“Most things can.” Kite reached up to play with her hair and found nothing. Her hand hung in mid-air like a marionette on a string. “Humans are very fragile.”
“Well, unlucky for you, I survived.”
“It’s not unlucky. You’re much more useful alive.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” Kite smiled sunnily, her sense of existence spreading through her limbs to her extremities. Away from the obsidian plains, she felt full of life and magic and chaos again, and it was wonderful. “Does almost dying always feel this good?” she asked.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.” Cam began polishing a pyrolite with the dirty hem of his shirt.
“Let me.” Kite reached out and trailed a damp, slimy finger across his arm. Drops of seawater glistened where her skin touched his.
Cam said nothing, but he held still so she could polish each individual stone. She missed nothing: not the tiny pebble of sandstone, not the cracked limestone, not the dolomite. At her touch the stones seemed to calm, as if her very touch was a lullaby.
Under the bed of her finger Kite could feel the live-liness of the stones. She could feel the trace of their home, which, in some small way, was her home, too: the Labyrinth had sheltered her and the other children when no one else would. Just being near Cam was a comfort.
Finally, he was as clean as he was going to be. He stared at the desert around them in resignation. “So, a thousand steps in a straight line, or do you have a shortcut?”
“A shortcut?” Her voice trilled like a sparrow’s. “To what?”
“The junkyard? That’s how we got there last time. A thousand steps in any direction, the junkyard is the portal. Right?”
Kite stared at him in confusion, her eyes swirling with grey mist. Then they cleared to a polished aquamarine beryl. “The sword brought us home. It would not mislead us.” Her hand stroked the blade affectionately, and it warmed to her touch.
A silence followed her pronouncement. She looked down at her feet, cool against the sand. Her pale feet contrasted with the dull redbronze of the land.
“This isn’t the junkyard,” said Cam. His words fell like dying stars burning through the silence. “The junkyard is gone.”
“Nothing is ever gone,” said Kite, staring at the blade in her hand. Crimson light glinted off its strange black-and-silver surface, dazzling her eyes. She looked up.
Desert stretched out in every direction.
“It’s so … quiet.” Cam shivered. The stones on his body did not shiver with him. They made no sound, but instead held themselves unnaturally still as muscle and sinew moved underneath.
He was right. Where were the buzzing trees, and angry insects, the ferocious flotsam and jetsam that had washed up on the shores of time, falling from the outskirts of victory? Where was the wind running its hands through her hair?
Understanding unfurled itself like a plant starving for sunlight.
Kite saw the moment his eye snagged on a speck on the sand that was black like a beetle’s carapace. Grasping it in one hand, he pulled out an umbrella. Sand poured over his feet.
“There should be mountains of things. Before, it was —” He waved the umbrella around, shedding sand.
“That was probably hundreds of years ago,” said Kite, trying to make her voice gentle.
As his shoulders slumped and his eyes started to flutter shut, she realized she had used a too-gentle voice. Adjusting her voice like a musician tuning a guitar, she continued, “Time passes differently here.”
He woke up. “Right. Time pockets or something.” Cam looked around helplessly. “So everything’s gone. There’s no one to help us.”
Kite shook her head. The lightness of her hair threw her off balance, and a dizziness spread through her entire body. She stilled her movement, turning herself into a statue. “For someone so good at listening, you really are terrible at looking.”
Thirty-Nine
THE HEALER
Tav heard the words fall from their mouth and knew they were true. The only way to save Eli was to return the Heart to its world. They had to go back to the City of Eyes.
Once, they had dreamed with the Hedge-Witch. They had wanted to steal the Heart and use its power to change the human city, to break what needed to be broken and build something new. But the power of the Heart was not a weapon — it was a living creature, the soul of a planet. It would burn any body that tried to hold it for long. And they weren’t going to sacrifice Eli for anything. That wasn’t the revolution they wanted. The Hedge-Witch had taught them this with her betrayal.
How you do something is just as important as what you do. And Tav was not a tyrant. Just a boi with anger in the shape of an arrow — both a weapon and a sign pointing the way forward.
Tav’s anger had never just been anger.
It was justice.
It was heartbreak.
It was connection.
It was love.
You don’t sacrifice the people and futures that you want to save.
Their voice strengthened, threads of confidence and decision weaving into the words. “We return the Heart to the City of Eyes — but not the Coven. We give it to someone else. To the wall. To the wastelands. To the forest.”
Eli’s words were so soft that Tav had to read her lips. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“It will work.” Tav’s grip tightened. “If I have to cut it out of you myself, it will work.”
“But the Vortex —”
“We’ll find another way to heal the rift,” Tav cut her off. “Without the Heart. Clytemnestra is waging war on the Coven as we speak. There are other magics we can use.” They hesitated, and then offered what they were pretty sure was a lie. “My magic is getting stronger, Eli. I think I’ll be able to heal the wounds without the Heart.”
Eli sighed. Fingerprints on her glasses. Hair tucked behind her ear, a few strands falling loose. Tav wanted to reach out and stroke them into place.
“No. We
