Nameless

They began to sing a little louder, the Biel’y, but it was not the massive thundering sound it had been before. Still, the mirrors caught and reflected it, and the incense smoke darkened.

The Great Renewal of the Queen was ten years late. But now, finally . . .

 . . . the hour had come.

THIRTY-THREE

“OUR QUEEN,” THEY MOANED. “GIVE US OUR QUEEN, our light, our life! Give us our Queen! Our Queen!”

Tip-tapping footsteps, mincing, She appeared from behind the largest mirror, the frame of black iron skulls and bones dusty now. Cobwebs had crept between eyeholes and thighcurves that would have never been allowed before.

She lifted her arms, and the sleeves of Her pale silken robes fell back. The skin flopped loosely around Her wasted biceps, and Her fingers were claws. The paste dried on the claw-tips had chipped, and Her face, under a thick screen of bone-white powder, was even more cracked and runneled. Blue eyes blazed, and the red jewel at her throat flashed, stuttering.

“My children!”

The Biel’y moaned, swaying back and forth. They packed into the hall but could not fill it. There simply weren’t enough of them. Maybe fifty, maybe a few more. Without the Great Renewal, they would all slowly fade.

“My children,” the Queen repeated, and they shrieked in response. Her hands spread, She caught the sound and drank at it, Her reedy voice strengthening. “The Great Renewal is upon us!”

“Renew, renew!”

“There shall be a sacrifice!”

“Sacrifice, sacrifice!” Shaven skulls under tight-drawn pallid skin bobbed on scrawny necks.

“My new Okhotnik, My husband-to-be, went Above, and he brought Me a heart!”

“A heart, a heart!”

Tor, she thought, dimly. Everything was very far away. Bringing me presents. Were they really from her? Or did he steal them, thinking she wouldn’t notice? Or did she send them out into the world, into Above, and he was just the way they chose to get to what she wanted?

Did it matter? Everything was falling away, drying up. The things the Queen couldn’t take would go with the Nameless into darkness, and maybe the space in the world Above would be filled by something else. Someone else.

Another thought rose through layers of smoky sponge. How did she find me?

The mirror, maybe. Or, like any charmer, through blood. Had the wooden man been looking for her too? Had he whispered in the Queen’s ear, she’s alive, I saw her? Had he regretted giving his heart in the Nameless’s stead?

It wasn’t like it mattered now.

“A fine heart. A fiery heart. And he will give it to Me!”

“Give it, give it!”

Behind her, Tor stumbled out of the dark hole. He looked even worse, if that were possible—bruised all over, one of his eyes almost puffed shut. He was in leather, like the wooden man, but it didn’t fit him. The fringe quivered as he moved, his soft glove-shoes scraping, and his black eyes were wide and wild.

A faint faraway anger pressed through the girl’s dry-trickling veins. I thought she would leave Tor alone!

Something inside her dilated. Just as she’d seen the Strep beating on Ellie, she caught a glimpse of Torin struggling against the Queen’s control—and the consequences. He had fought, and fought hard.

And the Nameless was suddenly very sure he hadn’t known the pin and the shawl were the Queen’s poisoned gifts. He had tried to escape, just like she had.

It’s all right, she wanted to tell him. We couldn’t get away. But She can’t take everything. She can’t eat everything.

In his left hand, the glass knife glittered. Wicked-sharp and curving, its twisted hilt patterned on a horn of a creature long extinct before the Age of Iron, a thread of crimson pulsing in its heart.

The Nameless’s anger fluttered away, a bird’s heart. Maybe more was needed to make the Queen leave everyone alone. To make Her happy, to make everyone happy.

I hope it won’t hurt much. Her entire body was numb, and cold. Book. Candle. Nico. The old charm, worn and threadbare, soothed the last remaining ache inside her. At least, once this was over, she wouldn’t have any scars.

The White Queen’s arms dropped. The Biel’y chanted and shuffled, their chorus exhausted, as they gasped through the smoke.

“Now.” Her teeth gritted, Her fingers flexing, the old woman in her motheaten white, her parchment hair falling and unraveling, fixed Tor with a piercing blue gaze. “Cut out the nameless heart. Renew Me.”

Tor stepped forward. He blinked, his jaw working. The mirror beside him held his reflection and hers, and the Queen’s, another shape rippling behind the shrinking old woman. She was fading fast, impatient, Her power recklessly spent to bring Her victim here, to force this new Okhotnik to Her ancient, hungry will. The new shape would be slender and tall and young, heartbreakingly lovely, and the Biel’y would resurge, calling those who wished dark surcease down into the tunnels and dripping darkness.

On the altar, the Nameless stared at her own reflection. Long tangled black hair, her eyes half-lidded, her bruised face slack and peaceful, Tor’s trembling evident even in the mirror.

I thought he wouldn’t be hurt anymore. The thought rose, slow as bubbles in the sticky caramel Marya made every Dead Harvest to dip apples into. Red, crunching, juicy apples, and the nuts she would roll them in too, golden and luscious. The smell of the sugar, and Marya smoothing her hair.

My little sidhe, Marya breathed in her memory, and the girl’s heart gave a leap.

The new Okhotnik’s mouth opened. He cried a word that had lost all meaning, and the Biel’y screamed.

“CAMI!”

The glass knife flashed. It sliced, and there was a shattering of glass and a wail.

The world exploded.

THIRTY-FOUR

LOUD BOOMING NOISES. YELLS. FAMILIAR, SOME OF them—Nico, hoarsely screaming one word over and over, Ruby swearing as if they were in gym class and running the fourmile again, Ellie chanting low and sonorous, Trig’s familiar drill-the-security-team tone sharply slicing the chaos, close it up, take them down, find our girl!

She lay, her eyelids heavy, strangely peaceful. The mirror heaved, great cracks spidering across its surface, Tor stumbling back with a horrified cry.

He had driven the knife straight into the mirror, pinning the Queen’s reflection like a butterfly.

The White Queen screamed again, a dry wall of noise impossible from such a small throat. Runnels of decay crawled through her reflection, each echoed by a streak of darkness on the staggering old woman herself. The small