Kite’s hair fell limp against her shoulders.
“Good.”
“You seem very pleased that the Witch Lord knows the Heart has returned and suspects that we have it.”
“She’s scared, and she’s making mistakes.” Clytemnestra ripped a toenail off and started picking her teeth with it.
“You mean the invitation.”
“The invitation will open a door.”
“Only for the delegate. Then it will close.”
“And while she’s distracted, we go through the library. You will open that door for us.”
And let the children rampage through the stacks. The thought made Kite sick.
“You know, I’ve heard things. Rumours.” The Warlord hovered closer, until her lips were an inch from Kite’s ear. Her breath was hot and sticky. “Whispers about the Witch Lord’s powers. Powers she could share with the Heir Rising.”
Kite stepped away, her hair swirling up in a protective layer around her face. “I’m not the delegate you want.”
“Oh, I know that. It was never going to be you — a watered-down copy too afraid to use her powers. I thought I might have to sacrifice one of the children. But now I have a better idea: we’re sending the human.”
“Whatever happens, you can’t let Eli near her.”
“I promise.”
Kite arched her neck elegantly, letting beads of water run down, catching on her collarbones. “I need to talk to her.”
“No. You talk to the human monster. I’ll make sure our little assassin is safe.”
“I really think —”
“Stick to your books,” said the Warlord, “politics isn’t your style.”
Kite chewed on a piece of her hair and then spat it out. She met the little witch’s gaze. “No manacles this time.”
“Cross my heart.”
Kite nodded once, and then swept past Clytemnestra, head held high. After a few steps she heard a yelp.
“Beastly creature!” the witch shrieked. “When I catch you, I’ll eat you!”
Kite’s lips curved into the shape of a scythe. “Good boy,” she whispered.
Forty-Nine
THE HEART
“We didn’t come here to fight a war,” said Eli.
“Didn’t we?” Tav’s eyes shone with fervor. “Don’t you want to see the Coven burn for what they did to you?”
“Yes. But —”
“We will, Eli.” Passion burned in their voice, and they grabbed Eli’s wrists softly. “We will make them pay for what they did to you. We will make everyone pay.”
Eli felt the Heart warm under Tav’s touch, felt its magic creep along her forearms toward the boi with an obsidian blade and nerves of steel. A boi thirsting for power and destruction. What would happen if the Heart was transplanted into Tav?
Eli pulled away.
“You’re scaring me,” she said, and turned away from the hurt and confusion in Tav’s eyes.
Stay away from me, she thought. This Heart could kill us both.
THE HEALER
Eli pulled away, and Tav saw fear skittering from the corners of her eye like a daddy long-legs.
The draw of the Heart like the whispered promises of schoolchildren in the dark. If Tav reached inside her, they could take it.
They could almost see Cam shaking his head at them, his eyes grey and sad.
Cam.
They had forgotten about Cam — they hadn’t even asked the witch-demon to look for him.
They hated themselves in that moment.
A glimpse of red like a single autumn leaf caught their eye. “Eli?”
“It’s fine.” Eli was fumbling with her shirt. Her hand came away slick with blood. “The fault lines —”
Tav stared at the bared torso on her friend and lover. A crack was forming, a fissure in her body. Through the break in the skin Tav could see the glitter of a granite rib cage.
“Not now,” Eli muttered through gritted teeth. “Not yet —”
She collapsed on the floor. Her glasses fell from her face, a jagged crack splitting across one lens.
Tav fell to their knees, fumbling with Eli’s shirt, pushing the fabric out of the way. They pressed their hands against the fissure and tried to ignore the warmth of the Heart that would soon need a new home.
A trickle of gold flowed through Eli’s veins and arteries. As Tav tried to focus on knitting skin and bone together, a single droplet of worldblood touched their hand.
Images burst across their brain:
A field of jewel-green moss hanging from silver birch branches, blossoms blue as heartache with gold centres opening to the moon. Skin.
An ocean, inhaling and exhaling against a cliff face. Lungs.
A wall of granite and quartz growing through the core. Skeleton.
A planet with a heartbeat.
The afterimage of blue-and-gold petals lingered on the backs of their eyelids.
Sorrow hung around their neck like a stone.
Now Tav understood why the Heart kept calling out to them, why it seemed ready to abandon the girl who had rescued it from the Coven’s chains.
If Eli died, the Heart would die with her.
Unless it found a new host. Unless it was somehow freed. And Tav could free it, could tear the light and magic from the corpse of a made-thing. Could open a door in the magic of Eli’s making.
Tav stared at the small body of the girl who was the life of a world.
It wouldn’t be a surgical incision, small and neat. It would destroy her.
Whispers swirled through their brain.
You’re stronger than Eli.
You’re more powerful.
With this power, you would become a god.
They stared at the perfect curve of Eli’s ribs, at the loose petals in her chest cavity. Purple-and-black smoke curled around their wrists and lingered in the beds of their fingernails. Slowly, the skin grew together, tendrils of flesh and bone reaching out, growing, healing. The scent of burning rose petals.
Tav drew back, and the whispers stopped.
Eli was breathing, but still unconscious. Tav pressed their forehead against her stomach.
I can’t do this without you.
“You can’t help that thing,” a low voice crawled across the space. Tav shuddered — they hadn’t heard anyone entering the room.
“What do you want?”
“The help you promised me,” said the Warlord.
“When she’s better.”
“The children will look after her. And it’s you we want, not her.”
“Me?”
“We need you.” The little girl’s voice was grave. “The world needs you.”
Tav swallowed, watching Eli’s chest rise and fall softly with
