The Unnaturalists

“No,” I say. “I don’t care what you do!”

He shakes me. Hard as he did the night he silenced me with that wretched kiss. I can’t figure out how a boy who’s only a few inches taller than me and slender as a snake can have such strength. “I can make you, you know. And it will be far more unpleasant than the spell I used to seal your lips.”

I open my mouth to speak, but then he puts his hand over my lips and says a word, a single, vicious word. My lips fuse into a solid piece of skin. I cannot say a thing, and I cannot open them. I can hear my own muffled screaming in my head as he drags me to the Refinery doors and unlocks them one-handed.

“Now, unchain her and make her follow you to the Hall!” He pushes me so hard that I trip over the broken marble and fall to my hands and knees again before the Manticore. My reticule slides from my wrist and tumbles directly between her paws. The steel hoops of my skirt bite into my knees, but I daren’t move. She’s crouched over my neck, growling.

I can’t say anything as her iron breath makes goose pimples of my flesh.

Pleasepleaseplease, I think at her. Hoping that she can release me. Hoping that she knows how to bring the magic back or can at least show me the way.

Her teeth are at my throat and for one moment, I’m afraid perhaps this has been her intent all along, that she’ll dupe everyone and their hopes for me by eating me alive here in the twilight.

Then my lips split and I can open them and breathe through my mouth. And speak.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

She laughs a low, feline laugh.

I stand and bend to unhitch her chain. In one swift motion, she lifts my reticule. The silk dissolves and I see a mirror, a pot of lip stain, and my handkerchief slide down her throat. She clamps her iron teeth around my toad.

“No!” I cry.

She bites down on it hard, and it dissolves with a sharp green flare. I’m suddenly lighter, as though I’ve sloughed off a heavy skin. The Manticore smiles and winks at me.

Charles, who’s lurking in the doorway, laughs. “I see she disposed of the dampener. Doesn’t matter, though. Your powers won’t help either of you.”

“What are you talking about?” I say. I’m still looking into the Manticore’s eyes, wishing I could speak to her.

“It’s a dampener,” Charles says. “Families with known witches or warlocks in their bloodlines use them to suppress the gift.”

“You mean . . .” I whisper, more to the Manticore than to him.

“Your father has known all along what you are.”

My gut wrenches. I feel like I might fall down again. Memories flash with ever-increasing clarity—Father’s concerned looks, being expelled from Seminary, whispered conversations outside my door, Father telling me to carry the toad with me as a good luck charm, all those sylphids singing to me in that exhibit long ago . . .

The Manticore nudges me as if to remind me we have work to do.

I inhale as deeply as I’m able. “Yes,” I say.

She gazes at me with her great eyes and silver smile. I understand now why Athena went to her death bold and unrepentant for what she did. If it comes to that, I will do the same. Energy dances all around the Manticore and in and out of the ivy—threads of nearly invisible light—and I know I have but to reach out and weave it into whatever shape I need.

I nod, leading her through the door. Her claws click on the marble, then go silent on the mossy steps.

Charles turns. I see the dark thing inside him; it’s curled around his heart, an evil homunculus gnawing through his chest.

And at that moment, as I watch the last shreds of his humanity disappear, I understand. “You fool,” I whisper to him. “You let the Grue eat your heart in exchange for its power.”

He raises his hand to cuff me again, but thinks better of it when the Manticore growls.

“The witch is clever,” he says. “Charles offered me something I could not refuse. And we will both soon have what we desire.”

“What?” I ask. “What is worth destroying everything? For that’s what you’ll do if you let her die.”

I turn to the Manticore. “Why should you abide by the Law if he doesn’t?”

She stays silent.

He looks at us with dead eyes and a truly gruesome smile. “Not so clever,” he says. “Come.” He turns. I consider leaping on him and trying to kill him with my bare hands. But even though I have the magic back, I’ve no idea how to use it or if I’m strong enough to overcome him. I’m pretty certain I’m not. The Manticore paces behind me, the ticking of her heart like a metronome counting out my steps. Her iron breath is colder on my back than the oncoming night. She needs me.

I turn and follow the thing that was Charles.

When we enter the warmth, light, and noise of the Great Hall, we’re met with a few shrieks that fall away into fainting and silence. The Empress stands so abruptly that she knocks over her chair and the crash echoes all the way to the domed ceiling. I follow Charles to the dais and the Manticore follows me. She settles behind me, her spiked tail scraping the steps, lashing like an agitated cat’s. I glimpse the true redness of her fur for the first time; it’s crimson and plush as fresh-spilled blood.

“What is the meaning of this?” the Empress asks. Her voice is gritty and ancient beyond her supposed years. The way she moves, the way her eyes are like holes in her heavily made-up face make me wonder how old she truly is. It’s strange to stand higher than her; it feels almost sacrilegious. She is so very small.

Charles bows deeply to her. The golden ribbons on his shoes are one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. “Have no fear, Most Scientific Majesty,” he says. He raises his voice so that all can hear. “I bring the Manticore as a wedding gift to the new Lord and Lady Grimgorn, and as a salve to Lord Virulen’s longstanding wounds incurred from this deadly Unnatural. I know your Majesty has some quarrel with the Manticore, as well.”

Charles gestures to someone at the back of the Hall, and I see them slowly wheel in a collecting unit.

“No,” I whisper. I think of the Forest and all her people, the Waste creeping close. I know with a certainty as sure as my ability to properly identify a rare sylph that the Manticore’s death will spell disaster for the Tinkers and all the creatures who rely on the Forest. By morning, the Waste will be at New London’s back gate.

Lord Virulen struggles to his feet and limps over to the dais. He looks up at the Manticore with his one good eye. It’s difficult to read his expression because of his perpetual leer, but I see fear gleaming in that eye. Fear and gloating.

“A worthy gift, Scholar Waddingly,” he says. “Quite worthy indeed.”

I’m holding the chain loosely, too loosely. I hear it slide almost before I feel it.

The Manticore leaps. Lord Virulen’s thin scream evaporates beneath her razor claws. I’m dragged down the stairs after her, my elbows knocking the stairs, my knees scraped by steel.

The Hall reverberates with overturning chairs and screams, not least of which are Charles’s screams of rage.

But the Manticore looks at me. The light around her heart is so bright I can barely see.

For the first time, I understand her words: Take this Heart, Vespa. Take it back to the Beast in the Well. You alone can heal this world.

Low percussion threatens my ears. The everlights dim as all energy in the Hall rushes to surround the Manticore’s burning Heart. The Manticore’s grin bursts in waves of dizzying light. Her paws, her spiked tail, and the chains melt white-hot as she dissolves in a towering blaze of magic.

My hair crackles and I shut my eyes against the heatless blast. Something rolls against my hands—the ticking Heart. I cup it and feel its steady beating, even as the everlights shatter one by one, as the oriel window bursts in stars of colored glass. Raw myth glitters on wigs and eyelids, makes silver shimmers of gowns and coats.

People who understand what the dust truly is scrabble frantically for it, heedless of shattered glass. The rest stand with their mouths open or faint away in shock.

Three points of attention hone in on me at once: Charles, the Empress, and Lucy. The Empress screams: “GET THAT GIRL AT ONCE!”