The Boi of Feather and Steel
Page 1
The Boi of Feather and Steel
The Metamorphosis duology
The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass
The Boi of Feather and Steel
The Boi of Feather and Steel
ADAN JERREAT-POOLE
Copyright © Adan Jerreat-Poole, 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Rachel Spence | Editor: Shannon Whibbs
Cover design and illustration: Sophie Paas-Lang
Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The boi of feather and steel / Adan Jerreat-Poole.
Names: Jerreat-Poole, Adan, 1990- author.
Series: Jerreat-Poole, Adan, 1990- Metamorphosis duology ; 2.
Description: Series statement: The metamorphosis duology ; 2
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2021011004X | Canadiana (ebook) 20210110058 | ISBN 9781459746848 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746855 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746862 (EPUB) Classification: LCC PS8619.E768 B65 2021 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
Dundurn Press
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For monstrous feminists, queer witches, and magical enbies everywhere
Contents
Part One: Exile
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
In Between
Part Two: Homecoming
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Sixty-Five
Sixty-Six
Sixty-Seven
Sixty-Eight
Sixty-Nine
Seventy
Seventy-One
Seventy-Two
Epilogue: Homemakers
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Part One: Exile
One
TAV
Tav was dreaming.
The river was frozen over with thick black ice. When they knelt down, they could see blue-and-white flames trapped under the surface. They placed a palm over the ice, feeling the cold burn like fire. The flames flickered wildly, trying to reach their hand.
A hairline crack snaked its way between their feet. Tav stepped back, uneasy. As they watched in horror, the river tore itself in two, ice and water and earth splitting apart. Tav stumbled and fell, narrowly avoiding the spears of ice stabbing the air like a fractured bone puncturing skin.
A great chasm stretched across the frozen river. Tav found themselves on one side of the fierce water, which gushed through a cracked mirror of black ice.
A boy climbed out of the depths of a world splintered by frost and starlight.
Cam. Eyes like stone, hard and cold. Blue veins glistening on exposed skin.
Cradled in his arms lay the crumpled body of a girl, a sprig of hawthorn growing from her chest.
She was dying.
“I brought your Heart,” he said, stepping onto Tav’s side of the river. The curve of his smile was a fish hook. He stopped an arm’s length from where Tav crouched, their fingernails etching lines into the crystalline landscape. He waited.
Tav rose slowly, unsteady on their feet. Sweat dripped down their neck. They could smell rot.
Pain surged through their shoulder blades. They cried out as great feathered wings burst from their back. The wings were black as ink, with an oily lustre of gold and purple and green. As the pain began to subside like a waning crescent moon, Tav found Cam’s eyes and forced the breath from their lungs into the shape of a single command.
“Give her to me.”
“You’ve left me no choice,” he said. His fingers curled around the hawthorn, twisting brutally. The girl whimpered.
“Let her go!” Tav beat their wings and white flames burned through the ice at their feet. The ice floe was unstable, and one wrong move could lead to hypothermia and drowning. The stars glittered overhead, their lights reflected in the dark mirror. The universe was burning.
The branch snapped, and the girl screamed, a body made of bone and glass crying out in agony.
Tav lunged, nails like talons curving around Cam’s throat.
When it was over, Tav was on all fours, frost licking their knees. Blood everywhere. Body parts were scattered across the ice. Tav wetted their lips and looked down, catching a glimpse of their reflection —
the face of a witch.
Tav woke suddenly and found themselves back in their apartment, the sheets soaked through with sweat. In the dim room lit only by distant streetlights, the shadows looked like blood. Tav fumbled for the bedside lamp. When the yellow pool of light showed no evidence of a crime scene, the anxiety curling its claws around their wrists and ankles released its hold. It was just a dream; already it was fading. Tav listened to the sound of their pounding heart, waiting for the rhythm to slow. Proof that they were human.
Tav closed their eyes against the pain of sudden brightness, but it was too late. Already a headache was spreading through their temples and pushing into the corded muscles of their neck.
They switched off the light and lay back down, opening their eyes to the
dark. In the distance sirens sang out, the clear, sharp pitch breaking through the dull roar of engines that never ceased. Threaded through the darkness was the magic of the Heart, which wound its way through walls and doors and flesh and bone. Tav fought the urge to reach out and grab it, to make themselves strong, to heal their pain, to take that power all for themselves and use it.
Use her.
Eli was sleeping on the couch with only a wall between them. The thought sent a shiver of excitement through Tav’s body, but of a different kind. They kicked off the lounge pants they’d fallen asleep in and lay back in their boxers. Eli’s hair would be messy, her body tangled in the blanket. Tav remembered her body; they had followed the path of her collarbone with their mouth, traced the curve of her waist with their hand …
Tav rolled their face into the pillow to stifle a moan. They lost themselves to fantasy before sleep finally returned for them.
In the morning they had forgotten about the dream.
THE HEART
Eli was sitting cross-legged on the roof. It was early, and the moon still hung behind a shred of cloud even as the sun began its ascent into the sky. Eli wanted to bear witness to the funerary procession of the dead rock as it travelled around the Earth. She wanted to remind herself what was at stake.
She had woken from a nightmare and had been unable to fall back asleep. The dream returned suddenly — the sound of a thousand wasps, the sharp edge of a blade, and the eyes of a girl who had been trained to kill without mercy. Eli shook her head, sending the shadows of distressed dreams back into the corners of her mind. There was no daughter with hornet blades, and no one who could craft such an exquisite murderer save for Circinae, and Eli’s mother was gone. Eli had conjured this threat with her own fears. Or perhaps the Heart remembered a daughter long dead. Eli was struggling to keep her memories separate from those of the Heart that possessed her — they flowed together like mercury.
Eli watched the moon fade from the sky. There would be no justice for the moon or the remnants of its people, the ghosts that Eli had once hunted through the streets below. It was too late for that world, but not for this one. The Earth could still be saved. There was still time. Time to learn how to live in this body, how to be the Heart, how to harness the new power running through her veins.
Only a few days had passed since the confrontation in the Coven, and Eli was still learning the shape of her new body. She loved it; it was hers, and hers alone, and it was free. But sometimes it flickered in and out of existence, and now she could see magic everywhere, the world bursting into colours and light unexpectedly — not just when she switched to her magical pure black eyes.
Eli had grown up in a world of magic, but being able to see its threads, tendrils, shoots, leaves, feathers all at once — this was something else entirely. The constant movement and colour gave her migraines. Being in the human world, in the place the witches called the City of Ghosts, made it a bit easier. She couldn’t control these new abilities; they seemed to come and go at random. Sometimes it felt like this body was a garden and someone else was planting gardenias and calla lilies and bleeding hearts and turning the earth over with a blunt spade, cutting through roots and weeds, disturbing the worms underneath.
The clamour of the street rose from somewhere below her, and Eli closed her eyes and sighed. Time was running out. She knew that Cam and Tav had given her these few days to heal, but the Coven wasn’t resting, and every day they lingered, the Earth was dying. Even Clytemnestra’s fierce warrior-children, fighting desperately to wrest control of the City of Eyes, couldn’t suture the wounds that had been made in the planet.
Only Eli and Tav could.
Tomorrow, Eli decided, eyes opening like a pair of morning glories. She rested her hands unconsciously on a belt of blades strapped to her hips. When her fingers brushed a hilt of bone, the knife rang out with a melody that only she could hear. Tomorrow we start.
The moon was fading from view.
Eli faded with it.
Two
KITE
“I bring a message for the Heir Dormant.”
An underling appeared, a witch acolyte adorned in frail streamers of fabric, gauzy and pale, almost like smoke moving through the room. Low magic. A nobody. Kite was surprised they had been able to find her. Most were too afraid of the tomes in the library, the ancient books swollen with malice.
Kite looked up, blinking, an opalescent tear sliding down her nose and onto the book before her. Her hair was piled like a waterfall on her head.
“The Witch Lord has requested an audience.”
Kite bowed her head, causing tentacles of hair to fall over her face, unrolling across the floor. When had her hair grown so long? She had no concept of time.
“Thank you for telling me.” Her voice was musical, the lilting song of a harp. Dangerously gentle.
The Coven knew she spent most of her time in the library, poring over ancient histories and forgotten magic. The Witch Lord hoped to use her knowledge to increase the Coven’s power.
She had something else in mind.
The acolyte left. Kite stared at the lettering underneath her hands. Quickly, Kite ripped the page from its spine, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed, letting the ink run down her tongue. The words would confuse anyone who wanted to know what she had been thinking. Living in the library had its advantages. A sea of words, and she could put them together however she wanted.
Kite swallowed. When she smiled her teeth were stained black.
Then she rose and went to see her mother.
The room she was summoned to was dark, but Kite could smell the Beast. She sunk onto her knees and bowed her head. She could feel the Beast sniffing her out, testing her mind strength, tasting her aura. Then the smell faded, and a small whimper echoed through the chamber.
Kite suddenly felt weak. Looking down, she could see her material body peeling away, revealing her magical essence, the aquamarine light of her being; her true shape. Her most powerful — and vulnerable — body.
No one came hidden in skins to an audience with the Witch Lord.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Kite closed her eyes a moment before she dematerialized, and let herself fall into her true state of being. Naked, she drifted, a furious ball of light in a small prison, before the invisible eyes of the Witch Lord.
And then the moment passed, and Kite was in her body once again, hair slick as seaweed against her face. Pain rocked her body, and she curled up on the floor like a child, waiting for it to pass.
A show of strength, then. A reminder of what the Witch Lord could do. Unravel her in a moment, steal her skin, reabsorb her power.
“Welcome, essence-daughter,” said the Witch Lord.
“Lord Mother,” whispered Kite.
“Are you ready to take your rightful place in the Coven?”
Kite scrambled to her knees and bowed again, pressing her forehead into the earth. Her mouth watered at the scent of delicious dirt.
“It is time, daughter, to declare you Heir Rising.” Excitement bubbled up in Kite, water dribbling from the corners of her lips.
She had been the Heir Dormant for so long that she had stopped believing the Witch Lord would ever allow her to use her full powers.
“You have shown loyalty by rejecting the human-touched girl, but there are some on the first ring who still have their doubts. You will dispel their doubts, command their faith and their bodies, and take your place as my right hand in the war against the children-abominations who even now rise up against us in acts of treason.”
Eli. Of course. Kite should have known that her attachment to the made-girl had not gone unnoticed. No true witch would befriend an object. And the Heir Rising was more than a witch, more even than a symbol of the Witch Lord’s rule: they were the right hand of the Coven. She shared a modicum of the Witch Lord’s power. She might even rule distant planets in her mother’s stead.
“It is my honour to serve you, Lord,” said Kite.
&nb
sp; “Bring back the Heart.”
“It will be done, Lord.”
“Swear with your essence, and prove your loyalty to me, who was and am the source of your magic. Magic above material.”
“Magic above material,” Kite repeated.
Again, she found herself stripped of her body. But this time she was not alone. Another essence, glowing white but rainbowed, gleaming different hues and shades of brilliance, so beautiful it hurt, reached out a tendril of light and
touched.
Kite screamed with no mouth, a soundless prayer of obliteration.
When the pain passed, Kite’s bluegreen essence bled with shades of pink and gold. Kite felt a rush of power burn through her body. And knowledge, sweet and crisp as pear on her tongue.
Kite now understood how to steal magic.
“Bring back the Heart, and I will give you more power than you can imagine.”
Then the Witch Lord was gone. The air lightened; the dark lessened, retreating. The whimpering stopped. Kite lay on her back, panting in the dirt, pain pulsing through her entire body. She rolled over and vomited ink. The Beast shuffled forward and lapped it up.
Kite smiled.
She had done it. She had become the Heir Rising.
Three
TAV
Then —
The bus had been late.
The bus stop was abandoned. The shelter was covered in posters for suicide hotlines and band stickers and blocky marker lettering spelling out catchy phrases like LIVE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING and DANIELLE IS A SLUT.
People really sucked sometimes.
It was November, and frost was beginning to paint itself up the sides of the Plexiglass shelter in floral bouquets. Tav was shivering under the threadbare peacoat they’d thrifted from Value Village last year.
It had been a shitty day.
Sure, they’d gotten ten out of ten on their biology quiz, but their teacher had deadnamed them again, and then someone had written slurs on the locker of the only other Black kid in Tav’s year (no, they’re not related). To top it all off, the vice-principal had just announced that the GSA was being cancelled due to lack of funding — as if the kids didn’t know it had everything to do with the provincial government and anti-LGBTQI legislation being put in place. Teachers acted like all teenagers were stuck in the 1950s with only a crappy radio or smudged black-and-white newspapers to learn about the world. Tav had been on social media since they were a kid — and damn, the kinds of information they had been able to access.