Eli never turned down caffeine, so she poured herself a full mug, then frowned. “Figs?”
“You’re learning!” Cam’s voice rang with joy. The sound was as comforting as the smell of freshly ground coffee, which always seemed to follow Cam around.
In these moments — if Tav didn’t look too closely at the stones protruding from Cam’s body — they could almost forget that the world was going to shit.
Almost.
“You went to the Hedge-Witch.” Eli turned to Tav.
Tav exhaled sharply. “You followed me?”
Eli’s yellow eyes sparked with accusation.
Tav wasn’t about to apologize for their actions. If there was ever a time they needed backup, it was now. Eli just didn’t want to admit it.
“I know you don’t like her,” said Tav. They needed Eli to believe in them. There was no way Tav and Eli could close the vortex if they didn’t trust each other.
“Like has nothing to do with it,” said Eli.
“She’s going to help us.”
“Maybe.” Eli tilted her head to one side. A greasy film of distrust slid over the room. “What did you offer her in exchange?”
“I handled it, okay?”
“You handled it.” Eli’s voice was rough and gritty.
“You weren’t exactly here to help.”
Eli flinched. “I brought your bike back,” she said.
“I hope you didn’t scratch her.”
“You’re welcome, Tav.”
Tav took a few breaths. “So the coffee tastes like figs?”
Eli stared at them for a long moment. It felt like a small mercy when she finally said, “Yeah, it does.”
“Well.” Tav cleared their throat. “We should go, I guess.”
The euphoria of the first victory had faded to a bad hangover, and Tav felt a familiar stabbing in their guts.
They were afraid.
“You need to eat,” Cam told them.
“No.”
“That’s what Eli said.”
“I don’t need to eat.” Eli’s eyes flashed pure black for a moment before switching back to yellow, like a glitching computer screen bright with broken pixels.
“Well, Tav does. They’re at least half human, and they need —”
“I said no.” Their voice was louder and harsher than they had intended.
Cam stopped talking, the expression on his face frozen in place. “Okay, captain,” he said quietly, with only the barest whisper of sarcasm. “Whatever you say.”
“All right girls, boys, and magic toys, time to save the world.” Tav grabbed their boots from where they sprawled in the middle of the floor and pulled them on.
“Am I the magic toy?” Eli tapped the hilt of the frost blade and grinned.
Tav grinned back, the adrenalin rush of fear oxidizing into excitement. Like their first time on the cruiser, going a hundred kilometres an hour on a back road, knowing that if they made a single mistake the road would tear the fabric and skin off their body, but loving it, anyway. They hadn’t fallen that day, or any day since.
Tav spun the keys around their index finger and then pointed the jagged metal teeth at Eli like a gun, and the words spilled out. “You’re something special.”
Cam was silent.
THE HEART
The ghost was nowhere to be seen. Eli felt strangely abandoned.
Five blades hung from her hips where there had once been seven. The frost blade, the revealer, that forced the truth from blood and flesh. The stone blade, the shield, a short sword that was a strong defensive weapon. The pearl blade, the divider, that could untether souls from their delicate shells, splitting bodies into their pure material parts. The bone blade, the tracker, with its jagged edges that held on to flesh and scent and memory. And the thorn blade, the ensnarer, that trapped victims in perfumed petals and vicious thorns — the blade that had burned her the night before. Had turned on her.
The glass blade was gone, shattered by the Guardian in the confrontation in the Coven. Eli’s fingers played with the empty sheath at her waist — she felt its absence like a lost tooth, worrying the fleshy gap with her tongue.
Eli could feel the gentle heartbeat of the smallest blade, so thin it was almost like a long needle. The obsidian blade: the bringer of death, the harvester of lives, the blade of endings. The assassin. Eli had gifted that knife to Tav, and it now it connected them. Now Tav could use it.
But the blade was tricky and devious, and anyone who touched it was marked, the way smoke leaves traces of ash. The blade was both Tav and Eli now; they were three and one.
Alchemy.
Eli felt the rosebuds in her lungs curling and uncurling their tiny petals in anticipation and anxiety. She needed to prove to herself, Cam, and Tav (especially Tav), that she could do this. That she wasn’t falling apart. That she didn’t need her blades to be a monster.
(She wondered who she would be without her blades.) If the blades failed, she would use her teeth, her fingernails, her knuckles.
You’re only an energy source, the voice in her head reminded her. The voice was almost bitter, like honey tinged with angelica. Cam protected you; Tav saved you. What did you do, except lie there, waiting to die?
How long will your crocodile teeth stay lodged in your jaw? How long until all the blades are broken?
You’re falling apart. The Heart is tearing you apart.
You’re the centre of everything, and the centre is always empty.
Eli didn’t like these thoughts. She liked to move, to sweat, to hurt. She liked the feeling of pushing her body to its limits until the glass and wood hinges creaked, but still, still they held. Her body always held strong. It would hold today.
She watched Tav’s graceful movements as they mounted the bike in one fluid motion, legs strong and smooth like a dancer’s, and thought, We will win.
“You coming?” Cam climbed into the flamingo-pink taxicab he’d commandeered.
Eli didn’t take her eyes off Tav, their hands moving lovingly over the iron beast. “No, thanks. I’ll ride with Tav.”
Tav looked up at the sound of their name. Eli caught their gaze and held it for a full second. Eli felt that she was daring Tav to look away.
