Into The Crooked Place

by Alexandra Christo

  If in the old days she and Wesley had a history of kissing.

  Which they most certainly did not.

  “I’m starving,” Saxony said.

  She threw the bread down onto the platter between them, as though it didn’t count as food.

  “I can barely sleep with this train making so much noise and every time I want to pee there’s a queue the size of a small city. I think this might be the Kingpin’s first test. I can’t imagine him coming up with anything worse.”

  Karam smirked.

  “You mean you’re not enjoying all the team bonding?” Tavia asked, stepping into view.

  Saxony sat up with a grin. “Nice of you to join the living,” she said. “Good nap?”

  “Oh, the best.” Tavia slumped into the seat beside her. “I had a full twenty minutes.”

  “Utter luxury,” Saxony said.

  “And not to make you jealous, but an hour ago the bathroom was free and I managed to pee without a single person knocking on the door. There was even toilet paper on the roll.”

  “You’re killing me,” Saxony said. “How did people live before the floating railways? I can’t believe I took those trains for granted and talked about them being too big. Too luxurious. Who complains about something being too luxurious? I was such a fool.”

  She looked out the window wistfully, hand on her heart, and the moment she turned, Tavia’s eyes drew to the mark on her neck.

  She couldn’t help it.

  It was pinked like a new burn, or at least it had been, though now it was blending back into Saxony’s dark skin like an old wound. Every time Tavia caught sight of it, her mind filled with dread.

  All the bad nights of her childhood she’d tried so hard to forget bubbled to the surface.

  Don’t cry, ciolo.

  The mark of the magic sickness was so clear when Tavia had seen it on her muma, even long after her body had gone stiff and her hand grew cold in Tavia’s tiny fingers. And yet it was disappearing from Saxony like it didn’t want to be seen. Maybe it only left its stain on the dead, like a brand.

  She wondered if Deniel Emilsson was dead yet.

  Tavia cleared her throat.

  She was going to drive herself crazy thinking about it.

  Saxony leaned her head against the window. “I bet your underboss is loving being so cooped up like this.”

  Her underboss. As though Wesley belonged only to Tavia.

  “Now, now,” Tavia said. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to speak ill of the great Wesley Thornton Walcott?”

  “He needs three names for all of his personalities,” Saxony said.

  Tavia smirked and picked up a piece of bread from the platter. “Who was in charge of bringing the food supplies?”

  “I think it’s best we don’t ask,” Saxony said. “I won’t be able to control my rage when I find out.”

  “Good point.” Tavia took a bite of the dry bread. “Don’t disturb the peace. I haven’t been attacked by anyone in days. I’m getting used to the lack of bruises.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Karam said. “You did not get shot.”

  Tavia gave her a consolatory smile, though in fairness she had been shot at, and it was very nearly the same thing. It wasn’t Tavia’s fault that Karam needed to be a little quicker on her feet. Besides, Saxony had healed the wound in a pinch and Karam seemed like she was back to normal. Glares and all.

  “If it still hurts, I can give you something for the pain,” Tavia said. “I have a relief charm that could knock you into next week.”

  “I have no pain,” Karam said.

  “Oh.” Tavia smiled. “So you just wanted an excuse to moan, then?”

  Karam’s eyes narrowed in a look that told Tavia she didn’t appreciate her humor as much as she should have.

  Saxony’s laugh was like a loud boom in the night. “I really love how you two get along so well.” She slung an arm over Tavia’s shoulder. “My two best girls, being the best of friends.”

  Tavia raised an eyebrow, but the grin on Saxony’s face was infectious and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing alongside her.

  It was a nice respite from the war that loomed ahead.

  Tavia nudged away Saxony’s arm, and through the open buttons of her shirt a small silver mark, right near the cusp of her heart, peeked through.

  “I didn’t know you had a tattoo,” Tavia said.

  Saxony rolled her eyes and stroked Tavia’s hair. “Poor, little busker,” she said, pretending not to see her glare. “It’s one of my staves. Every Crafter has them to signal our specialty and magical triumphs. This one’s my Energycrafter sign.”

  Of course it was.

  Of course Saxony had one.

  Because Saxony was a Crafter.

  Tavia didn’t know if she’d ever get used to that.

  She didn’t want to be angry about it, because that seemed really selfish and it made complete sense that Saxony hadn’t revealed she was hiding from the very people they both worked for. It was a secret that could cost her life.

  But the fact that Saxony didn’t trust her, however justified, wasn’t easy to swallow.

  “They’re like those runes the tourists draw on themselves,” Tavia said.

  Saxony visibly tensed, wrinkling her nose like she’d smelled something awful. “Suvi.”

  Scumbags.

  Apparently, she didn’t appreciate her traditions reduced to a costume for Creije’s sightseers.

  “Are you nervous about meeting with the Crafters?” Tavia asked Karam. “Will they trust you after all this time?”

  “I am more nervous about meeting with my father,” Karam said, continuing to sharpen her blade. “It has been years since we last spoke and we did not part on good terms. He never approved of who I wanted to be.”

  Tavia kept quiet, because that seemed like the thing to do when someone looked this vulnerable.

  “My entire family, my friends, and all the promises I made them were abandoned,” Karam said. “I chose my life in Creije over everything and now I am going back, not to make amends, but to ask them to put their lives on the line for me. Put a trust in me that I broke.”

  Karam sucked in a breath and Saxony squeezed her knee, like she knew Karam needed comfort but wasn’t quite sure how to give it.

  Tavia stayed still. She’d never disappointed her father, because he wasn’t around to disappoint. Tavia knew nothing about him, not the look he got when he was mad or if they shared the same colored eyes or even his name. And her memories were so full of her muma, each one precious and overused, that dreams of her father had become a rarity.

  Her muma had never spoken of him and so Tavia’s imagination was all she had. She thought of him in two ways: a dreamer who loved her muma dearly and had died tragically, causing her muma to flee from Volo in a wave of despair and travel to Uskhanya. She settled in Creije, which was his home city, hoping to be close to his spirit. And in the winters, when Creije grew cold and her muma missed the balmy nights of Gila, she’d look out her window and spot the Everglow, and a feeling of calm would wash over her. She’d feel the magic and the presence of her lost love in those lights and be satiated.

  The other thought Tavia had was that her father was just a huge bastard.

  But she tried not to focus too much on that one.

  “I feel the same about my amja,” Saxony said. “I don’t know what she’ll do when she finds out I’ve teamed up with Wesley to take down the Kingpin. She was alive for the War of Ages and saw firsthand what the dark magic trade did to our people. She hates everything they stand for.”

  “You mean not everyone thinks Wesley Thornton Walcott is the greatest thing ever?” Tavia asked.

  “Strangely, no,” Saxony said. “And Many Gods know how my father is going to react when he realizes I went to Creije to find Zekia and stayed to spy on the underboss. When he finds out all I’ve done, he—”

  She cut herself off, growing quiet, her smile barely there and grim.
/>   Tavia hated not knowing what that smile meant. She hated not being able to read the people closest to her.

  Tavia would know if it was Wesley. With just one tug of his tie, or a touch of his cuff links at the wrong time, Tavia would know in half a second what Wesley was thinking.

  Liars were the easiest to catch.

  “So it’s angry families all round?” Tavia said. “That’ll be fun.”

  “I think my father will be more scared than angry,” Saxony said. “He used to want to fight to take back our place in the world, but after losing my mother and Malik, and then Zekia, I think he’s just afraid of outliving everyone.”

  “Malik?” Tavia repeated.

  “My brother,” Saxony said. “He died in a fire with my mother when I was a child.”

  Though she said it so easily, like it was just another fact about her life that she hadn’t mentioned, the air grew thick and Tavia felt like the worst friend in the realms.

  She didn’t even know Saxony had a brother.

  What kind of friend didn’t ask those questions?

  “Malik was only five, but he was the biggest troublemaker you could imagine,” Saxony said. “He always needed things to go his way and because he didn’t look much like me, or Zekia, I used to tease him that we’d found him in the woods and he was a child of trickster spirits. For some reason, he thought that was a good thing.”

  Saxony laughed and though it was sad, she also looked a little happy, like she was glad to be able to say her brother’s name and tell his stories.

  “I’m sorry,” Tavia said, which was probably the worst thing to say, because it solved nothing and definitely did not bring Saxony’s family back.

  Saxony poked her in the ribs. “Don’t look so glum,” she said. “It was a long time ago and all that matters now is finding Zekia.”

  “We’ll find her,” Tavia said. “No matter what. We’ll get your sister back.”

  Saxony linked her arm through Tavia’s. “Creije’s best busker, making me a promise,” she said. “Now that’s a sight for sore eyes.”

  “You can count on me to get the job done,” Tavia said. “Self-doubt isn’t a good trait to have in our profession.”

  “In your profession you are not supposed to have good traits,” Karam said.

  She was joking, in that deadly serious way that only Karam did, but Tavia couldn’t bring herself to disagree.

  All she ever dreamed of was leaving Creije and traveling to her mother’s home realm of Volo, because she thought it would give her some kind of clean slate and erase all the bad she had done. She’d built it up in her head so wonderfully, reading books upon books, until it almost seemed like a fantasy.

  The Volens believed in the Lonely Goddess and the Betrayer, who she had created to live out her immortal life with, only he grew bitter at her power and sent sin down to the realms, so she was forced to kill him as punishment. Each year the Volens had a celebration in thanks for the Lonely Goddess’s sacrifice. In the capital of Gila, where Tavia’s muma was from, the city she was born in, they filled the streets with paper lanterns and cast magic to the sky so the stars beamed down in an array of colors. It was said to be one of the most beautiful festivals in the four realms.

  If Tavia found her way there, she always thought she could live the life she was meant to. Be the type of person who wouldn’t curse or throw charms if someone pissed her off, but grimace and say Betrayer set sin on you in a haughty voice.

  Instead, Tavia sold dangerous charms and elixirs to people, pretending it didn’t matter and convincing herself they might deserve it, even if she knew that was a lie. Tavia’s mother had died from the magic sickness and for all she knew, Tavia might have given that sickness to someone else.

  She’d nearly given it to Saxony that day by the temple.

  Tavia didn’t know how many lives she’d ruined under the guise of keeping her head down and doing what she was told. She wasn’t sure what was left in her after so many years on the streets—or what would be left after this was all over—but Tavia hoped desperately it was something close to goodness.

  She owed her muma that much.

  KARAM WAS BORN ON the holy banks of Granka, with her mother’s feet doused in the biggest of its five rivers.

  They spread like arteries from the heart of the city and when Karam’s mother realized that her first daughter was arriving, she journeyed one mile on foot to the waterfall at Cipa—the river of grace, because that was what she hoped her daughter would be. Graceful and devoted to their ancient ways. Only Karam was not graceful, and these days the one thing she seemed to be able to devote herself to was chaos.

  It had been many years since Karam had seen her once-home and her once-family, and those years didn’t dull her bitterness toward them, or her love. Time didn’t heal wounds like the stories said, but only made it harder to look at them, and the longer Karam left those wounds, the deeper they ran, until they had buried themselves so far that they became easier to ignore altogether.

  To find the Grankan Crafters, she would need to face her parents. And they would know Karam had aligned herself with violence and they wouldn’t care if she still prayed to the Indescribable God, because what use was prayer when all she did was ask for forgiveness?

  And Arjun. The old friend she had left behind with promises to return as a warrior. Karam only hoped he still had that same fighting spirit she remembered from their childhood and that he wouldn’t hate her for teaming up with the very people she promised to bring down in a blaze of glory by his side.

  “I’ve never been outside of Uskhanya,” Tavia said. “This is beautiful.”

  The Grankan sky beamed down, its white-gold rays like arms enveloping them. Karam forgot how clear and bright the city was, as though the heavens were open to them so the Indescribable God could watch over its devoted children.

  In Uskhanya, their so-called Many Gods would rather not see what was going on, which explained people like Wesley.

  Karam took in a breath. The streets she had grown up on still smelled like peppercorns, and a little way from where she had played warriors with Arjun there was scripture on the cobblestones, preaching selfless servitude, peace among all, and the aberration of sin.

  “It’s not that Granka’s beautiful.” Saxony clapped an arm over Tavia’s shoulder. “It’s just that you haven’t seen the sun in a week.”

  “Well, it was winter when we left,” Tavia said. “Remind me to never spend so long on a train. I can’t wait to see the stars.”

  “You won’t.” Wesley pulled off his blazer and folded it neatly over his arm. His shirt clung to him amid the heat. “This is a simple in-and-out mission. We’re not here to sightsee.”

  “Stars are not sights,” Karam said.

  “All the same, we won’t be wandering the streets.”

  “You live in Creije and you are worried about the streets here?” Karam asked.

  “I’m worried about the people,” Wesley said. “Crafter worshippers aren’t fond of those who buy and sell magic. We need to keep a low profile.”

  Karam didn’t hide her smirk. “We arrived with an army of crooks on a stolen steam train.”

  “Starting from now,” Wesley said. He loosened a button on his collar as the heat took hold. “We keep a low profile starting from now.”

  Saxony settled herself beside Karam, looking a little out of place. Karam always thought that she was easier to spot than a forest fire, but in Granka, Saxony should have fit in. After all, she was a Crafter in a realm that saw her kind as the spirit of a god.

  Even so, Saxony seemed to stand out most of all, and not because she towered above most men or carried herself with an effortless confidence, or the way her clothes hugged her a little tighter than was commonplace. It was the way she looked at Karam and lit the air between them on fire with just one smile.

  Saxony touched the knife at her side and Karam swallowed, remembering the day she had given it to her. The day Saxony revealed her powers and
trusted Karam for the first time. The knife was Karam’s way of saying she trusted her too. It was her best one, after all, and she had to get Wesley to front her the coin for a replacement.

  “Do you want me to come?” Saxony asked.

  Karam cleared her throat. “No.”

  Saxony nudged her. “I’m great with parents. My wiles are irresistible to all. I’ve got an ageless charm.”

  “No,” Karam said again.

  Saxony’s smile dimmed. “Why not?”

  Karam hesitated.

  As much as Creije had taught her not to give a spirit’s damn about what people thought, she wouldn’t be able to stand it if her parents looked at Saxony with the same disappointment they usually reserved for her. They hated the thought of Karam fighting for peace, so what would they think of a Crafter standing beside the likes of an underboss?

  Karam hated to think about them making Saxony feel like a traitor too.

  “Three’s a crowd,” Wesley said. “Karam and I will go. We don’t need a babysitter.”

  If Karam didn’t know any better, she might think Wesley had just helped her out.

  “What are we supposed to do then?” Saxony asked.

  “Not sightsee, apparently,” Tavia said.

  She gave Wesley a dry look and his lips edged up in a half smile.

  He smiled too much when she was around.

  “You’ll need to grease a few palms,” Wesley said. “Before we left Creije, our friendly Vice Doyen gave me some contacts to ensure we have a smooth stay, for a price.”

  He pulled a slip of paper out from his coat, with a list of half a dozen names, and handed it to Tavia.

  “So these contacts are legit?” she asked. “We don’t need to threaten them?”

  “You don’t need to threaten the people you pay,” Wesley said. “They’ll provide us with the ammunition we lost at the station, load the buskers up on any extra charms, provide safe room and board where we won’t get robbed or killed. I can write you a list, but it’ll be easier if you just pay them and don’t ask questions. Tell them the Uskhanyan Doyen sent you and they’ll know what to do.”