“She’s the Heart,” said Clytemnestra harshly. “The Heart of this world. You can fuck a world, you can love a world — but it can’t love you back.” She shifted her face into an approximation of sympathy. “This is something all children have to learn,” she crooned softly. “It can never love you back.”
Anger choked Tav’s lungs and throat. They coughed violently, and black phlegm splattered over the witch. Steam rose from the tiny wounds Tav’s mucus had inflicted on the Warlord.
Clytemnestra calmly wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. “Come,” she said. “There’s someone who wants to see you.”
“Eli —”
“I will watch over it,” she said. “And I know more than you, little one. You’re just a baby, aren’t you?”
“I don’t trust you.”
“The feeling is mutual.” Clytemnestra offered a coquettish smile. She waved a hand and the far wall shimmered like a mirage, and then melted, the rock pooling on the floor and hardening into waves of magma.
Tav gritted their teeth. “I’m not leaving until she wakes up.”
A storm cloud formed over Clytemnestra’s head. “You’re ruining my fun!” she stomped her feet and snorted. Smoke spiralled from her nostrils. Electricity shimmered over her head as tiny forks of lightning spat sparks at Tav.
Tav didn’t back down. They stared at the storm forming around the Warlord, and then through it — into the white magic edged with peach and coral. Then, as they had done with the magic of the world, and with the many strands of magic running through Eli’s body, Tav reached into the core of the storm cloud and grabbed a handful of cream-and-pink thread.
Clytemnestra shrieked. The storm vanished. When Tav opened their hand, revealing three apple seeds.
“It’s rude to touch someone else’s magic,” said the witch primly.
She swooped down and gobbled the seeds from Tav’s hand.
Tav remembered feeding chickadees like this in the winter. Their mother would take them cross-country skiing in the woods, their skis leaving smooth ribbons in the fresh snow.
“This time, I forgive you, because you are a newborn and don’t know any better,” said Clytemnestra. “But if you touch me like that again, I will eat your eyes.”
So there were rules, social etiquette, even in the savage city of bloodlust and revenge. Even among thieves and warmongers.
The regicidal girl was staring at Tav like they were a new kind of insect she wanted to stick under the microscope.
“I don’t know what you are,” she said, and ran her tongue over her teeth. “But you are interesting.”
Tav wasn’t sure they wanted the attention of the volatile Warlord.
“I’ll play,” Clytemnestra announced. “I haven’t been dream-diving since the seven seedling stars hung like pearls in the sky. You’ll need that” — she inclined her head at the sliver of obsidian that was cold as ice against Tav’s forearm — “in case any of the monsters in her head come out.”
Tav nodded. Together, they turned to the ghostly outline of a girl made of light and a power that was corroding her flesh.
THE HEART
Eli was standing on the island.
It had once been a haven for her and Kite, an escape, a fantasy. Make-believe. It had once bubbled with life — the clear brook, the crustaceans and fish and insects that came to worship Kite’s hypnotic hair. The song of the trees like a sacred hymn.
Now the water ran red with the blood of the humans she hadn’t saved. It was too late. She had failed.
“Miss me?” Clytemnestra turned a few cartwheels in the air, her Cupid’s bow mouth pursed into a perfect kiss.
Eli rummaged through her memory for scraps of linguistic shrapnel. “I never miss.” She tapped the glass blade, and the sound of a thousand chandeliers echoed against the stone walls.
Walls? Eli scanned the shadows of the trees but saw nothing. Where was she?
Was this real?
Did that matter?
Clytemnestra halted midturn, legs over her head. Her eyes widened, like pieces of white quartz. Eli could see herself reflected in those eyes.
“You’re losing so much,” scolded Clytemnestra, staring at the glass blade that had no scars, no scratches, no flecks of witch blood staining its surface. It was clean as fresh snow, as clean as the day Eli was crafted. “If you lose yourself to the Heart, I’m going to be in big trouble with that sexy boi of yours. They want their plaything back.”
“I’m not anyone’s thing.”
Clytemnestra smiled, an upside-down grin that looked like a clownish scowl. “We’re all things in here.”
“In where?”
Her cartwheel completed, Clytemnestra landed on the island. Where her feet touched the ground, yellow daisies burst from cracks in the rock, grew several feet tall, withered, died, and vanished. Standing at her full height, she only came up to Eli’s waist. Eli reached for the obsidian blade, but it was gone.
“Looking for this?” Clytemnestra ran the blade over her fingernails like a file. Eli froze, and then opened her mouth, crocodile teeth overflowing her small jaw.
“I was just borrowing it!” Clytemnestra squealed and threw it in the air. Eli grabbed it and slid it back into its leather skin, but something was already in there.
Trembling, Eli pulled out a piece of honeycomb. She ran her thumb over the wax hexagons and tried to remember what she was doing here.
“You should be more careful.” Clytemnestra wagged her finger.
“What game are you playing?”
“Which one?” Clytemnestra giggled and then floated up until she was at eye level with the assassin. “It’s almost time. I hope you’re ready.”
Eli narrowed her eyes. “I’m always ready.”
Clytemnestra clapped her hands together excitedly, sparks flying from the friction between her palms. They sizzled against the earth and died. “Having you around is so much fun. So many new deadly games! But don’t stay here too long,” she added. “I’ve heard the Earth is dying. And so are you.”
Twelve mirrors circled the girl and the witch. A dozen little witches blew a dozen kisses. Eli flinched, her eyelids snapping closed and then opening again.
Clytemnestra was gone. Eli stared at her reflections, girls
