Yes.
The visions faded. She was back in the Coven, surrounded by witchfire. The husk of a great tree stood before her, its leaves blackened by rot and decay. She knew that it was empty, a dead shell.
Her entire body was glowing. She was brighter than the flames, brighter than the gold flecks in Tav’s eyes. She was the brightest thing in the world.
“Eli.”
She looked up. Tav was staring at her, wide-eyed.
“Take it.”
Tav handed Eli the obsidian blade.
Eli walked to the witchfire and cut through the smoke. Cut into the shared essences of the first ring. She had seen a witch die. She knew they could be killed. She was an assassin, an artist of death.
The essences screamed.
The witchfire flickered out, leaving only smouldering embers and ash in a circle around three sweaty bodies and a dead tree.
The witches were fleeing.
The essences of the witches that made up the first ring re-formed outside the dead circle, no longer joined. Balls of light, of energy, wavering and trembling at the sight of the glowing girl. They were afraid.
But they would fight back, and Eli couldn’t fight them all. The Heart had been locked down here for too long, and the vicious magic of the chains that had bound her yearned to wrap themselves around her ankles and keep her here forever. She had been weakened by the shearing of her roots, by the burning of the forest, by the breaking of a glass blade. She was vulnerable.
And the Heart had a human body now, and bodies were fragile. Already hairline cracks were reopening along an arm that had recently been broken.
Eli turned to her companions. Now that the ring had been broken, Cam was breathing more steadily and struggling to stand up. Tav wiped the sweat from their face, leaving a streak of ash behind. They spat out a mouthful of sand and grimaced. They were both readying themselves for another fight, and it made her heart ache.
“Tav?” Her voice was heavy with fatigue, but the question was tinged with hope. She offered them the obsidian knife. When Tav took it, Eli sent a surge of honeygold power into their body — sharing the power of the Heart, the power of the world. Then Eli gripped their wrist tightly. “You can do this,” she said. Tav reached out with their free hand to take Cam’s.
Eli’s hand fell to the fragment of china that still hung around her neck. Please, please let this work. Take us somewhere safe.
Tav reached for the threads of magic that wove the world.
A door opened.
Forty-Four
They fell for eternity.
Eli saw the junkyard of lost and discarded things. Something in her reached out to it, but it was too late —
They fell through stone, through the underbelly of the Labyrinth, through tree roots and fossils.
For a moment, Tav, Cam, and Eli hung over Earth. The planet was a beautiful and broken piece of glassware, cracked and glittering with millions of gold lights. It looked very fragile. Then it was gone, and they were falling again.
Doors kept opening and closing, images rushing by as they fell through the City of Eyes again and again and again.
Tav was panicking. They needed a safe haven.
Eli squeezed Tav’s hand, sending a glittering thread of power from her hand to theirs. Tav grabbed for the knife at their belt and tried to shove it into a doorway, to drag them out of the tunnel and into a space — something, anything. It slipped through brick and stone and wood and bone, caught on patches of spirit and shadow and gaps in the world, but skittered off as they kept falling down, down, down.
“Breathe,” whispered Eli. “You can do this.”
Eli watched as Tav took a deep breath and closed their eyes. The magic crackled and swirled around them. She could see the tension in their shoulders and neck from a lifetime of fear and fury. Eli wanted to smooth that tension away, to kiss the base of their neck, even as she remembered the way the witch had been torn open at their touch.
She pressed the chip of bone china, the pendant gifted to her by a child of the Labyrinth, into their hand.
“Take us here,” said Eli.
Colours and light flashed around Tav, moving through their body, the magic threads mapping a spectrum of wild and messy emotions. In one quick movement, Tav threw the pendant into the void as both sacrifice and anchor.
A moment later, they collapsed on a stone floor.
“Took you long enough,” said Clytemnestra. “Did you really steal the Heart?” She seemed smaller than last time, almost toddler sized. Her exaggerated Cupid’s bow mouth was twisted into a sneer.
“Hi, baby demon,” said Tav, struggling for breath. They shoved their hands into their hair, trying to push the wilted spikes back into place.
The glow of the Heart had dulled, but Eli could still feel it in her blood. Everything was brighter, sharper, stranger. Even without her magical eyes, she could see magic everywhere. It was overwhelming.
Clytemnestra was eyeing her like she was dessert. “Tasty,” she said and licked her lips. Eli was too exhausted to respond.
“We need to get back to Earth,” said Tav. “Can you help us?”
“I can,” said Clytemnestra, rocking back and forth. “But that doesn’t mean I will.” She giggled.
Tav raised the black dagger.
“Threats already? Ooh, you are going to be fun!” Clytemnestra stretched onto her tiptoes and turned a pirouette. “But you can’t go yet. You’ll miss it.”
“Miss what?”
They were interrupted by the sound of a thousand trees screaming — not in pain but in anger. Under the roots were deep stones, the teeth of the world, and for a moment they all understood that the Labyrinth was the mouth of the world, and then the sound ended, and the understanding passed.
Clytemnestra bent over to touch her toes and then stared up at Tav as she hung there, head between her legs. “The war party, of course.” She skipped off, vanishing into thin air.
A doorway opened in the walls, and Cam, Eli, and Tav stumbled through it. The walls continued to change as they moved through space. Cam, who seemed to instinctively know where to go, led the way. He was guided by the stone walls that recognized him as part of them.
Eli trailed behind the others, keeping watch. She and the Children’s Lair were like two beasts greeting one another with grudging respect. She didn’t know what to expect from a war party — not sugar cookies this time.
Finally, they came to a large, open chamber. It was filled with little witches. Poisonous berries and spiky flowers that looked like weapons grew out of cracks in the floor. Blankets and broken toys had been pushed to the sides of the room. In one corner, a giant marionette danced with the grace of a prima ballerina. Eli looked up. Great ghostly branches stretched across a bleak sky — dark grey with one violent streak of orange. Clytemnestra floated like a star in the centre of the room. When she spoke, the sound echoed through the chamber.
“I am the voice of the children, the oldest and youngest of us, the Warlord who will lead us to victory.”
Shifting beside Cam, Eli frowned. Clytemnestra? The Warlord? What was going on?
“We have been children for generations. We have watched witches grow and forget about us, forget the pact we made with the dirt and the mud, forget how to speak to magic and instead only consume it. We have watched and revelled in their violence, but their violence is no longer chaotic and creative and life-giving. The Coven has become meticulous and measured. That is a death sentence to us, our way of life, and our world.