Tav knew that laughter. They knew the boys — not by name but by reputation, by their handwriting on lockers and the ugly worlds they spat from mouths twisted by hate. It was their parents’ fault, Tav’s father told them, year after year. They teach their kids to hate. They don’t know any better.
“How heavy it must be, to live with so much hate,” said Tav’s mother. Tav had guiltily stashed away their own hate and anger, wondering if it would ever be useful. Wondering when they would be allowed to use it.
The voices snapped in the air like a wet towel on skin. Tav shoved their hands in their pockets and rooted themselves to the ground. They looked right ahead of them.
Tav wasn’t afraid. Tav was angry.
“Look who it is. The lesbo. Where’s your brother? Heard he didn’t like our artwork today. We want to talk to him.”
Tav ignored them.
“Come on.” One of the boys leaned forward, eyes shining like frozen tears. “You can tell us where he is. We don’t bite.” He snapped his jaw, and they both laughed.
Tav’s hand tightened around the knife in their pocket.
“Aww, come on, don’t be like that,” said the other boy. “We’re just being friendly —” He reached a hand out. To touch their shoulder. To grab their sleeve. To — what? Tav didn’t know. They just acted.
Tav twisted away and pulled the blade free, ready to scare them off. Ready to draw blood.
The ghost moved.
Flickered.
One moment it was beside Tav and the next it was in front of the boys, its mouth opening wider than any human’s possibly could. Swallowing the hand that had reached for Tav. Swallowing the arm.
Tav closed their eyes. A scream was cut short — was it theirs? No. Someone else’s. A human noise.
They opened their eyes again, throat tight, hand shaking.
All that was left were a pair of earbuds and a wool scarf lying discarded on the sidewalk.
The seed broke open. Tav’s heart pounded. As they left the bus stop — walking, running, flying over the pavement, needing to move, driven by adrenalin that blocked out the cold, the fear, the fury — a new thought burned itself across their brain.
Magic was real.
Magic would be their revolution.
Now —
“He’s back,” said Eli, peering out the window.
“Mm.”
“Does he come here a lot?”
Tav tried for a noncommittal shrug, fiddling with one of many zippers on their motorcycle jacket — also thrifted, and a couple sizes too big.
“Why does he follow you around?”
“Let it go, all right?” Tav banged on Cam’s door. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I don’t like it.” Eli pressed her forehead against the glass. “I don’t like that he’s here. The Coven —”
“You’re being paranoid.”
The exposed skin on the back of Eli’s hands lit up, tiny lights crawling just under the surface like insects. “You have no idea what they’re capable of.”
Tav didn’t know if Eli meant the ghost or the Coven. They didn’t ask.
“We have to go.” Tav banged again.
“Coming!” yelled Cam.
“He’s dangerous.”
“Eli.” Their voice was a warning.
“He’s killed people.”
“So have you.”
Eli opened her mouth to protest, but instead vanished.
Tav waited a few seconds for her to reappear, and when she didn’t, turned and walked to the door. Grabbed the keys. So that was how it was going to be. Fine. She’d better show up when they needed her.
Cam emerged from his room, tousling his hair. Tav could see through the glamour to the stone-studded body underneath — flecks of granite and limestone and mica roughening his smooth skin. He had made a bargain with the sentient stone of an alien planet, the Labyrinth that shimmered over the witches’ city, often invisible to those who did not know how to feel, but always watching. The walls that had sunk their teeth deep into the foundation of the world.
They had all been changed by their time in the City of Eyes.
The thought of using Cam as their shield, of watching him put his body between them and the witches’ blades, made Tav’s heart twinge.
“I’m ready,” he said, then frowned. “Where’s Eli?”
“She’ll meet us there.” Guilt blurred the edges of their vision. It wasn’t fair to keep throwing the dead human in Eli’s face, but that isn’t what they’d meant when they’d compared her to the ghost. Tav had come to an understanding that everything and everyone was dangerous — and that didn’t mean they deserved to be dead. Tav slept easy knowing the ghost was out there, wandering the streets, watching over them. It always felt like a homecoming when the ghost stopped outside their door or made its way to The Sun. Not quite a friend, not an enemy. Another misfit, maybe. A memory. The moment that changed their life forever.
Eli felt differently. And now she was AWOL.
You can’t rely on anyone, thought Tav. Something their mom used to say.
Cam was watching them warily. “Tav —”
Tav hated the gentleness in his voice. “It’s fine, Cam. She’ll be there.”
Cam nodded, grabbed his jacket, and walked out. Tav paused at the door and turned back to look at the apartment — Oreo crumbs and coffee stains, a single puzzle piece in a cocoon of dust. A marked absence of framed photographs and schoolbooks.
Magic everywhere, like dirt.
Four
THE HEIR
Kite folded the page into the shape of a hummingbird and spat on it. With a tiny pop, the bird vanished, winging its way to the Labyrinth. Full witches were forbidden from knowing the passages of the sentient stone walls that thrived on secrets and mischief.
But Kite was not like any of the other Coven members.
Kite had been named.
The name Eli had tasted in her blood was a different kind of magic, the kind of bond that only children can make. The name had been a gift. Kite had not stolen it.
When Kite crossed over to the human realm in her coming-of-age ceremony, she pretended to bring back the name she had already been given. Without a name, the small passageway between the City of
