Raging Rival Hearts

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Thunder cracked like a whip outside.

  Charlotte tilted her head toward the ceiling. “Shut off the storm, children. I cannot hear myself think.”

  Kiera and Cole exchanged a look, and then both of them shut their eyes. Their chests rose with steady breaths and then became immobile. Blue sparks flickered around their hands, which they stretched heavenward. When their lips fluttered for air, the rain stopped pelting the tin roof, dousing the blue magic in their hands.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said.

  A realization hit me dead center. They’d created the storm to trap us!

  I finally understood why Daneelies had been banished from Neverra. They were dangerous.

  Kiera twirled a pencil between her fingers—not a pencil. I squinted until I made out what it was. A diminutive rowan wood arrow. Kajika never left home without his faerie-killing arsenal.

  I tried not to flinch when she approached me with it.

  “I found a couple of these in his pocket. What are they?” she asked, just as her brother grabbed her hood and yanked her back.

  “Kiera, her palm! She could kill you,” Cole said.

  “She kills me, and we kill him. From what I saw, that would make her really sad…” She tracked the arrow down one side of my face. A path of fire erupted underneath its tip. Her breath hitched as she took in my graying skin. I didn’t dare move for fear that she would stick the arrow through my flesh to test how it affected my internal organs.

  Without hunter blood, it couldn’t kill me, but damn, it would hurt.

  “Ha.” Kiera finally said, a smile blooming on her lips.

  “What?” Charlotte asked.

  “Her skin reacts to the piece of wood. Uncle Quinn”—Kiera fished another stick from her hoodie pocket—“go test it on the other one’s skin.”

  Eyes flashing with pure hatred, Quinn took the arrow from his niece’s hand. Right before leaving, he spit at my feet. I held still as he retreated.

  Charlotte called her twins away. In hushed voices, they discussed me. I inferred this from the way their eyes kept darting toward me.

  Several minutes later, Quinn was back, clomping through the warehouse.

  “It doesn’t so much as leave a mark on his skin. I even prodded him with it, broke his skin. Nothing.”

  My gaze centered on the reddened tip, stained with Kajika’s blood. A wave of nausea rose, and even though I no longer had anything in my stomach, I bent at the waist and threw up bile.

  “Does blood make you queasy, Alice?” Quinn sounded like he was standing in a tunnel.

  It wasn’t until Kiera yelled, “Alice!” that I jerked my gaze up. “What happens if we poke you?”

  She took the arrow from Quinn and walked it over to me. I clamped down hard on my lip so she couldn’t see how wildly it wobbled. Death was in my future, but it wouldn’t be at her hands. I tried to feel for my dust, and my fingers tingled.

  It was there.

  In spite of the iron, it was there.

  Somewhere.

  I jolted my hands up, not to form a weapon, but a word: STOP. I fashioned the letters with ribbons of dust.

  Kiera froze.

  She could see it!

  She could see my word!

  I wanted to leap from joy that I’d found a way to communicate.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What did she do, Kiera?” Charlotte asked.

  “She made a word appear out of thin air.”

  “Get back!” Charlotte’s voice whipped through the darkness. “She’s using her dust.”

  Kiera scrambled back. “Why should we stop?”

  I created another word: FRIEND.

  “Friend?” Kiera snorted. “As if. You’re a faerie. Faeries are not our friends.”

  Cole studied the air shimmering over my palm. “You do realize this means she could’ve used it on us before but didn’t.”

  I could’ve hugged him for stating the obvious. Granted, I hadn’t known I had access to my dust before.

  “She is still the enemy, Cole,” Charlotte said.

  I shook my head as I gathered my dust back into my palms. I wasn’t the enemy.

  “Do you take us for fools?” Charlotte shrilled. “We know what your people did to ours back in Neverra. You are our greatest enemy.”

  Quinn’s head jerked back a little. “Something just came to me. The boy…he’s Native. Catori Price, too. They’re related, aren’t they? That’s how you found us.”

  My first impulse was to shake my head. Just because Kajika was Native didn’t mean he was related to all the other natives out there.

  “Who is Catori Price?” Cole asked.

  “The descendent of the wretch who got Quinn’s grandpa to print the blasphemous book,” Charlotte said. “Supposedly it was a work of fiction, legends of natives and faeries, but it was too close to the truth to be a work of fiction. It even mentioned us. The woman who wrote it used another word for us, though—Mishipeshu—and spoke of us as copper monsters, but she gave away our whereabouts.”

  “Why would your grandpa do that, Quinn?” Kiera asked.

  “Ley seduced him with magic,” he said.

  Charlotte shifted her gaze in my direction. I knew she couldn’t see me, and yet I recoiled.

  “Faeries can do that?” Kiera asked, her voice breathy with disbelief.

  Quinn glared at me as though I were Ley, as though I’d used captis on his grandfather. “Better not try that on us.”

  I’d never used captis on anyone. The only boy I’d loved was a faerie, and captis didn’t work on faeries. From what I’d learned back in school, it also didn’t work on Daneelies. But perhaps mixing with humans had watered down their magic.

  “Quinn’s father confessed his affair on his deathbed,” Charlotte continued. “For years, we didn’t even know there was a book out there that mentioned us. We thought we were safe, but we hadn’t been safe for a long time. As soon as we found out, we confronted Ley Lakeewa, and she swore the only edition was still at Forest Press, so I flooded the archives. Shouldn’t have taken the word of a faerie.” She snorted. “First Catori Price and a little faerie friend of hers visited Quinn a couple months back to have a new book printed with strange ink. And then you, Alice, pay us a visit.” Charlotte rubbed her hands together as though to rid them of dirt.

  “How many more people know about the book?” Kiera asked.

  “That’s what we need to find out,” Charlotte said.

  “One more for sure. Catori Price came with that Wood boy…what’s his name?” Quinn rubbed his temple with two fingers. “You know, the grandson of the faerie who killed off all our people?”

  Air scraped down the sides of my throat.

  “Ace Wood?” Kiera exclaimed.

  “That’s the one.”

  “You shared the same air as a Wood?” Kiera asked, horrified.

  I dipped my chin down, making my hair cascade around my face, hoping it could somehow protect me from being recognized. If they knew I was Ace’s sister— I couldn’t finish that terrible thought.

  “Why didn’t you kill him?” she asked.

  Oh, skies… They knew how to kill us? My lungs squeezed as tight as when she’d dragged me through the lake.

  “Your mother told me it would bring attention to us. Besides, he is a Wood… Apparently they’re harder to kill than normal faeries.”

  I tensed.

  “He sent his guards the next day. I’m not sure if they knew what was inside the book—”

  I shook my head.

  “Alice seems to think they didn’t…” Cole interjected.

  I looked up and nodded.

  “Like we can trust her…” Quinn let out a rough snort. “Since her friend can’t compel you, Charlotte, you should go talk to him.”

  She considered this before nodding and heading toward the entrance of the crate-building.

  “Tell him I’ll prod his girlfriend with his little arrow until her fire leaks out.” He smiled h
arshly, and it made his hazel eyes scintillate as though his irises were coated in tiny copper scales. “Better hope he talks.”

  My heart banged in time with the door Charlotte went through.

  “That scares you, huh?” Quinn said, retrieving the arrow from Kiera. “Should’ve evaluated the consequences of looking for people your kind tried to eliminate.”

  I am not my grandfather, I wanted to scream. The genocide was atrocious, the worst part of our history, but I didn’t kill anyone. I wasn’t even born. Times have changed. Our queen is one of you! You’ve even met her!

  I was tempted to raise these words from the palm of my hand, but like my stomach, my dust had shriveled into a tight knot.

  Quinn approached me, and I pressed my spine and cheek against the cool wall, wishing I could vanish through it, but I wasn’t a ghost.

  Not yet…

  “On what part of your body should we start?”

  I raised my hands to protect my face. The iron cuffs slid over my leather sleeves, offering my wrists some reprieve.

  Quinn was so close I could smell the mix of perspiration and lake water coming off his looming body.

  I braced myself for the impact of the tiny stake, but the only thing that came was a crashing sound, followed by a shrill growl.

  17

  Cold Night

  I peeked through my fingers. And then I blinked, thinking I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t.

  Mummified in rope and chains, Kajika stood before me, breathing hard. His eyes were crazed, made even more so by the absence of eyebrows and the presence of angry welts on his forehead and cheeks. What had they done to him?

  I lurched toward him, but the chain bolted to the wall yanked me back like a yo-yo. I came crashing down so hard I thought I heard my tailbone crack. It was probably Quinn’s skull that cracked though, as a small table soared through the air and smashed into his forehead. He teetered, and the arrow fell from his fingers, but he somehow managed to stay upright. A string of lights unglued itself from the ceiling and drifted like an electric eel toward Quinn, who blinked at it. Kiera and Cole shrank back, perplexed by the object soaring through the air. When it wrapped around Quinn’s neck, all three sets of eyes bulged. I’d seen Kajika move things with his mind, but it still dazzled me.

  The hunter lunged toward me and started tugging on the padlock. Blood oozed from his nailbeds and dripped from his chin, falling onto the knuckles of my pale hands. When a crimson drop snaked into my cracked, singed skin, turning the spot the color of charcoal, Kajika dropped the lock as though it had electrocuted him.

  Fear replaced the wildness. “Lily…” he whispered my name.

  I’m okay. It won’t kill me.

  The second of hesitation cost us much. When Kajika spun to locate the key or to compel Cole to give it to him, a man I hadn’t seen enter the building swung a saturated towel over the hunter’s face that settled over his mouth and nose like wet plaster. He tightened it so hard that Kajika lost his balance and flailed backward.

  Kajika! I shrieked into his mind. I pulled with all my strength on my shackles. The iron charred my skin to the bone and still I kept pulling.

  When his body stilled, when his hands flopped onto the cement floor, I gasped. Someone yanked on my chain, and I slammed into the wall. The man who’d managed to make Kajika pass out swung the hunter over his shoulder and carried his limp body back out.

  No! Kajika! NO! Please hear my voice. Please wake up.

  “What. The fuck. Is he?” Quinn screeched.

  I glared at him, at the rivulets of blood and sweat streaming down his face. Although I’d never asphyxiated a person, the desire to inflict more than pain made ribbons of dust spring out of my palms. The ribbons grazed his nose but plummeted, the iron limiting my control over them.

  Quinn sniffed the air. “What are you? A skunk? What’s that smell?”

  I waited for him to come closer.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  I pumped my fingers again, and again the dust lurched out—this time, it hit Quinn. It snaked into his flaring nostrils, into his narrowed eyes, into his parted lips.

  He went as pale as cake flour. Kiera screamed. She ran to her uncle and grabbed him around the waist just before he fell. The momentum and weight of his body drove them both to the floor.

  “What have you done?”

  My pulse seized. What had I done?

  The fire draining from my face, I reached out and spread my fingers wide, desperately recalling my dust before it extinguished the Daneelie’s life, beseeching the skies it wasn’t too late. However deep my hatred for this man, for these people, killing one of them would only make everything worse for Kajika.

  The iron chains jangled against my skin and sent bolts of pain up my forearms. My wrists throbbed and my fingers stung.

  “Cole, put your fucking mask on and grab her hands before she tries to kill more of us!” Kiera shrieked.

  Cole dropkicked my outstretched arms. I gasped from the unexpected blow, my elbows buckling in time with my knees. The shock of falling vibrated through my bones. When he kneed my back, I collapsed onto my stomach, the air whooshing out of my lungs.

  My ears rang from the impact, and my vision grayed like Quinn’s body.

  “What happened?” It was Charlotte who spoke.

  She was back, nursing a bloodied bruise at her temple. Kajika must’ve knocked her out on his way to me. I cringed at the hatred puffing off of her.

  “Quinn still has a pulse,” Kiera said after what felt like an endless stretch of time.

  The relief that I wasn’t a murderer was short-lived.

  “She tried to kill Quinn?” Charlotte’s shock echoed against the crates. “You leave us no choice. Cole, truss her up in iron chains. Her entire body this time.”

  No, please. Please, I begged. Face still pressed against the grimy cement floor, I let out a muffled sob.

  I hated being so weak.

  Cole latched onto my shoulders and heaved me back onto my knees. He was firm but not rough anymore. After he let go, I sagged forward, chin tucked against my neck, shoulders shaking with more muted sobs.

  Groans rose from where Kiera held Quinn, and then a coughing fit ensued.

  He’d awakened. It would take him a while to shake off the noxious particles of dust, but in time, his lungs would clear and his mouth would stop tasting sour.

  In time, he would heal while I hurt.

  Metal clinked, and then footsteps approached. Cole’s bare, dirty feet rounded my hunched figure. The chain around my neck rattled as he spun it, then the lock clicked open, and the chain fell away from my body, settling on the floor next to my knees like a limp snake. Bits of my blackened skin clung to the links.

  Skies, what did my neck look like?

  A new chain wrapped around me, but this time, my neck was spared. Cole wrapped the chain around my chest methodically, carefully, almost like he feared my reaction if his movements were too sudden. The only metal that touched my skin were the shackles around my wrist. The rest of my chain rested against fabric. I wondered if he’d done this on purpose, to spare me some pain.

  Unlikely, but I dared hope the Daneelies weren’t all cruel.

  The will to fight back flickered and then snuffed out like a wet wick. Unlike them, I didn’t want to inflict pain. I thought of Kajika as the chains tightened around my dried, water-hardened clothing. I gritted my teeth as Cole pushed me back onto the ground and lifted my legs, coiling the endless chain around them. My skin prickled from the proximity to the metal, but at least I didn’t start crackling like a steak over a grill.

  Once he’d clicked the padlock into place around my ankles, he rolled me onto my back. Slowly, I raised my gaze to his face. He was biting his lip, gnawing on it, as though he felt bad about what he’d had to do. Or maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see.

  Quinn grumbled unintelligible words. Leaning on Kiera, he hobbled over to me. My pulse spiked when his searing gaze landed on my fac
e. He cracked the knuckles of the hand that hung limply by his side and then crouched, picked up the discarded piece of chain, and coiled it around his fingers.

  “If it was up to me, I’d kill you.” He let his fist fly into my cheek, searing off a layer of skin.

  Tears dripped along my temples, dissolved into my hair.

  He hit me again.

  And again.

  Stars sparked in the corner of my vision, and then they flickered and darkness flowed over me like ink, blotting away the room, the people, the pain.

  I came to the same way I’d entered this world…in silence.

  I didn’t dare shift a muscle as I took inventory of my body. My cheek no longer smarted and my wrists no longer throbbed. The back of my head rested on something soft.

  Had I been freed?

  Saved?

  Through swollen lids, I peered around me. Rays of dusty light slanted through a makeshift window, streaking the cavernous space. I was still in the crate-building. Cole was slumped in a chair a couple feet away from me, sleeping. A chipped plate rested on a little table next to him, the porcelain piled high with cheese rinds and discarded bread crust. My stomach growled. I shut my eyes, praying the sound hadn’t woken Cole. When I didn’t hear him stir, I opened my eyes again. I spied a half-drunk glass of water, and my parched throat contracted. What I wouldn’t give for a sip…

  Next to the glass were the small keys to the padlocks holding my chain in place. I’d never wished to be Unseelie before, but at that moment, I wished I had some of their magic.

  Sprinklers went off. I braced for a spray of cold water but none hit me. I craned my neck, my head slipping off the lumpy thing underneath my head—a sweatshirt that smelled of soap, boy, and motor oil. I imagined it was Cole’s.

  The patter of water had me twisting further. The chains were too tightly wound to clink. I finally found the source of the sound. Droplets of water splashed the plastic tarp that walled off a brightly lit, green area.

  I first thought it was a hothouse for growing vegetables and fruits until I remembered the drugs they’d sold us. I’d have bet anything that the blotchy plastic curtain hid a thriving patch of weed. The door of the makeshift building creaked open, jolting Cole to his feet. He rubbed his eyes before flinging his hands off his face and jerking his gaze toward me as though worried I’d somehow managed to escape.