They stared at one another, girl-Heart and ghost, hunter and prey. Two misplaced magics on a rock slowly turning on its axis in a dark universe. Two beings drawn to a boi with silver earrings and a smile like a bullet.
He was old, Eli knew that. He had been haunting this city for a long time. He looked like a human. He even moved like a human, the right amount of grace and clumsiness.
But Eli knew he wasn’t one. She could smell the decay and sadness like sour milk on him.
She raised the pearl blade in front of her.
“If you hurt them, I will kill you,” she told him. It.
He stepped forward.
Eli’s hand tightened on the blade as she narrowed her eyes. “Leave us alone.”
Another step.
An image flashed across her eyes. The Heart’s pain surging to the forefront. Memories that wounded. The forest was burning. Smoke burned her eyes. So much pain. So much destruction. Her children were screaming in agony —
Blink. Back to here, now, this body, this threat.
Step.
Another memory — young witches, their teeth sticky with sap and blood, offering strands of hair to her. Feeding her fire, dancing in her soil. Watering the land with tears of joy and loss.
A cold wind cut through the image, and the chill seeped into her human bones. Eli shivered, and the blade in her hand trembled. Her grip relaxed.
The ghost was in front of her now, his dead eyes boring into hers. Her grip on the blade was unsteady, her heartbeat wild and erratic.
The ghost touched her wrist.
Light flowed from her body to his, and for a moment Eli could see the outline of the person he had once been. Before the witches. Before death. When his magic was pure and strong like hers.
He had a name, once.
Many names.
Many sisters, with clever hands and shadow wings, and on his name-day they had carried him up into the sky to look over the blue-and-white planet that danced below them.
They were all gone now.
No one knew why some survived — if you could call this new form survival — but he had stayed while his sisters had died. They were dust now, reflecting the sun back on the Earth, sleeping in the dead craters of the husk of their world. And he was here, feeding his emptiness with hate, growing sluggish with revenge and regret.
Not all killers are made out of hawthorn and glass, but all killers are made.
Eli pulled back, gasping for breath, the ghost’s memories and feelings still swimming in her veins.
Then the light extinguished, and she was just a girl again, with asthmatic lungs and a weak heart. Her hand fell to her side.
She tucked her hair behind one ear and turned away. “You want to come along? Fine. Just don’t get in my way, understand? I won’t end up like you. I won’t.”
The sound of the motorcycle revving. Disappointment heavy in her stomach, Eli went after them.
Eli didn’t look behind her, but she knew the ghost was following.
Her hand was still shaking.
Twelve
THE HEIR
The main square of the City of Eyes glowed white, a light that was brutal and painful to behold. It was also very beautiful, like a polished star. Beauty that could kill — like her mother, thought Kite. Like every magic in the world, every gold- and silver-touched thread of power. Every tooth and blade and bone.
Unbidden, Kite’s mind conjured up an image of a teenage girl with yellow eyes and crocodile teeth, the reptilian girl’s knuckles white and lined with dark veins as her fingers tightened around glittering blades.
Perhaps the danger was what made them beautiful.
“I shouldn’t be here,” said Kite. “If I’m seen —”
“You won’t be seen.” Clytemnestra threw a handful of glitter confetti at the Heir Rising. Kite’s tongue snaked out and caught one of the silver flakes before darting back into her mouth.
They were standing at the entrance of a shadow door, one of the many ways between the invisible Labyrinth and the city underneath it.
“I could be researching —”
“No.” The word fell like a fragment of stone, heavy and sharp. Clytemnestra twisted her head and neck to face the other witch. “No. You watch.”
“You don’t trust me not to warn them?” Kite’s hair writhed, the strands twisting over one another.
Clytemnestra giggled. “Of course I don’t trust you.”
Kite’s hair stilled. A single wave rippled down the long bluegreen waterfall that stretched nearly to her ankles. She understood. “This is a test.”
“Anyone can see your power,” said the child. “You are more than a child, Heir. You’ve never been one of us. And trust is earned.”
Kite closed her eyes briefly and called up the memory of prismatic light bonding to her essence. Felt the thrum of power, the taste of a dead and drained witch strengthening her body. Shuddered at the slick feeling of it, like gasoline on her tongue.
Craved it.
Needed it.
Just a taste more —
Kite’s eyes opened to slits, and through the narrow field of vision she could see the whitegold light quivering under Clytemnestra’s skin. Could almost taste the honey and whiskey fire of the Warlord’s fierce magic.
What she could do with that magic, how much stronger she would be —
The Beast nipped at her heels.
Kite’s eyes widened, and the potent scent of witch essence faded. “Shhh now, that’s a good Beast,” she purred, reaching down to run a hand over the motley feather, fur, and scales. The Beast rubbed against her legs, trembling slightly.
Clytemnestra went up on her tiptoes, excitement visible in her entire body. “Almost time now. The children followed your instructions. All it needs is the trigger.”
Kite frowned. “What’s the trigger?”
Clytemnestra clapped her hands together. “It’s you, of course.”
She reached out and plucked a single hair from Kite’s head.
The pain was slight, but all the other hairs rose up in protest, slapping at Clytemnestra’s hands, whipping around Kite’s face like a tornado.
The Witch Lord reached out and touched her essence. Pain blocked out all other senses, memories, feelings …
When Kite’s consciousness
