Into The Crooked Place

by Alexandra Christo

  The water prepared to devour it. Waves like jaws ready to swallow any evidence the castle had ever existed.

  Karam could hear screaming. She could see the lights of magic as whoever was left behind tried to stay alive.

  Against their train, the sea roared. Above their heads, the storm followed. But the Crafters were keeping it at bay and Karam couldn’t take her eyes off the island to worry.

  The sea thrashed against itself. The screaming stopped. The castle fell to nothing.

  SAXONY DID NOT OPEN her eyes, even after she woke.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed since the Kingpin’s island turned to dust. It could have been hours. It could have been days.

  She didn’t really care.

  Zekia had tried to kill her.

  Her sister had tried to kill her.

  And not with blades and charms, but with their family’s magic. Zekia had tried to drive her to insanity, flooding Saxony’s head with visions of all the possible futures where she was the Kingpin’s puppet. Images of Saxony killing innocents. Images of her killing Karam.

  Saxony thought she would die with that being the final thing she saw. Instead, the Many Gods granted her mercy in the form of Wesley Thornton Walcott.

  Saxony wasn’t sure why he hadn’t let Zekia kill her, when just moments before she’d been ready to take him out. She didn’t understand why Wesley would risk his life to save hers.

  It didn’t matter.

  Wesley was gone and so was Zekia, and Saxony couldn’t promise that she’d repay the blood debt Wesley had earned. She wasn’t sure what she’d do when she saw him again. If she saw him again.

  Saxony opened her eyes and found Karam sitting on a small wooden chair by her bedside. Her eyes were tired and bloodshot, as though she hadn’t blinked, let alone slept.

  When she saw Saxony was awake, her smile was cutthroat.

  “Well-rested?” she asked. “You slept for days.”

  “Don’t nag,” Saxony said. “You never used to rise before noon.”

  She pushed herself upright and her bones creaked with the movement.

  “Is Tavia very mad?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Karam said. “But she will get over it. Buskers have a quick recovery time.”

  “She thinks I betrayed her,” Saxony said.

  “You betrayed Wesley.”

  “I think that might be the same thing.” Saxony took in a long, tired breath.

  She had fences to mend and they’d be difficult. Tavia was stubborn and blinded when it came to Wesley. Any slight against him, no matter how much she tried to deny it, was a slight against her.

  “At the very least, I have you by my side,” Saxony said. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk once you found out what I’d done.”

  Karam’s hard edges disappeared and though Saxony usually found them quite nice, she was grateful. Seeing Karam look at her with love in her eyes instead of hate was the greatest relief in the realms.

  “If you are talking about the messenger bats, then somebody sentimental might tell you to stop blaming yourself,” Karam said. “They might tell you that we have all wanted to kill Wesley at some point and that the Kingpin holds the blame for what happened to the Grankan Kin. You should not steal such a thing for yourself.”

  “It’s a shame you’re not sentimental,” Saxony said. “That would’ve been real nice to hear.”

  Karam’s grin strained. She looked at Saxony with a new seriousness. “I know what it is like to lose family,” she said. “If you wanted to talk about Zekia.”

  “I haven’t lost her,” Saxony said. “When I get back to Rishiya, I’ll tell my amja about everything that happened and she’ll know just what to do. I can still save my sister.”

  “How about you tell me what happened first?” Karam asked.

  So she did. Saxony told Karam about Zekia standing beside the Kingpin like a doting daughter and how she wore his insignia so diligently. How Zekia went to the Kingpin to help Wesley become underboss. She explained how Zekia had plans for Wesley and how she must have used her Intuitcrafter magic to trick him into escaping with her.

  Saxony told Karam how her sister had tried to kill her.

  To her credit, Saxony waited until after she finished to cry.

  She sobbed against Karam’s shoulder, and her beautiful warrior let her tears soak her collar in silence. When Saxony finished—when it seemed impossible for her to have any tears left—she gathered her breath and slumped against the headboard.

  “What could have made Zekia turn like that?” Karam asked. “From what you have told me, she would not betray everything she believed for some pretty words.”

  “It wasn’t just her,” Saxony said. “You saw the other Crafters. Some wanted the future the Kingpin spoke of. They were loyal to him.”

  It made her sick to think it. The War of Ages was fought to grant Crafters freedom from exploitation. It killed countless people and destroyed cities. It didn’t seem real that any Crafter who knew the stories would willingly join with a Kingpin.

  “It could have been the elixir,” Karam said. “Asees said that every time they gave it to her, it wore away a little bit of her spirit.”

  “Zekia was the one who created the elixir,” Saxony said. “She wasn’t under its influence. My blood connection to her is how I was able to overcome it back in Creije.”

  “Then the Kingpin brainwashed her,” Karam said, like there couldn’t have been another option. “Three years spent as his captive meant plenty of time to twist her mind.”

  Saxony wanted to believe that, but she couldn’t quite convince herself. Karam hadn’t seen the look in her sister’s eyes. It was not that of a broken girl, but someone who did the breaking.

  “It doesn’t matter what happened,” Saxony said. “I’ll get Zekia back. I won’t lose another member of my family, I can promise you that.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Karam said. She linked her hand in Saxony’s, like a vow. “I am with you.”

  And Saxony knew that she meant it. That Karam would always be there.

  They’d go to the ends of the realms, if that was what it took. When Saxony next saw her sister, she’d have Karam by her side and they’d save Zekia together.

  They would bring her home and cut down whoever dared stand in their way.

  TAVIA DANGLED HER BARE feet over the side of the train.

  Magic was still in the air, though they’d left the ruins of the Kingpin’s castle at the bottom of Ejm Voten a week before its death somehow followed them.

  The seas were calm, which was more than Tavia could say for herself or anyone else. Barely half of their army made it out alive and their new crew was made up of too many of the Kingpin’s people for anyone to relax.

  The time charges had turned the tide in their favor, but by the time Arjun had set them off, many were already dead. And though some of the Kingpin’s Crafters were under the influence of the Loj, though some they saved, many more were killers through and through. With the exception of the sixty they took aboard the train—who still had everyone on edge—the rest were left to perish. Or perhaps escape, if they knew the way.

  Just like Zekia and Wesley.

  Wesley, who was a Crafter.

  Not just a vessel, but a bona fide spell-slinging Crafter.

  It didn’t make a lick of sense. Except, the more Tavia thought about it, the more she found that it did. Wesley was the youngest underboss in the realms. He had more power than anyone she knew, and magic seemed to adapt and shape itself to him, like an old friend.

  Even the orb that Tavia was sure had been a fraud had accurately predicted their time charges because Wesley had a hand in creating it. His Intuitcrafter magic seeping inside, connecting it to him, a thread of his power pulling tight.

  Tavia sighed.

  She needed to stop thinking about it.

  Only, it wasn’t so simple. She wanted to know what Zekia and the Kingpin were going to do with Wesley now that they had him. A
nd what in the fire-gates they were going to do with Tavia and the army she was carrying aimlessly across the sea.

  She wanted to know how Wesley’s identity had been kept secret for so long. Spell or no spell, how did they not figure it out? Both of them were so busy trying to score points against each other that they couldn’t even see what was right in front of them.

  Tavia wondered if Wesley would have told her, if he knew. She wondered why his family did it. Killed, Saxony said, using blood magic to conceal Wesley from himself and the realms. Tavia wondered if they were still alive somewhere to ask.

  She cursed herself.

  She really could not stop thinking about it. But if she stopped thinking about Wesley, the only thing left to think about was her muma, and that was a punch to the heart that would not cease.

  Her muma’s life had meant little more than a rat’s would to the Kingpin. She had simply been an experiment, a test for him to perfect his awful magic.

  “Want a drink?”

  Tavia turned from her thoughts to Karam.

  She approached, a blade in one hand like she wasn’t quite ready to believe they were out of the war zone, and a bottle of Wesley’s alcohol in the other.

  Karam had healed since the battle, but magic couldn’t undo everything, and the scar running in a vertical slash from her head to her collarbone was faint, but visible. Tavia knew there was no more pain, the magic had seen to that, but she winced for Karam nonetheless.

  “How’s Saxony?” Tavia asked.

  “Alive.”

  “Shame she wasn’t unconscious for a little longer.”

  “You are not really angry at her,” Karam said.

  “Actually,” Tavia corrected, “I really am.”

  Karam took a seat beside her, leaning back on her elbows. She placed the Cloverye bottle perilously between them.

  The label was slightly torn. Wesley would’ve hated that.

  “Any thoughts on when we might stop?” Karam asked. “Or where?”

  “Since when did I become captain of a runaway train?”

  “Since you are Wesley’s best busker and Wesley is not here. I think that makes you second in command. I doubt the buskers will follow anyone else.”

  “You’re not interested in the job?”

  Karam shrugged. “Maybe later.”

  Until then, it would fall on Tavia’s shoulders, which was not a responsibility she was gunning for.

  “Whether we’re depleted or not, we can’t let the Kingpin go through with his plans,” Tavia said. “There’s no way Ashwood will stop at Doyen of Uskhanya, and even if he did the amount of people he’d have to kill to secure his rule would be astronomical. It’d turn our home into a prison realm.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Karam asked. “The Kingpin was going to be hard to kill before we knew Saxony’s sister was with him. And definitely before our underboss joined his ranks.”

  Tavia stiffened. “Wesley didn’t join him.”

  Whatever happened back on the island, Zekia made him do it. Tavia couldn’t afford to think otherwise and she definitely couldn’t afford to doubt whether Wesley would come back.

  It was not possible for that to be the last time they saw each other.

  “The Kingpin ran when he found out we had time, which means there are forces that can hurt him, maybe even kill him,” Tavia said. “If we can just figure out how, then I know we can win. All we need is Saxony’s help.”

  “We had Saxony’s help and it did not end well.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Tavia said. “She can help us in a way she wasn’t willing to before.”

  Saxony’s problem was always Wesley, and as much as Tavia hated to admit it, he wasn’t in the equation right now. If they were going to take on the Kingpin without him, then they needed the politicians Ashwood threatened to oppose. They needed the officials to officially step in and they needed as much magic as they could get.

  Not just some rebels from Granka and Creijen buskers too afraid of Wesley to say no. They needed real fighters. People who had a stake in this battle, the same way Karam, Saxony, and Tavia did. They had to recruit people out for blood and revenge. Who weren’t just following orders or trying to do the right thing, but who needed the Kingpin dead, whether it be for vengeance or power.

  “Saxony has to take us to Rishiya,” Tavia said. “We’ll set up base there and gather her Kin. We’ll gather every Kin hiding in Uskhanya. Just like the Grankans need to gather every Wrenyi Kin. We even assemble the Kins of Volo. We rally all three magic realms and find people who have a true vendetta against Ashwood. I was wrong before. We can’t win with just good intentions. And after we have all that magic, we go straight to the Doyens. All four of them. We bring them into this war properly, rather than letting them watch from the sidelines like Schulze tried to. And we let them know that they better choose the right side.”

  There was no other option. No going back. With Wesley by Ashwood’s side, even as a prisoner, the next move would be to take Creije completely. The Kingpin would sack the city and work his way through Uskhanya one piece at a time, until he got to Fenna Schulze.

  They couldn’t wait for that. They had to get to the Doyen first, send a bat to the Halls of Government in Yejlath and warn her of the dangers. They would offer her a true alliance in this fight.

  “Hei reb.” Karam let out a long breath. “Do you have anything positive to say?” There was an unlikely smile on her face. “We may not have won the war, but we won a good fight.”

  Tavia laughed. It was absurd to be smiling, but just that very thing seemed to lift a weight off her chest. Karam was right. There was a long way to go, but they had faced the Kingpin of Uskhanya and survived. They had him on the run. Whatever happened next, that was still a victory to be celebrated.

  Karam sheathed her knife, finally, and twisted open the bottle of Cloverye.

  “Drink up,” Karam said. “You will need strength.”

  She handed the first taste to Tavia, who took it gratefully.

  As the night went on and the stars faded into the black, they took turns having swigs, until the bottle was half-empty and the moon grew dim.

  They had a destination and they had a plan, and that was enough for now. Once they reached Rishiya and found Saxony’s Kin, a new battle would start, but until then, Tavia allowed herself to stop thinking and enjoy the fact that they were here.

  They were alive.

  And she planned to keep it that way.

  AT THE AGE OF SEVEN, Zekia Akintola discovered she was destined to be Liege of an entire Kin. At the age of thirteen, she became left hand to the Kingpin of an entire region.

  She considered it an improvement.

  Not that her amja would see it that way. Nor her dead mother and her magic-fearing father. Saxony definitely hadn’t.

  It didn’t matter.

  Zekia shouldn’t care.

  She didn’t care.

  She had a new family and a new purpose to go along with it. The Kingpin was going to pave the way for a place where Crafters weren’t the hidden minority, but the feared leaders of a new world.

  Zekia would help make that future a reality. It was one of the only futures that was clear to her anymore.

  The shadow demon licked the blood from its claws and turned to Zekia with its teeth bared. Behind the creature, her prisoner was slumped on the cold gray stone.

  Zekia had healed him too many times to count.

  She’d let the demon rip him apart a dozen times more than that.

  Shadow demons were nothing but darkness. Forged from the evil left behind by cursed spells: those that stole a mind, those that stole a soul, and those that stole a heart. Shadow demons couldn’t be killed because magic could never die, but they could be hurt. And anything that could be hurt could be controlled.

  Zekia knew that better than anyone.

  The demon howled a low, guttural sound and lowered its head. Zekia held out a hand and it prowled forward. When her skin t
ouched the demon’s, it whimpered and bowed, returning to all fours. Nuzzling under her touch.

  Zekia stepped forward.

  Wesley Thornton Walcott, the most dastardly of all underbosses, was bleeding again. The boy become a crook become a man. Just speaking his name these days struck as much of a chord with some people as speaking the Kingpin’s.

  And yet here he was.

  Bound and blindfolded and caked in as much dirt as he was blood.

  The lacerations on him were deeper this time.

  Zekia was impressed that he was still conscious. Impressed and a little disappointed. It would do him well to take the opportunity to rest. He didn’t have many chances for sleep.

  Wesley was not pleading. They hadn’t got to the begging part yet, but Zekia was sure they would. Everyone begged in the end. Even men like Wesley Thornton Walcott. Perhaps, especially those men.

  Zekia placed her hands on either side of Wesley’s temples, holding up his head as it dropped with his consciousness.

  In and out, up and down.

  Zekia stroked Wesley’s cheek and even in his drowsed state, he flinched from her touch.

  She kept her hand on his face.

  He was very beautiful and Zekia very much wanted to keep him. As a brother, or maybe even as a pet. She wasn’t too fussy with which, as long as he got to be hers.

  “Come now,” she said. “I need to see what’s inside that pretty mind.”

  She let her magic surge, tapping into a connection with Wesley that could never be broken. She wondered what thoughts would be inside him now.

  Wesley’s jaw shuddered as he held in the screams.

  Zekia smiled.

  She would break him if it took her the rest of her life to do it. She’d break him so they could forge a new family and a new world, and if he resisted, then she would break him for the fun of it.

  Zekia pressed harder, forcing herself into Wesley’s mind.

  She took the memories she didn’t need and buried them somewhere deep, then replaced them with some of her own for good measure, real and imagined. Futures that wouldn’t happen and ones that could someday come. She read every thought he had and saw every treasured memory he kept hidden away.