After all, Tav needed her.
Fifty-Five
THE HEALER
Tav revved the engine and laughed, feeling that familiar rush of power between their legs. No matter how far across the galaxy they travelled, this would always feel like home.
“Time for our grand entrance, girl,” they told the bike. It seemed to whine in anticipation. Tav swore the mermaid winked at them.
The door grew large enough to fit the human and their mount and Tav rode their faithful metal steed into the war chamber of the Coven, where beauty and deceit glittered like shards of ice.
As Tav crossed over from the Children’s Lair and into the Coven, they could see the magic swirling in the space, an oppressive light thick as fog seeping into their nostrils and mouth, filling their pores with the smell of power.
Tav careened through a ballroom of marble and black quartz tile made to look like a giant chessboard. Huge chandeliers made of pink crystal tinkled faintly overhead and cast a pinkish-red hue over the room. They felt themselves immediately drawn to the pulsing light that emanated from a throne on the opposite side of the grand chamber. The light was intoxicating and alluring, pulling them in like a spider wrapping insects in sweet-smelling web before eating them alive.
They drove toward it, toward the Witch Lord, toward the trap made for a baby Warlord.
A trap that would be sprung by a human who could use magic, a creature no one seemed to understand.
Witches flittered out of the way of the gleaming monster as Tav raced through the chamber, leaving a trail of pretty destruction in their wake — spilled pearls and flawed diamonds, plates of food upended onto the shining marble floor. Tav slammed on the brakes and turned sharply before the raised dais where the throne stood, leaving tire tracks on the white marble. They patted their bike once and whispered, “Thank you,” before dismounting.
A scandalized silence followed their entrance, as the court waited to see how the Witch Lord would deal with this disturbance.
“You must be our honoured guest,” she said.
The throne was so bright that Tav had to look away from the burning star that was the elaborate centrepiece of the game.
“I must be,” Tav agreed, offering a short bow — making sure to show their neck, a sign of vulnerability that told the witches they were not afraid. Kite had coached them on these small, specific gestures.
They waited.
Out of the corner of one eye, Tav saw a single, flawless pearl roll across the floor.
The court held its collective breath, a garden of stone and glass statues.
The Witch Lord made them wait.
The light began to ebb, bleeding out of the throne. Behind Tav, the murmured sounds of velvet brushing against skin filled the ballroom. Hushed voices whispered to one another; songbirds opened their shining beaks and sent clean, pure notes from pillar to pillar.
“You may stand,” said the Witch Lord.
Tav stood again and met the gaze of the only person in the worlds who frightened Clytemnestra.
Their eyes widened and they fought to keep from stepping back and showing weakness. Struggled not to react to the confusion and horror that coursed through their entire being.
Sitting on the throne, her hair writhing around her face like a curse, was Kite.
Fifty-Six
THE HEART
Eli looked for the magic purpleblack signature she now recognized as Tav’s. The City of Eyes was full of magic threads that glittered and burned, filling the world with colour and light. She could see the silverwhite glow from Clytemnestra’s essence. It was angry, but it would take a while for the Warlord to stitch her body back together and regenerate the damaged cells.
Eli could see a thousand threads stretching between bodies of water and bodies of land; between spongy flesh photosynthesizing and skeletal and muscular frames running on oxygen; between rock and bone and glass.
Only three threads of light connected to Eli —
Smoky purple with the sheen of midnight: Tav.
Gold painted with aquamarine starlight: Kite.
The third was mossy green and bronze and reminded Eli of fossils and music. Cam’s alive, she thought, relief flowering under her rib cage. He’s probably a lot safer than we are right now.
These threads were pathways between Eli and the people she loved, the people she had chosen to tether herself to. These were not lines drawn in the sand, not fault lines dividing tectonic plates, not chains to enslave her. These threads were a string between two tin cans, the kind human children play with. These threads were a climber’s rope: something to hold on to.
Eli reached out and strummed first the purple thread, and then the gold. The first note was low and rich, a major chord on a piano. The second was high and wailing, like a violin that’s been deliberately left out of tune. Then she strummed the third thread: silence, but gentle vibrations, as if the instrument was muffled by dirt. Eli didn’t know what that meant. But they were all alive, at least for now.
She followed Tav. No one should have to face the Witch Lord alone.
The thread wound through the mad labyrinthine dollhouse of the Children’s Lair, the signature fading and then flaring up again, sometimes disappearing entirely. But Eli’s body, fused with the Heart, could always find it.
Eli followed the thread through rooms filled only with neon shoelaces and disposable cameras, through rooms that were giant pillow forts, soft blankets twisted into arches and portcullises. Through rooms that were bare stone with manacles in the wall, the rusted iron wrapped in flowering vines.
Each step took her closer to Tav. Closer to the Witch Lord. Closer to war.
The signature flared a fierce indigo, and Eli stopped in a room that was like a Barbie playhouse — if Barbie was both a princess and a dragon.
A hot pink vinyl beanbag chair sat in one corner, covered in swaths of fabrics and costumes. Gold and silver buttons spilled from a tulle tutu and onto the stone flooring. The shredded remains of
