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Okay, you’re fine. Everything is fine. You just need to get this dumb bloated corpse back to Elora so she can fail spectacularly. Then you can… you know… take care of the Graydon problem and get the hell out of this insanely creepy castle and back to saving Airk.
Kit kept up a reassuring internal monologue that began the moment the weird ass tapestry— which definitely had NOT had her face on it—had appeared out of nowhere and then almost as quickly had gone up in flames.
You’re okay, you’re fine became a steady chant as she hot stepped it through the dark, musty, twisting corridors, winding her way back toward the grand room they had Graydon shackled down in. She was sure she was going the same way she had gone the three other times when she had been ferrying the various odds and ends Willow had called for from Bavmorda’s Pantry of Hell but this time it seemed to be taking longer than she remembered. And she sure as shit hadn’t run into any phantom weavings before.
This was so obviously all Elora’s fault. If she hadn’t imprinted on Graydon like a mother to a puppy, then they could have just left his decaying body behind. If she hadn’t gotten herself captured by the Wyrm’s revenants, then Graydon never would have gotten infected. And if she had turned around and gone back to Tir Asleen, when Kit had told her to, then they probably would have already rescued Airk and been on their way home.
There was a tiny voice murmuring in the back of her mind that she could be being a little overly optimistic about her own abilities and a tad harsh as far as things that were completely out of Elora’s control, but Kit ignored it because she absolutely was not going to listen to whispers while in the middle of a clearly haunted death palace.
She was so focused on repeating her self-encouragement that she passed through a doorway, traversing from the hallway into a room. The light from her torch bounced off of shelves and tables covered in dust and cobwebs. In the center of the room, just beyond the torchlight, something large and circular loomed.
Dammit, she thought, her already heightened irritation bubbling up further. She must have taken a wrong turn. She hadn’t passed through any rooms the last few times. Letting out a frustrated grunt, she went to step back out, wondering if the strange occurrence with the tapestry had turned her around somehow.
Behind her was a solid wall of stone, no hint that a door or an opening had ever been there. She started to raise her hand to press against it and then saw the possum still in her grip. Mothers.
Instead, she kicked a booted foot up against the stone. Solid.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she hissed, turning to the left and then the right, holding the torch out along the wall.
More stone. More shelves. No door. Not even a window.
All right. Maybe there was a trap door or a secret exit that only opened if you touched the right area. That sounded like something an old evil hag would put in their—Kit squinted at the shadows—whatever the fuck room this was.
She drew closer to the tables and shelves lining the perimeter. Oddly shaped bowls and glasses beneath the dirt and grime of decades. Metal instruments that looked unpleasant, but not necessarily terrifying. Kit was pretty certain she recognized more than a few that were used by the Royal Alchemist. More books, hopefully not bound in people-skin, stood in neat, if grungy rows, appearing as if they had not moved an inch since the day living darkness had set them in their place.
Setting the possum down briefly, she tugged on every single one of them, pulling it away from the shelf and cocking her ear for the sound of scraping stone.
No hidden bookshelf lever then.
For a second, she considered leaving the possum where she’d drop it while she explored the rest of the space. It was going to be real hard to fiddle with anything lugging that gross thing around. But as she started to move away, she had the sudden vision of the floor swallowing it and then she’d have to go back to Elora and explain how she’d gotten the stupid thing and then lost it.
No way. She snatched it back up and continued her investigation.
Further into the room, she stumbled as her foot caught on the floor. There were steps, she realized. A short flight leading up toward that circular object. She took them slowly, holding the torch out as far as she could.
The cut and stacked stones continued up, forming a rectangular dais on which stood what looked akin to the well Boorman had oh so casually dropped down into at The Slaughtered Lamb. Kit paused a good five feet away and eyed it warily. She was already lugging around one dead rodent—she had no desire for another round with wererats on top of that.
Dad had never mentioned this kind of thing in his stories.
Would you rather stay here for the rest of your life?
Rolling her eyes at the prodding from the logical part of her brain, the one that sounded suspiciously more and more like Jade those days, Kit took a few more cautious steps forward. As she reached the top of the stairs, the torchlight threw further and she could see that rather than a well, there was a stone basin in the center of the circle. It was filled to the brim with a pearlescent liquid that shimmered and reflected the light across its surface like a beautifully cut jewel.
Everything else in the castle was bone dry and brittle, like all the moisture had been sucked away by the endless inhale of time. Kit had seen far deeper troughs evaporate over weeks in the hot summers. Why would this remain when it had been years since Nockmaar had been inhabited?
It didn’t look like any kind of water she had ever seen.
She peered over the edge and down directly into it—her face, as a clear as any mirror in Tir Asleen, was shown back to her. A grimace leapt onto her lips.
How long had that piece of hair been like that?
As she went to push it back, reminded again of the truly disgusting regent she was carrying—stupid Elora and her stupid brined dead possum—another face formed in the reflection beside her own.
Kit jerked back, swinging both the torch and the possum wildly through the air defensively.
But there was no one there.
Her heart hammering in her throat, she darted her gaze about the room, thrusting the torch out once more, pushing its light against every shadow she could.
Nothing. No one.
She spun back to the basin, looked again.
Her face, stretched wide with fear even she could admit to feeling.
Next to hers, another visage, a near perfect duplicate. A twin even closer than Airk. But, as she bent closer in confusion, there were differences. Marked differences. Her hair was longer, past her shoulders as it hadn’t been in years. Her cheeks, thinner. The skin around her eyes sunken slightly. A golden circlet sat atop her brow, very much like the one her mother often wore.
As she stared, unblinking, more faces appeared, surrounding hers like a family portrait, each countenance just a touch changed from hers in the center.
“What the—?” she heard herself breathe out. A thousand mouths moved at the same time, forming the words silently.
Thud. The possum fell from her slack grip.
Of its own accord, her now free hand lifted and stretched toward the gleaming surface, the tips of her fingers grazing the glittering gold on the face nearest hers.
The world inverted and she tumbled through darkness, end over end, until it suddenly righted as suddenly as it had wronged.
She was in the grand hall of Tir Asleen—there was no mistaking it. Every brick, every banner hung was familiar, as was the throne placed at the front where the sun could shine upon it through the lofty windows nearly every hour of the day.
Something was off.
There were no guards stationed at the doors. No stern-faced soldiers stoic and silent as they stood motionlessly. The throne was empty.
How had she gotten there? And why?
She twisted about and rubbed her eyes. Why was the light so strange? So muted?
Queen Sorsha stood before one of the long windows, staring out through the glazed glass over the view of the courtyard. There was such a look of unhappiness, of sadness and… grief etched into her mother’s expression that Kit started toward her in panic.
“Mom? What is it? What happened?”
Sorsha did not answer. Gave no indication she had even heard. Her gaze remained fixed out the window, steely eyed but wet, as thin lines of tears tracked down over her face.
“Mom?” Kit asked again, reaching out for her mother’s arm and gasping when her hands passed straight through the other woman.
What the fuck? Kit thought, stumbling back.
“Mom?” she called, a third time, only this time the words did not come from her own lips. Both she and Sorsha moved at the same time, half a spin in opposite directions.
Standing in the doorway that Kit knew led eventually to the royal quarters, she saw herself. Or at least, herself as she had been at fifteen. She instantly recognized the stiff, gangly body that had still been growing, and the angry, sullen twist to her features that had felt so permanent.
Abruptly she recalled such a moment, five years ago. The day her father had left. The day her mother had ordered her father to go. And here, moments earlier, a heated argument she and Sorsha had engaged in. A vicious shouting match that had ended with her storming off for the first in what felt like an endless parade of fights.
She did not remember going back. In fact, she was pretty certain she had spent the day holed up in her room, glaring out her window at the world her dad had ridden out into. Without her.
“Mom, I’m sorry,” the younger Kit expressed in a rush, fidgeting nervously with her hands. “I just—” she fell silent as Kit looked on in astonishment.
Even more amazing, the hardened expression that had been tightening Sorsha’s face fell away and she held her arms out wordlessly. Younger Kit raced into them and the two embraced with a surety that made Kit’s throat ache.
“I’m sorry, too. I know that it’s hard. That is so much being asked of us. So much that will be asked of you, Kit. I know it doesn’t feel fair. And it isn’t.”
“I understand,” Younger Kit assured, her head on her mother’s shoulder and Kit could feel the ghost of the pressure against her cheek. “I want to help. I want to make you and dad proud of me.”
“You make me, you make us, proud every day. Never forget that.”
What the—Kit thought again as the world began to ripple and spin. She pressed a hand to her temple, closed her eyes to try and steady herself.
When she opened them, the throne room was gone and, in its place, the exit-less laboratory of Nockmaar.
She stared down at the well of faces, still staring back at her. Both of her hands clutched the rim of the basin. The torch lay dead at her feet and yet light remained.
“Okay. That was fucking weird,” she exhaled out loud.
“Who are you? What is this?”
All the muscles in Kit’s back locked up. Without even looking, she knew who the voice belonged to. How could see not, when it was her own? Though, she’d only heard herself use that coldly dignified tone a handful of times in her life, and usually only as a bid to get herself out of trouble.
She looked over—it was as if the image of her from the mirror, the one she had reached out to, had crawled out into the world.
Her Royal Highness, Princess Kit Tanthalos, Heir Apparent to the throne of Tir Asleen, is what was trumpeted in her head as she gawked at the straight-backed woman wearing a heavily textured, elegant gown of deep green, her hair elaborately pulled back and held in place by that thin gold circle.
“Boorman was right. Grandma was into some fucked up shit,” Kit noted and wasn’t that just her freaking luck?
Heir Kit’s already chilled expression darkened and she cast her gaze over the room with barely a movement of her regally inclined head. Kit had seen her mother pull off the same trick at a hundred royal events.
“What is the meaning of this? Where are we? Answer me.” The heir’s eyes narrowed. “And what does Thraxus Boorman have to do with it?”
“Let’s just dial that back. I don’t know what the hell is going on any more than you do. This is Nockmaar. And how do you—you know what, nevermind. Boorman’s not important right now.”
Heir Kit’s gaze performed another circuit of the space, with more intent than before. Kit could deduce nothing from her face, no sense of what she was feeling other than a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Which felt really familiar.
“Nockmaar? Queen Bavmorda’s castle? Why am I here?” One of Heir Kit’s eyebrows lifted. “What… are you?”
Okay, sensing just a smidge of dickishness now. “I’m Kit Tanthalos. My mother is Queen Sorsha. I’m on a quest to rescue my brother Airk who taken by servants of the Crone. I don’t have any idea why you’re here but we’re both stuck here now because there’s no door to this room because of course there isn’t. Ten minutes ago, I was attacked by a tapestry that lit itself on fire. And that’s after being chased by Bone Reavers, going over a cliff, fighting zombies. and dealing with the world’s most annoying girl and the dumbest man ever. So, if you think your day is bad, guess again.”
The unflappableness of Heir Kit’s countenance was extremely annoying the Kit took a measure of petty comfort in the fact that the way the heir looked down at her made her nose look huge.
“I am Kit Tanthalos and my mother is the Queen. My brother Airk died four years ago while a ward of Galladoorn. What trickery are you playing at?”
The bottom of Kit’s stomach dropped out at the words my brother Airk died. Her mind reeled, pinwheeling backwards, in any direction except for that one. “What? What the hell is he doing in Galladoorn?”
The question had a sliver of a crack in the heir's armor appearing, a twinge of confusion twitching across her face. She turned away, drifting down the steps from where she had appeared. As she moved, she held herself rigid and yet she covered the distance quicker than Kit would have expected.
“He was held in accordance with the peace between our kingdoms. A symbol of union.”
“But I thought my… your marriage with Graydon was supposed to do that?”
The hint of confusion morphed into to full on bafflement. “Marriage? To Graydon Hastur?” Something that might have sounded a lot like a snort—if Heir Kit could ever make a noise attributed to common folk—was expelled into the air. “My mother would never allow for such a match.”
“Oh, ho ho ho, bet?” Kit muttered. She took a deep breath, forced herself to ask the question she didn’t want to voice but really needed to know the answer to. “What happened to Airk? How did he… Was it the Crone?”
All traces of humor fled from the heir’s face. “We don’t know how he was killed, only that it was some sort of accident with the crown prince.”
It was Kit’s turn to give a grunt of disbelief. “Yeah bullshit. You can’t possibly believe that.”
“Hmmm,” was all the heir offered in reply. Her attention seemed drawn to a statue wrought in a burnished metal of a figure with three torsos curling up from one body. The first a young woman with a beautiful face, one arm reaching up. The second, an older woman, both hands stretched out in front of her. And a third, an old woman with a heavily lined face and hunched shoulders. Her hands were cupped together and drawn in close to her breasts.
“Who is the Crone?”
Fighting down her impatience and trying to take some kind of solace in the fact that her Airk was alive—she knew it—even if he was hundreds of leagues away in the clutches of some uber bitch, Kit blew out a breath. It wasn’t like they had anything better to do at the moment. “Uh, according to Willow she’s like a super old evil sorceress who wants my brother for some reason.”
Heir Kit paused in the midst of inspecting a plaque set at the bottom of the statue. Sharp, jagged symbols were raised on the surface. It made Kit’s head hurt to look at them.
“Willow Ufgood?” the heir questioned, in a tone somewhere between intrigued and skeptical.
Is he dead in your universe, too Kit thought but kept to herself, nodding instead. “Yeah. He’s helping us—helping me. Get to Airk. And get him back.” She wasn’t sure why it felt like a bad idea to let it be known there were more people with her, but she didn’t think she’d done a very good job of fooling this other Kit anyway.
Nothing she could do about it now.
She waited for Heir Kit to call her out on it—she could tell by the way she was being studied that her slip had not gone unnoticed.
“I think I know how to get out of here,” Heir Kit replied.
“Wait, really? How?”
The heir dragged a hand along the plaque. “There’s an incantation here.”
Kit stared off to the left of the etchings, feeling like there was an itch in her brain. “That looks like Graydon’s squiggly wiggles. That’s… what… demonic, right?”
“Pnakotic.”
“And you can read it?”
“I can read most of the written tongues.” That same supercilious look came straight down the heir’s nose again. “Did you not have any tutors or teachers in your life?” The emphasis on the word any had the hackles on the back of Kit’s neck standing up.
She scowled. “Can you even pick up a sword?” she shot back.
“What need would I have to pick up a sword? I have an entire guard.”
“Whatever. What does it say?”
“To pass through what you cannot see, give of your potential as the Fae decree.”
Repeating the couplet to herself, Kit rolled each word over in her head, shifting them around as if they were blocks so that she could see every angle.
“What the hell does that mean?” she demanded after a few seconds. “What do the fae decree? And why is this here? Did Bav’s have to play riddle me this every time she came into this room? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Most likely it’s a ward of some sort. Trigger when someone not permitted to enter does so. Bavmorda was probably keyed to the room itself somehow. The most common payment the Fae demand is blood.”
“Gross,” Kit grimaced. “So, what? I have to smear some blood somewhere?”
Heir Kit raised her eyes back to the statue and they tightened as they focused on some part. “There are three,” she mused, clearly speaking to herself, which Kit thought was pretty rude. “The will of the fae, times three… potential…”
Her eyebrows lifted suddenly, and her gaze shifted over to Kit. “You’re going to need another.”
“Another what?” Kit asked, pushing stubbornly against the bad feeling she had rising within her. A feeling that only got worse when Heir Kit merely held out her hands and understanding hit her like a pommel strike to the forehead.
“Fuck.”
“What are you waiting for?” Heir Kit spoke with the same expectant impatience that never failed to annoy the ever-living shit out of Kit, whether it was coming from an instructor or Sorsha.
She bristled all over. “Yeah, hold your petite-coat, princess. You’re almost as bad a mom.” Kit grumbled the last part, though not quietly enough for it to go unheard.
“Have you ever once bothered to consider the difficulties she has faced?”
The pointed question had little pinpricks of guilt stippling at Kit as she thought of the tears and anguish on Sorsha’s face. “Spare me the lecture,” she groused testily.
How was she supposed to know anything about her mother if her mother never told her anything? The whole Bavmorda’s spirit surviving bit? Might have been good to know earlier! Among a host of other things Sorsha hadn’t bothered to inform or involve her in.
She leaned over the basin and searched the faces there again. So many of them looked unhappy or angry or whatever it was that Heir Kit had permanently affixed to her mug. Were those the only possibilities for her?
One visage stood out, relaxed and almost carefree. Maybe even smug? Surely something good must have happened to the Kit that face belonged to. She reached for it without another thought.
Kit was prepared this time for the way the world tilted and revolved, and still it disoriented her. She found her bearings quickly enough then frowned when she saw where she had landed.
Her bedroom.
She’d sort of been hoping for something beyond the barrier, maybe on an adventure a little less critical.
Movement in her peripheral drew her gaze and she was surprised to see Jade there, near the foot of her bed. She could count the number of times Jade had been in her room on two fingers, and neither time had elicited such a furtiveness in her friend’s person.
“Jade? What is it?” she found herself questioning, even though she knew the figure couldn’t hear her. But she couldn’t help it; Jade appeared distressed as she fiddled with the draws at the top of her breeches. Somewhere in Kit’s mind, it registered that she had also never seen the other woman in such casual dress as breeches and her undershirt. Even the many times Kit had woken her from sleep, Jade had been wrapped in layers.
She looked smaller.
“I should go,” Jade said, her brown eyes glued to the floor as if she’d never seen anything more interesting in her life. Her feet were bare. Kit stared. Had she ever seen Jade’s bare feet before? Her toes were long and there was a lone freckle on the top of her right foot.
“You always say that.”
When Kit raised her gaze to the new speaker, she nearly swallowed her tongue as she watched herself, clad in a sheer robe and obviously nothing else, slip out from behind her dressing screen. Jade’s eyes flicked up before immediately returning to the floor as the other Kit flowed up against her, hands reaching for fidgeting digits and stalling them.
“It’s like you enjoy making me convince you to stay.”
The tips of Kit’s ears burned with the same heat that reddened the skin of Jade’s neck as other Kit lowered her mouth against it. Jade’s eyes closed as that rouge climbed into her cheeks.
“Kit,” she breathed, both warning and wanting. Kit had never heard her say her name like that. Could barely stand the feeling hearing it exploded in her belly. She wanted to look away, to tumble out of the vision completely but—
She didn’t.
Jade’s resolution lasted only a moment before she shifted her chin down, angling to press her lips firmly to otherKit’s. The slip and slide of their kiss was nothing like the sweet touch Kit knew from the night Airk had been taken. This one was weighted with a heady, insatiable hunger. A kind she had only ever dreamed about and never shared with anyone. When she watched otherKit’s hands release Jade’s to stroke up underneath her thin shirt, saw the way Jade clutched at otherKit and moaned a sound wholly unlike anything she had ever made on the sparring ground, Kit spun her back to them, a volatile mixture of feelings brewing inside.
But it was somehow worse, to hear the sighs and pants, the catches of breaths and sharp cries, without seeing the movements that dragged them forth. There was the silky rustle of clothes being drawn up or down and away, of them hitting the stone floor, and muted bump of bodies falling onto the bed.
Kit desperately wondered if the vision would let her wait outside until they… finished.
A particularly desperate gasp pulled her head back around, yanked her unwilling gaze to the view of her own dark locks fitted between Jade’s thighs. Gave her the unforgettable vision of Jade’s head thrown back, throat arched, sweating darkening the cascade of freckles across her face.
Kit hurriedly tore her eyes away again, feeling a powerful and twisting sense of arousal and betrayal.
She could not say how long it was before the sounds behind her died away, leaving behind the soft heaving of wet and labored breaths. And when those subsided as well, she heard Jade’s fractured voice.
“I should go.”
OtherKit let out a sleepy, aggrieved groan that managed to still be interested. “Mothers Jade, you’re going to kill me at this rate.”
“You’re getting married.” It was not a question, nor an accusation. Just a flat statement of fact.
A pointed silence followed for several long beats. “As far as I’m aware, nothing’s changed in the past three years. So yes. I am.”
“One thing has,” Jade refuted, something Kit could not recognize thickening her words. “Your wedding isn’t three years away. It’s tomorrow.”
“So?” Kit risked a glance over her shoulder, saw the two figures wrapped in the sheets on the bed. The satisfied smirk on otherKit’s face remained in place as she shifted onto her back, the sheet falling casually below her breast. “If Graydon doesn’t already have his own side piece, I guarantee you, he’ll want for one soon enough. Which is fine by me, obviously.”
Jade sat up, holding the sheet to her own chest. “Is that what I am to you? A side piece?”
OtherKit brushed a lock of hair back from her forehead lazily. “Would you rather I call you my Dove, or something equally ridiculous like Airk does with his lovers?”
“You’re deflecting.”
“No.” Beneath the lackadaisical expression, otherKit’s voice was unwavering and uncompromising. “I already answered that question. Three years ago. When I let you kiss me at the end of that practice session.”
Kit saw now that she had been wrong; it was not a freeness or a lack of troubles that she had seen in otherKit’s features. It was emptiness.
“I told you then that this is what I could give you. That this was all I could give you. And what did you say?”
Jade averted her eyes and did not answer.
“Don’t remember? Well, now. I do. You said it didn’t matter. That there was nothing greater for you. That you didn’t need revenge. Or my hand. Only me. However you could have me.”
“I was wrong.”
The world began to blur, and Kit waited for the scene to end, to shift back to Nockmar. Only to realize it was her own tears obscuring her vision. She wiped her eyes, but more tears came to take their place. Kit knew the exact moment otherKit was referencing, of course she did, no matter how far back she had shoved the memory in her mind. A fast and furious exchange of blows, like so many before and after. The thrill of clashing blades with someone stronger and well skilled. The exhaustion of bodies thrown and twisted around.
And then a second, a move Kit had once thought rare and a fluke and now knew better, where Jade had gotten the upper hand, tumbling together so that she was on top, pinning Kit to the floor. She remembered the flex of Jade’s grip, the strength in them, and staring up into Jade’s face, hovering so close. Had watched Jade’s eyes fall to her mouth, inches from her own. Some part of her she hadn’t been ready or willing to listen to had yearned. The larger part of her felt the falter in Jade’s attention and rolled them, intent of securing victory.
The moment vanished.
There was a touch on her arm and when she looked up, it was Nockmar once again and it was Heir Kit who held her elbow in a firm hold.
She jerked away, stumbling, searching for the basin. She’d made a mistake. Chosen wrong. She’d pick another, one of the countless other faces there had been. Any other, no matter how miserable or unhappy.
But when she gaped down into the stone bowl, it was empty. Devoid of faces. Devoid of the liquid that had filled it mere moments before.
And from behind, she heard that callous drawl.
“Oh, yeah no. I don’t think I’m at all interested in whatever this is.”
Kit squeezed her eyes shut. Fuck.
“This is a dream, right? Tell me it’s a dream and it’s either about to end or get much better,” the obnoxious voice continued. “Although, not exactly the most enticing of locations. Where are we? Is this the palace of Hastur? It does have a certain Zivian-ness to it. And I mean that in the worst possible way.”
“This is the castle of Queen Bavmorda. Nockmar.” The only hint of Heir Kit’s disapproval was the frosty edge to her tone, so reminiscent of Sorsha. Kit didn’t even mind it in this case.
“No shit? Huh. Grandmama’s place. Ugh. Can’t imagine dreaming about grandma’s palace is a good portent.”
Pushing up and around, Kit figured the only way to get past the literal nightmare unfolding before her was to complete the stupid spell. OtherKit was thankfully more clothed than she had been in the vision, though her attire was closer to a fashion Airk would find appealing. And the number of buttons undone in her tunic left the red marks dotting her throat and collar on display, reminding Kit of just who had put them there.
It made Kit burned with what she damn knew very well wasn’t anger, but she was going to call it anger anyway.
“Look, we just need your help to do this dumb incantation, give an offering, and we can all go back to what we were doing.” Kit winced at her choice of words and purposely set her gaze on the statue of three figures woven together.
“What offering and what incantation? And why exactly do we want to do them? Oh, also, who the hell are you, what the fuck is going on, and why do you have my face? Both of you. You can answer those in any order. I’m not picky.”
Heir Kit was engrossed in a thick, dusty tomb lying near the statue, otherKit so thoroughly dismissed from her attention that it was clear she had not listened to a word said. Certainly, she had no intention of offering an answer.
And so, Kit repeated the story she had told before, adding the bit Heir Kit had uncovered about the way out, feeling like she was reciting a lecture to one of her tutors.
Specifically, the one with the corny little pointed beard that she hated the most.
When she finished telling the whole thing to the space two feet above otherKit’s head, there was a drawn-out silence.
“I really don’t see how that’s my problem.”
Kit’s eyes dropped involuntarily, and she gawked. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said? We’re stuck in here. We can’t get out.”
OtherKit gave a careless lift of one shoulder. “Fine by me. I don’t have anywhere pressing to be at the moment. In fact, I’m supposed to be traveling to Galladoorn in a few days for the summer. I think this is probably an improvement.”
“Well, it’s not fine by me!” Kit shouted, throwing her arms out in frustration. “I have to rescue Airk! And I have to get this nasty brined possum back to Willow and Elora so they can keep Graydon from zombie-fying so no one has to kill him! And I have to find Jade!”
Boorman could go dunk his head.
“Jade? Claymore? OtherKit asked and Kit wanted to kick herself for letting that last part slip. But she wanted more than anything at that moment to find her friend and… apologize? Beg for forgiveness? Something. There had to be something she could do.
Heir Kit looked over a second later. “Ser Claymore? Is here?”
OtherKit’s brow lifted languidly. “Ser?” she intoned with an insulting measure of disbelief.
Heir Kit’s expressed chilled to same temperature of her tone. “Yes. The only woman ever trained by the Shining Legion. The youngest as well, if I recall correctly. She’s made quite a name for herself along the border with a number of valiant acts.”
OtherKit laughed. “Really? The Jade I know wouldn’t have the ambition. All about killing Bone Reavers to avenge her family, no time for knightly duties or training. Someone really should let the cat out of the bag for her.”
The balloon of pride that Heir Kit’s words had swelled inside Kit was lanced by the sour sting of otherKit’s dismissal, releasing a venom that felt like it ate away at her.
“You don’t know anything about her,” she snapped furiously. Her gut roiled and churned, a host of things she had long kept buried fighting for the surface. “So why don’t you shut the hell up and stand over there so we can get this over and done with it. Then you can do whatever you want.”
Vivid blue eyes far more knowing than hers narrowed. “Do you really think that’s how this works? You summon us from the ether, we perform a trick, and then we all go on our merry way?” She turned to Heir Kit, chuckling again. “A bit thick, isn’t she?”
Heir Kit pursed her lips in what looked like agreement. “More naïve, I think. The world is going to have a few unkind truths to tell her. If she’ll listen. But for now—”
There was a sickening thud and otherKit’s eyes rolled back as she slumped forward. Kit blinked, stunned, as she watched Heir Kit toss aside a smooth cudgel.
“I don’t see anything that suggests the offering has to be made while conscious. Help me with this,” the heir commanded.
Kit could not bring herself to move. “Umm—”
Heir Kit straightened, and for the first time her mask slipped completely away, and the impatience Kit had been feeling almost all night was evident there. “Look. You’re going to find that sometimes you have to make decisions you don’t necessarily feel fantastic about. Take actions you might not have thought you would ever do. I hope those moments are few and far between. But if you would like to get out of this room, I would suggest you help me before she wakes up, as I imagine she will be even more unpleasant.”
Well, when it was put that way.
Kit stepped around to the left side of otherKit while the heir took up at her right and together, they muscled her closer to the statue, propping her up against its base. From one of the tables Heir Kit procured a dagger with a thin, straight blade held in place by an oily black handle. In two quick, practiced movements, she slashed a line first across the back of otherKit’s hand and then her own, before turning the dagger around and holding the handle out to Kit.
Swallowing grimly, Kit accepted it and, after a brief hesitation, cut the same line below her knuckles. Blood welled up smoothly, dribbling down over her wrist and along her forearm.
“Now what?”
“Now, place the blood against the statue and say an offer willingly given,” Heir Kit instructed.
Kit frowned and motioned down at the unconscious form slumped between them. “How is she gonna say that?”
Heir Kit came as close to rolling her eyes as Kit thought she was able to. She could hear it in her next words. “You’re the one trying to get out.”
“Oh.” Wetting her lips, Kit started to raise her hand. Stopped. “Wait. What’s going to happen to you after this? Are you going to be… okay?”
She wasn’t sure why she was asking except she was abruptly really concerned she was about to make another wrong decision.
Heir Kit’s gaze never wavered. “We won’t know until you do it.”
“Fuck.” Steeling herself, Kit pressed her bloodied hand against the statue, where the middle woman stood with her hands extended and intoned, “An offer willingly given.”
She didn’t know what she had been expecting. A flash of light. A crash of thunder. The grinding of stone as wall rotated aside.
What happened was there was a door where there had not been a door before.
“I hate this place.”
“Hmm, yes. It is very unpleasant.”
Heir Kit stepped away from where she had been holding both her and otherKit’s hands against the statue as well. She let otherKit roll to the floor into an undignified heap as she drifted back toward the shelves of books.
Kit looked at her, then to the exit, then back to her. It was like she was being pulled toward the exit by an unseen hand and yet, she felt rooted in place at the same time. “What are you going to do now?”
Heir Kit did not turn around. “Go, rejoin your friends. Don’t worry about us. Save your brother. Save Airk.”
The sound of her brother’s name reminded her there were worse and weirder things in the world than two more of her.
“Ok, well, bye then,” she stated, because fuck if she was going to stand around waiting for the door to disappear on her again. She trotted toward it, snatching her unlit torch from where it lay. Strangely there was a torch burning beside the exit that she used to light it anew.
“Kit?”
When Kit turned, Heir Kit was pointing down at the corpse of the possum lying rigid at the base of the steps.
“Don’t forget your rodent.”
“Right.” She jogged back and snatched it up, hardly even noticing the cold, clammy touch of it. “Good luck with… whatever!” she called out as she bolted away, wondering how in the hell she was ever going to explain any of what just happened to Ja—to anyone. She plunged into the hallway, darkness closing to the short range of torchlight, and heard her footsteps echo out ahead of her. After a few steps, they echoed behind her as well.
She cast a look over her shoulder.
Empty corridor. No signs of a door or a room or anything but pitch blackness.
“I hate this place.”
In an exit-less room fill with dust and decay and forgotten knowledge better left unknown, Heir Kit ran her hand an inch above everything. She paid no attention to the motionless form lying beneath the strange statue. She ignored the smooth wall where a door had momentarily appeared leading to the outside world.
She walked until she stood beside the empty stone basin.
“I’m so glad we burned this place to the ground,” she murmured to no one in particular, before fading into nothing.