Blood poured from Eli’s shoulder, and her hands were on fire. As her teeth retreated into her mouth, jaw aching from the strain, she reached for the thorn blade, the ensnarer. She would tear all the vultures apart. Fingers fumbled for the hilt.
It was like holding a live ember.
Eli dropped it. As it clattered to the ground, the blade glowed white-hot for a moment, and then was a tangle of thorns again. Eli stared at it in horror.
Eli stood, frozen in shock, the magical glow seeping out of her body. She swayed slightly, her head growing foggy. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the half-dead vulture rise again, powered by hatred and desperation. Cam had not killed it.
She felt weakness sweep through her body. She sank to her knees and looked up. The sky was like a mirror, glittering with light and colour. For a moment she could see her own reflection in the sky, and then something shifted, and it went dark. Through the darkness she could see the greygreen clouds of an alien world. She could smell salt and cinnamon. Why was she still alive? Even granite can be ground into sediment.
Then she understood: Tav had opened a door.
Tav had sent the vultures back across worlds.
Tav had saved them.
Could the Heart die? Eli watched her blood make patterns on the pavement. With her last fragment of will-power, she stretched out a ruined hand and drew a design in the blood, trying to tether her physical body to the world.
Darkness. A void.
Nothing.
Eight
THE HEIR
Kite felt an unfamiliar buzz of excitement when she heard Clytemnestra’s plans.
“You can move between the Coven and the Labyrinth,” mused Clytemnestra. “We’ll use that to our advantage. The Witch Lord will never suspect her own daughter.” She blew Kite a kiss.
“And if I’m caught?”
“I’ll mourn your death with a funeral worthy of a child,” said Clytemnestra solemnly. “A seven-layered cake and arson.”
“I’m honoured.”
Clytemnestra crawled closer to Kite, giggling. The Beast growled softly. “How soon can you do it? Can we do it now? I’m bored!”
“No.”
“What about now?” she whined.
“I need to time to prepare, sweetie. The spell I’m thinking of is old — I don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“What about now?”
Kite felt the newfound power slither through her body, ready to reach out and snatch a piece of the child’s essence. It would be so easy to silence the brat, to grow strong on stolen magic. The feeling of power in her veins was intoxicating.
Kite drew back. “We’ll do it soon,” she promised.
She didn’t tell Clytemnestra about the Witch Lord’s secret, how she had grown so powerful by devouring her own. Stealing another witch’s essence was a travesty, taboo — sacrilege. She had no way of knowing if Clytemnestra would trust her if she knew what Kite was now capable of.
Children love to keep secrets.
Clytemnestra started doing somersaults on the stone floor, singing half rhymes to herself. Kite watched her.
Clytemnestra led the children in games of jump rope and ritual murder. She taught them to play and she taught them to listen.
She told us we could be something else, something other than what the Coven wanted.
Clytemnestra had been to Earth, had stolen many things, little things, little broken hearts. She had seen the damage in the City of Ghosts and the City of Eyes. Had felt it. Children see things differently than adults. The children lived for wildness and loved one another until it hurt. The children didn’t want the worlds to die. The children didn’t want to live in the Labyrinth forever or submit to the will of the Coven. And Clytemnestra had showed them that they didn’t have to submit.
“When this is over, you won’t be the Witch Lord,” Clytemnestra said suddenly. “We won’t bow to you.”
“I have never wanted to be the Witch Lord,” said Kite honestly. “And you know that isn’t why I was created. It was never what I was meant for.”
“And what are you meant for now?” Clytemnestra climbed back on her throne and started eating it, which explained why she had a new one every time Kite saw her.
“I want to save Eli,” said Kite.
Clytemnestra chewed on a pink plastic handlebar for a minute and then spat it out. She stared at Kite. “You are the strangest witch I’ve ever met.”
It sounded like a compliment.
Clytemnestra was an oddity, an outcast among witches, tolerated only in the underbelly of the city, and only as long as she kept to the walls and left the Coven alone. An abomination like her would never be welcomed into the Coven. But Kite would. Kite, who had pretended to grow up, who was the Heir to the Coven’s power, a witch who dared to love a human thing.
A revolution needs more than bodies, more than a charismatic leader with razor-sharp nails. It needs information. It needs connections.
Clytemnestra needed her, and they both knew it. So even as Kite bowed and smiled and promised to follow orders, they knew that this alliance was between equals.
Kite was sure that Clytemnestra hated it.
“I will do what you asked of me. A show of power. A spectacle. And I will help you eliminate the Coven. But Eli lives.”
“I will not slay her,” said Clytemnestra. “I can’t speak for the world.” She suddenly burst out laughing. “We will burn the Coven down! We will dance on their bones!”
With an indulgent smile, Kite picked up the discarded handlebar and started chewing.
Nine
TAV
Sweat glistened on their forehead and their muscles ached, but Tav was wide awake. The taste of euphoria and the smell of blood and grass flooded their senses. They had done it. They had opened a door between worlds. Not a wound, but a channel. They could feel in their shoulder blades the magic of the City of Eyes touching the human world, casting warmth and light over them. They
