It made Kite want to dance, too.
So she did. She swayed in place, her hair rippling around her ears and neck; her arms waving like leaves fluttering in the wind. She moved, and she watched him.
She watched his breathing slow, his heartbeat drop to a gentle murmur. She watched as Cam pressed his palms to the sand. She watched as he sank deeper and deeper into the earth, until he was waist-deep in sand.
But the sand didn’t take the goblet, the plate, or the spoon. Instead, objects began rising from underground. More plates — plastic and glass and metal, with gold leaf edges, scratches, and stains. Forks with tines missing, chopsticks, tiny silver dessert forks that had fallen out of fashion.
Cam gasped, and his heart rate accelerated. Kite could see his pulse twitching like a fish tossed up on shore, writhing under his skin. His face was pale, and he was shivering.
Kite caught him before he fell, and he slumped to one side. She pressed her cheek to his and let her hair heal his fever. Finding the lost took a toll on a body, and humans were not invincible.
She needed to remember that.
“You’re okay.” She repeated the words she had heard Eli speak. “You’re going to be okay.”
“They’re angry,” he whispered.
“They should be. They have not been treated well.”
“No, we haven’t.”
His eyes snapped open. Kite peered into their red depths and saw her own eyes, glowing turquoise lights, reflected back. And something else, swimming in the murkiness of his pupil —
A few grains of sand.
A smile tremored through her entire body, and she felt her essence burning with a brighter light.
“Stop that.” Cam winced and drew back, shielding his eyes from the light. But Kite couldn’t hold in the excitement and anticipation that swam through her arteries.
“You said we,” she whispered back. “We.”
She would not have to force them, not have to ensorcell the bitter and broken lives in the junkyard. She would not have to steal their stagnant magic like a spider lurking in a web. Only now did it occur to her that Clytemnestra might have wanted her to fail — she must have known the lost things would not trust the Heir. Perhaps the Warlord wanted to get rid of a potential threat. Or perhaps Clytemnestra fully trusted Kite’s power, trusted in the violence of her pet Heir. But there would be no fighting or force, and no one would die today on the lonely wastelands of a heartless world.
They wanted to come. Because of Cam.
“You are amazing,” she told him, and kissed the top of his head.
He blinked in astonishment and then grinned. “Parallel parking is harder than you think,” he told her.
“I’ve never wanted to learn.”
Other creatures were rising from the ground: bone-white trees slashed with deep red; monsters made out of aluminum and peach pits, and more stones than a rocky beach, their jagged edges glinting in the light.
This was an army to tear the Witch Lord from her throne.
“They can take us back to the Labyrinth,” said Cam. “Is that safe?”
“Of course not,” said Kite. “But we’ll go, anyway. Just … wait.”
There was one more loose end before they left. Kite found that she was a little sorry to be returning to her home of marble and glitter and Lycra. There was something lovely about the bronze desert, something comforting about the moraine of fury and passion that lived underneath the sand. But it was time for the ugly things to be seen, and for the pretty shine of power to be worn away.
Kite walked back to the sword. It had protected her, saved her, risked its life to fight off the dead witches for her. And maybe she had the power to compel it, or to drink its magic and become as strong and sharp as a blade herself. But Kite was not the future Witch Lord. She was a second-hand witch, a daughter who had learned how to cheat at games without getting caught, a reader who missed her books so much it hurt.
She would not use the power her mother gave to her.
Kite brought her face close to the blade’s edge, so close she felt the desire to press her skin against it and give her life to it. “You are home, my love. Thank you for saving me. We are going into battle now, on the other side of the world. Will you come with me and risk your metal again, or will you stay here?”
A long moment followed her question. The blade darkened, and red patterns swirled across the alien alloy.
The sword was thinking.
Kite waited patiently, her hair gently swaying around her face.
A flash of light. Kite stared down at the sword, and saw her glowing eyes burning in the silver. Then there were a hundred eyes opening across the blade.
Kite flushed with pleasure. Tenderly, she reached out and slid her arm against the edge, leaving a thin line of silverblue in her skin. Kite watched the sword drink her blood and murmured to the blade, so low that no one could hear her, “Thank you. I will make sure you are not lonely.”
“Are you ready?” Cam asked quietly. Kite stared at him. A piece of algae drifted across one of her eyes, briefly obscuring her vision. She blinked, and sent it skittering back to the corner.
Kite wondered what he saw when he watched her bent over the blade, singing to its sharp edge, letting her blood bead along the surface. Was he curious? Aroused? Jealous? Kite had never been able to reach inside the skull of a human and unravel their thoughts.
“Does that matter?” she asked, frowning. Was she ready to see the world change completely in a few sharp moments? Was she ready to face Clytemnestra, or Eli, or her mother? What did it mean, to be ready?
The sword warmed under her touch.
“It’s okay,” Cam repeated her words back to her. “It’s going to be
