Tav nodded. The obsidian blade, gifted by Eli, would tie them together. Hopefully, they would be able to use the power of the Heart to change the wound into a door.
As they handed Eli the potted plant, the wiring in their brain lit up with panic.
They had no idea what the fuck they were doing.
Their eyes roamed to the rooftops, and Tav realized they were looking for the ghost. He hadn’t followed them this time. He hadn’t come. Their heart sank. They thought he would be here to guard them. Had Eli scared him away, or hurt him? No. She wouldn’t do that to Tav.
Feeling uneasy, Tav turned back to Eli. The three of them would have to be enough.
THE HEART
Eli held the plant in the air and focused on the seam. The aloe plant slowly stretched itself up into the heavens, growing larger and thicker, spines bursting from its base, which had become a trunk; leaves uncurling, flowers budding, blossoming, and then dying. White petals rained down from the tree onto the three bodies underneath.
Eli closed her eyes and felt the brush of a petal on her eyelid. She smelled wet earth and rain, and the burnt-coffee-and-metal scent of home-brewed magic. She took the petal from her eyelid, opened her mouth, and laid it on her tongue. It tasted of apple and summer.
The petal dissolved onto her tongue.
The vine breached the sky.
Eli flinched, sweat beading on her forehead.
“What is it?” asked Tav. “Eli, what’s happening? Why isn’t —”
Eli couldn’t hear them. See them. Feel them. All she could feel was the pain in the world, the agony of a planet being devoured by witches. The seam was a bloody wound in time and space. Tied by magic and flesh, by the sense of kinship Eli felt with the entire universe, Eli was the wound. The Heart ached with the dying world.
Something had gone wrong. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.
Eli was the sky being ripped open. Eli was the body being drained of life. The pain seared through her body and mind.
Eli moaned, and her eyes rolled up into the back of her head.
Six
THE HEIR
Kite burned a brilliant greenblue as she walked through the long hallway of the Coven. She was flame, and ice, and sky. She was the northern lights that danced across the human world. She was power incarnate.
She was the Heir Rising.
Today she was leaving the Coven. She had been blessed by the Witch Lord herself to travel to the City of Ghosts, to the very stars if need be, to recover the Heart. Today she began her journey, and the entire City would hold its breath for their Heir.
The animals were still. The plants unfurled their leaves and petals, the woods groaned a lament of farewell. The sky was still and unchanging. The world honoured her.
For years, Kite had studied ancient tomes in the archives, trying to find a way to set Eli free, to change her fate. But Eli had escaped without Kite’s help. Kite had never been prouder of her friend than when Clytemnestra had told her. Eli had broken the cycle.
Now Kite would break the world.
Sometimes dead brush needed to burn to create new life.
“When you are the Witch Lord, you can change everything.” But Kite had never wanted to be the Witch Lord. Kite longed for her books, for her writing; she cared for forgotten magics and ones that had not yet been created. She cared for the walls and the children and the flora and fauna lost in the wastelands. She wanted to listen. She wanted to create. She had never wanted to rule. If she played the game well, she wouldn’t have to.
And Kite was good at games.
She appeared before one of the Coven guards, the bodiless shadows that stalked the keep and spoke in mellifluous tongues.
“Heir.” The shadow bowed low, a mark of respect.
Kite reached out and touched the shadow’s face. “Rise,” she commanded. “And witness this day: for when I return, you will have two Witch Lords.”
Murmurs flowed down the hallway. Shadows flittered across stone. A full vanguard stood at attention.
Kite walked slowly, carefully, her bare feet leaving damp prints. She turned to each shadow and met their eyes. As she walked, she shed pieces of clothing like strands of hair. The bruises and scars that marked her skin would be heralded as portents of change. She had earned this moment with her flesh and blood, with bone and magic and essence.
Whispers danced across her naked shoulders as she left her past behind, bringing only herself into the angry light of a hungry and desperate world. Her world. A world that was ending.
When I return, you will have two Witch Lords.
The Coven itself heard these words, and felt their power, as if carved into the foundation.
A thousand eyes watched as Kite summoned the Vortex, the pathway between worlds. Assassins who were made from human and magic and frost and stone could move easily between worlds, but witches were pure magic. Their essences were vulnerable in the cold nothingness of the void, and were often rejected by the portal, refused entry into a world so alien to their nature. That was why crossing the threshold was the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. Many witches died in the Vortex.
Kite closed her eyes and felt for the seam between worlds, the one that had been used so many times that it almost opened on its own; some nights, if you stood on the roof of the Coven to stargaze, you could see a small tear in time and space, and through that hole, the glittering lights of the human city.
The seam opened easily, and Kite stepped inside.
It was dry. This
