“You’re still thinking like a human.” Eli swiftly moved in front of him. “This world isn’t logical. If you try to force logic on to it, it will kill you. And we didn’t sing songs jumping rope,” Eli said, her voice dripping with scorn. “We sang it while gutting animals for celebration.”
Footsteps interrupted their exchange, and they both turned just in time to see Tav step into the dead patch and disappear.
“Oh my god! It just swallowed them whole!” Cam dropped his bag, eyes bulging. “What do we do?!”
Gritting her teeth and silently cursing the bravery of humans, Eli shouldered the bag before grabbing Cam and forcefully dragging him after Tav.
A sizzle.
The smell of burning hair.
A cold, fishy touch.
Eli shuddered as they passed through the barrier and entered a very large, overflowing junkyard. Old truck tires spilled into a collection of plastic Fisher-Price kiddie cars; costume jewelry cascaded around dead leaves and pieces of charcoal, slate, and limestone.
Tav was nowhere to be seen.
Eli dropped Cam’s arm and moved forward, looking around. Shells, scales, and fingernails crunched under her feet. Now that she was inside, the magic was back, pulsing redpurple like a poisoned star.
“Tav!” Cam scrambled forward. Eli clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait, and stay quiet,” she instructed. “We don’t know who’s here and we don’t want to piss them off.”
“We lost Tav.”
“We’ll find them. Just keep walking forward. That’s what they would do. They’re smart — they’ll be okay.”
Cam nodded. Eli tried to unlock her tense muscles but couldn’t quite manage it. She was worried. No children’s wisdom said anything about a massive junkyard in the middle of nowhere. The entire wastelands were a junkyard, a dumping ground for the obsolete.
They walked in silence, their path skirting the largest mountains of diamonds and dental floss. Strange tools and gears stuck up like weapons from piles of stained and threadbare cloth. Eli found herself lost in her own thoughts, wondering if the witches knew about this place and how it came to be. Wondering if she could make a life here, with the glowing rock that had chosen not to harm her.
Would it really be so bad to be forgotten?
The noise of metal on rock woke her from her reverie, and she turned to see Cam wrestling with a steel contraption, trying to pry it out of a pile of loose stones. “What are you doing?” She couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice. She didn’t have time to babysit a tourist.
“You have your knives,” said Cam. “It’s not like my Swiss Army knife will do any good out here.”
“I took that out of your bag before we left,” Eli informed him. “You try to bring a weapon across worlds and the world might see you as a threat. I didn’t want to risk it. And that thing you’re holding is not going to be any help against enchantment either.”
“You don’t know that,” said Cam resolutely. “You don’t know what it is.” With a final yank, he pulled the thing out and fell backward onto the ground.
“Graceful,” observed Eli.
“I’m a modern-day King Arthur,” said Cam. “Look at this!”
It was a long rod that on first glance appeared to be steel but, on closer inspection, was made from an alloy that Eli wasn’t familiar with. It was studded with curved and spiky arms and the occasional toothy gear.
“It looks like something a steampunk cosplayer would make,” she said flatly.
“I think it’s an enchanted weapon,” said Cam.
“More likely a decoration of some kind. It looks like a piece of railing from a dead witch’s house.”
“It looks sharp,” said Cam, tapping a finger against one of the spikes. He winced and pulled his finger away as a single drop of blood was quickly absorbed into the metal. For a moment, the bloodied spot appeared rusted, before fading back to greyblack. “What was that?” Cam leaned closer to inspect the patch that had taken his blood.
“I have no idea,” said Eli. “But it has your blood now, so you’d better bring it with us. You don’t want someone else to take it.”
“Works for me.” Using the rod as a walking stick, he hauled himself up to his feet. “Let us go, fair Guinevere.”
“Good to see you’ve got your sense of humour back,” said Eli grimly, looking up. “We’ll need it.” The sky had turned blood red.
Eli smelled death.
Twenty-Three
Eli had been small enough to fit in corners, small enough to be overlooked. In the forest she could pass unseen beneath the great boughs.
The wind had risen, hot and hungry for flesh.
“Trust the trees,” Kite had whispered, taking Eli’s hand in her own. The roar of the air. The sky red as an open wound. The silver and gold leaves under their feet tainted with the stain of death. A hiss, a sharp intake of breath — Kite was in pain. Kite, the Heir, the witch, unbreakable. Burning.
“This wind has teeth.” Kite laughed and tossed her hair.
They had hidden between the roots of a great oak tree, pressing their bodies into the earth. Kite had sung epics and sea shanties as the bloodthirsty winds whipped around their hiding spot, daring the world to take them.
They had been spared, that time.
Only a single red freckle on Kite’s back — the only scar she carried — reminded them of how close they had come to disappearing.
How close Eli had come to losing her.
“We have to hide,” said Eli frantically. A crimson shadow fell across her body. “Now!”
Cam didn’t ask any questions, just looked at her with eyes that were as red as the sky. He clutched the rod and nodded.
They couldn’t stray from the path or they would be lost forever, and Tav would die here. Tav. The idea of Tav taken by the red wind was too terrible to bear.
Eli ran, stumbling over old tires and skulls. Already she could feel the seductive pull of the wind, whispering in her ear, trailing red dust along her arms in elaborate patterns. Eli brushed the dust off and kept moving. A hiss of pain. Kite was burning. Eli blinked. That was then, she told herself. And you both survived.
Eli spotted a rusted truck and cried out in triumph. She ran faster, pushing her body to its limits. She threw open the front door and climbed in. The dust swirled angrily outside the truck, licking at the window. “You will find easier prey than me,” she muttered, remembering Circinae’s teaching. Magic always took the easiest death.
Cam. Cam was the easiest death. Taking a deep breath, Eli opened the door again and threw herself back into the storm. Every part of her body screamed in protest, as self-preservation urged her to hide, to wait, to sacrifice the human.
She ignored it. The wind was howling now, a deafening sound but strangely compelling — like a siren’s song. Through the dust, she could see Cam. He was still standing, still moving. He still had a chance.
Eli couldn’t go back. But she could wait for him. She waved her arms wildly, hoping he could see her. The light glinted off her blades and she hoped that would make her a beacon in the storm. She switched to her magic eyes, and through the red, she could see another glow, some other kind of magic swirling around Cam, protecting him. Guiding him.