Into The Crooked Place

by Alexandra Christo

And then Karam’s skin began to melt together.

  It darkened, pink blurring back to brown before her eyes, blood hissing and evaporating into the air. Karam’s breathing slowed and the damp film that clung to her cheeks dissipated. Her lips turned rosy, the sweat on her brow now more like a glow.

  Tavia whistled a breath.

  “That was so unbelievably cool,” she said. “Does it work on any kind of injury? Because one of Ashwood’s guys knocked me straight on my ass and I just know I’ll be feeling it tomorrow.”

  Saxony didn’t answer. She turned back to stare at the bodies still strewn across the forest and wiped her palms across her skirt.

  The healing magic glimmered over the fabric for a moment and then faded to nothing.

  THE WORLD WAS FALLING APART and it was Deniel’s job to fix it.

  There were awful things hidden in the winding arteries of Creije, where magic was dealt like the hands of a card game, ready to be sold to the desperate and the lonely who wanted to escape whatever reality they had been born into, for one they could create themselves. Magic, not sacred and revered, but worshipped in a different kind of way, as the source that could give people temporary relief from their lives.

  A way to satiate the hunger to change themselves.

  The world inside that place was falling apart and Deniel Emilsson was at its center.

  Ready.

  Just as hungry as they were.

  His black eyes took in the blood that hardened under his fingernails. It had rusted to brown against his graying skin.

  Dirty blood. Traitor blood.

  The amityguards lay in a pile around his cell, hands still on their guns, on their sedation charms. Eyes open, mouths open, as though they had died in the time it took to breathe or blink.

  It had been longer, but only slightly.

  They couldn’t see the truth of the world and Deniel couldn’t let them live in the lie.

  They’d spread it like a plague.

  Deniel knew what the world had to be now.

  He knew what had to be done and where to find the thing to do it.

  He touched the mark on his neck.

  The voices hissed.

  “Yes,” he told them. “I know.”

  Deniel picked up the knife from the floor and headed into the night.

  THEY WEREN’T PERMITTED ENTRY inside the temple, but that was fine with Wesley. He never much liked holy places and they never much liked him back.

  They were, however, allowed into a secret room beneath it, where nearly a hundred hooded figures sat cross-legged. It took Wesley a moment to realize they were arranged into the shape of the holy Wrenyi symbol.

  Nobody had spoken a word since their arrival. Not even the Crafter with the four-bladed sword. Arjun.

  He hadn’t taken his eyes off Wesley since they’d entered the room, his golden irises following his every move. He also didn’t seem to want to drop that damn sword while Wesley was around. Which was smart, if not a little irritating.

  “Saxony Akintola,” a woman said.

  She stood in the center of the Kin and though she wasn’t particularly tall or particularly large, her presence was beyond compare.

  Her eyes were dark and glittering, her black hair swept to the side in a thick braid and her arms were so covered in staves that it was almost hard to make out her skin beneath it all.

  When she spoke every Crafter in the room looked at her.

  “My name is Asees, protector of the five-river city and Liege of the Grankan Crafters.” Her voice was soft and mighty. “I see you have already met my second in command, Arjun.”

  Wesley held back his surprise.

  No wonder Arjun stood so close to her, like a bodyguard.

  That cocky son of a bitch was a second.

  “If not for his loyalty to you, Karam, you would not be permitted anywhere near my temple,” Asees said. “You should count yourself fortunate for that.”

  Karam looked chided, which was not something Wesley had seen before.

  Asees turned to Saxony. “As you are next in line to be Liege of the Rishiyat Crafters—”

  “We don’t need a new Liege,” Saxony interrupted. “That position is filled. We’ll find my sister so she can ascend to her rightful place.”

  Wesley sighed.

  They weren’t going to rally any troops with Saxony’s winning personality at the helm.

  “I know of your sister,” Asees said. “I heard she was kind and wise.”

  “Is,” Saxony corrected, though she seemed more sad than angry to have to spell out the difference. “You must be kind too, to grant us a meeting.”

  “I must be a lot of things for you to ask for my help with an underboss by your side.”

  “So you’ve heard of me,” Wesley said.

  “No.”

  His smile tensed.

  Apparently, Wesley’s reputation was good for nothing outside of his own realm.

  “I already know of your problems,” Asees said. “Arjun has explained your plight, but this is something for your realm to deal with, not ours.”

  It was a slight if Wesley had ever heard one, because though Karam lived in Uskhanya, that didn’t mean Wrenyal wasn’t still her home too.

  “This fight goes beyond realms,” Wesley said. “It’s about your people.”

  “Our people are right here.” Asees shot a pointed look at Karam. “I would never forget that.”

  “Ashwood won’t be satisfied taking one realm when he can have three,” Wesley said. “Trust me.”

  “Trust is earned.”

  “Or taken.”

  Asees did not seem impressed by the notion.

  “We need you,” Saxony said.

  When she spoke, even Wesley could feel the room tense. They looked at her as though she could not be trusted, and her strange Uskhanyan magic as suspicious as his borrowed and stolen charms.

  “From one Crafter to another, don’t leave us in this fight alone,” Saxony said. “My sister could die in the Kingpin’s hold. Ashwood will keep taking Crafters and everything our Kins sacrificed in the War of Ages will have been for nothing.”

  Her voice nearly broke and she swallowed. Tears, perhaps, or anger.

  Wesley wasn’t sure, but he felt like he couldn’t look her in the eye.

  If he had just told the Kingpin no, let the underboss live and—

  Then you would not be so mighty, with worlds at your feet.

  “They are right,” Arjun said. “Dante Ashwood will not stop and that means he may come for us, too. We must avenge those of us who fell in the war and honor their memory by making sure no more have to die.”

  Spoken like a true believer of the Rekhi d’Rihsni.

  When Wesley had read about them, he’d memorized their rallying cries: We fight so we may live in peace. We fall so those after us will not have to. Arjun was basically a walking textbook for the past.

  Asees considered his words for the briefest of moments, and when she looked to Arjun she let out a long breath, as though she were more troubled by the thought of upsetting his ego, than the thought of hanging Wesley out to dry.

  “What magic will best help?” Arjun asked.

  It took Wesley a moment to realize Arjun was looking at him.

  Wesley adjusted his tie. “The more the merrier,” he said. “I’ll take whatever volunteers I can get. Though a Spiritcrafter would be useful to control the seas of Ejm Voten.”

  “That would be my specialty.”

  “Arjun,” Asees warned. “Enough.”

  She looked to Wesley with fiery eyes. “We will offer you safe refuge,” she said. “But that is all we can give.”

  “I understand you may want time to deliberate,” Wesley said, slowly, because he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her right. “But we’re on a deadline. The shadow moon is—”

  Asees held up a hand to stop him.

  “I know when our Crafter Moon will rise. I do not need an underboss to tell me,” Asees said. “My answer i
s no.”

  She stared at him with hard eyes and when Wesley took a step toward her, Asees held her chin high and gave him a look to freeze fire.

  “The Grankan Kin cannot help you. I know how painful it is to lose family, which is exactly why I will not risk mine for someone else’s war.”

  “My sister is with Ashwood!” Saxony said, practically seething.

  “And I appreciate your plight,” Asees said, though her voice remained even. “But I must think of my people.”

  “Asees.” Arjun’s voice was gruff and confused. “We cannot turn our backs on them.”

  “Your judgment is clouded,” Asees said. “By Karam and your childhood ties. This is not your decision to make.”

  “But—”

  Asees shook her head and that alone was enough to silence her second.

  Such power a Liege held.

  “The time for the Rekhi d’Rihsni is over,” Asees said. “The time for war and violence is over. That is my final word.”

  Arjun swallowed, jaw tense, and in that moment he looked every bit the scolded warrior. “Then we can help them in another way,” he said.

  Asees snapped her head to him. “I told you that I will not put our people at risk.”

  “I know that,” he said, but his teeth were gritted. “Though if we will not give them Crafters, then we can still give them some kind of magic.”

  Wesley wasn’t sure what Arjun meant, but Karam stepped forward with no sign of the same bewilderment in her hooded eyes.

  “You cannot give us Crafters,” she said. “But you can make us one.”

  Wesley paused.

  The way Saxony shuffled, hand twitching as though she wanted to reach out and shake some sense into Karam, made him feel like the only one not in on a very big secret.

  “Hold your tongue,” Asees said.

  But Karam was never the type to heed warnings.

  “I remember our teachings just as well as you do,” Karam said. “According to the holy book, the Indescribable God imbued worthy Grankans with its spirit, creating the first Crafters and giving them the power to do so in return. This is the only Kin in the four realms who can give someone Crafter powers.”

  Wesley stilled.

  That was a myth.

  Some playground story that children passed around so they could make believe one day they might be able to hold true magic and escape their crappy lives.

  It was a street-kid fantasy. Nothing more.

  “Crafters can create other Crafters?” Tavia asked.

  “They are called vessels,” Arjun said.

  Saxony took in a breath, as though she didn’t want to speak of this next part, but her intrigue was too much to bear.

  “We have a ritual in my own Kin that can determine whether someone has Crafter potential,” she said. “It’s how we pick our allies and see whether any non-magical companions are trustworthy. If any of our Crafters fall in love or create friendships outside the Kin, we don’t keep those bonds if they fail the test. The Intuitcrafters say that if a person passes, they were a Crafter in another life and can be trusted with our secrets in this one. We mark them with a stave as proof. But I’ve never heard of awakening that potential and turning them into one of us.”

  “It is unique to our Kin,” Arjun said.

  “And it is not as simple as that,” Asees said. “The spell is temporary and if we put forward an unworthy vessel, it could anger the Indescribable God’s wrath.”

  “Is this how someone like Dante Ashwood got to be so almighty?” Wesley asked.

  Something shifted in Arjun’s face and when he spoke, his words were like a matchstick. “The Kingpins traded between the realms back then,” he said. “Ashwood had a taste for our people and forced dozens of Grankan Crafters to imbue him with their gift, over and over until the magic froze in his blood and could not be separated. He became half man and half abomination. He is not one of us.”

  “But he’s not one of us, either.”

  Arjun tilted his head to the side, appraising Wesley. “You do not seem to think anyone is like you.”

  “We can only create a single vessel each orbit,” Asees said. “So even if I did agree, we will not be able to imbue all of your crooks.”

  “One a year?” Wesley asked, disappointed.

  “It is a sacred magic.”

  “And it’s not going to help a whole lot.”

  Asees smiled. Wesley glared.

  “We will need blood,” Arjun said. “To see if the Indescribable God deems you worthy.”

  He gestured to Wesley with his four-pointed sword.

  It was a no-brainer. The potential to have Crafter powers when Wesley took on the Kingpin was too good to pass up. Wesley took a step toward Arjun and then felt himself being tugged back.

  For a moment, he wondered who would be so stupid as to try to stop him from doing something he’d set his mind to. But the touch carried a familiar warmth against Wesley’s skin and when he looked down, it was Tavia’s hand that wrapped around his wrist.

  Her fingers covered part of Wesley’s scars and for a moment he imagined never having them at all. He imagined a childhood where he clung to his memories and felt sad about those he forgot.

  Tavia’s fingers tightened, keeping him in place. She so rarely reached out for him that Wesley almost didn’t ask her why she had.

  “You’re being an idiot,” Tavia said.

  That broke the spell rather quickly.

  Wesley shook from her hold. “Charming as ever.”

  “Many Gods, Wesley, you can’t trust the first person with a sword who demands your blood for some ritual.”

  “If this is you being worried, I’m touched. But I’m a big boy and I make my own decisions.”

  “That’s what worries me. You make the worst decisions.” Tavia sidestepped him. “I’ll do it,” she said to Arjun. “In case your plan is to poison our fearless leader. If he dies, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

  But her voice wavered so obviously that Wesley almost laughed.

  Tavia didn’t want to be a Crafter, not even a pretend one and not even for a little while. Not because she didn’t like magic or want more of it, but because she didn’t want to be in anyone’s debt. She didn’t want to risk having something to lose.

  That was the thing with Tavia. She wanted to earn all that she had so it could never be taken away, while Wesley was content to just grab hold of things tightly enough that nobody dared try.

  He pushed past her. “If you die, you’ll haunt me for an eternity,” Wesley said. “Besides, I didn’t get to be underboss by running away from risk.”

  And he was damned if he was going to let Tavia take that risk for him.

  Before she could protest, Wesley squeezed his hand over the serrated edge of Arjun’s blade.

  It was just another scar to add to the collection, after all.

  Arjun passed the blade to his Liege.

  “It will change color if you have potential to be a vessel,” Asees explained.

  Wesley nodded.

  Asees let his blood run off the blade and into a small canister.

  From the sidelines, Saxony watched in silence, a pained look on her face that told Wesley she didn’t approve of someone like him becoming someone like her.

  That he wasn’t quite good enough to have true power.

  The Grankan Kin hummed in chorus around the canister with Wesley’s blood. Their bodies swayed back and forth as their magic turned like a spindle in the air, threading its way through the room.

  The air grew hot and Wesley’s skin felt sticky with it. He took in a long breath, trying to keep his mind focused on the room and the people inside and not on how he felt like he was being strategically dipped in scalding water.

  Instinctively, Wesley ran a hand over the scars on his wrist. They ran hotter than the rest of him. It was like he could smell them burning all over again.

  Closer, the ghost inside his mind cooed. Come closer.

&nbs
p; Asees spoke words in Wrenyi that Wesley couldn’t understand and picked trick dust from the floor to sprinkle into the canister.

  Wesley’s blood rippled.

  If this worked, he’d be a Crafter.

  If Wesley cared about the family he’d left behind, this would prove to them that he was worth something.

  Wesley wasn’t just some street kid people crossed the road to avoid and he wasn’t some irredeemable underboss people left Creije to escape.

  He was something else entirely.

  He mattered.

  Asees picked up the canister and whispered to it. Her words carried in the wind and tickled at Wesley’s hair.

  Wesley lifted a hand to swat them away and when they began to prick at his neck, he cursed silently under his breath.

  Apparently, blood magic was a nuisance.

  The room was tense while they waited for Wesley’s fate and he knew instantly what everyone was thinking: The last thing the underboss of Creije needs is his ego pumped. Or Dante Ashwood is proof of what happens when men like Wesley discover their potential.

  Something gnawed at Wesley then. Not only the petty judgment from those in the room, but a very real and tangible thing. He could hear a voice and it wasn’t Asees and it wasn’t the one he so often tried to hide from. It was lighter and jumbled and seemed to travel straight from Wesley’s mind and into the world.

  The wind was calling out to him, first a whistle and then a melody Wesley could feel in his bones.

  Time will be carried in strange hands

  across the realms and through stranger lands.

  What is done will be undone,

  a battle lost is a battle won.

  When midnight rings on a child’s betrayal,

  your every success is doomed to fail.

  Wesley closed his eyes and images shot against the back of his lids like a flip book. The hands of a clock spinning madly until they shattered. Wind that moved like ghosts and a thin black line across the center of the realms, like a rip in time.

  Shaken, he turned to Tavia, but she showed no sign of hearing it. None of them did. But it was so loud and clear and it kept repeating over and over like a dream.

  This was the prediction Tavia had heard from the fortune orb. It had to be. And now it had found Wesley, too.