When Eli was finally freed, covered in lacerations and burn marks, Kite led her gently out of the room. Eli had never gone back to the library.
They were coming for the Heart.
A thrill darted through Eli’s nervous system, senses heightened by the danger and promise of pain. This was a different kind of hunt, but a hunt nonetheless.
Their footsteps made no sound. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and the eerie silence made them uncomfortable. Only Kite seemed unmoved by the strangeness of the Coven, walking through the halls as if she owned them.
Maybe she did.
The hall ended abruptly, and they entered a large room overflowing with thick tomes and dusty letters. Heavy curtains studded with paper moths lined the walls, and the ceiling was so high up Eli couldn’t see where it ended. A place where words could cut and history refused to stay buried. A place that had rejected her. The library.
“Kite.” Eli’s voice was a warning.
“I want you to show us,” she said.
“I already told you.”
Cam cleared his throat. “I don’t really understand what you told us.”
“I’d like to see,” said Tav, watching Eli closely. “Please?”
Eli sighed. “Okay. But we have to do this fast. We’re running out of time.”
“You keep saying that.” Kite smiled indulgently. “But we have a few more moments before everything is destroyed.”
Kite cleared a space on the floor and opened a large tome of gardening spells written out in elaborate curlicue handwriting. She waved her hand at the words, and the ink crawled off the paper until only an empty page was left behind. Eli knelt down, the ancient dust pricking through her jeans.
Even the dust knew she didn’t belong here, among secrets and myths and knowledge. It was forbidden to her. She hesitated and then drew the bone blade, the tracker. The blade that always remembered.
A rustle of paper filled the space. Eli turned and saw the paper moths fluttering wildly.
“They’re afraid of the knife,” explained Kite. “Don’t stray from the page and they won’t harm you.”
Eli nodded. She pressed the tip against the page, and ink soaked up through the paper. As her hand moved, dragging the tip across the paper, thick black lines traced the shape of the planet and the contour of each wound. When the drawing was complete, Eli took out the frost blade. She pressed the flat of the blade against the image and the scene came dizzyingly, wildly to life. Then she drew back.
Before them was the scene she had witnessed standing in the space between planets. Her breath caught in her throat. The bone blade had pulled the memory from her body, and the frost blade had sharpened its truth to a deadly weapon. Its aim was true. Cam inhaled sharply. Kite’s eyes glowed more brightly, shining and wet, polished by pain. Tav stared at the drawing for a long time.
“I see now,” whispered Kite, turning her luminous orbs on Eli. “We have so much to do.”
“If we steal the Heart, it will weaken the Witch Lord’s power. It should slow the bleeding. That’s why we have to go now.”
Cam was muttering under his breath. “Jesus fucking Christ. Holy fuck, oh my god, Jesus.”
“Those wounds,” said Tav. “Those are the seams between worlds. Like the one we used to cross.”
“Yes,” said Eli.
“Even when the tear seems to have closed, it’s draining the Earth’s energy.”
“Yes.”
Tav tapped their finger against the hilt of the obsidian knife. They looked up at Eli. “The flow of magic between things doesn’t have to be hurtful, does it?”
“What do you mean?”
“These tears, or holes or whatever, are hurting the world because the power only flows one way, right?”
“Right. They’re draining the life force of Earth. I told you that already. Look, we have to go.” Eli felt exasperation tingling down her spine. And even though she had put away her knives, she could feel the library’s intense dislike and mistrust of her, as thousands of books watched and waited.
“But you can travel both ways,” Tav tapped the centre of the page, where the widest chasm had been depicted: the Vortex. The killing blow. “What if it wasn’t a hole. What if it was a door?”
Eli stared at them. “A door,” she repeated. Her eyes widened. “If you opened the door, the magic would flow both ways.”
“And the planet would heal.”
“How would we …” her voice trailed off. The look of fervour had returned to Tav’s face. She already knew the answer to her question: only the Heart could power that kind of transformation.
And only Tav had the power to make doors.
Forty-One
Kite pressed her palm against the horror sketched out before them. The ink drained back to the pages it had been borrowed from. Then she took a moment to coax the floral handwriting back into the book. Once in place, the letters quivered slightly, as if they could feel the texture of death in the fibres of their home.
“Do you think you could?” asked Eli, hands twisting around the hilt.
“I don’t know.” Tav’s eyes shone, and Eli was reminded of her vision of black feathers.
“You haven’t tried.”
“I know that.”
“You could do more damage.”
Tav laughed shortly. “I think now is the time to take a few risks, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Cam interrupted. He was rubbing a piece of marble that lived in the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger.
The sound of rustling grew louder. The paper moths were coming.
“My loves don’t want you here,” said Kite. “You can understand why they aren’t quick to trust, after the way they’ve been treated.”
Eli shivered, remembering the taste of ink in her throat and the weight of history on her chest. She had broken three ribs, and Kite had not spoken to her for weeks.
“Tav thinks they can close the doors,” she said simply. “I think they’re crazy.”
“My therapist says you aren’t supposed to call people crazy,” said Cam.
“I’d rather be crazy than a ghost,” said Tav. “That’s what will happen to us if Earth dies.”
Ink began falling from the sky. A storm was brewing.
Kite stood, her body pulsing with a clear aquamarine light. “Stay close, and the Coven will guide us.”
“It’s dangerous,” said Eli.
Irritation coarsened Tav’s tone. “I know that, what do you think —”
“And if you die —”
“Oh, I get it, you’re the only one allowed —”
The library melted away.
Silence fell like a guillotine. They were back in the hallway, closing their eyes against the piercing whiteness. The hallway itself was keeping them silent, forcing the sounds to stay in their bodies. They followed Kite, who kept one hand on the wall and whispered to it; she seemed to be, in turns, cajoling and threatening the ancient building.
The hallway ended abruptly, and they found themselves in a chamber glowing with hatred and malice.
“No,” whispered Eli, the chamber allowing the fear in her voice to be heard. Her knees locked. She had stood here too many times to count.