by E Hall
I know well enough not to look at the smoldering bodies it’s sure to contain.
Suddenly, boots slide on stone. I reach an arm out, grasping the hem of Kiki’s coat and pull her to my side.
Her chest heaves and she coughs again. “What is—?” she repeats. Her face pales, and her eyes crimp.
“Punishment. Slowly roasting to death. Best not to get too close,” I say, meaning both to the ashpit and to the king.
We walk in silence as the stench of burning flesh refuses to leave my nostrils. I send my thoughts to the hills and the sea, stilling my mind against the ferocity that builds in my chest when I think about how many people I’ve known who’ve fallen victim to Leith’s cruelty.
“We should get out of here,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the castle, feeling as though his blazing yet empty eyes are on me and mocking the punishment covering my skin. I detour us back through the Basin, taking the most circuitous route to the Roost only to still my suspicious conscience.
Kiki looks around with a mixture of awe and disgust.
The days have been shortening as we near the turning of the year and deep winter. Twilight isn’t long off and although our shadows trail us, ours are the only ones until we pass the charlatan’s stalls. I keep a wary eye out for the seer who tricked me out of my fish not long ago.
Arms with bangling bracelets stretch toward us from the edges of the lane. Disjointed and hungry voices offer predictions, charms, and readings.
Kiki slows, and I drop back to hasten her along.
“We have no business here,” I say in a low voice. “A bunch of clairvoyant rubbish.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Do you mean like psychics?”
“They’re charlatans if you ask me.”
“My mother used to visit one all the time.”
“Liars, mystics, fortune tellers, seers. Pick your title. People persist in their hope that a seer will predict good fortune coming their way. They claim to know your future in exchange for a coin—a dukh—, anything shiny. Even a fish,” I say resentfully.
“Can they see the future?”
“Trust me, there’s only one future for all of us in Raven’s Landing,” I say, thinking of the king’s punishments.
She glances over her shoulder, hesitating.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I urge, not interested in being tangled up in their rot.
“Maybe they can help,” she says.
A familiar voice comes from the darkness. “Of course, we can help.” The seer who took my fish glides out from her stall. Her unveiled gaze is cat-like and trained on Kiki who wandered on icy boots into what must seem like a very strange world to her.
“No, we’re just leaving,” I say briskly.
“We’ve met,” the seer says to me. “If you’re wondering whether the fish was put to good use? Yes,” the seer teases. She turns to Kiki. “I can tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Good. Finally, answers.” Kiki lifts an eyebrow in my direction then disappears through the door.
“Let’s get this over with.” I exhale and stalk into the stall before dropping into the chair I occupied not long ago.
The seer glides in, securing the door behind her. “Nice to see you came back and brought someone from afar.” The seer surveys Kiki’s glittering eyes.
Kiki studies her just as closely.
“Please, take a seat,” the seer says. She turns to me, sniffing the air. “Brought another fish?”
I roll my eyes and fight a growl.
Kiki takes a few steps forward as though accepting my familiarity with the seer despite what I said outside. Her eyes land on an orb covered with a scarf on the table.
“I’ve never seen someone like you in the Basin,” she says to Kiki.
“I don’t reckon you’ve seen anyone like her anywhere.” This is ridiculous. I explain to Kiki, “She caught me trying to escape the patrol with a fish I caught the other night. Foretold that we’re all going to die...” I trail off. It was a bit like the message Kiki said she received come to think of it.
The seer smiles at Kiki and looks at me with disdain. “He calls me a charlatan,” she says, nodding dismissively in my direction. “I call him a rowser. Always up for a fight.”
“You have to be to survive in Raven’s Landing.”
She leans closer to Kiki. “Let me be clear. I don’t tell lies. I merely see chance, possibility, and what could be. The rest is up to you. And I see much in you both,” she says, beckoning Kiki to open her palm. “What I will tell you cannot hurt you. They’re just words.”
“Words can hurt,” I mumble, rubbing my knee. Words can hurt very much.
The seer turns Kiki’s hand over and traces the faint lines with closed eyes. “I see you’ve been through a trial and have traveled very far.”
I scoff. That much is clear by the clothing Kiki wears.
“You’ve lost much.”
“Obviously. Life here isn’t measured with gains unless you live in the castle,” I say, unable to help myself.
The seer ignores me. “You wish to share something,” she says and then adds, “You’re afraid.”
Kiki pulls her hand away. “I am not.”
The seer lifts her eyebrow with a subtle look in my direction. “You’re not afraid?”
“I’m not afraid.” Kiki’s voice is piercing, an arrow hitting its mark. She said that earlier and I am struck by the truth in her tone. The absoluteness of it. Considering she’s left her own realm and landed here, she doesn’t seem afraid at all. Mystified, confused, perhaps. But not afraid. Then again, she hasn’t been here long.
After a moment, the seer’s dark-rimmed eyes flutter shut and when she speaks, her voice is thin and distant. “Demons shadow thieve, while the fae court grieve. Four sisters to find. One compass to bind. Four crowns to take. One curse to break. Before twelve moons turn, else the realm will burn.”
No way am I giving her a fish for this garbage. I get to my feet, accidentally kicking the table and breaking the seer’s trance.
Kiki looks up, alarmed. “What you said was the same as—”
“The message you already received,” the seer says.
Kiki’s eyes widen. “How did you know?”
“I can see it.”
The tower bells ring loudly, signaling it’s almost the demon hour.
“We have to go,” I say.
The seer tsks. “Always running.”
“I’d fly if I could. I’ve had enough run-ins with the patrol lately.” I pat the tapestry on the wall, searching for the secret exit I used last time I was here that leads to the back alley.
“I don’t doubt that you would,” the seer says. “If you knew the truth.”
I drag my gaze from the seer and her nonsense to Kiki.
She hasn’t moved. “What you said, what does it mean?”
“It means you face a great challenge ahead.”
“We have to get out of here,” I say, insistently, figuring the challenge is going to be evading the patrolmen.
“What do I owe you?” Kiki asks, unclasping her necklace.
I shake my head. “Come on, Kiki.”
The seer pauses, studying the pendant on the necklace.
“Let’s go,” I urge.
To her credit, the seer tucks the pendant in Kiki’s hand. “You’ll need that,” she says. “A mother’s gift is never thrift. Her love transcends and all does mend, nothing will it ever rend.”
Kiki’s eyes widen and fill with liquid. “My mother used to say that.”
“This is a traditional frost fae gift from mother to daughter. Your story is written in the crystals of this snowflake.”
“What do you see?” Kiki asks.
The seer gazes at it again. “I see a brave woman, your mother, who made a great sacrifice to keep you safe for as long as possible.”
“What sacrifice?”
“Her life.”
“Does that mean that the demon didn’t kill her?”
“No, it didn’t kill her,” she pauses as though she’s going to say more.
“Kiki, we should go.” I gently plant my hand on her shoulder.
“As for payment, what I told you means you owe me freedom.” The seer’s cat-eyes volley between us. “Both of you.” I open my mouth to urge Kiki outside when the seer says, “But for now, a fish will do.”
Kiki stares at me expectantly, those glittering eyes making me succumb to the seer’s desire for payment.
I sigh and toss a fish on the table. “Just means less for you,” I say to Kiki.
By the faint smile on her lips, she knows that I’m lying.
“A striddly. Thank you,” the seer says, before pulling back the correct tapestry and ushering us into the dark night.
Kiki keeps up as I wind through the crooked lanes, weaving a careful route to the Roost, dodging checkpoints and patrols.
We turn another corner, and I stop short. Kiki does not. A woman lays splayed on the ground. A gauzy blue-black figure hovers over her.
Before I can warn her away, she strides forward.
At the sound of Kiki’s approach, the demon, with pus oozing from ash-like skin, turns its hollow gaze on her. Kiki’s eyes flash. The demon tilts its gruesome, rotting head. It’s so nasty, I worry bits of brain will land on Kiki’s boots.
She doesn’t waver. Her eyes are like ice, like death itself.
I shiver.
She pulls something from her pocket along with her knife. She slices at the demon and it hisses loudly while it launches forward as though it’s going to smother her. The substance oozing from its limbs and splatters with the movement.
Blade in hand, I lunge, but just as I’m about to strike, the demon hovers a moment longer and then its blue-black form disappears into the backdrop of night. Dumbfounded, I stagger back.
Kiki steps toward the woman, whispering comfort. How did she manage to slay it without slicing its head off? Maybe a Terra method?
Together, we link our arms in the woman’s and lift her to standing. I recognize her from the market at the base of the Roost. The eggs she tries to sell on Sundays are hardly bigger than skipping stones. She has a home and family to feed—twin sons if I recall.
We walk toward the gates when a whistle blows and a bright torchlight flashes. “You there,” a guard calls from beneath a lowered helmet. “It’s the demon hour.”
The woman startles, wresting herself from our arms. The guard pursues her as she rushes toward the gate, while the other guard catches sight of us.
I glance over my shoulder, wondering if we were better off sheltering with the seer after all, but the entrance to the Roost is only several paces away. I take Kiki’s hand in mine and once more, we run.
Chapter 8
Ineke
Compared to New York with its smooth, tall skyscrapers, lifting upward and only broken by slivers of the sky, Raven’s Landing is a chaotic mess of squalor and shambling buildings.
What Soren calls the Roost is just as bad. At a sprint, we pass doors hanging loosely from their frames. The slats comprising the walls leak slender shafts of light and the faint, yet doleful lament of the inhabitants.
Soren’s footfalls thunder while mine patter up the dirt lane. The patrol chases us, but if my heaving chest upon our rapid ascent is any indication, they had reason to give up. I’m not used to these hills or the dirty air here.
At the top of the village, the houses don’t huddle together quite as densely.
Soren finally slows. “We’re almost there,” he says in a low tone.
He lets go of my hand when he pushes open a door and pulls me inside, leaving me cold. A candle flickers to life. He rubs his hands together before making a fire.
The room is only large enough for a small hearth, a chest, a bed lifted off the floor on a wooden platform, a chair, and a modest table beside it, upon which rests the candle.
“I don’t call this home,” he says, washed of the warmth in his voice when we were by the sea. “But it’s better than sleeping under the pier.”
“I hope that woman made it home safely,” I say.
The desperation in her eyes still clings to me when I used the talisman from Heather against the demon.
“She had no business out during the demon’s hour,” Soren says in a hard voice.
“We didn’t either. Shouldn’t we have explained to the patrol that she was a victim of—?”
“In another city? Perhaps. In ordinary circumstances? Yes. In Raven’s Landing, the rules are simple, when the bells toll and the drums roll, get inside.”
“In that case, I’m less concerned about the demons and more about the guards.” I knock on the drafty wall of Soren’s house. “Are we safe?”
“As safe as you can be in a hut with a thatched roof.”
Flames gutter in the fire grate.
Soren tears into his bag and produces the remaining fish, layered in salt. He prepares it upon a slate on the floor, and I crouch beside him, watching and hungry for Oreo cookies.
I catch the glint of a mirror shard hanging beside the door. It has a swirling design along the edge that almost seems to flicker in the firelight. Instead of grimy glass like in town, this mirror is polished. I step closer, my eyes darting wildly to the glitter under my eyes. Soren was right. I am different. Tiffany would be jealous. Since the moment my hand touched my mothers and I landed in that cold place, I’ve felt different. It’s like I was asleep and now I’m awake.
“Why are there so many mirrors and glass in the city?” I ask.
“They were for the ravens. They liked shiny things.”
“Like the seer?” I ask, slinging his unnecessary hostility at the woman back at him.
Soren’s dark eyes wash over me, and I feel like I need to come up for air. I take my coat off. The hut holds the heat surprisingly well.
“And this mirror?” I ask, tracing my fingers along the glitter beneath my eyes and the pink tint on my cheeks.
Soren appears at my back, looking at my reflection with as much wonder as I am. I feel strangely wobbly under his gaze.
Soren clears his throat. “That mirror is one of the only things I have left from my parents. It was my mother’s mirror actually. Rather, a piece of it. A fragment leftover from the Grievous Fire.”
I step toward the hearth to warm my hands as the scent of fish fills the cocoon of Soren’s hut, perched snuggly on the hillside.
He turns the fish over using a metal prong and then drapes his coat over the back of the chair. My breath catches at the sight of ink on his skin. He covers his bare forearm with one massive hand and looks down, shame darkening his cheeks. “My punishment.”
I step closer, afraid my eyes play tricks on me. Countless words tattoo his skin.
“The silver king erased our history. Closed the schools. Burned the books. And those lucky enough not to wind up in the ashpit are branded, revealing our thoughts, our secrets, and our dissent for all to see.” He grunts. “The king’s ink curse was the consequence of the rebels fighting against him. To mark them. Us.”
“Fascinating,” I say, tracing my fingers over the curling letters of the tattoos.
“Humiliating.” Soren starts to move his arm away and then stutters an exhale.
Most of the words overlap and bleed into each other. It’s hard to make out specifics. Instead, they almost resembled twined ropes, like Celtic designs. But I do see a few corrupt, ache, ridicule, desperate, and revolt.
“If we speak ill of him, the words appear on our skin,” he explains.
“This must be the curse I’m meant to break. But what if you do something against him?”
“The ashpit,” he answers darkly. “And if you’re fae—” His eyes dart to mine and linger there.
“How does he know any of this if magic is outlawed?” I ask.
“He makes the rules. He can break the rules,” Soren mutters and takes the fish from the fire.
Soren gestures that I take the chair. He
sits on the bed. Silence fills the empty spaces between us as the fish fills our bellies.
All I have are questions and my mind repeatedly lands on the notion of the curse. I can slay a demon, but how do I break a curse?
He brushes his hands together and then tugs off his boots, stretching out on the floor next to the fire and cradling his head. “What would be good right now is a slice of brown bread.”
“Never heard of it unless you mean wheat or pumpernickel. I’m a wonder bread, peanut butter, and fluff kind of girl.”
His nose wrinkles like he has no idea what I’m talking about. “Brown bread? The most delicious thing in the world. Molasses, ginger, and butter. It’s fluffy and dense and delicious.”
I tilt my head in challenge. “My mother’s blueberry pancakes were the most delicious thing in the world.”
“That’s only because you’ve never had brown bread.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with a memory. “Warm, slathered in butter...”
I take off my boots and warm my aching feet. The note from the demon, matching the seer’s words pokes from my pocket. I repeat it at a whisper.
“Demons shadow thieve, while the fae court grieve. Four sisters to find. One compass to bind. Four crowns to take. One curse to break. Before twelve moons turn, else the realm will burn.”
In a sleepy voice, Soren says, “Could be a prophecy if you prefer. If you believe in that kind of thing.”
“Do you?” I ask curiously.
“Definitely maybe,” he says around a yawn.
“So not no.”
“And not yes,” he clarifies. “I imagine the seer has a list of prophecies she readily recites to empty out people’s pockets. Especially innocent girls from out of town.”
“Do you see many innocent girls from out of town?” I ask.
Tension stretches and rebounds between us.
“Only you,” he says, closing his eyes to sleep.
The fire sizzles. I gaze into the flames, turning the seer’s words over in my mind. Soren’s breath slows to signal sleep.
“Definitely maybe isn’t an answer,” I whisper.
I feel in the densest, deepest parts of my being. My mother had wings. I’ve seen the worst kinds of demons, but she was the opposite. And the sizzling of the fire is nothing to the frigid buzzing under my skin as though trying to escape.