“Right. Stabby. That’s me.” Eli rolled her eyes.
The Hedge-Witch called everyone to attention with a tiny silver bell. There was the sound of rustling in seats, chairs scraping the floor, pint glasses being set down too hard. When it was relatively quiet, she spoke.
“You all know why we’re here. Controls between worlds are tightening. That’s why Eli is here — and she isn’t the only one who’s been denied entry. Fewer witches are crossing between worlds. They’re fleeing the Earth, abandoning it for some reason. I’ve been monitoring. If the portal closes for good, we lose our chance. We can’t let that happen. Our mission remains unchanged, and most of you know your jobs and are doing them admirably. The goal for tonight was to introduce everyone to our newest member, Eli — she’s jumpy, as you’ve seen, but that was true of most of us at the beginning. She’s been vetted by both Tav and Cam, who vouch for her skill and her integrity, and you’ve just witnessed her take the sacred oath. She is one of us.”
The crowd repeated, in a murmur, “one of us,” and glasses were raised and lowered in unison — a thump of belonging, a single heartbeat. Eli tried hard not to feel moved by this gesture of inclusion. A thin wire of guilt wrapped around her esophagus. She worked best alone.
“Eli.” The Hedge-Witch turned to face her. “We know you were made by a witch to serve the Coven. We know you’ve been trained by the witches as a spy and a killer. We know you’ve been sent here to learn about the human world and to report back to your masters. We have reason to believe you’ve been in a confrontation with a ghost and killed her.”
Eli glanced across the table at the ghost. No reaction.
“We also believe that you have a human mother whose DNA was used in your making. If you help us, we may be able to find her.”
Eli stiffened. A human parent? Impossible! She wanted to demand more information but held back — that was the payoff, after all. Answers. Knowledge. Power.
Nothing was free.
Knowing that this was an exchange, like everything in her life had been, soothed her. She knew how to bargain. She knew what she was worth.
“We need someone with your skill set and your intel, someone raised in the City of Eyes, someone close to the Coven. I am sending Tav and Cam on an important mission to the other realm, and they need a guide. Eli, you will act as their guide.”
“But I can’t cross between worlds,” Eli interrupted.
“I have my own methods of travel.” The Hedge-Witch’s voice sounded like sugar and poison. “I can get you across. But once there, they will need you for protection. They will need you to get them into the Coven to complete their task. Can you do this?”
Eli nodded, but inside she was less sure. What would happen if they were caught? She would be unmade for sure, and Cam and Tav would be killed. She swallowed. The spit scraped her throat.
But if they made it, Eli might be able to discover who had ordered her last mission. That was worth the risk. And she couldn’t stay trapped in the City of Ghosts, waiting for the Coven to track her down. They didn’t tolerate failure. She had to do something.
She glanced nervously at Tav, who was playing with their hair spikes. She told herself they knew what they were getting themselves into. The Hedge-Witch would have prepared them, warned them about deadly magics. Surely, Cam had seen what Eli was capable of and understood what all of this meant. They knew the risks and were ready for the danger.
But deep down, she didn’t believe it.
“The rest of you — stay safe and stay alert. The Sun is always open to you if you need shelter. We know that hate groups are becoming bolder and that the human cops are not on our side. But they will not win, and soon we will be strong enough to fight back.”
Across the room, Tav’s face had hardened. Their pupils glittered like black onyx, and Eli felt a chill deep in her bones. She looked away, uneasy. As the noise around her resumed, bravado and drinks and worry spilling over the tables, Eli realized what was so unnerving about Tav’s expression.
It was the look of a person who was ready to fight.
Sixteen
The smell of burnt maple trees bowing before her, cities flattened in an exhale. Whatever was inside her body was coming out, breaking through the bone.
The pain was unbearable, and Eli reached down with bloody claws to tear the badness away.
She was being unmade.
Eli woke on the lumpy pullout sofa in Cam’s apartment, her heart fluttering restlessly. She imagined a delicate lace net of moth wings in her chest cavity, faintly glowing redpink with lifeblood. The nightmare lingered. Eli curled in on herself and told her heart to stay. She prayed that the magic would not leave her, ripping through her skin like paper, leaving her a crumpled pile of parts. She touched herself, soothed her body’s fierce frantic jerks and shudders. There, there. I’m here. We’re here.
The first time she had the nightmare, she had woken in her bare room, the floor sticky with the trails of slugs and her own saliva. Even then, she had known not to wake Circinae, not to venture into the guts of the house that let them live there — for now. Eli had looked out the window where a glimmer of bluegreen cut through the opalescent sky. She had sat up. She saw it again — like a scrap of fabric, a flag, waving at Eli from outside the house.
Eli had climbed out the window and followed it. As she came nearer, she saw that it wasn’t a flag but a single brilliantly coloured balloon, bobbing gently in place. She felt it had been waiting for her.
Eli reached out a hand to touch it, and the balloon rose a few inches above her head. It started drifting backward, away from Eli, away from the grabbing hands of needy children. It blinked out of sight as if losing colour and shape, only to rematerialize a few feet away, half-hidden behind a giant oak.
A game! Eli followed quickly, tripping over roots and scraping her hands and knees on bark studded with stones and spiky black thorns. The balloon led, and Eli followed. She followed it deep into the heart of the ancient forest, her head dusted with charms and curses the way humans pick up bacteria. The magic was so thick in this part of the forest that she could hardly breathe.
The balloon stopped.
Slowly, cautiously, Eli crept toward it. Her bare feet tiptoed over velvet moss and scalloped rock with edges sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. She reached out a hand. The balloon quivered once but did not move.
Eli’s hand brushed the strange round thing. It was surprisingly soft. The balloon popped suddenly, spilling a bluegreen liquid like paint down to the earth that vanished when it touched the ground.
In the sky, however, the blood of the balloon creature hung in place, marking an invisible door in the middle of the woods. Without hesitating, Eli had walked through it and found herself in the Labyrinth for the very first time.
“Coffee?”
Cam’s voice interrupted her thoughts. He walked into the living room in an oversized white tee and a pair of grey sweatpants. Gone was the dapper boy with the coiffed hair and the perpetual smirk. He looked like shit, which made her smile.
“I want to shower first.”
“Sure. You know where it is.”
“Your roommate didn’t come back last night.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Eli waited for Cam to say more, but he didn’t.