the leaves that tether it to the stem are hearts. So like you.”

  My heart pounded. I felt time crushing us already. “I feel like I’ve stolen you.” Glancing into the woods, I sensed the stars watching my mother approach.

  Lux leaned forward, buttoning the top of his blazer, shoulder and head tilted so artfully he was difficult to look at. God, he was beautiful, a thing of the night he was soaked in. “Let me steal you back,” he said.

  Chapter 22

  “I can’t feel them!”

  I woke myself in the middle of screaming it, unable to clear my eyes or head enough to know where I was. But my heart hurt, more than I wanted to live through. Squeezing my eyes tight, I focused on the pain of my fingernails digging into the top of my breast, almost working of their own accord, trying to dig my heart out and fill the hole that tortured it.

  “My stars are—”

  “Gone,” Lux finished.

  I sobbed, too terrified to open my eyes and see what kind of place could steal the night sky from me, could take my magic from me. The want of my magic back rattled in my gut like a madman in his cell.

  Lux’s slender fingers wrapped around my arms. I tried to stop shaking, to suppress my tears, because no matter what I’d lost, he was my responsibility. At any cost, even my magic, he belonged to me. I’d made this choice, to get him away from danger.

  Panic surged, swelled like a monster in my chest.

  “Open your eyes, Celeste. I can’t replace the stars, but I can show you something else.”

  I was half-lying on a marble floor in ruins, like it had been through a demolition. In front of me crouched like a predatory spider, my demon boy looked as good as new in his suit. Rich fabric unmarred, hair as together as his hair could be, skin pristine. And something else.

  The clarity in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen quite so brilliantly before.

  “Where are we?” I asked, shuddering. “You don’t have any—shadows—behind your eyes.”

  “The Gone.”

  I leaped to my feet, rubble rolling away underneath them. “Why don’t I remember getting here? I was the one who was going to bring you here.”

  He rose to his feet, pulling at his cuffs like he was preparing for a photo. “Your lust did just that. Your lust to come to The Gone on your own, for your own reasons. I was the one who wanted to hide.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Hide? You crossed The Chains. You’re strong. You don’t need to hide, Lux, you just need to be—”

  “Not where I can be found. Same difference. I’m strong enough to know when to back down.” He turned and strolled with his hands in his trouser pockets through the ruins, and it wasn’t until then that I looked around me.

  My God, it took my breath away.

  We were in a castle. A long since empty castle, with dust on its wreckage and holes in its walls. The remnants of its trimmings were a magnificent dusky blue, the color of fairy tale skies at twilight, shedding a gray and blue hue over everything. The grand room itself had only a few scattered pieces of furniture: a few once-elegant dining room chairs, weeds and ivy overtaking their intricate designs. A table that once had seated dozens of guests, crooked, and covered in a thin layer of frost. A chandelier had crashed onto the table’s surface in a heap of diamonds and metal. The staircase led to unseen floors I instantly longed to explore, elaborate railings with swirls and edges begging me to touch them. Frost and snow drifts vied for space with moss, vines, and autumn leaves, as though all the seasons outside had taken over at once. I ran my finger over a cast iron window grate, tiny stars hidden in its scrollwork. I gritted my teeth.

  “I never want to leave here,” I whispered, though I knew it wasn’t exactly true.

  The Demon Prince strolled through the rubble, tracing a finger dreamily over the icy back of a dining chair, crystals falling to the ground. “To so many others this place would be abysmal, but it gleams in your presence. I’ve imagined you here, my princess, in rose gold shining shoes, a gown of glistening white, a crystal crown on your head. Your hair shimmered then as it does now, and the space over your heart glows daytime blue. The way I imagine daytime.” He laughed a little and turned to me, entra
ncing me. I wanted him to come closer, but he stood still, unreachable. “I imagine your heart to be shaped like a star, but twice as heavenly. In its center is a pinpoint of blackness as deep as The Gone, and its darkness seeks company. Mine.” He came to me in long strides, stealing my breath with every movement. His riddles became heart-pounding poetry in his home. “You should be wearing a crown and pearls, not chains and fear.”

  “Lux—”

  He kissed me fast, and held my cheeks in his cold hands, nose resting against mine. “We are the darkness between stars.”

  Lux spun on the heel of his shiny shoe, an insult to the debris he walked through. He was far from me, but in this silence, he was the comfort of the autumn wind I loved. “Look at the ceiling.”

  Stars. The rest of the dilapidation hadn’t touched the ceiling’s glossy blue and black swirls, swimming with three dimensional stars. They weren’t real, they didn’t feel even close to the stars I knew and that knew me, but it was a stunning replica.

  My hand flew to my heart. I missed home already, the harvest moon, the approach of winter, and the chill of the stars. It ached so much I couldn’t acknowledge it or the emptiness would swallow me. That ache, that nothing, was it how Cymbeline felt all the time?

  “Oh my God, are the others okay?” The Poisons are so far away, I can’t protect them—”

  “Quiet,” Lux whispered, crossing the broken floor in long strides. He was accustomed to traversing broken spaces. “They’re safe together. For now.” He took my hands in his, and he didn’t feel so cold anymore.

  He was magnificent. Regal.

  I nodded. “You’re much more—sane—here,” I said.

  Lux laughed. He laughed. It was the kind of white smile, boisterous, head-thrown-back laugh that invited me to laugh, too. But it also felt like I was watching royalty address one of his subjects. I was awed.

  “This is my place,” he said, gesturing around him to the gorgeous destruction. “Not just the castle. In The Gone, my brothers are just my brothers. They don’t invade my head… as much. Makes it easier to see straight.” He tapped his temple, and winked at me.

  I shook my head, unable to take my eyes off of him. “Sorry, it’s like hanging out with Prince William or something. You’ve got a thing about you.” There was so much color, and lack of color, and life and lack of life, and I wasn’t feeling the weight of The Chains—I was drunk with it.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chain link he shouldn’t have had, and held it in his open palm. “I’ve got lots of things about me,” he said huskily. And the chain link grew vicious spikes. They disappeared and were quickly replaced by tiny teeth. Those were gone in the blink of an eye and the link burst into a palm sized flame. And then…

  Then it became something else. Something that felt like home in all the wrong ways. The link smelled so sickly sweet that I gagged, but Lux turned it lemon yellow and it sparked anger in me, suppressing the nausea.

  “What the—”

  “Watch,” he whispered.

  The chain link changed back to its original self but it felt void, like a tiny black hole. Empty, but filled with ill intent.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, wanting to back away but rooted there. Lux shook his head too, to reassure me to stay. Where would I go anyway?

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at it, but a sound bubbled up from under me, into me, through me as the link whispered to me.

  “Look,” it said in a hundred voices I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t want to, but I’d do anything those voices told me; they knew everything I wanted to know and be.

  Turning my head back to it, trembling with anticipation, the link became an onyx star, dark and glittering. Mesmerizing as it pulsed with latent energy.

  The stars on the ceiling glittered in the corner of my eye, and I felt Lux’s link in the deepest, darkest part of me. Power stroking my soul, telling me to be and do what I wanted. Be who you are, then make yourself who you want to be. Words I didn’t so much hear as feel like the dull throb of an old bruise. Short of breath, I looked into Lux’s eyes, darkly illuminated by the star’s points.

  “How are you doing this?” I asked in a hush. The slight sound bounced off the castle walls as if I’d yelled. “You don’t have magic, you can’t.”

  “Magic is just a word. Magic is what you make it. This,” he said, nodding to the ever-changing link, “is one of the many things you lust after.” He paused, watching me to see if I would figure it out on my own. He smirked. “Do you see it?”

  “I think I do,” I said, my cheeks hot. “I see the Poisons there…”

  “The darkness of them. You want to see them at their most ferocious,” he said, baring his teeth in a brutal smile.

  “I want to see myself that way, too,” I whispered, reaching out to touch the black star. He snatched it back, letting me see it flicker back to just a chain link before closing it in his hand. When he did it was as if I’d been exorcised. Narrowing my eyes at him, I asked again, “How did you do that?”

  “Everyone lusts, but you—you and I are so alike in that we want.” He licked his lips, and I could see his teeth clench against his words. “We both want with all our hearts. Your magic isn’t that you can grant wishes or control the stars, and mine isn’t that I connect to the lust in everyone’s souls, but that we have so much desire to do and change, it doesn’t consume us; it drives us. It makes us able to do things we’ve been convinced we can’t.” He was trembling, speaking faster and faster, eyes coming more alive with every syllable.

  The passion roared in him, making him all the more regal.

  “We’re not completely the same,” I said, breaking the trance I’d fallen into.

  “You’re right. I’m not oppressed like you.”

  “Oppressed? I wouldn’t say I’m oppressed.” But my voice wavered, and I laughed nervously.

  Lux wandered the palace floor again, crunching its beauty beneath his feet. “Then why did you leave? If The Chains are so oppressive, all-powerful Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with all the trimmings, why were you so eager to leave your home behind?”

  Shouting at him felt wrong, but I was sick of pussyfooting around the truth, and goddamned tired of being the checker piece on the bottom that gets kinged. I wanted to be the king.

  Lux hung his head, his narrow but muscular shoulders hunching in his suit. “The Gone is a city where one can see everything he desires, but can never have it. And I, the Demon of Lust, want everything, and can never touch it, ever. It is its own oppression at nobody’s hands.” He slowly lifted his head to face me. “The Chains were there for me to take, and I did it. I obtained. And I wanted to meet someone who felt as much desire as I did. That was you.”

  I wanted him to kiss me so much that my lips tingled, wanted to cross the space between us to leap into his arms, but I was afraid and so far from home, from everything I knew. On his turf.

  “Now that you have me here, you can keep me, can’t you? You could use me to grant your Wishes.”

  That smirk again. “You aren’t all-powerful in The Gone, little witch.”

  I smirked back. “What if I Wish I was?”

  “You wouldn’t. You’re too afraid. Too unused to being alone.”

  That made me cringe and I couldn’t hide it. “I didn’t feel alone until just now, oddly.”

  A glimmer of the out-of-place boy I’d seen in class appeared. “Come here,” he said, motioning me toward a set of once-white winding stairs, torn up for our lack of safety. He sat on one, and held his hand out to me, smiling. He did it just like a regular boy, and I couldn’t refuse. My hand shook in his, but he put his other one over it and I steadied. Our shoulders and thighs touched, our breathing in tune. He looked up, and I did the same at the pinpoints of silver and gold, huge detailed bursts, clusters and constellations, all shining in that defiled place.

  “I’ve always come here because it held something I wanted.” A little, bitter laugh. “Then again, everything does. B
ut I’d stare up at those stars and count every point, I’d wonder for hours. I’d hate my place here…other times I loved it more than I thought a demon was supposed to love, but I couldn’t figure out what it was I wanted, what that ache was. It was so hard to feel anything beyond it.” He stopped, rubbed his hand through his immaculately deranged hair. He breathed in sharply through his nose and trained his eyes on me. I tried not to waver. “Then it came to me. I lusted to see the stars. The real ones. We cannot see the stars in The Gone, but I knew they were there.” He looked over my face like he was hungry for it and I couldn’t breathe. “That was the night I broke through The Chains to find you.”

  Paralyzed. I couldn’t even make myself blink.

  “Celeste, you may need saving, but so do I.”

  Lux’s icy eyes took on an orchid hue I hadn’t seen before. The air changed from its cold, sweetly decaying scent to a biting, lively one, and I broke my gaze to watch the wild network of vines and greenery burst with violet and black morning glories, like the field I’d disappeared in back home. I wanted to walk through them but couldn’t move for fear of ruining the memory.

  “How did you do this?” I breathed.

  I felt his finger tracing my collarbone but couldn’t look away from the haphazard garden. “You did it,” he said.

  “I can’t keep them alive.” And suddenly I wasn’t so sure I was talking about the flowers anymore.

  Lux brushed a finger over the black petals. “They grow in the driest dirt, in the harshest light, against all odds.” Eyes on mine, he said, “They don’t thrive because you wish for it, Celeste, but because you refuse to believe they’re not strong enough to flourish. You refuse to believe it can’t be done.”

  I swallowed hard, first at his belief in me, and then because I remembered my mother’s words, that I would find good where it didn’t exist.

  It always exists.

  We didn’t speak another word for what must have been hours. We sat on those steps and stared at the fake stars that did nothing to fill the emptiness where the real ones had been left behind. Looking at Lux, I felt the other half of all my wants, doubled in their intensity, and there was strength in it. Just not enough to speak or leave that place.