The world needed its Heart.
One petal like a drop of blood nestled in a thicket of thorns; another dried and pressed against a fist of granite. Kite gathered the petals. Then she returned to where the Beast was waiting. He had flattened himself into the shape of a glittering winged snake. Constellations winked along his back.
“Very pretty,” she said. “I hope you didn’t scare her.”
The Beast fluttered his wings like a hummingbird. She petted the smooth skin of his scales. “Thank you for keeping watch.”
She pressed the handful of petals against the moss. A moment later, they, too, were wrapped in leaves and vines and roots thick with earth.
And then a girl walked out of the wall.
Long moss hung around her shoulders, and dirt caked her fingernails. She was missing half an ear, and a few fingers. Her cloudy white eye burned with an inner fire.
“Heir,” said the girl, inclining her head in a small bow.
“Assassin,” said Kite, her hair rippling in welcome.
“How long have I been down here?” she asked.
Kite blinked, and then laughed, the sound of a ship coming home after a long journey, sea spray knocking gently against the bow. “Long enough.”
“Where are the others?”
The Beast rose in the air and began swimming around Kite in frantic circles.
Kite reached out and brushed a fleck of dirt from the girl’s face. “We haven’t found them yet. But we will.”
Twenty-Three
THE HEART
Lightning flashes continued streaking down from the City of Eyes as an army of armoured beasts filled the square. Too many to kill. Too many to fight.
But Eli would try. She couldn’t give up now, not when they were so close.
Not when so much was at stake.
Her sense of self-preservation urged her to run, to disappear, to vanish from their lives altogether. But she made herself stay. She made herself listen to the rain on cement and told herself that an assassin didn’t run from a fight, she revelled in it.
Eli threw herself at the horde, teeth bared, blades ready. With the pearl blade she tore the witch essences from their shells, and with the bone blade she destroyed their bodies.
Smell of iron.
Taste of ash.
The world narrowed to a pinhole. She heard nothing. Felt nothing.
She was losing herself in the carnage. What about Tav? What if Tav needs me?
Who is Tav? The name sounded familiar.
Golden-brown eyes.
Silver earrings glinting in moonlight.
A warm hand against her rib cage.
Eli remembered. She forced through the bloodlust, waking to the roar of the storm and the blood pounding in her head. Tav and Cam were fighting back to back, but their bodies looked small and fragile. She had to help them.
Eli traded bone for thorn, and with a scream of anger, plunged the spiky blade into the earth. This time, it didn’t reject her touch. Vines with deadly spikes grew rapidly toward the enemies that surrounded her companions.
The Heart burned, light pouring through her palms and forehead. Eli looked down — one of her hands was starting to disappear, turning into raw energy. She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the blade. Not now. I won’t let the Heart take me.
The ghostly light crept up her forearm to her elbow. She was fading.
The vines were almost there, just a few more seconds —
Her other hand started to flicker, and for a moment she could see through her knuckles. There was a crack in the pavement as a single weed struggled through.
You answer to me. Eli concentrated on the power of the Heart that singed her veins. She channelled that energy into the blade, into the vines.
The blade glowed red, burning her hand like it had before. But this time, Eli didn’t cry out. She refused to let go. She kept her hand on the knife, even as blisters began to rise on her palm. She just needed to hold out for one more second —
The thorn blade caught fire. The vines collapsed into ash. As Eli watched, the blade cracked and began peeling into fibrous strips. Eli dropped the blade, her hand burning. The fibrous mass cooled, the thorns retreating into the jagged edges of a blade. She exhaled. It hadn’t broken. Not yet.
Eli was shaking. She felt a stinging in her eyes. She reached up to rub her eyes and realized her arm had vanished.
Her gaze fluttered around the square, around the scene of chaos. They landed on a boi with purple hair and golden eyes.
The boi looked at her. Their mouth moved, and Eli thought she caught the word Please before the material world fell away.
THE HEALER
Eli was gone.
No, she couldn’t be. They needed her. They needed the Heart.
Eli was gone.
Panic swirled through Tav’s lungs like snow squalls. They could hear Cam gasping for breath. His rock-covered body was taking a beating, and neither of them could hold out for long.
The obsidian blade was slippery with their own blood, and they were losing their grip, missing easy targets. Fumbling, they almost dropped it.
Do it without the blade.
The witch in the forest. The burning tree. Tav had torn them open with a touch.
Do it again.
They sheathed the blade of dark glass. The next wave of creatures came at them, and Tav reached out with both hands.
The first one opened and collapsed, turned inside out by Tav’s magic. They reached for the essence, shuddering at its slimy texture in their hand. They twisted, and opened —
The essence healed, reforming. It hadn’t worked. The essence flowed back into the crumpled machine and the creature stood, unsteadily, on dented feet.
It hadn’t worked.
Tav reached for it again, and this time not even the metal bent to their will.
The sky turned like a spinning top.
A broken sky overhead. Tav tried to move their legs but couldn’t. The adrenalin was gone. The magic was gone. There was nothing left.
“Tav?”
Stones. Granite and limestone and slate. Tav
