“Sure, fine.” Eli had seen his nightmares.
They climbed for a while, stumbling over forgotten and unwanted objects, sweat beading on their necks. There was only one sun now. The star was indigo and its rays danced over their faces. It created the impression that they were moving underwater.
“Look!” Cam pointed with his stick. There was a figure in the distance. With a burst of energy, they ran the last few hundred metres, scrambling, using their hands to pull themselves up.
“Tav!” Eli threw her arms around them and then hurriedly jumped back. Cam hugged them, too.
“I’ve been here all day!” Tav sat down on an armoire. “What took you so long?”
“We came seconds after you,” protested Cam. “We didn’t see footprints or anything.”
“A time pocket!” Eli’s voice rose and broke against her own excitement. “I’ve heard of these! We used to go looking for them when we were kids.”
“In between gutting animals and training to kill people?” Cam poked at the ground with his walking stick.
“Ghosts, not people.” Eli glared at him, fear alighting in her stomach. “And yeah, something like that.” She and Kite had spent days chasing down the mysterious time gaps that dotted the City of Eyes. “We must have entered a different time than Tav; that explains why we didn’t see each other sooner. But everything syncs up here in the centre.”
“I’m going to pretend I understood that,” said Cam.
“Did you ever find any time pockets when you were little?” asked Tav.
“Just one,” said Eli. “It threw us into yesterday and we had to go through the same routine pretending everyone was the same.”
“Sounds boring,” said Cam.
“No, it was fun. I spent most of the day finishing people’s sentences and playing pranks. Looking back, it was really lucky we weren’t thrown into the future. That would have been a lot harder to explain. The time gaps between Earth and here aren’t usually that dramatic, but time gaps in the witch’s world? Those could take you to any time.”
“As interesting as this conversation is,” said Tav, “shouldn’t we try to get out of here?”
Cam collapsed dramatically, flinging his stick to one side. “Are you made of pure muscle?”
“Nice prop.” Tav poked it with their foot. Eli thought about the blood it had absorbed and the magical storm it had weathered. She said nothing.
“For once, I agree with Cam. We should rest and then continue.” Eli didn’t tell them that the magic of the junkyard was pulsing through her entire body and she wasn’t sure she could bear ripping herself away from it. She felt strong.
Cam emptied the drawers of an antique armoire and made a nest out of silk shirts. He curled up inside it and fell asleep almost instantly. Eli knew she should sleep, too, but between the magic and Tav, her heart was racing too fast to imagine resting. Tav didn’t seem inclined to sleep, either, and instead they climbed over to where Eli was sitting and settled beside her.
“Can’t sleep with all this magic around,” they explained.
“Me neither,” said Eli. “What did you do while you waited for us?”
Tav shrugged. “Mindfulness exercises. My therapist made me do them when I was angry.”
“Did they help?”
“No.”
They both laughed. Eli told them about the storm but not about her conversation with Cam in the truck.
“I’m glad you found me,” Tav admitted. “I didn’t love being here on my own.”
“Cam missed you, too.”
“Just Cam?”
Eli shrugged.
“Thanks for keeping him safe,” said Tav.
“Just doing my job.”
Eli hesitated for a moment and then took out her obsidian blade. It was the narrowest, like a crescent moon, thin and jagged and slightly curved. It was a cruel blade and it worked on shadows, echoes, and the true bodies of ghosts. “Take this. If you feel something touch you and nothing is there — use it. It wants to be used. It’s thirsty.”
“Are you sure?” Tav’s eyes were wide.
“Yes. Just don’t lose it.” Eli smiled at them. “I hope we don’t get separated again, but just in case, you should be armed.”
“Thank you.” Tav wrapped their hand around the blade, then hissed in pain and dropped it. A single drop of blood, so dark it was almost black, dripped from their palm.
“It shouldn’t hurt corporeals,” said Eli frowning, feeling lost and confused. What was Tav?
“I don’t know what that means,” said Tav, “but maybe you should keep it. Maybe it doesn’t want to be given away.”
“Maybe …” Eli sheathed the blade.
They fell into a silence that was almost comfortable. Eli thought about nightmares and daydreams and the memory of Tav’s fingers gently following the lines of light across her knee.
“Are you sorry you came?” Eli didn’t look at Tav when she asked this. It was a stupid question, but Eli needed to know anyway.
Tav turned and looked at Eli for a long moment. “Not for a second.”
Eli hid a smile.
“It’s beautiful here,” said Tav.
“You’re magic drunk,” accused Eli, who was starting to feel something like that herself. The magic was so thick here she could almost see it with her crocodile eyes.
“So?”
A piece of plastic digging into her thigh. Cam snoring in his sleep.
Tav leaned over. The smell of salt — not sea salt but human body salt. The percussive beat of their heart. Eli could see it twitching on their neck, a delicate rhythm of life. She wanted to touch it. Tav ran one finger along a vein on Eli’s forearm. Pathfinding on her body. Mapping a history of touch and want. A few sparks crackled along the line of contact, but this time, neither of them pulled back. Instead, Eli leaned in and pressed her lips against Tav’s.
She had been warned about strong emotions.
Everything happened at once.
Cam woke up.
The world caught fire.
Eli’s heart stopped.
Through the heat of the flames and the smell of ash, Eli could hear a voice shouting her name.
“Eli?! Eli!”
“… no pulse …”
“Somebody help us!”
“What do we …”
“Eli, stay with me!”
Thick smoke clouded her vision. She could feel it filling her lungs. She tried to breathe. Her eyes fluttered shut. Eli’s last thought was of a motorcycle glowing like a celestial body. Eyes were painted on the side, and one of them winked at her.
Twenty-Six
“Welcome back, Eli.”
Eli woke to a child’s face dangerously close to her own, a mouth splayed open to display white teeth behind pink lips. She felt very heavy, her lungs choking. The ground beneath her was stone, solid and cool. Somehow, they had left the junkyard.
“Clytemnestra … what … how …” Eli tried to find the right words.
Clytemnestra snapped her jaws a few times, barked, and then scampered off Eli’s chest. Gasping, Eli realized she could breathe again.