The assassin. The first one she had found, dismembered, in the depths of the Coven. The one she had put back together. The one who now led the small coalition of daughters who had been recovered through Kite’s alchemy or who had fled their mothers and been welcomed in the Children’s Lair. The one who would take no name.
The unnamed stared at the Heir, her white eye smooth and clear as cream. The gold power in Kite’s body surged toward that eye, the eye that absorbed power and used it to heal. Kite’s essence wanted to steal that magic, but she forced the urge down.
“They left their mothers for this fight,” the unnamed said. “The daughters that march with us.”
“We have that in common,” said Kite.
“When this is over, we will be free. We serve no master. Not even you.”
“No one will serve me.” The truth fell easily from Kite’s lips, like water gushing from a fountain.
“We want your promise that you will not interfere with us.”
“Do you speak for them?”
“No one speaks for us. I speak only for myself.” The words emerged as a canine growl from the back of her throat.
“Then I give you my word.” Kite leaned closer, her hair dancing around the coyote-girl’s neck. The gold magic urged her to drink, but Kite ignored the whispers of a tyrant that sang in her DNA. “And the word is named.”
The Unnamed’s human pupil widened, and a single ripple travelled through the white sucking orb.
“A word and a secret,” she purred softly, her voice velvet paws on soft underbrush. “I accept.”
What would the unnamed do with this knowledge, that the Heir was not a full witch, that she had lied to her mother, that she truly was one of the children? What would she do with the knowledge that Kite had accepted a name from a part-human daughter, a name Eli had read in the taste of her sea-thick blood?
Kite felt the confession tingle on her tongue and lips like lime and chili juice, but once she had offered it to the coyote-girl she felt steadier, as if her bird-bones were thickening, as if she was growing scales. Becoming more herself.
It was time for secrets to be revealed, for notes crumpled in back pockets to be taken out, smoothed flat, and read.
The time for crawling through filthy tunnels and hiding behind serrated smiles was over.
The time for truth — in all its ugliness and magnificence and violence — was now.
“I hope you survive,” Kite told the unnamed.
“Not even death could kill me.” A feral smile. It was the curve of a wave the moment its mouth closed around land.
The touch of water on Kite’s feet shifted, the only sign that the assassin had fallen back to walk with her sisters. She had been silent as an eclipse.
The Unnamed’s smile was contagious, and Kite offered a toothy grin to the darkness.
Bluegreen and goldwhite glowed in her body.
The flood rose.
THE HEART
When the Heart touched the crumbling limestone, she felt like her entire being was strummed by invisible fingers. If she pressed herself into the wall, she could feel the Coven responding to her energy, like hands grasping for something to hold on to.
The Coven guided her back through shifting passages of bone and steel and stone, past stalactites of pale ice encasing fallen stars and stalagmites of marble and beeswax. Phosphorescent moss wrote mathematical equations in blue and indigo and coral light.
The Coven knew where the Heart was needed, and drew her along like a beacon. She didn’t need her made-eyes to see the threads of violet and black flame. She knew where she was, and it was not just a reluctant prison. The Coven was older than the Witch Lord, almost as old as the Heart itself.
As she moved through the space, invisible except for the ribbons of shadow and light that wound themselves around her limbs, Eli was no longer a girl with caffeine cravings and a fear of abandonment; no longer a passionate lover or a scared kid. She was something older, deeper, and stranger. She was a spectre of bright and dark, a star, a planet, a breath of air, a sea-changing wind, the roots of a sapling in damp soil, the chlorophyll pigment of the tiniest leaf. An ending and a beginning.
She was the Heart.
The Coven led her to the war room. Once, it had another name. The Heart remembered the silver birch leaves pressed into stone, the fingerprints of children mapping out constellations on the wall. The tide pools of healing and knowledge overflowing with sand and shells and feathers. Once, every part of the Coven had been a library, a sacred place of knowledge. Once, it had been open to the whole world, to every beast and rock and gust of wind that passed through.
But the tide pools were gone, long dried up. The birch leaves had been torn down, the fingerprints burned away. The war room was dressed in pink crystals and wrapped with shadows, a pretty gift that promised faithlessness.
There were many bodies in the room; some visible, others shielded by glamour and wishes. Eli could see the burnt umber colour of their desires, could almost taste the peppermint aftertaste of their dreams in the back of her throat.
Eli loved all these bodies. Every essence, every ankle, every blade and piece of earth. They were hers, and she was their Heart.
From where she stood, Eli could make out the members of the upper rings drifting around the edges of the dance floor like lanterns, only floating heads, their bodies shrouded in light. At the far end of the room was the throne, which reminded her of the junkyard. Objects, piled onto each other, forced together, shattered and broken and beautiful, formed a throne made of seaglass and sheets of oxidized copper folded into sensuous curves. The
