But the Witch Lord needed an Heir to secure her position, to prove her power, to expand her empire.
So she made Kite.
Kite had learned from an early age that “the Coven” meant many things. There were the rings of the Coven, the system of power in the witch world. The lower rings were unimportant. The first ring — they were the mysterious, shrouded figures who did the Witch Lord’s bidding, who claimed control of the world. But the building that housed them was older than her mother, older than the petty squabbles of witches, older than the legacy of death that Kite had been born to inherit. Kite usually referred to this Coven, this sentient building, with its sense of humour, ability to hold grudges, and playful tendency to turn doors into walls and windows into chambers of light, as the library. A palace of knowledge.
It had been long neglected. Malicious intent had twisted the tunnels into spiteful creatures, had turned the Heart into a hungry mouth that devoured the unwanted, had caused the building to fold away its bright histories and poetry and rituals in drawers locked with no keys; in towers guarded by smoke snakes, buried in coffins wrapped in curses.
Until Kite.
Until the child who dripped seawater over old pages and left salt incantations on the clothbound covers. The child who gave her own blood to restore the faded ink, who fed sacrifices of insects and fish bones to the living words.
Witch children are not raised, not taught in schools, not coddled by their parents. They are not, and then they are. They are children until they cross over to the human world and steal a name. Before they have a name they are no one, nothing. The Witch Lord had ignored Kite for much of her life. And so Kite had been given the freedom to fall in love with the library, and, even worse, to fall in love with a made-thing.
I’m bored, the glowing ball of light told her as Kite smoothed a hand over a page of long-forgotten incantations for communing with the stars. How is this helping?
“We could speak to the stars,” said Kite dreamily. “Can you imagine?”
If she catches you, she will kill you. And more importantly — she’ll kill me.
“I know.” Kite turned the page. “Do we have any taxi-dermied wings lying around?”
To speak with the stars? Only if they’ll sing me a lullaby. The ball of light whirled around Kite once and then hovered over her left shoulder, illuminating the page. A crown of light flickered over Kite’s head.
“No,” she said, closing the book regretfully. “To burn magic stone.”
A creature of smoke and lightning, with a face that looked a little like a fox and many legs — some hoofed, some with paws, and at least one lizard claw — snapped at the ball of light, which darted out of reach.
Do you have to keep that thing around? the light complained.
“Oh, he won’t do any harm, will you, precious?” Kite offered the dead candle to the Beast, who ate it, and then started chewing on her hair.
The light-essence flickered. Burn, Clytemnestra’s voice whispered excitedly in Kite’s head. Burn, burn, burn.
Kite carefully tore the page out of the book. “I have what you need,” she said. “We can go now.”
Two witches — one flesh, one pure light — travelled through the forgotten pathways of the library, crossing the shadow door back to the Labyrinth, back to the Children’s Lair, back to the army and the promise of vengeance.
The children love burning things. Clytemnestra’s glee shimmered in Kite’s skull. It’s time to teach the Coven fear.
Kite wondered if she would regret giving this knowledge to the rebellion. But if it saved Eli, it was worth it.
She would do anything to keep Eli alive.
Eleven
THE HEART
Eli was back on the roof of the building. A scattering of stars shone overhead like a handful of costume jewelry had been flung into the sky. It was the only place she could breathe. The only place she could escape from Tav and Cam’s worried looks and unasked questions. Escape from their doubt.
Eli had almost died today.
She waited for that knowledge to scare her, to spark a reaction in the flora of her limbs. She had been created with a strong sense of self-preservation. She should never have been able to put herself in that kind of danger.
But death didn’t scare her half as much as being rejected by her blade. Her blades were a part of her body. Cam had brought the thorn blade back to her — it hadn’t hurt him. It hadn’t rejected him. Eli had wrapped it in a silk scarf from Cam’s drag collection rather than touch it with her bare hands. Now it hung dormant at her waist. But Eli could no longer trust it, and the pain of that knowledge ached.
The persistent thud of a human heartbeat — Now. Now. Now. Eli let her eyelids shut as she leaned back and fell into the rhythm of her body.
She could still feel the obsidian blade tenderly pressed against Tav’s forearm. A shiver tremored through her body, and it had nothing to do with the cool summer night air.
She let her hands run along the hilts of her other blades — frost, thorn, pearl, stone. A sound like a chime echoed in her skull when her fingers brushed each material, resonating in the capillaries and bronchioles and joints of her patchwork body.
“Why didn’t you help us?” she asked.
The ghost said nothing, just stood there, wavering slightly as if unsteady on his feet. Watching her.
She tried again. “Where were you?”
Nothing.
Eli sighed. “If
