by K. M. Szpara
Kane hauls himself onto the bed and curls up against me. When his breathing slows and tears stop flowing—when the last sob wracks his body—I kiss his forehead.
“It’s okay. You’re here with me now. And, honestly?” I pull back just far enough that I can look into his dark brown eyes. “You became an inextricable part of me decades ago. I have never been alone.”
Kane blinks as another wave of tears slides down his cheeks. “Thank you.”
We hold each other until I fall asleep. When we wake, I drag the details out of him, of what happened while I was on my quest. Whether Calvin and Lilian are okay. Whether Agent Miller is still after us. Whether Deryn hates me for the way I talked to them.
The next time we fall asleep, I do so reassured. That Calvin and Lilian aren’t angry with me or each other. That Miller has finally reconnected with her family. That Deryn and Kane still want to be part of mine.
32
LARK / LATER
Druid Hill looks the same as it did when we left, and yet it feels completely different. As if the whole thing has become a zoo again, we walk from exhibit to exhibit, looking at the enclosures in which we were kept. Those places used to feel meaningful, heavy with Fellowship and tradition. With pain but also with magic. Void of Fellows, void of meaning, what is left but a collection of abandoned buildings?
The doors of Ritual House hang open still. I haven’t worked myself up to going inside yet with the other Fellowship members—Maeve and Zadie, Kane and Deryn. I dally on the grass, watching Calvin and Lilian pick up metal canisters and drop them into the trash cans that still line the path. Miller unwinds the yellow tape that ties it off.
It feels like I haven’t gone through the motions of a group ritual in ages, but it can’t have been more than a couple of weeks. We need this. Even if this ritual doesn’t do anything, it still means something. This place might be hollow, but we are not.
Calvin catches my eye and he stops working. Meets me under a naked tree. “Thanks for coming,” I say, tucking my hands into my pockets. Even after everything, he still makes me feel good-nervous. Makes me blush.
“Of course.” He smooths his hand through the length of his hair. “Anytime. I, uh, have something for you. Actually, I’m returning it.”
“Oh?” I hope it’s not one of his terrible shirts, as much as they grew on me.
Calvin slides a small bag off his back and unzips it. Withdraws a long, slender piece of carved wood. A wand. From our weapons arsenal. “I may have stolen this,” he says, turning it over in his hands. “I mean, I definitely stole this—I just wanted to know what it felt like to wield magic; I didn’t use it—and I shouldn’t have taken it, or should’ve told you, but I’m giving it back now. It’s only right.”
When he offers it to me, I press the wood back into his hand, fold his fingers around it. “You keep it,” I say. The wand means nothing to me—one of a dozen carved for various uses. If it feels special to Calvin, he should have it. “Maybe I’ll show you how to use it one day.” I play with the end of my braid. I’d meant to take it out, but didn’t feel right doing so myself. “Would you take my hair out?” Dammit. That’s not what I mean to ask.
A confused look crosses Calvin’s face. “Sure?”
I turn around. Kane looks down at us from the steps. When he smiles, I feel his warmth inside me. His support as Calvin pulls the elastic band free before picking his fingers through the strands, pulling them carefully apart. It feels nice, but I can’t let my real question slip away unspoken.
“Would you like to go out sometime?” I ask in one long breath, grateful my back is turned to him. He doesn’t have to see how red my face is. I can feel it. “Lilian told me that outsiders—I mean—sorry, I’m trying not to use that word anymore—”
“It’s okay.” His fingers reach the base of my scalp, untwisting and pulling. With every pluck, I feel more free. “I know what you mean.”
“Well, Lilian said you sometimes do activities with people, while you get to know them. Make dates with them. I wondered if you wanted to make a date with me.”
Calvin’s hands disappear and my head feels cold and I worry I’ve messed up. That he’ll leave before the ritual has even begun, and won’t want to see me again, much less date me.
Then, he appears in front of me. Calvin threads his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp and shaking my hair free. It falls in blonde waves in front of my face. For the first time in ages, I run my own fingers through my hair. With Calvin’s help, again, I learn how to touch myself. Care for myself. Love myself.
He takes both of my hands in his and steps close—oh, so close. “I would love to go on a date with you, Lark.”
I laugh, a silly, airy laugh. “Really?”
“I assume you’re still with Kane?”
“Yes,” I say. “We’re partners. I don’t think that will ever change. But I’d like to be with you too. Lilian said it isn’t common for outsiders—I mean, for people to have multiple partners—but that some do. Kane and I have discussed it. It’s okay with him if it’s okay with you.”
Calvin smiles, then presses his lips against mine. Holds me against him, bodies warm against the cold air.
When I can breathe, I say, “I guess that’s a yes.”
Calvin laughs against my lips. “Oh, you think I would pass up a chance to date a wizard?”
“A what?” My face must look funny because Calvin laughs again.
“I’ll explain after the ritual. I’ve got plans for our date—you’ve got to read the Lord of the Rings series, or at least watch it. I really want us to dress up as elves together. I’ll add it to the list.” He takes me by the hand and leads me toward Ritual House.
We stop at the base of the steps. Lilian meets us, and I hand Calvin off to her. “Thank you,” I say to her. “For being a good friend to Calvin. We wouldn’t be here without you.”
“Damn right you wouldn’t.” She throws an arm around Calvin and winks at me.
Miller stuffs a handful of police tape into the trash then joins them, no longer wearing her uniform. She doesn’t seem monstrous at all in jeans and a flannel shirt. I can’t believe I ever considered her a FOE. Well, I can. Nova planted the idea in my head, and belief is powerful.
I believe I fought a monster on the highway—can still smell its rot and feel the pulse of its molten flesh burning my feet. Miller told me the FBI never found its remains, but Calvin said their agency covers up stuff like that all the time. It doesn’t matter to me. I now know monsters are of this world—that they smile at us with human faces and spread corruption from beneath the earth.
“We’re ready for the ritual,” Kane says from the steps of Ritual House.
I walk up them for the first time since the SWAT team dragged me out, bound and fighting. I stop. Glance at Miller. “Are you coming?”
“Me?” She pokes her chest as if making sure she’s solid.
“Yes, you. You’re one of us.”
She steps closer, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she kicks a yellow leaf. “I’m not Anointed.”
“Neither is Deryn, but Nova hurt them too. Like she hurt you.” I hold out my hand, waiting. Sometimes, I’ve learned, you have to bring someone in.
Miller blinks rapidly, sniffs, and rolls her sleeves up. “Okay,” she says to herself. “Okay,” she says to me, taking my hand. Joining us.
Only six of us are in Ritual House today, but it feels full. Inside, the wooden floorboards are bare—evidence of violence scrubbed clean, detritus taken by the FBI. Unlit candles form a circle in the center of the room. In their middle, a heavy iron safe. The one Nova kept in her office. When I join the others, Kane hands us each a robe. They’re already wearing them: long sleeves fitted at the wrists and buttoned down the front. A floral pattern embroidered with bright thread into their dark gray wool. Each one different, like a garden.
Miller slides her flannel shirt off, shivering in a tee shirt before pulling the robe on. It takes her a minute to find
the sleeves, to fumble with the buttons. “My mother used to wear these. I always wanted one.” She smiles at the others.
“You can keep it,” Zadie says. “Unless it’s still evidence.”
Miller shakes her head. “We have your testimonies. I think those matter more to a jury than some woolen robes. We’ll be fine.”
“So.” Deryn twirls in their robe. “What do we do?”
“Well, who wants to lead?” I ask.
We all look at one another, no one stepping forward. There’s no potion to chug today. No race to determine who leads the ritual. I don’t feel the pull. In fact, I’ve resolved to draw less attention to myself. To make space for others to rise, and to offer help where needed.
I think of Deryn and Miller, a Fellow and an outsider. A former Anointed and Nova’s daughter. I’m glad we included them, but neither volunteer, and they have no reason to. Ritual is new to them. We should allow them to acclimate without pressure.
Zadie or Maeve could do it. They hold hands, but don’t step forward. When I returned home, they were the first to welcome me, their hair unbraided. Maeve’s in long thick waves, Zadie’s a soft puff around her head. The social worker had put them in touch with a therapist. Together, they’d started to process the pain. They invited me and Kane to a group session with them. I think they felt ashamed to tell me, like I’d accuse them of betrayal. But we accepted their offer.
“Kane,” Miller says. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that he would volunteer. Kane was finished with magic long ago.
Zadie and Maeve look at Miller, surprised at such surety from someone who could barely figure out the robe, who didn’t even know she was invited—never participated even once before leaving the Fellowship and donning an outsider uniform.
“No.” Kane shakes his head. “I’m the one who caused all this. It’s my fault Ritual House was destroyed. Lark should do it. He’s the one who was driven away.”
“No, Miller’s right,” Deryn says. “We wouldn’t be here, free from Nova’s grip, if you hadn’t exposed her. You’re the only one who had the courage to leave.”
“I waited to leave until I was supposed to,” Kane says, reluctance lining his face. “Even though I had a way out. I should’ve gone sooner.”
The damaged spot in the fence, where Calvin, Lilian, and I snuck in. Was that my magic or was it only weak? Maybe Kane had come and gone enough times by then that the fence opened itself to us.
It doesn’t matter now.
“You did what you needed to do,” I say. “What you believed was right. We all did. But we definitely wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” I walk toward him, take his hands in mine. Razor-thin scars peek out from his woolen sleeves, over the backs of his hands. Marks I made. “Please. We haven’t worked magic together in so long.” My voice dissolves to a whisper.
“Is this some kind of sex ritual?” Deryn asks. “Because I did not sign up for that.”
“No!” Kane and I say at the same time, perhaps too fervently.
“Okay, then, Kane?” They gesture to the center of the room.
“Fine,” he says. “But I want it on the record that this is purely a formality. I don’t believe that I can do magic any more than I believe in monsters.”
“We’re not really doing magic,” Maeve says, shrugging at Zadie. “We’re performing a ritual. Even people who grew up outside the fence perform those.”
Kane lights a candle in a tall glass jar. He lights another and another, each strike of the match releasing the scent of sulfur into the air. We’re different, all of us. I’m still working through my beliefs. I know I traveled for days across the country in a hatchback with two strangers who became my friends. That I trusted one to help with my discipline and magic. I have the scabs on my back to prove it.
Throughout the quest, my powers didn’t work the way I thought they would—didn’t always come when I called. But they were there when I really needed them. I haven’t used any magic since I fought the monster. I don’t have my cage anymore, or my bag of tools. I miss feeling magical, but I’m not sure I want power I have to kill myself for.
These days, I’m trying to focus more on healing than hurting myself. When we got back to Baltimore, I actually asked the social worker if I could see a doctor. It’s not that I hate my scars. They exist on a body that’s been through a lot. Exertion and discipline. Restriction and touch. Caresses and lips and fire and leather. Power. Loss. I would like to feel some of those again. See if I can’t awaken those feelings.
Kane bends over the safe in the center of the circle, turning the dial. Nova never mentioned its existence to the FBI, but I remembered. I might have run from those who tried to help me, but I dragged this safe from its hiding place, today. For this.
It opens easily. The safe was never magic. The door hangs open, propped on its metal side. Heavy, fireproof, it took all four of us Anointed to carry it up here. Kane reaches inside and retrieves a box. Rests it on the lip of the safe and removes the top. Inside, I can see beige folders thick with papers and a pile of worn notebooks. Kane flips through some of the folders before finding something plastic and rectangular, the size of his palm. He looks up at Miller.
She walks quickly toward him, taking the offered card. “This was my father’s driver’s license.” She scrambles through the folder, pulling out papers and photos, tears spilling down her cheeks and into the open box. “His birth certificate and mine. The deed to Druid Hill, title to our car, social security cards—family photos.”
She holds the stack to her chest and looks at the ceiling, as if the tears will slide back into their ducts. “It took him years to get us back on the grid after we left, to prove our identities.”
“They’re yours now.” Kane rests a hand on her back. “Like they should’ve always been.”
Miller walks back to her place in the circle and Kane sets the rest of the box aside. When we finish, she’ll take it to the FBI for use at trial. For now, we stand around the empty safe.
Kane looks at each of us in turn as he speaks. “We gather to bind Leah ‘Nova’ Miller. We gather because she cannot keep us apart. She cannot turn us against one another, or separate us from our families. She cannot keep us from our autonomy and future. Leah Miller is a monster who hurt hundreds of people, and today we will make sure that never happens again.” He pauses. “You each brought something.”
We all nod, picking up the canvas bags at our feet. Kane gestures to the safe. Zadie is the first to step forward. From her bag, she removes a wooden paddle with tiny nails sticking like teeth from the end. It drops into the open safe with a thud. “This is how my partner was forced to show her love. Never again.” Zadie bends over and spits on it.
Maeve follows with a rope, rough and thin. As she coils it around her hand, I can see where reddish-brown blood stains the coconut fibers. Can smell the mint it was coated with before digging painfully into sensitive skin. “I was wearing this when they liberated us. Didn’t untie it for days after Lark left. Not until I saw the doctor.” She drops it and spits into the safe.
Deryn is next. They look sheepish as they offer not a tool, but a deck of cards. I recognize it; a slight gasp escapes me as Deryn opens their box and tips the cards over the safe. They slide out, most falling with a thump onto the growing pile in the safe. A few flutter down.
“I should’ve known better than to invite you to play cards and drink with us,” they say. “I think, on some level, I wanted to know that you weren’t the perfect heroes Nova—Leah—always treated you as. And I wanted you to get in trouble. I’m sorry I let anger and jealousy keep me from seeing what was really happening.” They drop the cardboard box into the safe and spit on it.
Miller takes Deryn’s place. She holds out a large toothy key on an old leather thong—the same shape as the one Nova gave Kane when he left. But the leather on this one is stiff and thin, almost falling apart. “I kept this because I thought I might need to go home someday.” It clangs against the safe. She spi
ts on it and returns to her place.
I’m next. The worn branch feels familiar in my hand. Comfortable. I carry it as easily as outsiders carry their phones. Unlike those, Spellslinger is dead—served its purpose. To think, we spent all those years charging it with pain. Magic doesn’t have to hurt. In my hand now, it feels like an old piece of wood, soft and dry. Useless.
I drop it. Spit. Rub my hands over Kane’s shoulder to signal his turn. He doesn’t speak either. Doesn’t have to. We all know what the small metal cage in his hand was used for. The keys never went in the safe—they hung in the open of Nova’s office, as if we were free to take them anytime. We knew that we would be punished if we dared.
A key used only by others, under supervision. Never by ourselves. I remember the day I convinced Kane it was a good idea to wear the cages, and close my eyes. Listen for the sound of metal against metal. Hear Kane spit. Feel his body press almost flush against mine.
We relax against each other for a moment—not forgetting the ritual, but giving ourselves to it. Embracing because that’s what matters. He kisses me with lips that are chapped but gentle. Then Kane picks up a candle from the floor and hands it to me. The black wax liquefies and pools at its top when Kane lights the wick. One by one, he hands us each a black candle, and though I know I’m not using magic, it feels powerful in my hand. Slowly, wax spills down the sides, meeting my fingers.
I close my eyes and breathe deep as more wax drips, gluing my hand to the candle, searing my skin where it hits, but not too hot. Nothing like the burns I carry on my thighs and back. This is warm. Welcome.
“Leah Miller, we bind you.” Kane tips his candle, dripping wax into the safe. Normally, this ritual calls for blood—Nova had us cut ourselves when we bound Elder Zephyr before casting him out—but we refuse to spill any more for her. “With these artifacts of our pain, we bind you.”