‘Slyv,’ says Raven, ‘she’s supposed to be dead. You can’t throw her out—’
‘She leaves in the morning, and she takes her Blotter’—she flicks her wrist dismissively—‘with her.’
‘Get rid of the Blotter, yeah. But Elle is one of us.’
‘That’s enough, Raven.’
Anna fingers the hilt of her blade. ‘It’s time to leave, Elle.’
‘He’s different, Sylvia,’ I say.
‘You said he was meant to kill you?’
‘Yes. It was written.’
‘How do you know it was written?’ She steeples her fingers and rests her elbows on the table. ‘Can you read the marks on the skin of those monsters? Did he tell you?’
I curl my fingers, digging my fingernails into my palm. ‘He told me.’
‘Right. And you trust him? Has it ever occurred to you, Elle, that it was written he would follow you here, thus bringing someone tainted by the Creators into our midst? Or that perhaps he was written to lead other Blotters to us? Has it ever occurred to you he is lying to you?’
‘He’s not.’
‘You’re naïve. You’ve always been naïve.’
‘He’s a Blotter, Sylvia,’ I snap. ‘They don’t lie. They don’t have a need to.’
Her expression darkens. ‘No. I suppose not.’
‘He can help us,’ I press. ‘Think of the story. Think of how it can power up our story. Make it stronger. A Blotter working with the Darlings.’
Her eyes glint. And there it is. The crack. The opportunity. She is curious about the Blotter. Because this has never happened before—a Blotter has never spared a life he was supposed to End. If people find out about this, it will give them hope. It will make them believe in us.
‘A Blotter defying the Creators he is bound to,’ I say. ‘Think about it.’
Sylvia sighs, and the spark of interest is gone. ‘Regardless, I don’t want him here. He’s a risk.’
‘Sylvia—’
‘Just go, Elle,’ says Raven. Her dismissal feels like a slap, but when I meet her eye, she mouths, ‘I’ll talk to her.’
I sigh. ‘Fine.’ I raise my hands. ‘I’ll speak with you in the morning.’
I don’t look back as I leave the shipping container. I try to calm myself down as I head back through the camp. It’s not her fault she thinks this way. She’ll come around. She has to. And she won’t make Jay and me leave here. I won’t let that happen.
There are people crowding around the Circus tent as I pass, their voices excitable. When I spot the kids laughing and joking, a young girl with white-blonde hair in the centre of them, some of my bad mood shifts. It’s the girl I saw in the black market last night. She made it.
‘But it was the Blotters who should have been afraid,’ she tells the kids. ‘Because the dragon ate them!’
I smile as I head in the opposite direction, through a pathway lit up by red-and-white blinking lights, the mist trailing around my feet. Jay is leaning against the side of our shipping container when I get there. He’s changed into another vest, dusted with coal. It must have belonged to one of the miners. He’s gripping his bad arm, and his expression is murderous.
‘You’re still angry,’ I say as I approach.
‘No shit.’
I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I’ve just had to deal with Sylvia trying to throw me out of my Circus, yet he is the one who has somehow found a reason to be annoyed.
He’s not making things easy. I thought bringing him here would help, that the story of the Blotter who didn’t do what was written would give the people hope. But we have all known loss at the hands of Blotters. In their eyes, I have brought a monster into our midst.
The fact Raven walked in on me kissing said monster has made things much worse.
‘You’re angry because you didn’t get what you want,’ I say.
‘Oh, I’ll get what I want, little Twist.’ His eyes darken as he pushes off from the side of the shipping container, and I try to ignore the way my stomach tightens.
‘So what is it then?’
He gestures with his head. I frown, my shoulder brushing his chest as I walk past him. When I turn the corner, the side of my lip tugs up, and I spot the source of Jay’s bad mood.
‘Maggie!’ I say.
An old woman with frizzy white hair sits on the edge of the open doorway, scribbling in a notebook with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. She’s wearing bright green trousers and an embroidered patchwork jacket sewn together out of grey-and-black factory overalls.
A wide grin broadens across her face, revealing a gap where her front two teeth are missing. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my little bumblebee.’ She jumps down from the shipping container, and I sweep her into a hug, the top of her head only just reaching my chest. Like always, she smells like old books mixed with tobacco.
‘They said you were dead, but not my little bumblebee, I said. I knew you’d show up.’ She pats my back as she pulls away. ‘I’d say I have plenty of stories to tell you, only I happened upon this strapping young gentleman when I got here. He very kindly offered to wait outside until you arrived.’
Jay folds his arms across his chest, his expression stony. I supress a laugh, and Maggie waggles her eyebrows. I can’t imagine Jay kindly offering to do anything. But he’s still here. And somehow, an elderly woman who is about a third of his size has managed to get him to wait outside.
There is hope for him yet.
‘Come in, both of you,’ she says, her grin widening. ‘I want to know all of your stories. I have one for you too, bumblebee. Something important. About the Book of Truth you asked about.’
A spark of excitement ignites inside me as she slides up onto the shipping container and pushes herself to her feet. Jay puts a hand on my arm as I follow.
His jaw is set, and he shakes his head. ‘I’m not a pet you can put on display.’
‘Jay—’
He steps back. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
Before I can stop him, he turns away and disappears into the mist.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jay
I walk away from the settlement and stop at the Edge of the World. I sit down. The thick mist cascades over my legs at the same speed as the thoughts running through my head.
I’m sick of being pushed around by Twists. And Darlings. And old women.
I got shot. My arm aches. Everyone hates me. And the Twist kissed me as if she wanted me and then fucked off without a second thought. I’m just a story to her, a Blotter too stupid to do what was written.
I’m pathetic. It’d be a mercy for the Creators to kill me.
I sit there for hours. I’m not going back. If she wants me, she can come and get me. If she doesn’t, then I’m leaving. I don’t care about her revolution. I don’t care about what she’s looking for in the Book of Truth. I don’t care about that thing in the tent that’s full of light and bees and feels dangerous and powerful and warm. It’s only her I’m curious about. And it’s not worth this.
Finally, a muffled footstep sounds behind me.
‘Took your time, little—’ I tense. It’s not the Twist. I’d be able to smell her, honey and earth and leather. Instead, the air carries a musty scent that reminds me of the forbidden areas of the Citadel. It’s that old woman. Maggie.
For fuck’s sake.
‘Hello, pet,’ she says.
‘I’m not a pet.’ I used to be fearless. A killer. A soldier of the gods. Now, I’m acting like a sulky teenager to an old woman about a quarter of my size.
‘No? A wolf then. Bred in captivity, like the ones in the Creators’ menageries. But free now. And what will you do with your freedom?’ With surprising agility for someone who looks ready to drop dead, she sits down beside me. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Her short legs dangle over the Edge beside mine, and she stares out into the mist, massaging her thighs. I could tell her to fuck off, but her wide grin and kind eyes re
mind me a bit of one of the nannies who raised us in the Final City barracks. So I just grit my teeth.
What was that nanny’s name? Marlena. She used to sneak us treats meant for the Tellers—sugared plums and fresh figs and dark chocolate. Her End was written on the skin of a Blotter from my cohort. He did it when we were seven, with a knife from the kitchens she stole food from.
I cried when it happened.
But Blotters don’t cry. I learned that lesson that day. I never cried again.
‘You’re trying to decide whether to stay or go,’ says Maggie.
‘Yeah.’
‘I suppose you’re not used to making decisions, are you, pup?’
‘I’m not a pup.’
‘You’re all pups to me.’ She smiles. ‘In my experience, decisions are harder to make the more we analyse them. But we listen to our gut, and it’s almost as if the next move was written all along.’
‘My next move isn’t written. That’s the fucking problem.’
‘You didn’t do what was written by the Creators. But tell me, little wolf pup, who created the Creators?’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just wonder sometimes—don’t you?’ She looks pensively out into the billowing white mist and sighs. ‘You know, most of the books are gone. Many burned with their creators hundreds of years ago. But fires cannot quell stories. They spread like ash in the wind. And I’ve heard stories. I’ve heard stories of a Draft One, many centuries ago, unpopulated and covered with mountains peaked with snow. I’ve heard of a Draft Three where great evergreen forests grew from the earth instead of skyscrapers, and where wolves prowled free and hunted for rabbits instead of rubbish. Off the coast of Draft Four, it is said, the prison island was once a sand-covered paradise frequented only by strange and colourful birds and ships filled with rum.
‘I have read stories too—written, they say, in the ashes of the women who burned with their books—that say the Edge of the World we sit within now was once a part of Draft One before the mist came and swallowed it.
‘So my question is this: Who created that world, so different from this one we live in now? Was it the Creators?’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so, or they would have written about it in their Book of Truth.’
‘How do you know those stories are true?’
‘I don’t. But I believe them. And that’s enough, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they give me hope, little wolf pup. Hope that the world could be better than it is now. Does it not give you hope?’
I sigh. ‘I don’t know.’
Her glassy blue eyes bore into my skull. ‘Tell me, if it was written by some higher being that you were supposed to spare Elle and help her start her revolution, would it make you feel any better or worse?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
She nods. ‘With destiny comes purpose. But with freedom comes many choices, many paths, many potential endings. You need a purpose, little wolf pup, but not a destiny. Destiny is written for us. Purpose we write for ourselves.’ She leans back on her gnarled hands, and her eyes glint with mischief. ‘I think you should stay. Elle seems quite taken with you.’
‘Right. I’m just her little pet, aren’t I?’
Maggie chuckles. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Elle . . . she struggles to connect with people, you know? Her father kept her isolated when she was a child. She wasn’t planned. Wasn’t supposed to exist. He feared she would be taken from him, so he hid her so she’d be safe. She only had him and her stories for company until she was fourteen. When he died, she had no one at all.’ Maggie smiles a toothless smile. ‘Now, she has you.’
I’m not sure what to make of what she’s saying. I don’t want to be curious about the dangerous girl with white-blonde hair whose existence defies the gods and who made music play while I tasted her lips. I don’t want to be curious about the girl who made me wait for her while she went off to talk to her stupid Circus friends as if I were some kind of puppy dog.
But, fuck, I am.
I run a hand over my mouth. ‘She seemed happy to see you.’
‘Yes. We smuggled her out of the Final City, Sylvia and I. Managed to stow away on one of the trains that run through the Drafts. I worked for her father, you see. She’s fond of me. She liked my stories. But she’s always put up a barrier, stopped herself from getting too close.’ She chuckles. ‘I’m an old sod now anyway. I can’t quite compete with a strapping young lad like you.’ She pats my thigh lightly. ‘Yes, you’ll be good for her, I think, little wolf pup.’
We sit in silence for a little longer before Maggie groans and pushes herself to her feet.
‘I’m going to go and talk some sense into Sylvia and the others. Elle tells me she’s kicking you out in the morning. Kicking my little bumblebee out of her own Circus.’ She shakes her head. ‘Over my dead body.’
‘Why do you call her bumblebee?’ The question leaves my lips before I can stop it.
Maggie smiles. ‘Well, when she was a child, she used to tell a story about bees living in her roof. The story spread, got out of control, and one day, a whole swarm of them took over an entire wing of the house.’ Maggie chuckles, her eyes glazed over in memory. ‘Her father was furious. But for days, we had the sweetest honey.’ She pats me on the head. ‘Remember what I said. The more you think on a decision, the harder it becomes. But you already know, deep down, what your gut is telling you to do, don’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ I say quietly.
‘Good. Listen to it.’ She turns away and hobbles back to camp.
I sit for a while longer, thinking about how fucked up this all is. Then I push myself to my feet too. I could be going mad, but I think the old woman may be right. It’s my choice, but it feels as if I have no choice at all.
Maybe it’s because I’m supposed to kill her and now I’m bound to her somehow. Maybe it’s because she gets under my skin, and I want to frustrate her. Maybe it’s because she’s terrifying and beautiful and says she can create hurricanes and music and impossible doors. Maybe it’s because she’s going to get herself killed if she carries on with these stories about revolution.
Maybe I’m just curious.
I don’t know.
But I have to stay with her. I can’t leave. She’ll die if I do.
She’s sitting on the edge of the shipping container when I emerge from the mist. The camp is quiet now, and she looks as if she’s deep in thought.
‘You’re back,’ she says.
I sit down beside her. ‘Yeah.’
She smiles, and something warm spreads across my chest.
‘What are you so happy about?’
‘Maggie has a lead on something I’m looking for,’ she says. ‘Something that can help me fight the Creators.’
I exhale. ‘And what exactly do you think can help you fight the Creators?’
She looks up at me, smiling. ‘A story.’
‘Of course.’ I stare at the graffitied wall of the trailer opposite. ‘Crazy little Twist.’
‘Do you want to know what story I’m looking for?’
‘No. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
Her leg brushes against mine as she raises it, watching the mist coil around her combat boots. ‘Each of the Creators wrote a section of the Book of Truth, so there are twelve sections in total. But there was a thirteenth Creator once.’
My grip on the floor tightens. I really don’t want to be talking about this. ‘The First Twist.’
‘Yes. The Fallen Creator. Most don’t even remember him now. The Creators made it that way. But I believe he wrote a story too, and there is version of the Book of Truth out there that has his story in it. I want to find it.’
‘Why?’
‘The Creators turned on one of their own because of it. I think it’s the key to taking them down.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Maggie has heard stories of an underground library in Draft Four run by a story
thief they call ‘The Bard.’ They say it is the biggest collection of forbidden books outside of the Citadel. And they say ‘The Bard’ worships the Fallen Creator, tells stories of him within the musty bookshelves and piles of parchment. If it’s anywhere, Maggie says, it will be there.’
I groan. ‘And you want to go and get it, yeah?’
‘Yes.’
I lean back on my hands and look up into the foggy sky. We could get to Draft Four in a few days, but only if we could get a hold of a vehicle and manage to smuggle ourselves over the Draft borders. It would get us the fuck out of here, I suppose. But as much as I hate to admit it, she’s safer at this stupid Circus, away from the Blotters and the Creators and the One True Story.
‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘We’ll stay here for a while first,’ she says.
‘There’s that we again . . .’
‘Maggie needs to refuel her van. And I want to plant some more seeds and work on Sylvia.’ She gets up and yawns. ‘I’ve given the shipping container to Maggie, but there’s space for us in the Circus with the Darlings she smuggled here. I’m going to get some rest. You coming?’
Does she seriously expect me to sleep in a Circus tent with a bunch of people I don’t know? It was supposed to be just me and her.
My jaw clenches. ‘No.’
‘You’re seriously this stubborn?’
‘Yeah.’
She sighs. ‘Suit yourself.’
I spend the rest of the night outside, sitting against the wall of the shipping container, my fists clenched at my sides while she’s in the tent, asleep. After what happened in the spotlight, my mouth on hers, her fingers on the fastening of my jeans, this isn’t how I imagined spending tonight.
There I go again. Imagining.
No. Not imagining. Planning.
Planning what I’m going to do to her when I get her alone.
Maggie said I needed a purpose.
Making the Twist beg for it is purpose enough for me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Circus of Ink Page 12