Tav glanced at Eli’s frost blade, the sharp edge shimmering like sun on ice. They didn’t need the confirmation of the blade of truth to believe Eli’s words. Growing up in a city of lies and secrets, of diversity posters and slurs dripping from wide smiles, Tav had learned to recognize the truth when they heard it — the clean shine of skin scrubbed smooth by soap and friction.
They had to go back to the Coven.
They knew it was the truth — but they didn’t have to like it. “You want to keep fighting? You just said this is killing you!” They didn’t like the note of fear that rang in their voice. But Cam was gone, and the scent of allium nectar was the only thing keeping the nightmares at bay.
Eli carefully extricated Tav’s hand from her shoulder. To Tav, it felt like she was slipping through their fingers like smoke.
“Eli, it could destroy you.”
Eli reached out a hand and gently brushed a strand of curly black-and-violet hair from Tav’s face.
“I know, Tav. And I really don’t want to stop existing. But I have no idea how to separate myself from the Heart. Even trying could kill me. And we can’t fix the world without the Heart.” Her eyes narrowed, and her voice grew heavy with emotion. “I’ve already lost one home, one family, one way of life. I won’t — I can’t — lose another.”
Tav’s dream poured from their memory and danced before their eyes:
A frozen river torn in half, fragments of ice like a string of diamonds gleaming under the silverwhite glow of the moon.
Feathers like black flames, crackling with edges of purple and gold and green.
A crumpled body with a sprig of hawthorn growing from its chest.
A nightmare or a prophecy? Tav didn’t know. But they knew the flow of a river could not be stopped for long. They knew they had power that no one — not the Hedge-Witch, not Eli, not even themselves — understood.
They would save her.
“Okay,” Tav said. “Jesus, this is crazy, but okay. We get the children to help us. We channel the magic of the Coven through the Heart, and we finish this. And then — then we figure out how to remove the Heart and keep you alive. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise me that we’ll try.”
Eli turned her reptilian eyes on Tav. She placed a sweaty hand over Tav’s, their fingers interlacing like a woven daisy crown.
“Okay,” she said. “I promise.”
Eli pulled her hand away again, spat into her palm, and pulled a few strands of hair from her head. She offered the sticky promise to Tav.
Tav shook their head. “I trust you. I don’t need it bound by magic.”
Eli’s hand hung outstretched, shaking slightly. Then she took it back and wiped it on her jeans.
Tav fell back into their thoughts. It made sense. The Coven had torn open the world and only from there could it be mended. And once that was finished, they would save Eli. They would find a way.
They were going back to the City of Eyes. To the world of witches and dark magic and deadly daughters.
Tav’s heart quickened. They were going back. To chaos and danger and colour. No more secret 2:00 a.m. struggles for a city that didn’t care. No more furtive magics and missed phone calls and guilt. No more trying to be human. No more following rules and obeying orders.
They couldn’t deny that the call of the witch world was strong. It claimed at least half of them. Already adrenalin was surging through their body at the anticipation. The fierce trees. The hungry stone.
If they were being honest, they knew all along it might come to this.
If they were being even more honest, this is what they had always wanted. A city in the sky. A world of power and light. The taste of magic like honey and lavender dissolving on their tongue.
A homecoming.
THE HEART
A homecoming.
Dread spread through the network of veins and capillaries and arteries that made up her ragged body of magic and flesh, pearl and granite. Eli could feel her eyes growing glassy and wet. She reached a hand up to brush a tear from her eye. She rubbed it between thumb and forefinger and brought it to her nose to sniff.
The substance was thin and smelled of formaldehyde. The Heart was corrupting her tears. She was becoming less herself with every passing moment.
Eli didn’t want to go back. She had only just started to make a home for herself in the City of Ghosts, with Tav and Cam and the promise of sunlight every morning, with logic and laughter and honeybees.
But the Heart’s power was waning. Earth was not its home, and it pined for its daughters, for the silver sap of the forests and the rhythm of the stones dancing under the earth. If they returned to the City of Eyes it would be replenished, its full power returned. And if her fragile body could hold that power long enough, they could heal the rift. They could save the dying Earth, and the many ecosystems and lives on that planet.
Eli never wanted to see the Coven again. The long white hallways, the traces of chains, the histories that whispered of control and hopelessness. Returning meant revisiting the spaces that had hurt her. It meant giving in to memory. You are a tool. You have value.
But it was the only way she could heal the rift between worlds.
“So how do we get there?” Tav asked. “I’m drained, and we can’t use the Vortex.”
Eli licked the formaldehyde from her hand. “Oh, don’t
