The Boi of Feather and Steel

by Adan Jerreat-Poole

  Kite had been thinking about Eli.

  Kite looked up. “Have you heard from her? I think I found a way to restore her shattered blade. I found it in this manuscript under —”

  “Can we do that after we burn down the Coven and let a few fire creatures loose and make bets on who lasts the longest?”

  “We’re not burning down the library!” Kite’s hair floated around her head, poised like coiled serpents.

  “You’re no fun.” Clytemnestra stuck her tongue out. “And neither is that broken thing you insist on keeping. I want a new doll.”

  “You love old, broken things.” Kite smiled, her hair swirling in lazy loops. “New things all taste the same.”

  “I want a new doll.”

  “I’ll get you one.”

  “I want one now.”

  Kite’s hair snapped down like a whip, leaving red welts on her bluegreen skin. “Be patient, little one.”

  “Oh, I’m very patient, young one.” Clytemnestra reached out and stroked Kite’s hair. “But the children are not. I’ve promised them some fun, and you know how babes get when you ruin their game.”

  “That’s your problem, not mine, Warlord.”

  “It’s our problem now, traitor.”

  “You forget yourself. I’m still the Heir.”

  The two witches stared each other down, glowing bluegreen orbs meeting the painted eyes of a china doll. And then Clytemnestra flew up into the air, her skirts flowing around her.

  “Your Majesty.” Clytemnestra performed an upside-down bow mid-air, twisting like a circus performer. Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I am your loyal subject. I only request, as your humble servant, that you —”

  “I said I’ll get you one. Soon.”

  Clytemnestra smiled widely. “That’s a good girl. You’re one of us now.” She vanished with a pop.

  Kite looked down at the book and sighed. With all the commotion, she had lost her place on the page.

  Seventeen

  THE HEALER

  The morning broke like a dinner plate, jagged and precious. Pale yellowpink light poured through the attic window and onto the tired bodies inside, worn down by expectations and secrets.

  “Help yourself,” said Cam, who was probably on his third cup of coffee.

  Tav shook their head. “I don’t want to crash later.”

  “I don’t plan to crash until tonight.” Cam winked. “The trick is to not stop.” He took another sip and let out an exaggerated sigh of pleasure.

  Eli never turned down caffeine, so she poured herself a full mug, then frowned. “Figs?”

  “You’re learning!” Cam’s voice rang with joy. The sound was as comforting as the smell of freshly ground coffee, which always seemed to follow Cam around.

  In these moments — if Tav didn’t look too closely at the stones protruding from Cam’s body — they could almost forget that the world was going to shit.

  Almost.

  “You went to the Hedge-Witch.” Eli turned to Tav.

  Tav exhaled sharply. “You followed me?”

  Eli’s yellow eyes sparked with accusation.

  Tav wasn’t about to apologize for their actions. If there was ever a time they needed backup, it was now. Eli just didn’t want to admit it.

  “I know you don’t like her,” said Tav. They needed Eli to believe in them. There was no way Tav and Eli could close the vortex if they didn’t trust each other.

  “Like has nothing to do with it,” said Eli.

  “She’s going to help us.”

  “Maybe.” Eli tilted her head to one side. A greasy film of distrust slid over the room. “What did you offer her in exchange?”

  “I handled it, okay?”

  “You handled it.” Eli’s voice was rough and gritty.

  “You weren’t exactly here to help.”

  Eli flinched. “I brought your bike back,” she said.

  “I hope you didn’t scratch her.”

  “You’re welcome, Tav.”

  Tav took a few breaths. “So the coffee tastes like figs?”

  Eli stared at them for a long moment. It felt like a small mercy when she finally said, “Yeah, it does.”

  “Well.” Tav cleared their throat. “We should go, I guess.”

  The euphoria of the first victory had faded to a bad hangover, and Tav felt a familiar stabbing in their guts.

  They were afraid.

  “You need to eat,” Cam told them.

  “No.”

  “That’s what Eli said.”

  “I don’t need to eat.” Eli’s eyes flashed pure black for a moment before switching back to yellow, like a glitching computer screen bright with broken pixels.

  “Well, Tav does. They’re at least half human, and they need —”

  “I said no.” Their voice was louder and harsher than they had intended.

  Cam stopped talking, the expression on his face frozen in place. “Okay, captain,” he said quietly, with only the barest whisper of sarcasm. “Whatever you say.”

  “All right girls, boys, and magic toys, time to save the world.” Tav grabbed their boots from where they sprawled in the middle of the floor and pulled them on.

  “Am I the magic toy?” Eli tapped the hilt of the frost blade and grinned.

  Tav grinned back, the adrenalin rush of fear oxidizing into excitement. Like their first time on the cruiser, going a hundred kilometres an hour on a back road, knowing that if they made a single mistake the road would tear the fabric and skin off their body, but loving it, anyway. They hadn’t fallen that day, or any day since.

  Tav spun the keys around their index finger and then pointed the jagged metal teeth at Eli like a gun, and the words spilled out. “You’re something special.”

  Cam was silent.

  THE HEART

  The ghost was nowhere to be seen. Eli felt strangely abandoned.

  Five blades hung from her hips where there had once been seven. The frost blade, the revealer, that forced the truth from blood and flesh. The stone blade, the shield, a short sword that was a strong defensive weapon. The pearl blade, the divider, that could untether souls from their delicate shells, splitting bodies into their pure material parts. The bone blade, the tracker, with its jagged edges that held on to flesh and scent and memory. And the thorn blade, the ensnarer, that trapped victims in perfumed petals and vicious thorns — the blade that had burned her the night before. Had turned on her.

  The glass blade was gone, shattered by the Guardian in the confrontation in the Coven. Eli’s fingers played with the empty sheath at her waist — she felt its absence like a lost tooth, worrying the fleshy gap with her tongue.

  Eli could feel the gentle heartbeat of the smallest blade, so thin it was almost like a long needle. The obsidian blade: the bringer of death, the harvester of lives, the blade of endings. The assassin. Eli had gifted that knife to Tav, and it now it connected them. Now Tav could use it.

  But the blade was tricky and devious, and anyone who touched it was marked, the way smoke leaves traces of ash. The blade was both Tav and Eli now; they were three and one.

  Alchemy.

  Eli felt the rosebuds in her lungs curling and uncurling their tiny petals in anticipation and anxiety. She needed to prove to herself, Cam, and Tav (especially Tav), that she could do this. That she wasn’t falling apart. That she didn’t need her blades to be a monster.

  (She wondered who she would be without her blades.) If the blades failed, she would use her teeth, her fingernails, her knuckles.

  You’re only an energy source, the voice in her head reminded her. The voice was almost bitter, like honey tinged with angelica. Cam protected you; Tav saved you. What did you do, except lie there, waiting to die?

  How long will your crocodile teeth stay lodged in your jaw? How long until all the blades are broken?

  You’re falling apart. The Heart is tearing you apart.

  You’re the centre of everything, and the centre is always empty.

&nbs
p; Eli didn’t like these thoughts. She liked to move, to sweat, to hurt. She liked the feeling of pushing her body to its limits until the glass and wood hinges creaked, but still, still they held. Her body always held strong. It would hold today.

  She watched Tav’s graceful movements as they mounted the bike in one fluid motion, legs strong and smooth like a dancer’s, and thought, We will win.

  “You coming?” Cam climbed into the flamingo-pink taxicab he’d commandeered.

  Eli didn’t take her eyes off Tav, their hands moving lovingly over the iron beast. “No, thanks. I’ll ride with Tav.”

  Tav looked up at the sound of their name. Eli caught their gaze and held it for a full second. Eli felt that she was daring Tav to look away. Electrified by their stare, Eli reached for a hilt. Her fingers grasped only air. She glanced down to where the blade of glass should have hung, unbalanced by the absence of weight. When she looked back up, Tav was frowning into the distance.

  Tav revved the engine. “Waiting to grow roots?”

  Eli could almost feel the shape of the hilt in her hands, the smooth surface under her rough palm. Grief itched under her skin and made her fingers curl into fists.

  “Eli?”

  Eli looked up. “I’m coming.” She swung herself up behind Tav and breathed in their familiar scent. She hadn’t fallen apart yet; there was still time.

  “Think you can do this?”

  Eli leaned forward, a strand of purple hair brushing against her mouth. “Yes,” she breathed. She could feel Tav shiver. Then the bike jumped into action, and they drove closer and closer to the hole at the centre of everything.

  Eighteen

  THE HEIR

  It had begun as a rumour.

  Kite knew that every rumour in the City of Eyes was born from a feather of truth, a chipped rhinestone of reality; shiny objects that marked a trail into danger.

  Made-daughters disappeared all the time. How did the Coven repurpose the bodies of broken or flawed tools? Eli had been raised on myths that the Heart would devour disobedient girls, but the Coven would never show their preciously guarded secret to a defective daughter. And when Eli had finally touched the Heart they had merged into one. No, that was not where the Coven buried the bodies of their daughters. The graveyard was a secret as well guarded as the recipes for making assassins. But Kite had discovered it.

  In her years as a reader, Kite had learned how to listen to silence as well as sound; to understand the turn of a page or the stutter of a wing or the nervous flicker of an essence peeking through skin. Even witches had vulnerabilities if you knew where to look. Even guards and buildings and plants spoke, although not always with tongues.

  “You can’t come,” she told the Beast as he gently gnawed on her elbow. “It isn’t safe.” He shook his entire body, sending sparks scattering over stone, and did not let go. She relented. “Stay close,” she told him. He purred.

  They were in the library again. The ball of light buzzed around her head.

  “Stop that,” she said, swatting it. The light floated away, dimming, and hovered just out of reach.

  We could have the best revels in here.

  “We can’t bring the children here,” she told Clytemnestra’s essence.

  You’re no fun, said the light. You bring me here.

  “You have self-control,” said Kite. “But if you damage the books, I’ll extinguish you.”

  There’s no need for more threats. The light sulked. But I don’t see why I can’t materialize. This form is so boring. I can’t eat anything. It hovered over a shelf of loose-leaf pages, yellowed with age.

  The Beast growled, a low rumbling like a distant thundercloud.

  Kite reached out and let the Beast chew on her forearm. He left delicate teeth marks on her wrist, but would never break the skin. “You’re upsetting him,” she scolded.

  The light ignored her.

  Kite closed her eyes and touched one of the walls. She was struck at first by the absence of a pulse, by the empty deadness of a body whose heart had been ripped out by a clumsy surgeon. It was cold. She shivered, her body trembling with the presence of death that she felt in the building she loved.

  It needed the Heart.

  Kite held her breath as she pressed her mind and magic deeper into the building, looking for a sign of life. A moment passed, and then another. And then she could feel it again — the buzzing, biting, snapping strands of magic that kept this place alive, that threaded through every stone and brick and petal and strand of hair, woven into a nest of knowledge. She breathed out in relief. It wasn’t dead yet.

  But it was angry and in pain. Sadness coloured her vision, and everything went grey.

  The Coven was a distrustful creature. Perhaps once it had been open-hearted and willing to love. Kite liked to imagine that it once offered its knowledge and power to any animal or spore or leaf that reached its halls. But the witches had burrowed too deep into stone, had wormed their way into the ancient structure like ants building an underground network. In response, the Coven had become afraid and selfish, hoarding the magic that the witches fed to it, stolen from stars and bodies that had not come willingly.

  Once, it might have been easy for the children to walk into the Coven. Once, no one could have been chained under the earth. But there were all kinds of prisons now.

  Kite was the bridge. She just hoped that when the children had walked over her and carved out a new place for themselves in the City of Eyes, they wouldn’t forget on whose back their victory had been won.

  I’m bored, complained the ball of light. Why are we here?

  “You’re forgetting who you are, Clytemnestra,” said Kite. “You’ll have to materialize soon.”

  The ball of light ignored her, instead hovering around the Beast. He whined and snapped his jaws at it. The light danced out of reach.

  “Stop teasing him.”

  You don’t tell me what to do.

  Kite sighed. She pulled her hand away from the wall. “I think it will take me to the daughters.”

  The Beast stood up, unfurling long wings. They were thin and opaque, like a bat’s wing. She could see the veins stretching across pale skin.

  “If Eli comes back, you’ll keep her safe, won’t you?” She looked to the ball of light, black crystals dropping from her eyes.

  You were always such a crybaby, the light huffed. She’ll be fine. Are you sure I can’t come? You never let me explore the Coven.

  “It has to be me,” said Kite. “The Coven only recognizes one Heir.”

  Not for long. The light wavered and then flashed again. Can I do it now?

  Kite nodded, more crystals falling onto her lap. “I’m ready.” Her pulse quickened in anticipation of pain.

  Stop crying.

  The light brightened until the entire room was illuminated. Thick vines wound their way around stone shelves. A staircase of leather-bound volumes stretched upward into the sky. Today the library had wrapped itself into the shape of a labyrinth, an ever-curling spiral of books and pages and insects. Kite sat in the centre of a maze of words.

  It could only be her. No one else — except for the mothers — knew how to make or unmake a daughter, understood the delicate magic and will and desire that went into creating a person with crocodile eyes and hands that made every touch sacred. Kite had spent her entire life studying ways to free assassins, and she was driven by more than a desire for power.

  The light drifted closer, pausing at Kite’s forehead. Then a tendril of light and heat reached out from the glowing core and touched her. Kite stiffened, the pain searing through her flesh. When the light drew back, there was a hole in her forehead, and a flicker of turquoise flame lapped at the wound from inside.

  Carefully, lovingly, the ball of light touched Kite all over her body: her palms, the soles of her feet, her collarbones. Slowly, the light undressed Kite from her body. It was nice to be touched; Kite had so little experience with it. And then it hurt, but Kite knew it could have hurt wo
rse, knew that the ball of light was being kind. It was that small kindness, rather than the pain of being torn out of herself, that made her cry pieces of salt like hail. So many manuscripts ruined.

  When they were done, there were two balls of light: one whiteyellow like a young sun; one bluegreen like light trapped under the ocean. They hung suspended in the air for a moment, and then Clytemnestra winked out of existence, banished to the Children’s Lair, returning to her own skin and flesh and memory.

  The Beast stayed.

  Kite swam through the air toward the staircase of books, slowly winding up and up, the bluegreen light making everything distorted and strange. As she ascended, a few books snapped at her, pages slicing at her essence — but she could not be cut in this form, and the attack only registered dimly as a sense of sadness. Wounded animals lashing out.

  Pity didn’t stop her from singeing one into ash, however, when it blocked her path. Some injuries could not be avoided.

  She had the feeling, as she always did, that the staircase was being built as she climbed, that she was guiding the Coven as much as it was leading her. Since becoming the Heir, however, there was a difference. Before there was cajoling and bargaining and trickery; sometimes the bookcases led her where she wanted to go and sometimes they trapped her in a dead end. She had played endless games with the library as a child, laughing when it buried her alive in paper and spiders and dirt, elated when she caught a handwritten note from the beak of a vellum crane swooping through the rafters.

  Now she had a new power; she could feel it in the beds of her fingernails, in the pins-and-needles sensation in the back of her knees, in the fluttering wings at the core of her essence. If she pushed, she could make the room obey. She could use the power the Witch Lord had given her to force her way through.

  She didn’t want to use this new and coercive power, but she would if she had to.

  She thought of Eli — the smell of hawthorn petals, the taste of iron. A girl made from granite and glass, a girl made to cut shadow and shatter light like a sheet of ice.