Her skin was stripped away, like tearing the bark off an old tree. Her fragile essence was exposed to the darkness, to the empty nothingness.
The only thing you brought into the Vortex was yourself.
It was so easy for Eli, who was overflowing with life, who was a patchwork of lives. Kite had only ever been one lonely thing. And the Vortex knew it.
Kite concentrated on the connections that drew her to the human world: Eli’s hair in her mouth, saliva sinking into her bloodstream when Eli bit her too hard.
There. The City of Ghosts appeared in her vision, and all Kite had to do was hold on for a few more moments.
Instead, she threw herself recklessly out of the Vortex.
She fell for days.
When she emerged, flame extinguished in the gentle wetness of her own body, she was comforted by the smooth stone under her palms.
“Took you long enough,” said Clytemnestra, sitting on a new throne made of daisy chains and bicycle spokes. She was alone. She inclined her head slightly, the closest to respect that the outlaw leader of the children would grant.
Adopting a dilettante drawl, Clytemnestra continued. “I have a task for you, after all.” She lowered her chin bashfully and pulled out three eyelashes. “You’re going to build me an army.”
Seven
TAV
Eli’s body was shaking, her eyes rolling wildly. Tav flinched toward her, but caught themselves and drew back.
“Do something!” Cam was trembling, the stones on his arms and torso ringing out as they brushed against one another.
“Not yet.”
Above them the sky had been torn open, and through the gaping hole in the world they could see flashes of colour, glittering geometric shapes, and glimpses of faraway galaxies. A storm, dark and crackling with electricity, circled the emptiness.
“If we leave it open too long —”
“I said not yet.”
The moans died and left behind a void of silence. The rip in the sky was widening, like the mouth of a monster.
No one moved.
Not yet.
The Heart flared bright with righteous fury.
Now. Tav exhaled.
“She’s glowing,” whispered Cam, the sound of the stones dissonant and out of tune. “Something’s wrong.”
“And we’re going to make it right.” Tav turned to their friend. “If anyone tries to stop us —”
“I can handle it. Go do your magic zipper thing.” He smiled. It wavered on his face and then collapsed.
Tav nodded once, and then wrapped their arms around the tree, around Eli, around the pulsing, glowing, angry magic. The obsidian blade was held firmly in their hand. Gently, so gently, Tav pressed the knife against their palm.
It shouldn’t have surprised them that it cut, but it did — not skin, but something else that lived in Tav’s body. Dark purple steam rose from the cut. Quickly, Tav did the same to the back of Eli’s hand.
Tav pressed their wound over Eli’s. They closed their eyes. Open.
Are you here? Eli was the wound, the tree, the pavement, the boi, the ghost, the human, the past, the present, the world. She was lost in all she was and how much hurt she carried.
I’m here. Tav had opened a door between them — and now Tav, too, was the wound, the Heart, the tree.
We don’t have time —
I know —
If I lose control, the storm will destroy everything it can —
We won’t lose control —
Tav was the tree, the Heart, the door — and more than that. The maker of doors. They had their own magic, and a strong sense of who they were. They would not lose themselves in this union. And they wouldn’t let Eli lose herself, either.
Tav stretched out the obsidian blade and plunged it deep into the trunk.
The tree bled tears.
Tav stabbed again. (Cam, watching, saw how both bodies, intertwined with the tree, were glowing like a sun, painfully bright. He had to look away.)
Tav stabbed again. The tears running down the trunk crystallized into pieces of salt.
Breaking apart the old door was more exhausting than the pure physical action; every movement took magic and intention. Tav found themselves shaking with weakness. Then a hand gripped theirs, fingers threading through theirs.
My turn.
Eli lifted Tav’s hand holding the blade and directed it into the tree, peeling off great sheets of bark that crumbled to the ground and transformed into red petals.
In her other hand, Eli raised the pearl blade that would tear the unnatural magic from the natural world. Both blades fought against the brutal witch-crafted magic that had torn open the galaxy.
The leaves started to wither and fall from the trunk. The vines started to retreat, and some of the pain, the hurt, the poison, was leeched out with them.
The wound was healing.
Soon, Eli was holding a small clay pot filled with dirt, salt, and red petals.
Tav let go of her and stumbled back, wiping sweat from their forehead. Wisps of purple smoke still curled from the cut on their palm. The storm was fading, leaving flecks of electricity like glitter in the sky.
“That wasn’t so bad,” they gasped.
“Good — that was the easy part,” said Eli, grasping their shoulder. Tav could see veins of stone under her face, could see spots of blood where thorn had grown through skin. This had been hard on her body, too.
Eli took a deep breath, her fingers digging into Tav’s shoulder. “Ready?”
“Or not.” Tav placed their hand over Eli’s, and the jolt of electricity that passed between them had nothing to do with magic, just skin on skin, the meeting of two bodies.
THE HEART
They feel like feathers, thought Eli, grateful that their minds were no longer merged.
They had closed the wound. Now they needed to reopen it — but as a door that worked both ways, that allowed the two worlds to live in harmony. A symbiotic
