Another tendril of power wrapped around Tav’s waist, and they let it. They breathed through the pain and let the magic drag them closer to the Witch Lord.
“I know what you are,” said the Witch Lord, saliva dripping down her chin. “You are nothing.”
A small prick. The razor edge of a glossy feather biting into the greenblue essence at the core of the witch. Not the stolen power, not the hues of gold and silver and pink that she had wrenched from other witches. Her own. The essence that matched Kite’s.
A look of surprise crossed the Witch Lord’s face. They were so unused to pain, to fear, and could not express it. Tav, the greenblue essence pinned in place with a steel feather, raised the obsidian needle and plunged it into the Witch Lord.
A small gasp, like a baby’s breath. Kite’s eyes stared into Tav’s. Tav kept their arms wrapped around the Witch Lord as if in an intimate embrace.
“You smell like peaches,” she whispered, eyes bright like moons.
And then the brightness went out.
Sixty-Nine
THE HEIR
Kite watched herself die without emotion, as if she were watching a black-and-white silent film on a screen. She watched as if she were light years away. She watched as if she were already dead.
She was sorry she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Eli.
The stolen essences in her body shuddered and died, the dead remnants transforming into bits of music. It sounded faintly like Bach. Eli had once brought her a music box that played Minuet in G when she turned the handle.
Kite, glad that the dead witches had found peace, felt relief at their absence. Glad that she was free of them. In the end, she would die as herself.
Kite waited for her essence to turn into seashells and sand dollars.
After all, she was only an extra body. Only a part of her mother.
Just a useless clone.
THE HEALER
The Witch Lord’s body started to break, a thousand hairline cracks snaking across her body. The china pieces shattered in Tav’s arms and turned into dried rosehips, bottle caps, gold dust, and seagull feathers. Her eyes were the last to shatter, the dark orbs smashing on the ice and transforming into a dozen sand bubbler crabs scuttling across the river. Death and life. Endings and beginnings.
Tav hadn’t expected to feel this heavy. They picked up a tiny sliver of china that had gotten caught in their hair and contemplated keeping it. Instead, they threw it across the river as if trying to skip a stone.
What happened now?
The constellation of witches and daughters and found things started singing. It was a song of mourning, a way of respecting the dead. But it was also a song of celebration, of newness.
THE HEIR
Kite was alive.
She thought she would die, but she hadn’t. Why not? Was it the name she had accepted from a part-human child many years ago? Was it her love for another creature? Was her body truly her own?
The Beast appeared beside her, having chosen to cross the open door to find her. He started licking her face.
“We’re free,” she told him, wonderingly. She was alive. Her mother was dead. She was no longer the Heir. Joy swam through her bones. When she shook her head in delight, her hair sent pearls and semi-precious gemstones scattering over the rock.
She looked back to the river, where Tav stood over the remains of the Witch Lord. They seemed lost and confused. The children were singing their victory. The victor is rewarded.
Kite and the Beast skipped over the ice to where Tav was waiting.
“You’re alive,” they said, as Kite approached. Relief and surprise grappling for mastery in their voice. “I thought I killed you.”
“She was wrong,” said Kite. “I am a person.”
“You always were,” said Tav. “No one is nothing.”
“You won the duel,” said Kite, bowing to Tav. The Beast bowed, as well. “I like your wings.”
“Thanks.” Tav fiddled with the steel-spined feather. “So, what now?” They stared up at the rift in the sky. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” Kite spun in a circle, leaving seaweed flakes in her wake. “But you might want to greet your people.”
“My people?” Tav looked confused. “Which ones?” Kite laughed.
“You defeated the Witch Lord. The throne is yours.”
Seventy
THE WITCH LORD
“What?” Tav’s eyes widened.
They turned around and looked at the shoreline dotted with glass and gold and metal and spikes and rust and skin and hair and fur. The remnants of the Witch Lord’s court were kneeling, their foreheads pressed to the dirt. Even the floating heads of the first ring of the Coven were bowing to them.
Tav had challenged the Witch Lord and won. The Coven accepted Tav’s victory. The only witches not prostrating themselves were the children, who continued to sing and dance.
“I don’t want it,” they said. “I don’t want the throne.”
Two figures were walking onto the ice.
“The witches call you their lord,” said Clytemnestra.
“We won’t answer to you,” said the unnamed girl with coyote ears and an eye like a planet.
“I don’t want you to,” said Tav.
“They would rally around you as a witch king,” said Clytemnestra. “They would have you fill the vacuum of power in the City of Eyes. They would have you take control of our world.”
Tav turned to address the witches gathered on the shore and raised their voice, wings outstretched to their full length. “The Coven is disbanded. Witches will have to learn to live in the world as equals, not masters. All creatures — made or born — will live free.”
Murmurs rose from the shoreline tinged with disbelief and confusion. The children started cheering, and a couple of kids started playing jump rope with the chain of a spiked flail.
A few members of the lower rings rose first, shedding their loyalty to the throne like dead skin. The Witch Lord had not been kind to her own.
Then the upper rings, their numbers diminished from the battle, stood as well. They had been
