4

smoke and mirrors

Nix

Tat leads me along the castle’s dim corridor, and my sense of empowerment grows with each step. I stay flush to the wall, relying on the tattoo’s electrical currents to illuminate our way with orange flashes. We arrive at a juncture where the halls branch off like a beehive’s interlocking cells. Tat pauses midair, a nebulous swirl of feathers and beak, waiting for me to choose a direction.

Harsh echoes carry through an adjoining passage on my right—not so much voices as snarls, snorts, huffs, and growls, heated and hammered like metal, until they form recognizable words that can cut like swords.

I remember Uncle Thatch mentioning Perish’s Goblin Court before I took Lark’s place. By then Perish had already tricked me into helping him save Mystiquiel—omitting the fact that it was my sister I’d have to defeat. Afterward, once I learned how much my family had lost because of the ancient bargain our ancestor made with this world, I despised the king and all his subjects.

However, at this point, dining with the characters I came to know through my sketches of Lark’s dream-projections is more appealing than being locked in a room under Perish’s thumb for even a second longer.

A tinny clang of pots and pans then a scrape of silverware on plates convolutes the savage conversations taking place. Delectable blends of waxy smoke, sugary spices, and browned butter lead me by my nostrils toward a set of shiny copper stairs.

I’ve abandoned all caution toward eating faerie food. Upon swallowing goblin fruit seeds and washing them down with the king’s royal blood, I essentially became an honorary fey. Such things can no longer affect me like they do a typical human. I learned this on my third night in the castle, after almost fainting from dehydration and depravation. I gave in at last, eating and drinking whatever Perish brought me, having decided staying healthy was paramount. Vulnerability in any form is treacherous here.

Reaching the stairwell, I balance on the first step and crane my neck to find they stop halfway up—leading nowhere. Since the smells and sounds drift down from the third floor, I’m out of luck. There’s no way to get there, short of sprouting wings. Tat soars upward, then swoops down and ascends again, in an obvious bid for me to follow.

“Unless you can make the stairs grow, Inky-blinky, I’m stuck.”

Tat dives across the top stairstep several times, then turns tail and disappears out of sight somewhere on the third story.

“Show-off.” I clench my jaw.

“Inky-blinky, to-and-fro, snag a princess flying low. If she screams, let her go, and drop her on her head just so.”

My shoulders stiffen at Angorla’s bleating singsong voice. I spin slowly, keeping my place on the step.

The hobblegob stands at floor level, a few inches below me. She tips her spiraled ram horns in greeting, and I block my stomach, recalling her vicious headbutt when Clarey and I were first trying to sneak into this castle. Like Perish, she was purged by my touch and became flesh—wooly brown fur and pinkish skin. Her goatly face tilts upward, the folded slits of her nostrils opening and closing like fish gills. She smells of animal musk, dirt, and fruit. An odd amalgamation that makes sense in the context of her being the keeper of the king’s orchards.

“You needin’ another favor so soon, Architect? I be glad to launch the device, for a small token price.” She runs a hoofed hand through her bearded muzzle. Two long skeletal fingers spear out to spread the strands and reveal human lips and a bucktoothed smirk.

I watch her warily, suspicious of those wide, doe eyes. She betrayed me after I helped her . . . ​captured me and Clarey for Perish. Gave us up as bargaining chips to save her own hide.

“Your favors cost too much, Gardener.” Keeping her in my peripheral vision, I study the stairs. “I’ll figure it out for myself.” I watched them move when I was first brought here with Clarey . . . ​ I just have to determine what triggers them.

“Hmmm.” She tucks a clawed hoof into her bulging woolen hide and withdraws a pair of pruning shears. The blades make a snipping sound as she resituates the tool in her hand, her bony hookish appendage attempting to hold it secure.

I tense and ascend a step.

“Maybe it be better you stay aground,” she says, the tufted points of her ears flicking. “His Majesty clips wings for a reason, much as I trim trees to hold safe in their season. If the branches reach too far out, dangers abound.”

“Dangers.” I snort, glaring at the scissors snicking inches from my face. “Pot calling the kettle.”

Angorla frowns, obviously unfamiliar with the human expression.

I furrow my brow. “I’m in just as much danger standing here talking with you. You’re a selfish sneak.”

Her frown twists to a smug smile as she tucks the tool deep into her wool once more. I’m curious how many gadgets she’s hiding in there. It’s interesting to see her storing them as opposed to her hands being made of tools, like they were in Lark’s cyborg world. When I first met the Gardener, she could shift her claw into a shovel or scythe with the ease of a flick—as if she herself were a Swiss Army knife. If it hadn’t been for her dying from the rust tainting her blood, she would probably have preferred that form.

“So, you thinkin’ I owe you this one favor, aye?” She continues baiting me. “Penance for leading you astray on that day.”

I huff. “Yeah, sure. That’ll make up for ruining my entire life.”

Her white crescent-moon pupils narrow. “Good. Then let’s make you fly, and we be even you and I.”

I strain to read her. Either she doesn’t get sarcasm, or she’s being facetious.

“It all be in the tip and totter of the tongue, you see.” She then bleats a word in a language I can’t decipher and could never emulate with my mortal mouth, and in a blink, the half staircase swings free of the wall and flips topsy-turvy.

My stomach tumbles as I claw my slick surroundings for railings that aren’t there. I stop struggling once I see I’m not budging. Without my realizing, the ivy slippers punctured the copper step and formed a harness to bind my feet, keeping me welded tight. In a dizzying rush, I hang upside down and watch the first floor skim by as if it were the ceiling. It’s sickly reminiscent of when Perish had my ankles tied to the pendulum of the castle’s giant clock. I grunt—tired of being strung up against my will.

Within moments, I’ve reached the third level, and the stairway rights itself so the top half hinges into place. Behind me the stairs drop away, leaving empty air and a two-story fall.

From below, Angorla shouts, “Hope you survive long enough to set things to rights. There can’t be gardening without days and nights. And remember, I tried to keep you safe. Next time won’t be free; costs thrice the price for favor three.” She shuffles away on her mismatched legs, one cloven foot clomping and the other scraping.

I stay crouched in an effort to calm my queasiness. The ivy slippers release from the platform and wrap solely around my feet once more—leaving no ruptures or ripples in the metal anywhere. The stairs are as sleek and smooth as before. On shaky legs, I resume my climb, careful not to slip.

Once I clear the upper level, I find Tat flickering with orange sparks, suspended midair before a room. From within, the tasty smells and feral sounds resume—uproarious and loud.

I peer around the doorframe. A haze of smoke swirls across a long banquet table that’s filled with roasted nuts, poached fruits, shimmery honey-glazed ham dotted with cloves, and molten candles lit by magic. I recognize the clumps of wax as the melts I pried from jars at the bakery in the mortal world—back when I naively thought I was recycling per Uncle’s contract with our supplier. Instead, the supplier turned out to be the Goblin King, and I had been helping my uncle collect human emotions absorbed by the candlewicks for the fey populace to use like mind-altering drugs.

The smoldering wax has definitely had an effect on the reveling today, because the guests—frost elves, goblins, blacksmith gnomes, piskies, pack rat faeries, wights, and sprigs, among others—are disorderly and disheveled. The tinier creatures—winged, bipedal, and four-legged—scramble from dish to dish, sampling each flavor. The bigger creatures snarl and fling food at one another, laughing wickedly in turn.

Seeing the raucous banquet reminds me of more civilized festivities at home, and how close it’s getting to Thanksgiving; this year I should’ve had my whole family together to celebrate instead of being surrounded by strange and wild faces. The resulting slash of misery slices deeper as I’m struck by how perfectly Clarey could have captured these creatures for his SFX mask collection, and it could have won him that coveted slot at New York’s Make-Up Designory after he graduates. Something I’ll never get to see happen now.

He and Lark have no doubt picked up where they left off. Maybe she’s planning to go with him after graduation. They have a second chance at romance for which to be thankful on this holiday. I remind myself they deserve that happiness, and I should be happy for them. It’s just that I never expected it to be this hard to let him go.

To let all of them go . . . ​

My eyes blur and I blink them clear, resolved not to show weakness in front of these creatures.

None of them have been touched by my hand yet. Each one still suffers from Lark’s toxic effects, their flesh disrupted by metallic slivers in place of fingers or faces, chain mail spines, copper scales and ears, mesh-wire wings, tails of electrified coils, and galvanized eye sockets. An unnatural aggregation of fey and cyborg features that are rusting away—costing them noses, horns, ears, tails, fingers, and toes.

Yet their corrosion isn’t keeping them from celebrating something, and as everyone grows hushed and all electrified gazes turn on me, I have a strong feeling I know what that something is, and exactly why Perish kept me hidden.

“Ah, the guest of honor arrives!” At the head of the table, on a wingback chair resembling a throne, sits Scourge—the king’s traitor brother. “Glad you found your way, Architect mine.”

My jaw drops. The last I knew, Perish—being the larger, stronger brother—had crushed Scourge’s metallic shoulder and locked him within a live-wire torture device. The stench of burnt flesh and scorched hair comes back to me as I seek the results of that violent incident but find nothing. Somehow, Scourge came out unscathed: frizzed white fiber-optic hair still intact; massive bent nose, barb-edged ears, and slimy lips untouched by scars. His complexion—free of burns—still resembles what Perish’s once did, although more of a sickly cadaverous white than a seashell’s glossy shimmer.

Perish had insisted he wasn’t killing his brother . . . ​that he was remaking him somehow, into a “better prince.” Yet he looks exactly the same; even his metallic collarbone and shoulder still bear the imprint of Perish’s anger—dented and warped so his left arm juts out at an odd angle. It’s as if the torture device had no effect at all.

Scourge smiles, all metal teeth and rusted tips. His thin aluminum right arm raises a goblet held by three fingers. The other two digits have flaked to stumps—rotted by rust. “Come in, come in! You have some work to do on us yet. Eager to see our perfect forms through your eyes.”

I frown, cautious to answer. “Perish wants my power preserved for building the world . . . ​he said the terrain has to be changed first, that the rest will follow naturally.”

Scourge gulps down his wine then slams the goblet on the table. Several teensy beings scramble to hide beneath cloth napkins and slices of ham. “Blasted brother, wants you all for himself. Wants to control you. He just can’t let you see how powerful you are. But you can beat him. Take this world into your hands and you take him by the horns. Start with us! Show him you won’t be his servant . . . ​that you can think for yourself, girl.”

His bid makes me itch to step forward, stokes that sense of ownership I can’t seem to shake . . . ​the hunger for creation I can never satiate. The knowledge that I can purge them of Lark’s curse, remake their appearance as I envision them, is both staggering and thrilling. Maybe if I fix them, cleanse them so they’re organic and whole, they’ll be grateful enough to help me overthrow Perish, to use his blood and reopen the veil. If I can reunite with Lark, together with Uncle Thatch, we can figure out a way to break this contract holding our lineage hostage—and my sister and I can both be free.

I inch forward, wary, but just as I cross the threshold, the roots making up my gown’s sleeves tighten around my forearms like slender snakes. They worm down to my wrists then cloak my fingertips, weaving together around my palms until they encompass my entire hands in thick, slithering gloves so not even a shred of skin shows.

“I—I can’t touch you . . .” I hold my encased fingers high, wriggling them.

Scourge curses. “Well, we won’t let a little ground cover stand in the way. Hold the girl down and I’ll cut out her hands.” The circuits in his eyes spark as he meets my widened gaze. “You don’t mind spilling a little blood for the greater good, do you, mortal dredge?”

A bone-chilling snick slices the air as Scourge swipes a butcher knife off the table. The guests rise from their seats in unison, tongues sticky with honey, teeth smeared with fruit pulp, lips oozing slobber, and chins crusted with glazed crumbs. But the hunger upon their misshapen eldritch faces won’t be satisfied by the spread on the table or the gluttonous portions on their plates—speared with forks and claws alike.

The reflective walls surrounding us make it appear that twice as many are in attendance. I’m outnumbered and out of my element.

Stifling a gasp, I backtrack, hiding my hands behind me. I stall in the hallway, noticing the stairs have slipped once more to the first floor. There are no other staircases or even doors along this level, which means I’ve nowhere to run. Tat wavers above me as though unsure of what to do.

“Get help,” I whisper.

With a flicker from bright to dark, Tat whisks away.

A nudge from my right side spins me on my heel. A little troll—the one I accidentally touched when I first arrived in Mystiquiel and stumbled upon Lark’s replicate bakery—grins up at me. The platelets along its squat form shimmer like rainbow fish scales. At first I think it’s come to offer assistance, until its gruesome smile spreads to reveal two rows of jagged teeth. It shoves me back into the room, in the direction of another troll who has yet to be cured.

A wave of disillusionment drags me under. Of course; when will I learn? Granting these creatures their perfect forms won’t ingratiate me with them. They’re all in it for themselves. I’m nothing but a tool here, to everyone.

Clawed and metallic hands reach to capture me—the guests crowding around my crouched position. I lunge to break free, but they press in tighter. I fall on my rump, jarring the nerves that start at my tailbone and run up my spine. A rusty, meaty musk weighs over me like fog, and a gag strangles in my throat.

Scourge steps into the circle and grips my wrist. He forces me on my knees, his wine-soured breath hot in my face. “Hold still. It will only hurt till your life’s drained away.”

The knife’s blade gouges through the roots close to my radial artery, and I cry out. Suddenly, more shoots come alive to take their place—a living shield. The binds overcompensate, tightening around my flesh like boa constrictors, cutting off my circulation. My fingers grow numb as Scourge saws harder, desperate to defeat his brother’s safeguards.

I struggle to breathe as anxiety kicks in, clamping down on my lungs. I can’t inhale deep enough. Dizziness seeps into my head, my vision tunneling. I’m having a panic attack. If only Clarey were here . . . ​he’d know how to help me . . .

That sweet moment, when he and I were together in the goblin orchards, when I placed a handful of snow in his palm to soothe him, revisits. An image of frost and ice blankets me, cold and calming. But reality skirts around the memory, melting away any comfort until I’m back in my awful predicament.

I’m seconds from giving in to the blackness when my captors break loose and gallop, scutter, and sprint from the room. Filigree, Perish’s pet owl, herds the retreating crowd with threatening swoops, her prismatic feathers ruffling in smears of green, red, orange, blue, violet, and pink. The gusts from her flight rattle the wreath woven in my hair. Tat accompanies Filigree, reshaping to mimic the owl’s form, like a living shadow following in her wake.

Scourge drops his knife and ducks down, arms covering his face.

Filigree’s long talons gouge the prince’s scalp, and oily blood saturates his white hair while clumps of frizzy strands rip free—clenched and dangling in tufts between Tat’s nebulous hooks.

In triumph, Filigree hoots and Tat crackles like an electrical current bursting from a spark plug. The birds glide out of the room just as Perish’s shadow engulfs my trembling body from the doorway. In one blink he’s beside me, offering a palm to help me stand.

Once I’m upright, he wipes my face where his brother’s breath left trails of slobber, then holds out my hands, coaxing the restrictive gloves to loosen to a more comfortable fit. Upon meeting my gaze, he shakes his head in admonishment. I force an apology by way of a shrug.

His jaw clenches and the spasm shimmers along his golden complexion. He glares at Scourge who’s dusting himself off and grumbling over his wounds.

“Once again, Brother,” Perish says, “you creep your way into the path of my rage. This is the thanks I get, for showing you mercy last time.”

“Mercy. Oh, please,” Scourge seethes. “As if you’re so noble. Does the girl know yet? The plan our father put into play? Of her other half’s role—”

Before Scourge can finish, Perish pulls out his dagger and twists the blade deep into his brother’s chest, carving his words into a wet, sobbing gurgle.