by Dawn Metcalf
Joy lifted her chin, trying to stretch out the sudden tightness in her throat. Her neck prickled. Her palms felt hot. She teetered on the raised dais in her matching satin shoes. She knew a telling blush had crept up her neck and pinked her cheeks, which, being reflected a hundred times in the mirrors, made it virtually impossible to ignore. Joy knew that she had a visible tell, and her gymnastic coaches had all warned her not to get upset during a performance. This was a difficult performance.
“He asks you about quite a lot of things,” Joy managed to say.
Raina paused her inspection of ribbon trims and burst out laughing, a delightful laugh that was as frustrating as it was genuine. It fanned Joy’s jealousy even more.
“Oh, Joy, honey—it’s nothing like that,” she said in delicious glee. “You have nothing to fear from me! In fact, you should consider me your very best friend.”
Joy huffed. “I already have a best friend.”
“Yes, well, let’s just say that I’m the friend who managed to save Ink from getting too many wrong ideas,” she said, placing a string of glass droplets back on the rack. “I love them all, truly, but they’re such boys.” Raina gave the word an extra dig; the eye roll was implied. “And they’re absolutely hopeless when it comes to women.”
“Who? The Cabana Boys?” Joy said, twisting her fingers in her sleeves. Idmona’s foot tapped her wrist sharply.
“Wriiiiiiiinkles,” the tailor chided with professional pride.
“Is that what you call them?” Raina said with a shrug. “More like the Lost Boys! And Ink is the most lost boy of all.” Her voice sounded tender as she walked around the room.
“Does that make you Wendy?” Joy asked.
Raina smirked. “Please.”
“Then what are you—?” Joy swallowed, feeling very much the little girl to Raina’s woman. “Why would he—?”
“We’ve been talking,” Raina said. “That’s all. Talking frankly and honestly. He asks questions, and I try to answer them.” She shrugged. “He knew you wouldn’t want him talking to Inq, so he went to Tuan and Nikolai first. But when Luiz found out, it was like a stag party—you should have heard the bunch of them!” She reconsidered Joy’s blush. “Then again, maybe it’s best that you didn’t.” She checked her flawless makeup in one of the mirrors. “In any case, I dragged Ink away and offered to be someone he could talk to.” Her reflection smiled knowingly back at Joy. “Someone who knows a little more about the subject.”
“About me?” Joy asked.
“About women,” Raina said. “And what women like.” She smiled at Joy. “I like women. I like the way they sound, I like the way they smell, I like the way they think—and I’ve loved Inq for many years. And I also happen to be a woman. So who better?” She said it matter-of-factly, although Joy suspected that she was not-so-secretly pleased with herself. Raina turned back to the mirror. “He is curious and considerate. Given the questions he’s been asking, you’re a very lucky girl.”
Idmona gave the dress a final drape and let it flutter to the floor in a sparkling cloud. Joy bit the side of her cheek and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself. Used to stretchy leotards with Swarovski crystals, Joy understood showmanship and costuming, but this was a ball gown fit for Disneyland. Out of a fairy tale, she thought. How fitting.
“Exquisite,” Raina said. Idmona silently beamed, crossing four of her legs and winding her tape around her waist. Raina circled around Joy, inspecting the entire ensemble. “Now—your half-mask is almost finished and it has the advantage of being mounted. The stick will be sharpened and can buy you, oh, four or five inches, if necessary. There’s even a needle stiletto in the base. You’ll have to bring your own poison.” She picked up a book full of looping curls of hair in various colors. She flipped to the browns. “We’ll have to be sure your hairpiece can accommodate the scalpel.” She flipped the page. “What other weapons do you have?”
Joy crossed her arms. Idmona’s foot spanked her knuckles.
“Wriiiiiiiinkles!”
“Ow,” Joy muttered, but dropped her arms. “I thought there were no weapons allowed?”
Raina looked at her as if she were being stupid on purpose. “No obvious weapons.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course,” Raina said, taking out her lipstick. “You’re heading into the heart of Twixt society in the middle of the Grand Ballroom Under the Hill. Everyone without fangs will be armed to the teeth. You don’t want to be considered defenseless, do you? Aren’t you supposed to be the most dangerous human alive?”
Joy felt her stomach lurch. “Please, tell me you’re kidding.”
Raina frowned. “Please, tell me you’re not.”
Joy’s knees wobbled, loose in the foreign shoes. “No,” she said flatly. “No. This is supposed to be an introduction—a formal party welcoming me into the Twixt!” She nearly pitched forward under her heavy dress. “I’m one of them now. The Folk don’t kill one another.”
Idmona laughed, quickly stopped, coughed politely and scuttled off, rolling the display rack through one of the doors.
“Who told you that?” Raina asked skeptically.
“Avery,” Joy said. “Sol Leander, Graus Claude.”
“Oh. Idealists,” Raina said with sudden understanding. “Well, that’s certainly the party line, but are you willing to stake your life on a bit of propaganda?” she asked. “I grew up surrounded by idealists. They called themselves ‘freedom fighters.’ America called them ‘guerillas.’ I called them ‘family,’ but I knew them for what they were. I wasn’t naive. I consider myself a realist.” She lifted her skirt to show Joy a snub gun tucked into a thigh holster. “My family is dead. I am alive. I learned that there is a time for idealists and a time for realists.” She palmed the gun and snapped the chamber. “Realists tend to live longer.”
“Right,” Joy said, smoothing down her sleeves. If she kept wiping her palms over the silk, she might stain it with sweat, and then Idmona would really be angry, but she couldn’t seem to stop. The dress was suddenly too heavy, too enormous, too tight. Her fingers were clumsy, and she forced them down at her sides. She tossed her head, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. Her hair caught on the chains. Her shoes pinched. She winced. She was out of her mind. What was she doing, going into battle wearing a fairy princess dress? This was crazy! I have to get out of here. I have to save Graus Claude! I have to find the door! I have to rescue the King and Queen and stop whatever is happening from happening.
She pressed a hand to her stomach to quell the vomit moths. She could only imagine how Idmona would react if Joy puked all over her dress. She watched her own reflection pale, the hollows under her eyes growing dark. She inhaled and saw the tendons in her neck flicker, sharp against shadow. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
One conniption fit at a time. Don’t have a heart attack.
Joy blinked. A heart attack.
Heartless.
She expected to hear her heart beating double-time in her ears, but there was only an empty silence. Panic swelled. Something missing... Missing something...
And then she knew.
Joy’s hand flew to her chest. She gasped, pressing her fingers deep into her breast, into the side of her throat, the flesh of her wrist. Nothing. Joy slammed her fist against her chest, hollow as a drum. Nothing. She inhaled, eyes wide, knowing with a deep, human certainty that her heart should be pounding—slamming! thudding! thumping!—but there was nothing. No sound. No pulse.
No heartbeat.
Ergo, no heart.
Joy slipped from the dais and tripped on her dress, falling with a dull rattle of crystal beads and petticoats. Raina moved, tapping the Bluetooth in her ear.
“Darling,” Joy heard her say. “We have a problem.”
Raina caught Joy’s arm and supported her
shoulders as she continued to hyperventilate. The room spun, winking spots and tilting, a high-pitched mental scream splitting her head from the inside, but not one beat betrayed her fear—her body was empty, silent, dead. No! It made no sense. It made no sense! She was alive! She had to be. She was here. She was now. She would know if she were dead!
Wouldn’t she?
Fear lit a flame—a familiar, building pressure, a flush of heat that peppered her limbs. Joy crouched, squeezing her eyes shut, her breaths coming faster in rapid gasps. No no no... Red-gold energy winked behind her eyes. Joy panicked, scrambling blindly, trying to hold it in, tamp it down, stop whatever it was that was killing her from the inside—burning away the human parts, making her into something Other Than, making her change. But she couldn’t stop. She felt herself reaching down and out, through her skin, beyond her body, seeking for the comfort of salt and earth and old, old ice...but she was too high, too far, too lost.
WHERE IS IT? WHERE?
Heat rippled through her nerves. She clenched her teeth, legs scrabbling, trying to escape whatever was coming for her. Raina’s arms were strong—but not strong enough.
Joy lifted her eyes, growling, focused on Raina, and—
A snap of ammonia exploded, bringing a shock of sudden tears.
Idmona held Joy’s head as she reeled back, the smell forcing Joy to her senses. She twisted away from the painful fumes and the coarse, hairy legs. The world swam and reordered, her mind windblown, off balance. Joy collapsed, shaken and completely derailed. Her fury had blown into mist.
Raina took a white capsule from Idmona’s curled toe.
“Smehhhhhhling salts,” the spider woman said. “It haaaaappens sometiiiimes. Some arrrrrrre eeeeeeeasily overwhelmmmmmed. Reeeeeeemove the dress, pleeeeeeease.”
Raina helped Joy out of the petticoats. Her limbs moved, but there was no feeling in them, only a precarious numbness. Like a doll. Like a mannequin. The spider woman deftly lifted the gown over her head in several stages, all the while clucking about delicate fabrics and wrinkles, gentle nonsense like a lullaby, soothing and calm. Joy’s head swam as if she might fall back into nightmares. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, although she did not blink. She stared sightlessly at the ceiling, feeling nothing.
The wall rippled with concentric circles, distorting the room like a pebble in a pond. Inq walked into the solarium and lifted Joy up with inhuman ease.
“Joy?” Her voice was a mix of stern concern and odd compassion. Joy turned her head and focused on the tight pout of her lips. “Earth to Joy?”
“I’m not dead!”
Joy startled herself with the force of her scream, beating her chest with the flat of her hand as if she could restart her heart with sheer force. Inq grabbed her forearm as Raina grabbed their things. Joy’s face was a rictus of pain, reflected back at her in a hundred mirror images. What am I? A whimpering moan eked out of her throat.
“Ladies,” Inq said, politely gesturing to the warped vortex. Raina hooked Inq’s arm, and Joy clung to the Scribe. Idmona bore the weight of the dress.
“Piiiiiiiick up, twooooooo hours,” she said primly and scuttled off.
Inq stepped forward and out.
A shift of light joined the smell of dusty roses as they funneled into Graus Claude’s foyer, almost knocking over a chair that was blocking the hall. Kurt and Avery sat together. Filly jumped to her feet, rattling her cape of bones. Ink crossed the room, arms out, and folded Joy against his chest. She trembled, her thoughts scattered like bits of litter, numb to the fact that she was standing in the brownstone in her underwear.
She ground her forehead into Ink’s shoulder. He held her tighter.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
She could hear his heartbeat. But not hers.
“Please, tell me I’m not dead,” she whispered. She felt him tense in alarm.
“Of course not,” said Filly brashly. “There’s obviously not a scratch on you!”
“Hsst!” Inq hissed at her. Avery politely averted his eyes.
“Go clean up,” Raina said, gently guiding Ink and Joy past the chairs and tucking Joy’s clothes under his arm.
Kurt stood up.
“Wait,” Inq said, raising a hand to stop him. “First, this.”
Ink steered Joy into the pink-and-cream bathroom with the settee couch and the claw-foot tub, closing the door on the others down the hall. She stared at the striped wallpaper, the matching ottoman and the porcelain sink where Ink had once washed his arms up to the elbows, scrubbing them in soap and blood. He’d cut out Briarhook’s heart. Briarhook still lived with a gaping hole in his chest and a thirst for revenge. She touched her breastbone, feeling for that hollow place inside herself, that empty, gaping, missing hole...
She sat down. Ink draped her clothes in her lap. Joy crossed her arms over her chest as he knelt before her on the tile floor.
“What happened?” he whispered, dipping his head to catch her gaze. “Joy?”
It took a while for the words to sink in, floating past her ears like dandelion fluff. She looked at him. His eyes were ink and razors—cold and sharp and ready to murder.
“My heart,” Joy said, her lip trembling. “Where is my heart?”
Ink shook his head, only the spiky tips of his hair moved. “I do not understand.”
“My heart,” Joy repeated a little louder, growing more certain of her fear. She slammed her chest with both hands. “Where. Is. My. Heart?”
“Your heart?” he said weakly. Ink stared at the unbroken skin of her chest.
“Please—” Joy leaned forward and grabbed his arms, her broken voice panging off the tile. “The Folk can live without a heart, but I can’t! I’m not one of them,” she panted, crying, desperate. “I’m human—I am human—I need my heart!”
Ink touched her gently. “You lost your heart?”
“I—” She shook her head violently. “I didn’t lose it,” she said, horrified. “It’s still—it’s still there, isn’t it?” Joy felt crazily unsure, her fingers scrabbling against her skin, leaving long pink scratches. “I would’ve known if... I mean, I would have seen if someone...took it.” There would be blood, like Briarhook—she would have noticed it if someone had cut out her heart! The idea of someone else taking it, having it, holding it, made her unspeakably ill. She felt violated, undone.
Ink leaned forward and took her wrist, turning it over, his eyes boiling.
“Briarhook?”
“He didn’t—” Joy stammered. Did he? Could he? She heard his mocking laughter in the back of her brain. Joy wanted to throw up. “But I would know, right? There would be something—some hole? Some mark?” she said, her eyes spilling over. “There should be something,” Joy insisted, tearing at her skin. “But there’s nothing!”
Ink touched her gently, stilling her hands. “You are right,” he said. “There is no mark. You are unmarred, so your heart must still be there.” He rested his palm between the swell of her breasts. She felt it there, on the surface, but she felt nothing underneath. She pressed his hand harder against her. Nothing. She looked into his eyes.
“Am I dead?”
Ink’s face was carefully neutral. “You are not dead,” he said.
What he didn’t say was You are not human, which, at that moment, felt like the same thing. Joy stared at her chest and their hands—his, hers, theirs—pressed over nothing. A roar in her head brought that strange, floaty feeling of being outside her body, looking down in disbelief.
“How can I not be dead?” she murmured. “Without my heart, how can I be alive? How can I breathe? How can I feel anything?” Her voice was fragile. “I can’t love you without my heart.” She reached out and touched Ink’s chest, felt its quiet rhythm, thump-thump, thump-thump. It brought tears to her puffy, tired eyes. “I want to love you. Always
.”
Ink pressed her hand against his chest, a strange reversal. “I would give you my heart if I could.”
Joy froze at his words. It wasn’t just a saying, a throwaway phrase. She knew it was true—he could not lie. He would give her his heart if he could.
Frightened, she dropped her hands and stared at her knees. She pulled her shirt on over her head for something to do. The extra layer helped.
Ink went to the sink and leaned against the porcelain, the gilt mirror ignoring his reflection.
“Graus Claude said that things might change once you claimed your signatura, so let us assume that this is part of it,” he said carefully. Joy, pulling on her shorts and shoes, nodded but didn’t meet his gaze. “Have you noticed anything else unusual?”
She thought about energy popping under her heels, the fury bubbling just under her surface, the taste of salt and old, old ice, blasting open the stone cell, erasing the Red Knight—how much of it was the scalpel and how much of it was her? She’d been born with the Sight. Had she been born with other powers? Was this part of the change, becoming something no longer human?
She simply nodded as he settled himself at her feet. His voice was earnest.
“Think, then. It does not make you less Joy,” he said. “You are still you.”
Joy hugged herself. She felt cold. “What am I?”
He tucked long brown bangs behind her ear. “The girl with the Sight,” he said. “The one I marked because I could not obey the decree. I could not bear the thought of taking your eyes, and in that last moment, I wavered. I questioned. I failed for the first time—and I was right.” His words draped around her like a blanket. “You are Joy Malone. You are the one who has made me who I am. You are the one who made me see—and I couldn’t look away.”
Joy sniffled, tears flowing freely. “You ‘couldn’t’?”
“No,” he said, cupping her hands in his. “I can’t.”
Joy lifted her eyes at the present tense. She wanted to say it, too, but she couldn’t because she could look away, she could fail and be wrong, and she was the one who had made the choices that were remaking her into whatever she was becoming. Once she’d taken her True Name, she was bound to the rules of the Twixt.