Into The Crooked Place

by Alexandra Christo

  “I never mentioned your family. I told you we would go to Wrenyal and that’s still the plan.”

  Wesley turned to Karam, who stiffened as though she knew what he was going to say.

  “We’re heading to the five-river city,” he said. “Granka.”

  Karam blinked.

  Wesley knew how long it had been since she’d left Granka and exactly how long it had been since she’d decided never to go back. The two were coincidentally the same.

  There was no life for Karam there. She was rough and deadly and belonged in Creije more than she could ever belong in the holy realm. Wesley could barely imagine her as a dutiful daughter, praying to her Indescribable God and preaching peace. She was a weapon and he’d spent years making sure she was pleased about it. The last thing he wanted was to undo all of that hard work by making her nostalgic.

  “You want me to arrange a meeting with the Crafters in Granka,” Karam said. Her voice was more gravel-toned than usual. “You assume I would be able to do such a thing.”

  “Let’s not pretend we don’t know our history,” Wesley said. “Wrenyal worships Crafters and your grandparents led insurgent groups to protect them during the War of Ages. You’re a child of the Rekhi d’Rihsni.”

  Karam’s hands twitched by her sides.

  “I’ve known it for a while,” Wesley said. “Just like I knew what Saxony was.”

  “So you’re exploiting all of our pasts, one by one,” Saxony said. “And not even giving us the chance to say no.”

  Wesley almost laughed at the idea.

  If Saxony thought he hadn’t given her chances, then she was delusional.

  He could have turned her in to the Kingpin when he first discovered what she was, or bribed her to help build his city into greatness, but he didn’t. He didn’t force her to create magical weaponry or put her life in danger at any turn.

  Wesley hadn’t so much as looked at her wrong.

  He had left Saxony to live her secret life in Creije, undisturbed.

  Despite what they all thought of him, how evil they liked to preach that he was, Wesley was not Dante Ashwood, stealing Crafters from the streets and harnessing their magic with no regard.

  He had a line. He had sins to atone for.

  “The reason I’ve survived this long is because I know my assets and keep them close,” Wesley said.

  Karam was too well trained to look hurt by the notion that Wesley might have used her, but years in the trenches meant he knew her well enough to read the signs.

  And he was a little sorry for it.

  “You really are unbelievable,” Tavia said.

  It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but Wesley shrugged it off.

  “Even if Karam doesn’t know where any Crafters are, her family does,” he said. “That kind of loyalty lives through generations. The only way we stand a chance against Ashwood is with Crafters of our own.”

  “I do not know where you heard those stories about my family,” Karam said. “But nothing was proven.”

  “Right. The old Kingpins executed them due to reasonable suspicion.”

  “There is nothing reasonable about execution.”

  Wesley didn’t agree.

  After all, he’d executed his old underboss and that was most definitely reasonable.

  Or was it only execution when those in power did it? Everyone else just got saddled with plain old murder.

  “If we do this, then any Crafters who join our side are under my command,” Saxony said. “Not yours.”

  Wesley laughed. “You went from not wanting to give me Crafters to asking to be their leader?”

  “I won’t have you deciding the fates of my people.”

  “They’re Karam’s people.”

  Karam folded her arms across her chest defiantly. “And I will not take you to them unless she is the one to lead.”

  And that was precisely why Wesley hated working with a crew.

  He sighed.

  Wesley always preferred to get things done alone, or order someone else to carry out the task, because teams were messy and encouraged sentimentality alongside camaraderie.

  They made everyone so damn sensitive of each other’s feelings.

  “I’ve been training with my amja since I was a child,” Saxony said. “I’m skilled in both magical and hand-to-hand combat. I was made to lead.”

  Wesley remained unimpressed. “Aren’t we all.”

  “And my specialty is in Energy,” Saxony said. “Which is going to be a great help in the battle.”

  “And here I thought your specialty was being a magical snob,” Tavia said.

  Her tone was teasing and Saxony let out a sarcastic “har har.”

  But Wesley’s curiosity was piqued.

  Crafter magic was split into three specialties: Intuition, Energy, and Spirit. Though any Crafter could cast spells and master all kinds of magic, they were only gifted with one specialty.

  Wesley had spent his childhood alongside Tavia, memorizing all there was to know about Crafters and their powers. There were records, endless archives, of every trick and charm and elixir, every spell and curse, every piece of magic that had come before, written into word and filed away for history.

  Energycrafters, with control over the element they were most akin to, able to create protection and invisibility fields.

  Spiritcrafters, who could commune with the dead and control nature’s spirit of the weather.

  And Intuitcrafters, the most dangerous of all, who could spawn illusions and work their way into people’s minds and futures.

  Wesley and Tavia had spent so much time in the libraries, studying those tales, flooding their childhoods with them, imagining what a place with such free magic might have looked like. They got lost together, in stories and memories of the past.

  “So we agree to officially split the leadership,” Tavia said. “Wesley handles the buskers and Saxony handles the Crafters. What about the journey?”

  Wesley stared at the route Saxony had drawn from her mind.

  Their journey to the Kingpin’s isle was traced over a map of the four realms, culminating in their arrival at a point of the Onnela Sea, a place commonly referred to as Ejm Voten. Which translated to lonely water, because it was miles away from civilization and deadly enough that nobody dared cross. Plagued by tumultuous storms and hard-to-navigate rock formations, Ejm Voten offered no through-route to any city or realm.

  At least, no safe route.

  It had been the subject of sailors’ stories for years. Travelers said there was a sunken city beneath it and that cries from the ghosts of all who drowned in its depths could be heard in the wind, readying to pull boats under. Compasses spun madly because the sea devils patrolling the waters had so much iron in their blood. The list went on.

  The more Wesley thought about it, the more it made sense that the Kingpin would make his home in those waters. Where better to hide than a place nobody dared go?

  “If there are Spiritcrafters in Granka, it will come in handy when we cross Ejm Voten,” he said. “Maybe all of the legends are actually part of the Kingpin’s trials Eirini mentioned.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” Tavia said. “Leave it to the would-be dictator to make us face our regrets. Who is he to pass judgment on us?”

  “It’s not about judgment,” Wesley said. “It’s about strength.”

  “If you’re going to say strength of character, then I’m going to throw up.”

  “My guess is the trials will be about defeating our own weakness,” Wesley said. “Proving that we’re capable of being more than human.”

  “Gods do not have regrets,” Karam said sagely.

  Tavia turned to Wesley. “You’re half set. Nobody would ever accuse you of being human.”

  “Are you saying I’m godly?”

  Tavia snorted and something in Wesley’s chest jolted too suddenly for his liking.

  “Eirini also said something about time,” Saxony said. “She told me we shou
ld carry it with us. I don’t know what she meant.”

  Wesley withheld his frown alongside his surprise.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons why I brought Falk along with us. He’s not just here to drive the train.”

  Tavia groaned inwardly. “Please tell me that you two haven’t been working on a way to magically blow everyone to pieces.”

  Apparently, Falk’s reputation as a magical weapons expert preceded him.

  “They’re time barrels,” Wesley explained. “They’re yet to be perfected, but I’ve had Falk helping me work on them for a while. A time charm can freeze someone in a second, but I’ve been trying for nearly a year to find a way to engineer it so the magic isn’t focused on just one person. The plan is for the barrels to go off with a bang and freeze any enemies in our path.”

  Wesley sighed, a little put out.

  “I thought I’d be presenting it to the Kingpin rather than using it against him,” he said. “Life’s funny that way.”

  “A time bomb.” Saxony shook her head, like she was caught halfway between outrage and appreciation. “What’s to stop it from freezing us too?”

  “That’s the yet to be perfected part.”

  “Maybe the consort knew about the weapon,” Saxony said. “It would explain what she meant. And if she knew, then maybe Ashwood does too.”

  “We can’t be sure that Eirini was talking about the time bombs,” Wesley said.

  “I still can’t believe that you have time bombs,” Tavia said, incredulous.

  Wesley almost grinned. “Brilliant, aren’t I? When they’re finished, they’ll incapacitate anyone with nonlethal force. We get the bang, but not the destruction.”

  “And you are sure you can finish?” Karam asked. “I do not want to carry around unperfected ticking time bombs.”

  “We’re nearly there,” Wesley said. “The timeline isn’t ideal, but I’ll crack the fine-tuning with Falk.”

  “On the subject of time,” Tavia said. “Back when I was performing at the magic markets, I tried to hock a fortune orb to the crowds.” Tavia looked at Wesley by way of inclining her head and not meeting his eyes. “You know the one.”

  He did.

  They’d worked it together, drunk on magic, the stars sprinkled above them and a wild, wild feeling in Wesley’s chest whenever their hands entangled.

  It was full of junk riddles and mostly mechanics in place of magic, but somewhere deep inside, Wesley felt like he’d placed a piece of himself in that orb, buried amongst the trickery and illusion. A sliver of magic that felt very much like part of his soul.

  Though perhaps that had been the reverie charm talking, or the feeling of Tavia so very close and the grin that slid onto her lips when she held up the finished orb.

  That grin was a drug in itself. Magic, in itself.

  When you get a girlfriend, Tavia had said, eyes dancing, I hope she’s awful at this.

  It was as much a curse as anything she carried around in her pocket.

  Wesley bristled, pulling himself a little straighter. “I know the one,” he said.

  Tavia nodded, then, to Karam and Saxony, she said, “It was mostly a trick orb, not much real magic inside. Something for the tourists. Only, the crowd was kind of restless, so I used a proficiency charm to bump up the show and give them something to fawn over.”

  The frown across her brows was delicate.

  “The orb made a prediction I’d never heard, something Wesley and I didn’t put inside. It mentioned time undoing battles. I thought maybe it malfunctioned, because trick magic is so damn testy. But now it seems like too big of a coincidence.”

  Wesley knew coincidences and that wasn’t one.

  “It seems the realms are trying to tell us something,” Karam said.

  “I think magic is trying to tell us something,” Saxony said.

  Karam nodded. “The Indescribable God speaks in many voices.”

  Wesley resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Whatever the reason, I’ll make sure to perfect the time barrels. But if we’re going to get to the Kingpin in time for the shadow moon, then we have to steal a ship once we reach Granka.”

  “Why not just steal a train?” Tavia asked.

  “The floating railways will be too hard to commandeer and there are no magic tracks anywhere near Ejm Voten. It’s a no-go zone. A ship is our only choice.”

  “Ships belong in museums,” Tavia said. “And the lines for the floating railways are just fancy magic dust. Can’t we use Saxony’s powers to create our own lines and keep a train afloat on whatever course we plot? Falk could drive and she could be the compass.”

  Wesley turned to Saxony. “I supposed that’s a question for you. Do you think you could work on a spell?”

  Saxony straightened. “If you think my powers can be conquered by a train line, then I’m not sure why I’m even here.”

  Wesley smirked.

  If that was the case, they could plow the train straight into the sand and any Energycrafters they found in Granka could shield their army from view. They could walk right up to the gates without even being seen.

  It was all coming together, the plan he had hurriedly tried to jigsaw.

  And even if Ashwood did spot Wesley with Crafters and his best busker at his side, he would still be too curious not to hear him out. Too arrogant to think that letting Wesley in could ever lead to his own destruction.

  It would be the Kingpin’s downfall.

  You’d do anything to win, the voice said, and for once Wesley agreed.

  He was coming for Ashwood and when he found him, he would have no mercy.

  HER MUMA’S EYES WERE black and her smile was wide, and these were the days Tavia hated more than anything.

  The days she held on tightly to her muma’s hand as she was pulled across the room, tugged one way and then the next, while her muma gazed into odd, vacant spaces like someone very important was standing in them.

  “There,” she said, pointing at her shadow. “Can you see them now? My ghosts.”

  Tavia shook her head.

  She wanted to see. Very desperately she wanted to see the thing that haunted her muma’s eyes, but when Tavia looked all she could find was her shadow, still and waiting patiently for her to move.

  She thought maybe it was because she wasn’t old enough. There were some things only grown-ups knew, and Tavia often found herself struggling to decipher the many things that came easy to the people older than her. She wondered if she tried just a bit harder, putting all of her might into it, whether she might be able to see what was hidden in the shadows. The things her muma saw that scared her so much.

  But it never worked, even if she tried her very hardest.

  Tavia nuzzled into her muma’s embrace, cheek pressed against her stomach, and considered lying, if for nothing else than to stop her tears.

  “Right there,” her muma always said. “Can’t you hear them whispering?”

  TAVIA WOKE to an empty carriage and little light, save for a flickering lantern overhead.

  Outside the windows, darkness still echoed. They had left the tunnels and would arrive in Wrenyal in a matter of days, or even hours—Tavia had lost track—but for now the world was still a stranger, blanketed in night, with barely a trace of stars for company.

  Tavia stifled a yawn.

  She hadn’t slept properly in days and the one thing she could not wait for was a real, honest to the gods, bed. Thick blankets and pillows and a space of her own that wasn’t invaded by a horde of snoring buskers. As it was, though there were beds in the far carriage, Tavia couldn’t relax enough to take up residence in one of them. Her nights were too filled with the awful echoes of the past.

  Before the elixir, Tavia kept the memories of her childhood sacred, printed in various pictures inside her mind. She shuffled through them sometimes, conjuring whichever ones she needed when she felt herself sinking too deep into the grips of the criminal underrealm. There was one Tavia used more often than
the rest and it had become worn and ragged inside her memory, fading over time so that Tavia had to squeeze her eyes shut in order to see the finer details.

  The way her muma’s face curved and her eyes wrinkled when she smiled. How her arms wrapped around Tavia’s waist so tightly, they almost became one person. How her voice sounded so gentle when she said Tavia’s name, like it was a secret between them.

  It was a beautiful thing to be loved that much, but now Tavia was ruining those memories by conjuring the ones that lurked behind.

  Ones of her muma very, very cold.

  Of her eyes black and a mark printed on her neck like a child’s drawing.

  She tried to push away those thoughts and let her memories be overtaken with incomprehensible niceties about a woman who called her ciolo like it was a term of endearment, and being young and small in Creije was closer to good fortune than a calamity.

  But it was getting so much harder.

  Tavia was too on edge and every night when she closed her eyes all she saw was her muma’s face staring back. And that man, Deniel Emilsson, trapped in a Creijen cell, perhaps dead because of her.

  It was not exactly a motivation for a peaceful night’s sleep.

  Besides, there were only a few dozen beds on offer, so Tavia thought it best to let the other buskers fight it out among themselves. Wesley, of course, had his own private carriage with his own private bunk, for no other reason than because he was Wesley.

  Tavia bet that he slept like a baby, even if he always had one eye open.

  She pulled the silken black hood over her eyes as the cold from the window, broken by the attack on the station, settled in. Her bones ached with the bite of it, but they all needed the fresh air. It was getting a little cramped and Tavia was pleasantly surprised they hadn’t all killed each other yet.

  She headed to the next carriage, where she could hear Saxony’s voice carrying through.

  When Tavia slid open the door, Saxony was lying across two chairs, her head dangling over the edge, wild curls sprawling to the floor, a piece of bread in her hand. Karam sat opposite, sharpening her blade with quirked lips.

  Tavia liked seeing the two of them together like that. It reminded her of the old days, when she and Wesley were still friends, laughing over nothing and everything.