The Brilliant Dark

by S. M. Beiko

  Saskia should have talked to Phae first thing this morning, instead of hiding in her bedroom like a moody goddamn teenager. She should have told her everything.

  She raked her hands through her hair, ready to move on with one last look at the house. “This is so stupid.”

  Then she felt it again, that pull she always felt mid-dream, except this time it was like being yanked through a hole beneath her, despite standing perfectly still. Down a dark chasm, falling through a bank of fluttering wings that got in her mouth, her eyes. Follow the moth, the voice like a house fire whispered, screamed. She covered her ears, but the sound jackknifed through. A high-pitched whine, a chord, singing. It scraped the inside of her head but couldn’t resolve.

  And even though her eyes were closed, something was bursting like fireworks against her dark eyelids. Something red. Something shivering. She felt her hand come up against her command, and she was tracing the air, tracing out the red.

  Sigils. She couldn’t read them, but she recognized them — from once upon a time when darkness was eating her up inside, eating every bit of hope she had left. A Cinder Kid.

  Her heart felt like it was enlarged, too big for her too-human body. She yanked her hand down with the other one, staggered. I need to find Ella, she thought, in her own mental voice, her own mind. She just needed to stay in control. She just needed to talk to her friend. To someone. Anyone.

  She bolted and paid attention to every breath, just like Barton taught her. The red in her vision was fading, blurred by the tears she’d been saving, but the echo of the sound followed her. Like a broken frequency, like bad static. It followed but faded as she kept running until she was over the train bridge towards Omand’s Creek.

  * * *

  Sometimes Phae would sit quietly for a long time, holding the empty stone in her both her hands, pressing her palms together as if she could crush it. But it was like a diamond, like Barton’s resolve, she thought — it wouldn’t crack.

  She’d inhale a shaking breath and think of him. Think back to being lost on a strange and uncanny shore, yet across the void there was a red tether of fate binding them. Even separated by a metaphysical barrier, a distance that couldn’t be counted, they had found one another. Felt one another.

  It had been five years since that tether had snapped.

  “Is it time for lessons now, Phae?”

  Phae opened her eyes. “Yes, Jet. Sorry. Lost track of time.” She closed the clamshell locket that held the Quartz, put the chain over her head, and tucked it back under her shirt. Getting up stiffly from her place in front of the small makeshift altar, she covered it with its black sheet.

  Jet looked up at her expectantly with unblinking eyes. He was rather intense for a ten-year-old. Saskia’s age when —

  “It’s Math now, though, Jet. Not Lore.” She recognized the book in his hand — spine cracked, worn well. It wasn’t one of the old Primers that Denizens passed around urgently when they were being hunted by the new regime — it was a book that had belonged to Barton, one that everyone in the apartment shared.

  Speaking of . . . “And where’s Lily? And Victor?”

  Jet’s eyes went to the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “Jet.” Phae’s tone was firm. “Where are they?”

  The hand not clutching the book was in his pocket. Phae gently pulled on his arm to free Jet’s hand and look at his palm. It had been burned. “I’m going to guess you didn’t get this from the stove,” Phae sighed as Jet took it back, rubbing it.

  “Victor is studying for Complicity. They’re in their rooms,” Jet finally said gloomily. “Lily went to Cara’s.”

  Phae heaved a sigh. Victor was a Fox, and at fourteen he had it as bad as any other Denizen teenager — his powers were volatile during puberty. But he’d grown weary of wearing a target on his back. He was going to take the “exam,” and be faced with the choice: give up his powers and try to reintegrate into the society that distrusted him for his birthright . . . or keep them and become an instrument of the regime.

  Lily and Cara were another matter. The Rabbits, those who were vocal about it, anyway, had always regretted giving up on the hard-won Coalition that had formed between Families to fight the creature Seela all those years ago. Phae understood — she as much as anyone grieved the losses suffered. The Rabbit Family had suffered more lately. Many of them had gone missing in the spring after a surprise “search,” since there had been talk of bringing the Coalition back. Nothing got past the Task Guard.

  But everyone’s minds weren’t on such distant things today, probably glued to the radio since that thing in the sky had moved a fraction. What did it mean? Were the Darklings going to enact their final waking? What could the human forces do against it that the Denizens couldn’t? And if the Elemental Task Guard intervened, would it only make it worse? Let them try, Phae knew some would remark. Let them get burned for what they’ve done to us.

  The image graffitied on the wall of the Law Courts that had caused such a stir a week ago was like a brand in Phae’s memory — her lost best friend’s face, the red dripping flames a bloody reminder. JOIN THE FIRE FIGHT.

  Phae had smiled, even then. For a second, she’d wanted to join whatever fight there would be. But looking down at Jet now, she knew that wouldn’t be possible. She was needed here.

  The desire for rebellion could be seen a mile away. And any Denizen who’d had enough of being crushed under the boot of the strange new world order would use Task Guard strong-arming as an excuse to fight back. It was already happening — had been happening.

  But with these new cultists springing up, and violence in the streets, Phae didn’t doubt that the ETG would soon be knocking on everyone’s doors, Rabbit or otherwise, and Complicity would be less a suggestion. That Saskia was now involved in all of it brought her heart to a boiling point.

  “Give me your hand,” she said to Jet suddenly. Without looking at her, he gave it over. She pressed her own palm over it, and he hissed as if it stung. The blue light sparking off her hair-antlers flashed on his pale face.

  “Better?” she asked. He nodded. “Just ignore Victor. I’m sorry he burned you. I’ll talk to him later.” She inhaled and tried to smile. “Come on. Lore is fine. The others can do math on their own time today.”

  Phae was tired. The morning had started early and since Saskia, then Isela, Phae was feeling weighed down. Too many people panicking. Too many people stuck to their windows, looking out, watching and waiting.

  “They’re all just scared it’s going to end,” Jet said.

  Phae sat next to him on the sofa. “Jet . . .”

  “I didn’t read your mind that time, honest!” He was earnest. “I heard it on the radio, too. I can see it on your face. The way you keep touching the stone around around your neck.”

  She flattened her mouth. “I guess being observant isn’t a crime.”

  The book in his lap looked huge. He wasn’t a big boy — he was twiggy, hair floppy and in his eyes, and he didn’t like going out much. He stuck by Saskia, but he needed other Owls. His own Family, Phae thought, her mental walls firmly in place. Jet didn’t need to read it from her mind — she was sure he thought about it enough. Jordan came, when he could . . . but he’d been arrested one too many times, and Phae was afraid they’d locked him up for good.

  If only Eli were here. He’d had his flaws, and a titanic ego, but he’d been a leader. That’s what they needed now. And he had willingly leapt into the great beyond with Roan (or so the story went). Besides, Phae had a fatal flaw of her own — trying to see the good in people long before it’d run out.

  But with no Calamity Stones, there were no Paramounts, and with no Denizen gatherings legally sanctioned, any new leaders that did appear would be firmly underground, anyway. Or complicit with the Task Guard.

  And if a war was coming — it would be no place for children.

 
; All Phae could hear was the sharp bark of Saskia’s desperate plea. Don’t you want to do something?

  Jet had the huge book tented in his lap. “What happens if the Darklings do wake up and come back down here?” he asked. The page he’d turned to was part of the section specifically devoted to the Darklings’ part in the Narrative — Ancient’s great plan for Denizens and the world they were sworn to protect. A plan that even the godhead had forsaken, slumbering for an age without a care for what happened to its creation, now in the hands of its godchildren, the First Matriarchs, and those in their divided Families.

  Even the images painted in the book did no justice to the creatures as Phae had seen them — up close or in Fia’s great pool, far away in the now-shattered Glen.

  She didn’t answer Jet directly. “Can you tell me the Darklings’ names?”

  Jet pointed to the images, reciting. To the half-woman, half-snake: “Zabor.” To the multi-armed supplicant, grinning: “Kirkald.” To the horse-like creature without a mouth: “Balaghast.”

  “That’s right,” Phae nodded. “And what do they represent?”

  He pointed to each again. “Chaos. Harm. Silence.”

  She didn’t want to scare him. She should be going over the good parts of Ancient and Denizenship. Things like how a Denizen’s core purpose was to protect life in this world with their gifts and powers. That the Families were meant to work together in concert to maintain the balance that the First Matriarchs set out in Ancient’s name. But her heart just wasn’t in it. It was all flowery sentiment, after all. She’d seen Denizens in practice, the Families divided and fighting for authority. Look where division had brought them. Look what all their good intentions had wrought.

  Phae had tried to stay neutral in the years since Barton left. Tried not to steer the children she cared for in any one direction. But after all, how safe was it for them, as Denizens? Would they need their powers now, more than ever, to fight?

  But Jet flipped the pages. “And what about her?”

  Phae blinked down at the image, feeling the hair on her arms rise. Hadn’t she just wondered about this, at the bedside of a dying woman? “The Moth Queen? What would you like to know about her?”

  Jet wrinkled his nose. “The Moth Queen used to mark Denizens to sacrifice to Zabor, right? But Roan Harken stopped all that, because Death made a deal so it could be impartial again. Right?”

  Who was the teacher now? Phae felt her heart catch, thinking of Roan. “What are you getting at, Jet?”

  He tilted his head up, eyes round, as if the answer were obvious. “Saskia has been marked by the Moth Queen, hasn’t she?”

  Phae was utterly still. “What?”

  “She’s seen her,” he pressed. As if he wanted Phae to explain how the Moth Queen could have come to Saskia if Saskia wasn’t a Denizen.

  She laid her hand over the inked image of the moth woman with her manifold hands, piercing eyes, and wide wings that promised, apparently, absolution.

  “How do you know that, Jet?”

  His eyes fell. “I couldn’t help it, that time.”

  * * *

  Saskia had stopped herself before she came around the corner that would overlook Omand’s Creek. She wasn’t holding out hope that Ella would be there, but if she wasn’t, at least the others would be — those burnouts wouldn’t be anywhere else at this time of day. Especially today, when the Darkling Moon they loved had given everyone a show.

  Would the Moth Queen be there, if these Cluster-wannabes were? But maybe they’d seen Ella. If the Moth Queen didn’t show, and was, really, just a figment of Saskia’s oversaturated imagination, at least she could gather some intel on her best friend . . . really girlfriend. So Saskia inhaled and went sharply around the corner.

  She could smell their cigarettes as she picked her way down the hill. One of them hissed, pointed at her. They all watched her approach, sneering with their teeth out. Saskia didn’t have any way of defending herself if things got nasty against these teen-extremist Denizen dropouts, but she kept thinking of Ella, and took some strength from that.

  “Well looky who it is,” said the girl in front. Her hair was a bad black dye-job. At least mine’s natural, Saskia thought. But she kept her face calm.

  “Dannika.” She nodded. “Josh. Amanda.” She made a point of naming them all.

  Josh leapt up, all skinny jeans and DIY piercings. “Heard you were there last night. With Ella and the others. What happened?”

  Saskia hesitated. Amanda, Josh’s girlfriend, laughed. “Look at her face, Josh. Scaredy Sask wasn’t anywhere near the Old Leg last night. She’d have pissed herself for sure.”

  “I was there.” Saskia confirmed, and the way Amanda’s face dropped with shock gladdened Saskia’s racing heart. “Where’d you hear that?”

  Dannika flicked her cigarette out. “Doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “The Dark Moon has willed all of this into motion. Whatever happens, it’s meant to be.”

  The others nodded gravely, as if they really believed their culty crap meant anything. Saskia shut her eyes as they rolled back into her head.

  Dannika and Josh were Denizens. But Amanda was a Mundane, like Saskia. The Cluster said everyone was welcome. More than once, they’d tried to rope Saskia into their group. There wasn’t much to it: you just had to worship a triple demon-amalgam in the sky, praying for the end times.

  They were stupid poseurs. If they’d seen what Saskia had, with Seela, they’d be the ones pissing themselves for sure.

  “I even got up close and personal with Chancellor Grant himself,” Saskia said coolly. She needed to up her cred, and fast, if she was going to get anything out of them.

  Josh’s red-rimmed eyes bugged. “Whoa. And that fascist Task Guard asshole didn’t throw you underground with the other experiments?”

  Dannika openly slapped him on the arm, and the skinny bundle of sticks nearly tripped over himself. “Shut up. She’s lying. She wants something.”

  Saskia swallowed. “Grant offered me a job. On the inside. I figured that’d be of interest to your . . . priest.”

  Dannika had been watching Saskia closely. She leaned back, arms folded. “A job?”

  Saskia was already losing her patience. She gestured at the other side of Omand’s Creek, towards Wolseley. “Maybe I should head up there and ask the priest myself. After all, the ‘Dark Moon wills it.’ Probably. I doubt it could will the three of you to change a tire.”

  “Hey now.” Amanda got between them, even though Dannika’s smirk had turned into a threatening snarl. “It’s broad daylight, and there are a ton of ETG pricks sniffing around.” She swung on Saskia, jabbing herself in the chest. “We deal with the priest. No one else. What do you want, Das?”

  Saskia heard Dannika’s boot crunch in the dirt. Felt the warning tremor in the ground. Dannika was a Rabbit with an axe to grind at the best of times.

  “I’m looking for Ella. I know she and Clare and Damien didn’t just come up with the idea to attack the Old Leg, or the chancellor, on their own. I figured it was either you or the priest, given how the Darkling Moon just happened to have moved that same night. All told, I’d say that even if you don’t know where Ella is now, you’re responsible if anything happened to her.”

  A rock shot up from the ground and into Dannika’s open palm. Josh whipped his head between the two of them.

  “We don’t know anything about Ella or the others,” he said. “The priest told them to wait, that it was too risky, with the chancellor-twat newly arrived and probably more ETG with him. And as usual, he was right.”

  Dannika sniffed. “Whatever that dumb Fox gets into now doesn’t involve us. We all want to finish what Roan Harken started and be the hero, Das, but you have to be smart about it.” Her smirk climbed. “Tell us about this job, and maybe we’ll see if we can scrounge up whatever remains of your girlfriend.”

&nb
sp; Saskia stared at the rock, Dannika tossing it up and down like a baseball in her fingerless-gloved hand. Whether they worshipped the Darkling Moon, or figured themselves vigilantes, or had some Hallmark creed sewn in ironic patches on their denim vests, these kids were still just kids.

  Saskia squinted. This had been pointless. “Maybe I’ll just keep it to myself. Maybe I’ll sic the Chancellor on you instead.”

  Suddenly the rock was singing past Saskia’s ear towards the river. She grunted and twisted, clapped her hand to her ear, as she heard the screech of a river hunter, hit by the rock but still crawling along the mud towards them like an oil-slicked eel.

  Saskia scrambled back, tripped. Hadn’t Cam mentioned something about these freaky things showing up recently? She looked to the others, but they seemed more stupidly awestruck than afraid.

  “It’s a sign,” Josh breathed. “They can sense their mother coming back for them.”

  Then there were two river hunters, hissing and clicking in their alien monster tongue, mouths vertical gashes. A third hunter cut through the water, scrambling to follow its fellows. Great. Sure, there had been monsters creeping around Winnipeg, and any other corner of the planet, since the Moon showed up. But these were Zabor’s direct spawn, and they hadn’t been seen since she had been sent back to her hole, when even Roan Harken assumed prematurely it was all over. Once, Mundanes wouldn’t have been able to see them, but that was over now.

  “This isn’t funny,” Saskia said, jaw set. “Don’t provoke them. We have to get out of here.”

  Amanda hollered, almost cheering. She shook Josh. “Isn’t this amazing?” He was smiling, too. Like it was Christmas.

  “You’re all crazy,” Saskia said, eyes watching the third hunter. This had been a terrible idea, Moth Queen or not. “I’m out of here. Enjoy blackhole gazing till your eyes fall out.”