by Dawn Metcalf
“Miss Malone,” he groaned while gaining his feet in jerks and spurts like a rusty toy. “I am a prisoner of the Council under my own admission—my crime is both far-reaching and grave, my guilt only outmatched by what is left of my personal honor and loyalty to a forgotten crown, and it does not matter to me if they know that it is a sovereign oath or not. I do. And I fully acknowledge that this opportunity to redeem myself is thanks to you.” He lifted his massive head as if by sheer will and yawned like a snarl, his teeth closing with a click. He rubbed his limbs and absently plucked at his surcoat, which was missing some buttons and was torn on one side. For the first time in Joy’s memory, he looked shabby and unkempt. It hurt to see him like this, but his eyes were impossibly kind. “You have freed me from a terrible curse and given me the choice to make it right—my choice and my right. I cannot properly thank you for that service, but I will try.” Two of his hands fastened on her shoulders with a soft squeeze, like an embrace, before he withdrew, his palsy quiver more pronounced than ever. “I shall abstain from commenting on how horrific you look.” He smiled lamely.
“Graus Claude—” Ink said.
“No,” he said sternly, but without much steam. “I understand that you must both go. Now. Leave me to the fate that I have chosen—I ask that you please respect me in this.” His eyes flickered with embers of their old fire. “I would protect you once more, as your mentor and friend. You must distance yourself from me in all ways. Your time in the Twixt has just begun, as for me, mine is at an end.”
“No!” Joy said, far louder than she should—her voice muffled by the thick glass lining the walls. “Graus Claude, please! Everyone remembers. The spell is broken. They are looking for you—for the Bailiwick and the door and the King and Queen—but we don’t know what they’ll do when they find you!”
The shock of it seemed too much for the noble toad. He listed to one side. Ink was there, lifting him up. The Bailiwick’s eyes unfocused, refocused and stared.
“All of them?” he whispered. “The Council? The Court? The entirety of the Twixt?” His voice hitched higher. “Maia?”
Ink said, “Yes, Bailiwick.”
Graus Claude grunted. “Then by all means—” He attempted to stand, but even his enormous feet could not support him. Three arms became table legs as he shuddered on his knees. “I imagine that you cannot avail us of a door, Master Ink?”
“Not while we are within the wards,” Ink said. He glanced at Joy. “We must escape from Under the Hill.”
The great amphibian groaned and sat back on his haunches. “It cannot be done.” The words were chilling, reminding Joy ominously of the Red Knight. “We are too deep within the Hill, and I am too weak.” He squatted in the wet grass, looking more like an old frog than ever. “The people of the Twixt have a right to the door, now that they remember. They have a right to see their King and Queen—or banish them, if that is what they decide. I remain loyal, but that loyalty is mine alone. I have made enough of their decisions,” he sighed. “Let this one be theirs.”
“No! Don’t do this,” Joy cried and tugged at his arm. Didn’t he understand? Without Inq to go in and find the door, they had to get him out! She imagined the ballroom, the unthinking, desperate mob fueled by frustration and angry, futile fears. “Please,” she begged. The longer they sat, the more certain she was that the dragon would appear—the very idea screamed at her, urging her to run.
The giant amphibian settled with a hmph! His four arms crossed. His chest heaved. His eyes sank, half-lidded, looking grim. He was wounded and woozy and yet spoke with stubborn certainty. “I am not going anywhere.”
Ink gently withdrew from the Bailiwick’s side. He stepped back and took Joy’s hand. She watched his fingers thread through hers—the promise of them, together, Ink and Joy.
“It is his choice,” Ink said. The unsaid echoed, Respect him. Always.
Joy shifted her weight, her feet in the earth. A cool calm crept over her. This moment was bigger than her. Bigger than Graus Claude. And Ink. And the princess. And the Council. And all of the Twixt. It was the future of two worlds, together, and it was just her, being human. And Folk. And not.
“With all due respect,” she said. “I can’t let you do that.”
Graus Claude sighed at her melodrama. “You cannot make me comply, Miss Malone.”
“But I can,” Joy said, dropping Ink’s hand and raising her own. “I demand entrance to the Bailiwick of the Twixt.”
He hissed surprise, eyes widening in shock—then passed shock into awe as his mouth stretched, growing taller, unhinging, expanding. His eyes misted over, his tongue curled up, his body grew stony and pale as death. Joy watched as she took his choice from him, along with his dignity and free will. She had asked him to respect her choices, and she had not respected his. Joy was as bad as the Amanya itself.
The Bailiwick opened.
Stepping over the sharp teeth, she watched the line of red fire zip past, thinking of Aniseed’s golems, the courier’s booby trap, knowing the color of the spell matched the coal brightness of their eyes. She was still human. Human enough to set off the alarm warning that humans had breached the Bailiwick, the last stronghold of the Twixt, a trip wire set to protect their greatest treasure—even if they’d forgotten it for a while. Distance wouldn’t matter—the homunculi could travel through the earth; tireless, merciless, bound to an ancient spell, they could find anyone who trespassed anywhere in the world. It was a guarantee that no human would threaten the Imminent Return.
When, in fact, this human was here to make it so.
She paused on that first step, able to see just beyond the crux of his upper lip. She could imagine the sounds of the ballroom spilling through the building, searching for them somewhere, chaotic and loud. And somewhere inside the Bailiwick, there was a princess and the answers and a long-lost door.
“I will save everyone,” she said to his milky eye, hoping that somehow he might hear her. “Even you,” Joy promised. “And me.” She turned around and held out her hand to Ink.
He took it and stepped forward.
And together, they stepped down, down, down into the Bailiwick’s throat.
TWENTY-TWO
JOY NEARLY RAN down the dark stairs, the clawed toes of Ink’s boots click-clattering behind her as they made their way toward the light. They burst into the meticulous grove, each petal and blade of grass fashioned by one prisoner waiting patiently to be rescued, to be remembered, to be reassured that it was safe to come home.
“Hello?” Joy called out as she tromped through the meadow, crossing the tumbling brook without the sound of a splash—the water didn’t feel cold, it didn’t feel like anything. Ink turned, leaning into the nonexistent wind that played with the leaves but not his hair.
“Mother!” he shouted.
She materialized over the horizon, the world revolving with dizzy speed until she stood before them. No one’s feet had moved. She smiled at them.
“What news?” she asked.
“Joy broke the spell,” Ink said. “They all remember—the King and Queen, their families, the hidden door, you.”
“And the coup?” she said. “Those who first plotted against us now remember their purpose. Do you know the name of the traitor?”
“It was Aniseed,” Joy said. “Aniseed was the courier, and she was the one who tried to overthrow the Council. She probably intended to remove the royal influence that made everyone loyal and then manipulate the Council from within. When that didn’t work, she tried culling the number of humans in order to swing power back her way. She’s been behind everything, from the coup to hiding the door to casting the—” Joy’s throat closed up, and she inadvertently choked on her tongue.
“Aniseed did not cast the Amanya,” Ink reminded her. “She manipulated the Bailiwick into casting the spell.”
The pri
ncess’s eyes narrowed, and Joy couldn’t tell if she imagined the woman’s glyphs growing darker. It may have been the false sun.
“Inq told me that Aniseed was dead.”
“We thought so, too,” Joy said. “But she cloned herself.”
The princess tried the unfamiliar word. “Cloned?”
“Twained,” Ink said. “Aniseed made a graftling.”
The stately woman sighed, resigned. “I see,” she said, smoothing her hands over her dress. “But I asked if you had the traitor’s name. The graftling will not have the same name as its parent. Without the courier’s True Name, we cannot hope to find the door.”
“Wait. What?” Joy said. “The Council locked the door, and they have to be the ones to open it unless all of them died. The courier alone knew its location—but why would they need their True Names?”
The princess gestured to the whole of the pocket world. “They will have locked the door with their sigils,” she said, pointing to her arms, the glyphs on her skin. “It was the reason for my staying behind, to help the Council develop the system of signaturae. My auspice is the written word—it is how I made both Inq and Ink. I Make things with words. I wrote them into being.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Words are how we made the signaturae. Words are how our worlds passed from chaos into order—names, speech, history, time. Words give us worlds, names make things real.” She passed a timid hand gently over the tops of the grasses, smudging her world, blending the colors together like charcoal or chalk. It wasn’t real. She looked at the breach tenderly. “Names make things true.”
Shock sprinkled down Joy’s limbs. Her knees turned to jelly. Her brain popped with sparks. She felt the scalpel slide in her slick grip.
“They locked the door with their sigils?” Joy said. Of course! Every Council member would have to come in and unlock their signaturae, themselves. They couldn’t be forged, they could only be given—to an acolyte, a new member of the Council, like the courier. Like Aniseed. No one could have known what Aniseed had planned for signaturae. They couldn’t have known that the whole system had played right into her hands.
“Names are the only key worth having,” the princess said. “I gave that skill to my creations, the power of Names. It was part of what ultimately made the Scribes real.”
Joy thought about Maia’s boxes and chest and shelves of scrolls. She couldn’t remember the shape of it, exactly, but then again, Maia hadn’t given Joy her signatura. In fact, she had only been given one Council Member’s signatura, albeit unwillingly. That had been real.
Joy had been given Aniseed’s signatura.
And Joy was the third Scribe.
She turned and faced the horizon, lifting her scalpel to the vague memory of sunlight. She drew a line through the sky, curving it like a bow, pausing to draw a giant dot in its center. A nothingness followed, an outline of pale gray.
“What are you doing?” The princess sounded upset at the scratch through her world like unwelcome graffiti; her voice was uncertain, her expression unsure.
“One down,” Joy said. “Seven to go.”
She carved seven pointy petals of a pinwheel, each bisected with a circle—a star-shaped snowflake, a spiked flower of eyes. Star anise seeds. Aniseed’s True Name. Joy drew the courier’s signatura, and it flashed with familiar fire.
An answering Flash! flared in the sky.
“There!” Joy pointed, and the world slid beneath their feet, slamming to a stop before a large circle of glyphs—Aniseed’s signatura, having revealed itself, sizzled and winked out, revealing a circular door. Six sigils remained, faint outlines in the sky; Joy did not recognize any of them except for one at ten o’clock that resembled a stylized teardrop.
“You found it!” the Princess said, tight and eager with hope. “We need the Council.”
“No, we don’t,” Joy said, lifting her scalpel. “This ends now.”
I can do this.
Joy traced the first glyph carefully, watching the invisible firework sparks of undoing erase the locks on things that should never have happened, things that should never have been. She remembered Inq’s body, a Rorschach bloom on her bed. She remembered Ink’s throat gaping open, jagged and torn. She remembered Aniseed’s howl as she completed her sigil behind the electric-blue ward and the way Sol Leander’s arrow had glowed an unhealthy, angry red.
She remembered tracing, erasing the sadistic signatura that had bound Ysabel LaCombe by the throat.
Six marks remained. Then five. Four. Three. Two.
Joy paused above the last one and glanced at the princess, her face rapt.
“Are you ready?” Joy asked.
The princess’s eyes shone. She clasped her hands together. “Yes!”
Ink nodded, transfixed.
Joy erased the last signaturae.
The last sigil flared. The door unlocked.
Joy opened it with a mix of nervousness, excitement and dread.
There was light—real light—from a real, foreign sun that looked somehow larger and brighter than the one in Glendale, North Carolina. Joy could feel Ink’s arms around her as her eyes adjusted to the colors—the vivid green hills that stretched for miles topped with bright banners and long, trailing flags flying high over yellow bivouac camps. The hillsides were dotted with tents and siege machines, battle equipment, liveried animals, smoking armories and strange beasts. Armies upon armies upon armies camped together—a blanket of soldiers standing ready in armor and chain, leathers and furs, tabards and breastplates, wing-shields and robes.
On one hill, a large court spread like a picnic. Two figures in tall chairs got slowly to their feet, their hair streaming behind them like wings.
“Mother! Father!”
The princess pushed past Joy and Ink and plunged through the door. There was a trembling soap-bubble warp as its surface settled back into place. Joy could see the dark-haired woman running over the hills, racing to meet her family, bare feet flying over the grass-that-really-was-grass, leaving Joy and Ink behind in the Bailiwick, in the doorway, alone.
Joy stared into the eyes of the King and Queen. They looked at her and Ink, faces unreadable. Joy smiled. Ink leaned closer and threaded his fingers through hers. Hundreds of Folk gathered together, a thousand eyes staring at them through the void.
The King turned to his Queen, his words, crisp and clean, crossing the miles, slicing through sound.
“It is as you foretold,” he said. “Behold the destroyer of worlds.”
* * * * *
Thank you for reading INSIDIOUS by Dawn Metcalf.
We hope you enjoyed your journey into the dark and magical
world of The Twixt!
Joy and Ink’s adventures continue in Book 4,
INVINCIBLE.
Only from Dawn Metcalf and Harlequin TEEN!
Keep reading for an excerpt from INDELIBLE by Dawn Metcalf.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HOW CAN I find the words to express how profoundly grateful I am to all those who helped make this book possible? Well, since I’ve managed to write over 125,000 words so far, I might as well keep going and try to do my best.
I want to sincerely thank my editor, Natashya Wilson, for allowing me to continue exploring the world of the Twixt, my agent, Sarah Davies, for joining me on the journey, and my critique partners, Angie Frazier, Maurissa Guibord and Susan Van Hecke, for helping me keep my eye on the prize and my fingers on the keys. Thanks to my amazing beta readers, Jenny Bannock, Nicole Boucher and Shari Metcalf for their insight and savvy, and extra-big hugs to Mark Apgar, Kate Baker, Kurt Boucher, Steve Dunlop and Kate Smith for supportive straight-talk, friendly smackdowns and helping me research crazy questions that might otherwise get me into serious trouble.
Huge, heaping thanks to the Harlequin TEEN Dream Team without whom there wo
uld be no ink about Indelible, no visibility for Invisible and no sneaky surprises throughout Insidious—Shara Alexander, Jenny Bullough, Bryn Collier, Ingrid Dolan, Kristin Errico, T. S. Ferguson, Amy Jones, Gigi Lau, Margaret Marbury, Ashley McCallan, Kathleen Oudit, Mary Sheldon, Lauren Smulski, Libby Sternberg and Anna Baggaley of the UK MIRA Ink team. To all of you working behind the pages: thank you so much!
Lastly, writing is hard. Being a mom is hard. Being a writer-mom, not to mention a wife, sister, daughter, auntie, niece, school parent and friend is nigh impossible (which, by the way, will not be the title of the next Twixt book)! Therefore, none of this means anything without the love and support of my family, who give me the freedom to be all of these things as well as pursue my lifelong dream. Thanks to my parents, Holly and Barry, my other parents, Marilyn and Harold, my siblings by birth and marriage, Corrie, Richard, Adam, Michelle, David and Shari, and to my beloved husband, Jonathan, my hero and friend for lo these twenty years, and to the two small people who look vaguely like us, S.L. and A.J., thank you for making my every day magic.
And thank you to all my readers—you make wishes come true!
If you loved Insidious, don’t miss the other books in The Twixt series by Dawn Metcalf, available wherever ebooks are sold.
Indelible (Book 1)
Invisible (Book 2)
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Indelible
by Dawn Metcalf
CHAPTER ONE
THE MUSIC BEAT hard against Joy’s ribs. She could feel the rhythm in her chest and the bass in her teeth. The Carousel spun slowly, crammed with mirrors and frantic dancers. It was dark. It was light. It was dark. It was light. Joy felt the music call to her, dizzying and loud.