The Boi of Feather and Steel Read online

  Not that they needed to read the news to know how Black queer people were treated in Canada. Tav’s classmates liked to say that Canada was better than the U.S., that Ontario was better than Quebec, that a city like Grace didn’t have “those problems.” But they were liars.

  Something in Tav was changing, a seed of knowledge that was beginning to grow. The world was damaged, and it needed to be fixed. The sad adults they saw every day had given up on hope and change, had resigned themselves to the everyday grind of life and fear and hiding. You could tell when you looked into their tired eyes, the light leaking out like a broken egg yolk: they didn’t believe.

  But Tav did. And days like today reminded them how much needed to change. If no one else was going to do it, then they would. The anger was hot and fierce and it warmed their body even as their fingernails turned blue and the bus still did not come.

  Someone joined them. Or maybe — something? The person (were they a person?) was wearing a wool scarf that covered their face and a bulky parka. They looked a bit like a mirage, not quite real. When Tav stared directly at them, they could see through the body — but when they blinked, the body was solid again.

  Tav and the ghost waited for the bus in companionable silence.

  Laughter cut through the quiet like a knife. It was the kind of laughter that made the last few autumn leaves turn brown and fall from the trees, that caught the breath in your lungs and pulled it out through your mouth until you were left gasping in fear.

  Tav knew that laughter. They knew the boys — not by name but by reputation, by their handwriting on lockers and the ugly worlds they spat from mouths twisted by hate. It was their parents’ fault, Tav’s father told them, year after year. They teach their kids to hate. They don’t know any better.

  “How heavy it must be, to live with so much hate,” said Tav’s mother. Tav had guiltily stashed away their own hate and anger, wondering if it would ever be useful. Wondering when they would be allowed to use it.

  The voices snapped in the air like a wet towel on skin. Tav shoved their hands in their pockets and rooted themselves to the ground. They looked right ahead of them.

  Tav wasn’t afraid. Tav was angry.

  “Look who it is. The lesbo. Where’s your brother? Heard he didn’t like our artwork today. We want to talk to him.”

  Tav ignored them.

  “Come on.” One of the boys leaned forward, eyes shining like frozen tears. “You can tell us where he is. We don’t bite.” He snapped his jaw, and they both laughed.

  Tav’s hand tightened around the knife in their pocket.

  “Aww, come on, don’t be like that,” said the other boy. “We’re just being friendly —” He reached a hand out. To touch their shoulder. To grab their sleeve. To — what? Tav didn’t know. They just acted.

  Tav twisted away and pulled the blade free, ready to scare them off. Ready to draw blood.

  The ghost moved.

  Flickered.

  One moment it was beside Tav and the next it was in front of the boys, its mouth opening wider than any human’s possibly could. Swallowing the hand that had reached for Tav. Swallowing the arm.

  Tav closed their eyes. A scream was cut short — was it theirs? No. Someone else’s. A human noise.

  They opened their eyes again, throat tight, hand shaking.

  All that was left were a pair of earbuds and a wool scarf lying discarded on the sidewalk.

  The seed broke open. Tav’s heart pounded. As they left the bus stop — walking, running, flying over the pavement, needing to move, driven by adrenalin that blocked out the cold, the fear, the fury — a new thought burned itself across their brain.

  Magic was real.

  Magic would be their revolution.

  Now —

  “He’s back,” said Eli, peering out the window.

  “Mm.”

  “Does he come here a lot?”

  Tav tried for a noncommittal shrug, fiddling with one of many zippers on their motorcycle jacket — also thrifted, and a couple sizes too big.

  “Why does he follow you around?”

  “Let it go, all right?” Tav banged on Cam’s door. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “I don’t like it.” Eli pressed her forehead against the glass. “I don’t like that he’s here. The Coven —”

  “You’re being paranoid.”

  The exposed skin on the back of Eli’s hands lit up, tiny lights crawling just under the surface like insects. “You have no idea what they’re capable of.”

  Tav didn’t know if Eli meant the ghost or the Coven. They didn’t ask.

  “We have to go.” Tav banged again.

  “Coming!” yelled Cam.

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “Eli.” Their voice was a warning.

  “He’s killed people.”

  “So have you.”

  Eli opened her mouth to protest, but instead vanished.

  Tav waited a few seconds for her to reappear, and when she didn’t, turned and walked to the door. Grabbed the keys. So that was how it was going to be. Fine. She’d better show up when they needed her.

  Cam emerged from his room, tousling his hair. Tav could see through the glamour to the stone-studded body underneath — flecks of granite and limestone and mica roughening his smooth skin. He had made a bargain with the sentient stone of an alien planet, the Labyrinth that shimmered over the witches’ city, often invisible to those who did not know how to feel, but always watching. The walls that had sunk their teeth deep into the foundation of the world.

  They had all been changed by their time in the City of Eyes.

  The thought of using Cam as their shield, of watching him put his body between them and the witches’ blades, made Tav’s heart twinge.

  “I’m ready,” he said, then frowned. “Where’s Eli?”

  “She’ll meet us there.” Guilt blurred the edges of their vision. It wasn’t fair to keep throwing the dead human in Eli’s face, but that isn’t what they’d meant when they’d compared her to the ghost. Tav had come to an understanding that everything and everyone was dangerous — and that didn’t mean they deserved to be dead. Tav slept easy knowing the ghost was out there, wandering the streets, watching over them. It always felt like a homecoming when the ghost stopped outside their door or made its way to The Sun. Not quite a friend, not an enemy. Another misfit, maybe. A memory. The moment that changed their life forever.

  Eli felt differently. And now she was AWOL.

  You can’t rely on anyone, thought Tav. Something their mom used to say.

  Cam was watching them warily. “Tav —”

  Tav hated the gentleness in his voice. “It’s fine, Cam. She’ll be there.”

  Cam nodded, grabbed his jacket, and walked out. Tav paused at the door and turned back to look at the apartment — Oreo crumbs and coffee stains, a single puzzle piece in a cocoon of dust. A marked absence of framed photographs and schoolbooks.

  Magic everywhere, like dirt.

  Four

  THE HEIR

  Kite folded the page into the shape of a hummingbird and spat on it. With a tiny pop, the bird vanished, winging its way to the Labyrinth. Full witches were forbidden from knowing the passages of the sentient stone walls that thrived on secrets and mischief.

  But Kite was not like any of the other Coven members.

  Kite had been named.

  The name Eli had tasted in her blood was a different kind of magic, the kind of bond that only children can make. The name had been a gift. Kite had not stolen it.

  When Kite crossed over to the human realm in her coming-of-age ceremony, she pretended to bring back the name she had already been given. Without a name, the small passageway between the City of Eyes and the City of Ghosts closed behind her. She had never left her mark, never completed the ritual, never fully left the childhood world of dreams and selfishness. She wasn’t an adult, and she wasn’t bound by adult law.

  It was the only law she wasn’t bound
by.

  She remembered the first time she told Eli she was the Heir — it was years ago, on their island, when Eli was just as imprisoned as Kite. They had both been tied by bloodlines and expectations and the stories told about their bodies. They were like balloons tethered to the land by pretty ribbons.

  But Eli had escaped, as Kite had always known she would.

  “You could do great things,” Eli had whispered, her human sweat intoxicatingly sweet to the young witch. They had been lying close — they had always been close, then — limbs entwined, hair knotted into one tangled nest, faces pressed together so no one else could taste their secrets. “When you are the Witch Lord, you could change everything.”

  “The first thing I’ll do is make you Witch Lord with me,” she whispered, nuzzling Eli’s neck. When she drew back, a line of salt crystals had glittered on Eli’s skin.

  But Kite would never rule the City of Eyes. She had been made by a conqueror with a hunger for empire, a ruler who would need puppets on the new worlds she discovered and digested. If Kite was very good, she would one day be given the Earth — or what was left of it.

  As Heir Rising, she was only a step away from being named the regent of Earth. If that day came, she would lead her own army through the human world, taking and twisting and playing with death. Kite wondered if her mother had intended to keep the Earth alive, but had been too greedy to stop herself from draining its life source. Maybe Kite would be promised a new planet, a new solar system, a new galaxy. But she would only ever be a vessel for her mother’s power. She was also an extra body, another shell for the same essence, and she knew that if she caused any trouble the Witch Lord would take that body for her own and create a more obedient child.

  She was an extension of the Witch Lord’s power, not a threat to it.

  But other threats had bloomed in the shadow of the Coven, and now the Heart of the world had been stolen. The Witch Lord was weak, and Eli was no longer within reach of the Coven.

  Kite pressed a damp hand against the wall. Ink bled from her palm to the stone as she asked the ancient structure for passage. The stone shuddered, and then tore itself open. Fossilized pages pressed into shale marked Kite’s journey from the invisible passage in the library to the Labyrinth.

  When she emerged from the passageway, she was pleased to see that she had ended up exactly where she wanted to be. Desire and wishes were powerful in the City of Eyes. Especially the wishes of children.

  “Oooh, the Heir, come to grace us with her presence.” Clytemnestra sat on a miniature throne made from popsicle sticks and glitter. She lowered her chin and peered up at Kite through long, fluttering lashes. “To what do We owe the honour?”

  “I know what you’re doing,” said Kite. “I want to help.”

  Five

  TAV

  It made sense to start here.

  This was the place that had first taken them between worlds. This small seam, the one the Hedge-Witch had made years ago. So here they were at 5:00 a.m. in a back alley, eyes crusted from sleep. The first cut. The first healing.

  Hopefully.

  Tav’s body felt itchy, and they could sense how easy it would be to clear their mind, reach out, and nudge the tear open.

  It was a dangerous impulse. Taking all three of them back to the City of Eyes could be deadly.

  “Do you have it?” Eli had been waiting for them. Tav didn’t want to admit how much of a relief it had been to see her in the flesh. They couldn’t do this without her.

  Tav nodded, holding up the potted plant. “It was a gift from the Hedge-Witch, so it should work.” They hesitated, and then added, “I think she would help us.”

  Eli frowned. “She wants the Heart, Tav. She wants power. I don’t trust her.”

  “She taught me everything I know about magic,” Tav said quietly.

  “She’s a witch.”

  “So?”

  “So she won’t help us without a bargain. And negotiating with witches is dangerous.”

  Tav snorted. “I know how you negotiate. Knives out, right?”

  Eli shrugged. “Gets the job done.”

  Tav shook their head. “We need —”

  “No, we don’t,” Eli interrupted, her eyes flashing.

  “You disappeared —”

  “Not on purpose!”

  Tav’s knuckles tightened. “So learn —”

  “That’s enough,” said Cam wearily. He hadn’t been sleeping. Tav heard him tossing and turning each night, talking to himself. They wondered what would happen when the glamour Clytemnestra had cast started to wear off.

  “Can you two stop?” he asked. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Eli flicked her magical eyes into place and stared at Cam for a long moment.

  “Is that a yes?” he said, attempting a smile. “It’s rude to stare, you know. I know it’s hard to remember, the less human you become.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Eli kept staring.

  Tav knew what she was seeing, because they had seen it, too. The magic in Cam’s body was changing. It used to slide along the surface of his skin like a coat. Now it was deeper, as if merging with his very cells. Eli wasn’t the only one who was becoming less human.

  “He’s right,” said Tav. “We may as well try this. It’s small, so it should be easier.”

  Eli rolled both sets of eyes. “It’s always about size with you humans. I thought Clytemnestra taught you something about that.”

  “Is ‘human’ an insult now?” Tav arched an eyebrow. “Good thing we’re all hybrids, I guess.” They tried to keep the bitterness out of their voice and failed.

  “It won’t be easy,” said Eli bluntly. “It’s relatively new, so it’s not used to being touched by humans and witches, not used to being tampered with. Get into position. Let’s start.” She let her hands run along the hilts of her blades for a moment. “You have yours?”

  Tav nodded. The obsidian blade, gifted by Eli, would tie them together. Hopefully, they would be able to use the power of the Heart to change the wound into a door.

  As they handed Eli the potted plant, the wiring in their brain lit up with panic.

  They had no idea what the fuck they were doing.

  Their eyes roamed to the rooftops, and Tav realized they were looking for the ghost. He hadn’t followed them this time. He hadn’t come. Their heart sank. They thought he would be here to guard them. Had Eli scared him away, or hurt him? No. She wouldn’t do that to Tav.

  Feeling uneasy, Tav turned back to Eli. The three of them would have to be enough.

  THE HEART

  Eli held the plant in the air and focused on the seam. The aloe plant slowly stretched itself up into the heavens, growing larger and thicker, spines bursting from its base, which had become a trunk; leaves uncurling, flowers budding, blossoming, and then dying. White petals rained down from the tree onto the three bodies underneath.

  Eli closed her eyes and felt the brush of a petal on her eyelid. She smelled wet earth and rain, and the burnt-coffee-and-metal scent of home-brewed magic. She took the petal from her eyelid, opened her mouth, and laid it on her tongue. It tasted of apple and summer.

  The petal dissolved onto her tongue.

  The vine breached the sky.

  Eli flinched, sweat beading on her forehead.

  “What is it?” asked Tav. “Eli, what’s happening? Why isn’t —”

  Eli couldn’t hear them. See them. Feel them. All she could feel was the pain in the world, the agony of a planet being devoured by witches. The seam was a bloody wound in time and space. Tied by magic and flesh, by the sense of kinship Eli felt with the entire universe, Eli was the wound. The Heart ached with the dying world.

  Something had gone wrong. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.

  Eli was the sky being ripped open. Eli was the body being drained of life. The pain seared through her body and mind.

  Eli moaned, and her eyes rolled up into the back of her head.

&nb
sp; Six

  THE HEIR

  Kite burned a brilliant greenblue as she walked through the long hallway of the Coven. She was flame, and ice, and sky. She was the northern lights that danced across the human world. She was power incarnate.

  She was the Heir Rising.

  Today she was leaving the Coven. She had been blessed by the Witch Lord herself to travel to the City of Ghosts, to the very stars if need be, to recover the Heart. Today she began her journey, and the entire City would hold its breath for their Heir.

  The animals were still. The plants unfurled their leaves and petals, the woods groaned a lament of farewell. The sky was still and unchanging. The world honoured her.

  For years, Kite had studied ancient tomes in the archives, trying to find a way to set Eli free, to change her fate. But Eli had escaped without Kite’s help. Kite had never been prouder of her friend than when Clytemnestra had told her. Eli had broken the cycle.

  Now Kite would break the world.

  Sometimes dead brush needed to burn to create new life.

  “When you are the Witch Lord, you can change everything.” But Kite had never wanted to be the Witch Lord. Kite longed for her books, for her writing; she cared for forgotten magics and ones that had not yet been created. She cared for the walls and the children and the flora and fauna lost in the wastelands. She wanted to listen. She wanted to create. She had never wanted to rule. If she played the game well, she wouldn’t have to.

  And Kite was good at games.

  She appeared before one of the Coven guards, the bodiless shadows that stalked the keep and spoke in mellifluous tongues.