What We Devour

by Linsey Miller

  “Well,” said Hana, looking at Safia, “Carlow definitely has blood, I hope, so what did you feel?”

  “Last I checked,” said Carlow, nudging the last of the kids ahead, “I had blood.”

  She turned to shut the gate and froze. A vine of blue roses knotted around the metal, and ambling down the path, a child on his hip, came the Vile Crown wearing Creek’s skin.

  “You missed one,” he said and stopped at the boundary to the church. “Hello again, Franziska.”

  Carlow stumbled back. “You’re dead.”

  “I can’t die,” said the Vile Crown. “Delmond Creek, though, has been dead for about two years.”

  He set the kid on the ground, patted their head, and pushed them toward the gate. Carlow opened the gate, hiding them behind her. Basil grabbed them, and I tried to pull Carlow back. She shook me off.

  “This will be easier if you invite me inside.” The Vile Crown’s red eyes swept over the consecrated grounds. “Please?”

  None of us spoke, and he scoffed.

  The Vile Crown stepped over the boundary of the church grounds. The flesh of his foot bubbled, skin peeling away like petals in a breeze. His blood streamed upward in scarlet rivers, and antlers covered in mossy green velvet burst from his scalp, his blond hair falling away in clumps. Dark brown strands ruffling like willow branches replaced it. Swallowwort bloomed in the wounds left by the consecrated earth.

  Mack fired one shot. The wooden bolt sprouted wings and fluttered away.

  “Not your gift, Lorena Adler, but one that is long overdue,” said the Vile Crown. “My little thorn, Franziska Carlow. The curse wasn’t meant for you.”

  Carlow grabbed a knife from a pocket and pressed it to her arm. Vines curled around her feet, upending her. Basil and Safia moved to help, and I grabbed them. The vines dropped Carlow into the Vile Crown’s outstretched arms.

  “Wait,” I whispered. “He said it’s a gift.”

  “Franziska,” he said slowly, letting her struggle and stab him, “there’s only one way to remove your curse. Do you understand?”

  She stilled. “There’s always only one way out.”

  He plunged his hand into her chest, sternum cracking so loud it rang. Safia sobbed. Hana threw her short sword, and the blade sunk hilt-deep into the Vile Crown’s chest. He didn’t even wince.

  “Very rude of you,” the Vile Crown muttered. “We were friends for so long, and that’s how you greet me?”

  He laid Carlow, the wound in her chest a yawning dark too deep to be natural, on the consecrated dirt. Roses bloomed around her.

  “The most boring flower.” I shuddered. “You were possessing Delmond Creek the whole time.”

  “When he fulfilled his curse and died, he had no more need for this body. Possessing it was the only way to enter this world until the Door opened.” He chuckled. “I had been watching, of course. This curse should have died out decades ago. It was meant to punish the original recipient, not torture loved ones far removed from her actions.”

  “What?” Basil covered their mouth with a hand. “Oh no, no, how—”

  “You may call me Creek if you wish, but I am the Vile Crown of Strangling Vines and much prefer Vines,” he said.

  A poppy blossomed on the left side of his chest, and he plucked it free. Hands far gentler than I’d expected tucked it into Carlow’s empty chest. She breathed again.

  “Franziska?” he murmured.

  She sobbed and scrambled away from him, tumbling into our open arms. Vines winced. Basil cupped her face in their hands while Safia checked her over.

  “It’s fine,” Basil said. “You’re fine.”

  And Carlow blinked at them, irises a bright fawn brown against bloodshot whites. Basil swallowed.

  “Carlow?” I said gently and knelt next to her. “How do you feel?”

  “Terrible.” She glanced from me to Vines. “You were in Creek. You were Creek?”

  “I was.” Vines drew back, his hands clasped behind his back. “I removed your curse. I’m sorry it didn’t involve killing me, but you may try if you like.”

  “The heart is a garden,” she whispered and touched the corners of her eyes as if she could feel the difference. “I wouldn’t like to try. I’d like to succeed.”

  “Of course you would, you insufferable overachiever,” said Vines. “I will give you whatever future you desire, my corpse included. Now go. Plan your decade and know you have my help.”

  We made our way into the church. He lingered at the edge of the grounds, a sentry among the Vile watching us with open, waiting mouths.

  One by one, we came to watch the end of the world beyond these grounds. A fog had crept about the spawn keeping watch, their hungry eyes like flickering candles in the dark. My wrights were still quiet, their lack of presence an ache in my bones. I’d been awake for far too long. Exhaustion and grief had taken everything from me. Too tired to stop. Too tired to sleep.

  Every now and then, new faces would appear beyond the gate. The survivors from the palace—the children of the peers—found us with tear-streaked faces and bloody hands. I stayed awake for them and greeted each one. This was the cost of what I’d done.

  Me facing what I’d done. I could never hide from who I was again.

  “What do we do now?” Basil asked, plucking strands of fog from the swarm around us. It writhed between their fingers. Another Vile. Another thing that wanted us dead. “What are you supposed to do when the world ends?”

  I tilted my head back to the empty sky. The ever-full moon, the Door holding back the Noble, was bright above us. The Vile avoided its light. Chaos couldn’t be wrought within its sight.

  “We begin anew.”

  The moon blinked.

  Acknowledgments

  What We Devour is somehow my fifth book, and I am so glad to have shared this journey with so many incredible people. Thank you for believing in this weird little book. I will always be grateful.

  Rachel Brooks made my career. She is a wonderful agent, and I’m so glad to be part of the BookEnds Literary Agency family. Thank you for liking my pitch all those years ago.

  I could never thank Annie Berger enough for all that she’s done. With her effort and guidance, Lorena’s story became so much better than I could ever have hoped. You are an amazing editor. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  Sourcebooks, you have been a wonderful home. Cassie Gutman, Ashlyn Keil, Lizzie Lewandowski, and everyone else who had a hand in What We Devour, thank you. Your dedication and work made this book what it is today. I cannot put into words how thankful I am to every member of the Sourcebooks team. Thank you all.

  Kerbie Addis knows what she did. She knows.

  So hear me out: Rosiee, I know I always open our chats with this, and thank you for letting me message you at ungodly hours about book ideas.

  Brent, thank you. I could not ask for a better partner.

  And most importantly, thank you readers, reviewers, booksellers, librarians, and bloggers. No matter if you’ve been on this journey with me for four years or four days, thank you for making this possible. I hope you love these terrible nerds as much as I do and that their story brings you joy.

  Thank you.

  And remember—feast.

  Turn the page to read an excerpt from Linsey Miller’s epic fantasy

  Belle Révolte

  One

  Emilie

  My mother did not shackle me despite my last escape attempt. It didn’t matter—­the corset, layers of satin and silk, and summer heat were chains enough. I was certain I would be the first young noble lady of Demeine to arrive at finishing school under the watchful eyes of two armed guards. My mother made it seem so innocuous, talking of nothing but her perfect days looking down upon the quaint town of Bosquet while learning the correct topics of conversation, the exact ways to div
ine tomorrow’s weather, and wonderful illusions to cover up everything from blood stains to whole castles. The illusionary arts, the first and simplest branch of the midnight arts, were my mother’s specialty, something the perfect daughter should have appreciated. I had neither aptitude nor interest in illusions.

  Illusions were, as far as I could tell, nothing but lies. My mother was a wonderful liar.

  “I love you,” she said, her expression that emotionless calm all ladies of Demeine were expected to possess, “but I am growing weary of your rebellion.”

  I peeked out the window. We had been traveling for days, bundled up in the carriage and only stopping to swap horses. It was the carriage Mother usually took to court: wonderfully impressive on the outside, with gold and silver gilding running through the ocean colors of our family’s crest on the door, and frustratingly practical on the inside. I had been staring at the same black velvet and single lamp since we left. No amount of fiddling with the lock while she slept had freed me yet.

  “Let us rejoice, then, that your education means no one will notice I exhaust you.” I tapped the thin skin beneath my eyes where she had hidden my dark circles as she hid hers every day. “You said you would let me study the noonday arts. Mademoiselle Gardinier’s school does not teach the noonday arts.”

  The ability to channel magic was rare, and it was rarer still for it to run so steadily in a family. Traditionally, noble sons with the ability studied the noonday arts and either specialized in the fighting or healing arts. They became chevaliers or physicians. They changed the world by sword or by scalpel.

  Noble girls didn’t change the world.

  “I said I would let you study them, not that I would allow you to partake in such powerful magic, especially after that abomination you used on poor Edouard. You could have killed him.” She folded her hands in her lap, the tight sleeves of her silver overdress rustling together like moth wings. “You are a daughter of Demeine. You will learn the midnight arts, you will—­somehow—­impress someone well enough for them to marry you, you will have children, you will serve our people as the midnight artist and comtesse they need, and one day, you will understand why I made you do all of this.”

  Edouard, one of our guards, had caught me during my last escape attempt and laughed when I had explained my plan to join the university as a boy. Even common boys were allowed to be physicians if they were good enough and could pay the tuition.

  “Being a boy’s not that easy,” he had said, angry for the first time since I could remember. “I would know. And you’d be doing it for selfish reasons. You don’t understand. Listen to me, Emilie…”

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to let me go, I had knocked him out by altering his body alchemistry with my abominable noonday arts.

  I tugged at the high collar of my dress, sweat pooling in every wrinkle, and scowled. “I could better serve our people as a physician.”

  “The noonday arts would wear your body out in pursuit of such a dream, to the point of death or infertility.” She slapped my hand away from my collar. “Be reasonable, and perhaps you will learn you enjoy the midnight arts and the life you are supposed to lead.”

  My mother was always reasonable, as a good lady of Demeine should be, and unlike me, she never wore her emotions on her face.

  “This will be good for you,” she said. “Marais was too rural for you to make friends of the appropriate station. You will need allies at court.”

  “Yes, I cannot wait to meet them.”

  “I see sincerity was another of my lessons you neglected.” She leaned across the carriage, fingers skimming my cheek, and recoiled when I flinched. “You are not a child any longer. You are sixteen, and soon you will be old enough to inherit your father’s responsibilities along with the title you disregard. I remember when that was not even a possibility. You have so many more opportunities than girls in the past, than other girls now, and it is insult to refuse them.”

  I was an insult to our name, and my very dreams, to be a physician and study the noonday arts, to channel the magic of Lord Sun through my veins and save the dying, were the worst insult of all. I wanted the wrong things. I wanted too much.

  “Noonday artists change the world, whether through the fighting or healing arts. That is a responsibility that comes with power you cannot comprehend. You are young. You will learn.”

  Demeine was blessed with two types of power: the noonday and the midnight arts. Each drew power from Lord Sun or his Mistress Moon, but Lord Sun was far stronger and even more fickle. The fighting and healing arts were used to change the physical world, and as such, required immense amounts of power. Such magic wore the mortal body down bit by bit until the ability to channel faded or the artist died.

  Noble girls could not be allowed to handle such corruptive power.

  There was nothing to learn. I comprehended the fact that I was a body, not a person, quite well.

  “‘I will learn,’” I said, the small nothing town of Bosquet rushing past our carriage window. “Is that a command or an attempt at reassurance?”

  “Please, Emilie, we both know you are incapable of following even the simplest of orders.” She twisted her first two fingers, broke the illusion hiding her fan in her lap, and flicked it open. “I prayed to Mistress Moon to console my grief at having to be apart from you, and she sent me a vision of you happy and content at court. You will be fine.”

  Mistress Moon’s magic and the lesser power required for the midnight arts—­illusions, scrying, and divination—­wore the body down much more slowly but required excessive self-­control. It was a safer, slower burn, but midnight artists couldn’t change the world. They only observed it, or, if they were good, changed how others observed it.

  Perhaps Demeine was as it was, ruled by a court on the cusp of rightly losing control, because we let no one new change it.

  I had to change the world. I had to prove to my mother that the whole of my being wasn’t wrong, that I wasn’t a disappointment.

  “Maybe you saw a future where I became a physician,” I said.

  The gods could take the time to answer her prayers but not mine. How paradigmatic. Divination was guesswork, hardly quantifiable. A diviner could see a dozen different futures, and none might come to pass. If a midnight artist even could divine. Many never mastered the skill.

  “Though, admittedly, you appeared to have taken none of my clothing advice in my divination; you were not wearing a physician’s coat,” she said. “You stand at the edge of a great future.”

  “Whose?” I lifted a silver chain, worth more than all of Bosquet, from my chest. The layers, the jewelry—­I couldn’t breathe much less move for fear of drowning in silver and sweat. No wonder we were expected to be silent and still. Even this left me light-­headed.

  Oxygen deprivation.

  “All power has a cost,” she said as the carriage slowed to a stop, “and you were born with power—­your title, your wealth, your magic. This is your cost, Emilie des Marais, and it is your duty to pay it. Power demands sacrifice.”

  “This isn’t fair.”

  She laughed, the apathetic mask she kept up at all times slipping. “Really? There will be girls at school who lack your name, your money, and your magic, and they will not treat you as kindly as I have. You are arrogant and stubborn. Mind your tongue, or you will have no friends, no happiness, and no future.”

  She had never called me a disappointment, but I could taste it in the silence between us. I was not the daughter she had always longed for. At least magic would never abandon me.

  “You are my daughter, and I love you. I am pushing you to do this because I know Demeine will laugh you out of university. I do this because I love you.” She ran her fingers through the strands of her silver necklaces, where she stored small lockets of power. Her illusion settled over me like snow, soft and cold and suffocating, and I knew no one
would be able to tell how hot and miserable I looked. “Time to go.”

  We had stopped at a stable on the south side of town. The noises of Bosquet were louder now, and the shadows shorter, squat stains beneath our feet. The town had an open-­air market and church at the center, and we had passed between storefronts and housing and orderly gravel paths shaded by linden trees with interlaced canopies. Our driver had already vanished inside the stable, and the guards lingered on the other side of the carriage. A crowd had gathered in the shade of the trees across from us. Behind them, a white poster with green ink had been stuck to the trunk of a tree.

  At the edge of that crowd was a girl, who despite her flax dress dusted with dirt, despite her white skin spotted with sunburn and old bruises, and despite her brown hair in desperate need of styling, looked like me. I might have mistaken her for some unknown half-­sister if either of my parents had ever been inclined to such affairs.

  Perhaps Lord Sun had finally answered my prayers.

  “Wait,” I said quickly, grabbing my mother’s wrist before she could leave the carriage. “Give me a moment to prepare myself, please.”

  I did not let go of her immediately as I usually did, and her gaze dropped to my fingers. She took my hand in hers and nodded.

  “What do you think that crowd is?” I asked.

  Her eyes didn’t leave our hands. “Mademoiselle Charron is in town to inspect the artists in your class. I am sure she’s providing free scrying and divinations to those who need them. All of her writings are in green for some ill-­graced reason, but so goes the odd trends of youth, I suppose.”

  “That’s nice of her.” I moved my other hand, palm up and burning in a sliver of sunlight, out of her sight. “Can we wait until there are fewer people? You knotted me up in new clothes and shoes, and I have no desire for an audience.”