by Maya Motayne
“Little chameleon,” Ignacio called from below.
Something within her that he’d broken long ago splintered into even tinier pieces, grinding into dust. This was always how it felt when he found her, as if part of her were crumbling ever smaller. With a lump trembling in her throat, Finn looked down over the banister. There, on the ground floor, stood Ignacio, smiling up at her.
“I knew we would cross paths again,” he said. His voice was a whisper, but it echoed throughout the tower, as if birds flew about carrying his words. She could hear the sharp smile in his voice, the grin of a predator closing in on limping prey. Ignacio raised his hand and then he was floating up the open center of the tower to meet her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He hovered before her and gripped the banister, his eyes black as ever.
“Why are you here?” she bit out. “Did you follow me? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” She hated the quiver in her voice. Whenever he was around she sounded like a child again.
“I’m not here for you, Finny. Though this is a lovely coincidence.” He leaned forward, beseeching. “Come home to me. Don’t you see? Together, with this power at my fingertips, the world will be ours. What you saw with the strings, it was only the beginning. That was when I’d only infected weak men. But now, with all the men for me to take in this prison, I will have an army of soldiers, men dark enough, strong enough to carry the magic and not fall to ash. The magic will flourish and my power will multiply. Soon I will be powerful enough to take what is mine. Once I have it, I will wake a sleeping power, Finn—a god that will take the world in his hands and remake it as his own, and he will honor me for all I’ve done for him. I forgive you for that nonsense in the Brim. Come now, step into our future, Mija. We will wake the god and rule with him forever and always.”
Finn gritted her teeth and pushed his black-veined hand away. “The only future I’m interested in is the one where you’re dead and left for the scavengers to pick clean.”
Ignacio’s eyes hardened, all fatherly affection swept away. A silence trembled between them. In a flash of movement, his hand cracked against her face, a slap that sent her head slipping sideways only to have him grab her by the wrists, his blackened nails sinking into her skin. He jerked her forward, leaning so close that his breath ghosted over her nose. “I should’ve left you to become nothing with those fool parents of yours.”
Finn froze, her body brittle.
Ignacio found her days after her parents had been killed. He didn’t know anything about them. She wouldn’t have him sullying the few memories she had of them by speaking as if he knew them. “Keep my parents out of your maldito mouth,” Finn snarled. “What the hell do you know of them? They were dead before you found me. If they’d been alive I would’ve never been desperate enough to let you take me in.”
“As usual, you’re so sure of yourself, so sure of what you think you know.” His grip on her wrists tightened painfully and Finn refused to wince. “Your parents were dead the day I took you in, yes, but that was not the night I decided you were mine. I was there the night you killed that little girl for the bread, Finn,” he said, his eyes alight. “I saw your moving shadow, just like mine. I saw how you took what you needed and left her body in the alley. Then I knew you must be mine, no matter the cost,” he said, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “Your parents were hardly difficult to dispatch.”
Finn’s blood seemed to stop its flow through her veins, her whole body falling still at his words, at the memory of that night. It unfurled in her mind, like a bolt of silk stained with blood.
She’d been hungry, so hungry, and though they’d tried to hide it, she knew her mother and father were skipping meals so that she could eat what little they had. Her mother’s cheeks had begun to sink inward, sharp cuts in her once round face, and Finn had decided that she had to help, do what she could for them.
She hadn’t meant to kill the girl as they’d fought over the lone, burnt loaf of bread in the garbage outside of a bakery, but it had happened. She remembered the girl’s chipped nails digging into her skin as Finn shoved her by the shoulders. Quicker than a flash of lightning it was over, and Finn stood above the girl’s corpse with the bread in her shaking hands.
She’d come home, the bread dusted with dirt, her eyes puffy. When she’d handed the loaf to her mother, she’d knelt before Finn, concern rounding her eyes.
“Finn,” she’d said. And when Finn refused to look at her, her mother had taken her chin in her fingers and gently tilted her face up. “Did you steal this?”
She hadn’t stolen it, she’d done much worse, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. When Finn remained silent her mother had sighed, her warm hand dropping from Finn’s face.
“Nothing good can come of that, oíste? Bad things happen to people who do bad things and I won’t have them happen to you,” she’d said, warning stiffening her voice. “We’ll manage. Don’t do it again.”
Finn had nodded solemnly at that. “Yes, mamá.”
Then her mother had gathered her into her arms and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
When her mother found that a piece of the loaf was soaked red, she froze before carefully cutting it off and toasting the slices for dinner. Only a few days after that terrible night, her parents had been found with their throats slit and Finn’s life had been forever changed.
In the end, her mother had been right; bad things did happen to people who did bad things. Ignacio had seen her, he’d seen himself in her, and her parents had paid the price.
“You.” She knew the word had come from her own lips, but it was as if she existed in a place outside her body, in a place of absolute numbness, a respite before the anger would rise and crash within her in a frothing wave. “You killed them.”
“I did,” he said. “I wanted a child of my own with propio like me, and I thought you were worthy, so I cut your papá’s throat first. While he choked on his blood your mamá begged me to spare her, for her daughter’s sake.” He cocked his head at that, as if he’d told a clever joke. “How could they know what a waste you would be? How you would come to nothing. I did them a favor when I bled them like pigs.”
Finn’s teeth were clamped so tightly against each other she feared they would shatter beneath the pressure. Anger singed her insides as her eyes stung. With him standing before her, his lips curved smugly, her fury grew so powerful it snuffed out the sorrow she felt for her parents, cauterized the wounds in her heart until they were sealed shut. She needed to kill him. She needed to feel life pour out of him and leak through her fingers.
She wrenched herself free of Ignacio’s grip and made to grab for his neck, to snap it in her hands. She was too furious to think to take her time, to make him suffer. Too angry to think of savoring it. But Ignacio only captured her wrists once more, a laugh on his lips as he dug his nails into her skin.
“There you are,” Ignacio said, his eyes roving hungrily over her face. “There’s my girl. The killer. You really thought you could just move on and become someone else? You can’t change who you are, Finn. And even if you did, who but me will accept you after all you’ve done. Who would accept a killer? Who will believe that you can be anything else?”
For a moment, Finn faltered. With him standing before her, she didn’t want to be anything but a killer. And he was right. Who would believe that she could be anything else?
But then she knew the answer to that question, didn’t she?
I believe you, the prince had said to her, his gold eyes sincere and true. I believed you then and I believe you now, even if you don’t.
If he believed, why couldn’t she?
“One person will,” Finn said. “And I’ll get others. Not a maldito thing will bring me back to you.” She gripped the dragon against her chest and it buzzed in her palm. “I’d rather watch the world burn first.”
“So be it,” Ignacio spat. He released her bleeding wrists and floated away from the banister until he hovered at the center of the ci
rcular opening beneath the clock. With a wave of his hand, the still fireworks began exploding outward, pelting colored embers every which way. Finn held her hands over her face to block the spray. They dug into her forearms like tiny, sizzling teeth.
The showering color painted him in harsh light, brought life to the fury burning in his eyes. “If you wish to watch the world burn, then I will burn it for you.”
Finn dropped her bleeding arms from her face, barely registering the sting of the burns. “You asked for your own death the day you touched my family.” The words curled her lips into a snarl and, for a moment, she could think of nothing but her mother’s words. Bad things happen to bad people. Finn would make sure Ignacio learned the truth in those words. “I’m going to kill you.”
He only looked at her, amused. “Goodbye, Finn.” With a snap of his fingers life poured into the prison once more. Guards shouted and ran as the fireworks fell away, raining on them like burning snowflakes. Prisoners jeered in their cells and in the midst of it all, Ignacio hovered like an angel of death readying his scythe. Finn wanted to run, wanted to sink into the floor, but her legs couldn’t move. They never did when he looked at her this way, as if a punishment swift and harsh were building within him and she deserved it.
He raised his fist. A knot of dark magic gathered above their heads. The guards and the prisoners alike stopped to stare, finally noticing Ignacio at the center of the chaos. He splayed his fingers, and the tangle of dark magic shot out in countless tendrils.
“Take all the bodies fit for our cause,” Ignacio said, his eyes still on Finn.
The streams of darkness poured into the mouths of guards and slithered between bars to take the trapped prisoners as its own. Finn and the two guards who had tried to apprehend her moments ago stood paralyzed, watching as the dark magic curved around them to infect others. The dark magic zoomed past them and a handful of caged prisoners, as if turning up its nose at them. Finn had never been so happy to be snubbed as the prison gave way to the screams of the infected and the dark magic forced itself down their throats and into their hearts.
For a moment, the prison was still, teetering on the edge of total chaos as the fireworks disappeared from the air, coating the floor in smoky shimmers. Finn couldn’t help but hope that if she stayed still, stayed quiet enough, the prison wouldn’t tip into calamity.
Ignacio looked down at his legion of infected soldiers. A snarl unfurled from his lips. “Kill all who cannot house the dark.” His eyes met hers. “Every single one.”
The guard who was in the choke hold of a now black-eyed prisoner gave a shrill yelp. “Help me, please!”
Finn turned at the sound. The call was so pitiful that she reached for the same dagger she’d stabbed into his foot moments ago, but with a dry snap, the prisoner twisted his head sideways, breaking his neck.
When Finn turned back, Ignacio was out of sight, gone to muster his army, as if her death weren’t worth watching. As if she were worth nothing, just as he’d always said.
The prisoner gripped his bars and pulled them apart with his bare hands before turning to Finn and launching himself in a sprint toward her and the uninfected guards.
“You’ve been calling his name,” the prisoner crooned, just like the infected man in the pub. “Soon we will wake him. Soon he will answer your call.”
More were following him, breaking out of their cells and whispering of the god they would wake, their eyes trained on Finn and the uninfected guards. “Those not dark enough to carry his will within them,” an infected woman crooned, “stand against him.”
Understanding snapped in her head like a whip. Those who weren’t dark-hearted enough were turned to ash at the magic’s touch, but others were strengthened by it. And with Ignacio’s command, if they could not carry the dark magic they were marked for death.
Finn moved to run, but she was trapped. The horde of black-eyed guards and prisoners was closing in from either side of her on the circular floor.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Finn said as she pulled another dagger from her belt. She and the two guards stood back to back, turning in slow circles, made sudden allies as the fiends drew nearer and nearer. How would she get out of this?
Then one of the guards grabbed her with his meaty hand.
“Take her! Take her and let us go!”
“Are you serious?” Finn shouted as she squirmed in his grip.
“Ladies first,” the other growled as she was thrown forward, sent skidding to a halt before the horde of black-eyed monsters.
When two prisoners reached for her, the raised black veins wriggling beneath the flesh of their arms, Finn crouched down to the dead guard. She pulled the blade from his hand and swung at the infected men, chopping a hand away with a downward swipe. She could hear the guards behind her fighting the other side but could not look over her shoulder to, hopefully, watch them die after throwing her to the dogs. Finn gave another swing of the blade and a black-eyed woman gripped it in her hand, her face blank as the blade sank into her flesh. They felt nothing, knew nothing but the command to spread and discard the bodies that could not carry the magic. Finn’s stomach turned as the woman let the blade sink farther without a word. Her hands broken and bleeding, the woman wrenched the blade out of Finn’s grasp, letting it clatter to the floor. Arms swung at her, hoping to claim her as they did the dead guard at her feet.
Finn dodged and arched backward until her palms met the ground. She flipped back to stand beside the guards who had left her for dead. They started when she tapped them both on the shoulders.
“Cowards first,” she said. With a twist of her wrists, the stone of the ground rose to hold the guards by their ankles. Unable to move and dodge, they were descended on by the black-eyed men in a wave of outstretched hands and whispers of a god to come.
Finn climbed up on the banister and hung off the side, her legs swinging over the long drop to the ground floor. She needed to get out of the way as the black-eyed prisoners pulled tight around the trapped pair of guards. If she was out of sight, they wouldn’t come for her.
Finn saw a black-eyed woman grip one by the neck before plunging her hand into his chest, tearing at the skin sealed over his heart as if it were the gauzy wrapping on a gift. Blood burst out of him as he screamed and tried to push away only to find another monster behind him, pulling his arms wide, then back, as if trying to pull them from their sockets.
“Help us!” he shouted at Finn, but then both men disappeared beneath the horde and she could only see blood seeping across the floor from where they stood, as if a wellspring of red had sprouted from the ground.
Finn looked down at the ten-floor drop, her heart pounding in her throat.
She was too high to jump down and the horde before her would be finished with the guards soon enough. She needed to get out of here, and the maldito clock wouldn’t stop ticking above her head.
Wait. The clock.
Finn climbed back onto the banister and dashed farther down it to where the minute hand ticked. Her pulse pounding in her ears, she stood on the banister willing herself to jump, but her body would not move. The drop swelled beneath her, dragging her stomach up to meet her throat, but she would rather splatter on the ground than be taken by Ignacio’s minions. The faces of her parents flashed in her mind, flush with life—life that he’d snuffed out.
No, if she died it wouldn’t be at his hands, it would be at her own, and if it was this jump that delivered her from this life, so be it. At least she might see them again.
With that thought in mind, she swung her arms for momentum and leaped. For a terrifying moment, her legs pumped uselessly over the long drop down to Ignacio, her hands grasping at nothing but air. Then her fingers gripped the wide tip of the minute hand from either side. She swung her legs forward, building momentum that made the hand swing from seven to two, to the other side of the floor where there were no infected waiting. She swung her legs again and jumped from the clock, landing painfully draped over the baniste
r, her legs hanging out over the long drop. She scrambled over it and onto safe ground. The black-eyed monsters had converged on more victims—three prisoners left in their barred cell like lambs awaiting slaughter—but she could see their eyes darting in her direction too. They would come for her. She needed to keep them occupied.
Finn looked around. There were uninfected prisoners trapped in their cells, screaming for release. She didn’t want to use the dragon, she knew it would hurt the prince, wherever he was, but she needed to find him and get him out of here. She owed him that. Finn gripped the dragon in her hand and imagined what she wanted.
On all ten floors of the prison, each cell door clattered off its hinges with an earthshaking boom. The remaining prisoners took off running and shouting for help. The black-eyed horde looked about like dogs hearing the feet of new prey, bounding after new bodies to exterminate. Finn watched two black-eyed prisoners leap onto one of the men who’d run out of his cell, pinning him to the ground before snapping his neck with a rough twist. He wasn’t dark enough to carry the magic. Finn shuddered at the sight of his still body before shaking herself free of those thoughts. She had to hope that this would distract them long enough to find the prince and escape with the prisoner. She squeezed the dragon again, preparing to ask for its help once more, her stomach twisting with guilt at the thought of the prince curled over in pain, blood pouring from his nose.
“Lead me to him!” she snapped at the dragon, promising herself that this would be the very last time she used it. “Find him!”
The dragon gave a pull that led her forward and to the left, where a small passage took her away from the circular floors of cells down a long corridor. She hoped it would lead her to the prince instead of more trouble. But she’d settle for both.
The lock clicked open. His heart pounding in his chest, Alfie stepped in and shut the door behind him.
Then came a chorus of ticking.
The room was small, with a cot and a grimy waste bucket. There were no windows. Built into every brick of the cell walls were clocks.