11

winter bird

Nix

Perish’s royal robes rival his mother’s, though the fabric on his swirls with storms. The silken rustle brings to mind gusts of wind, and gray stippled clouds drift across the black velvet, then gather at the neck to form a collar that resembles fleece. Deep inside the fluff, zigzag flares radiate—mirroring those that embroider his crown and antlers—like a tempest pulsing with living light.

Yet it’s not just the robes. He is a tempest. He’s never looked more powerful: broader, taller, wilder, or more intimidating.

I struggle to hide an influx of reverent admiration. It’s my sister’s influence, and I’m determined to contain it.

“Answer me, Architect. Give an account of your motives.”

I don’t know how to respond until he steps fully inside. His skin-hugging pants, tucked into knee-high boots, are wet with icy slush. Given this and his mother’s mention of frostbitten trees and fruits, it’s an easy assumption he’s been strolling the royal orchards.

“Explain yourself. Why are you seeking my ruin? Do you not understand yet, that you’re a part of this place? How compromising that symmetry affects you as much as all of us?”

I frown as if puzzled. “I’m going to need more information.”

“How about a visual aid?” Perish slips a shadowy form from inside his shirt and holds it up between his finger and thumb. Wings splay open at his palm, fluttering in brushstroke streaks—ink smearing the air.

Tat.

“Oh,” I mumble, biting back my disappointment at being caught.

My partner in crime pecks the Goblin King’s hand, drawing a black well of blood that turns white upon hitting the air.

“Little vampire!” Frowning, Perish grits his teeth. At first, I think he’s going to smear my tiny companion into oblivion, but instead he tsks. “Fine, you want a feast, have at it.” Tat bites him a few more times before Perish finally flicks his attacker away. Tat flies to my side then lands on my shoulder, rustling the honeysuckle vines that have slipped free from my plaited hair. Smacking its beak as if savoring Perish’s blood, Tat winds its way under my braid to hide at the base of my neck.

“What is that . . . thing?” Lady Glacia asks from somewhere behind me, her question edged with horror.

I almost laugh at the irony—a monster being unnerved by something so benign as an inkblot.

“A spy,” Perish answers as he compresses where the blood leaks from his palm until the flow stops. His burgundy eyes and white pupils turn on me. “The cursed thing freed Scourge from his room. I’ve no idea where he’s hidden himself.”

I tamp down the urge to gloat at my success, hold every reaction at bay so Perish and his mother can’t feast on my moods.

“Well,” I say calmly, “if you would spare an answer now and then, I wouldn’t have to resort to seeking information elsewhere.” Now I only need to find out where Scourge has holed himself up. Tat can help with that.

Perish tips his head low, like a buck preparing to charge. I don’t tense a muscle. He’s never been physically abusive to me or Lark, and I don’t expect he’s about to start now. Rather than rushing me, he glares at the floor. His magic crackles blindingly, uncoiling from his antlers in a staticky strike.

Flashes ignite across the sand. Here and there, patches transform from rainbow glitter to sterile glass again. One sheet hardens beneath my feet like a glossy black puddle. With that change, the sparking current forks to all corners of the room, and other details shift back—branches and mist returning to a sterile iron bed frame, the chandelier’s prismatic luminaries replaced by the milky flicker of anemic bulbs. Besides a few small stretches of sand here and there, the only thing that remains is the breezy white curtains, from behind which the glowing flutter of bugs continues to gild the room with daylight.

He’s punishing me while leaving just enough intact to remind me of the rewards he can provide should I choose to cooperate.

I set my jaw as he raises his eyes to mine, locking me in a stare. Our momentary clash of wills shatters around us once Lady Glacia overcomes her fear of Tat and approaches me. Her chilling huff raises goose bumps along my nape and spine as she snatches my shoulders and jerks me around to face her.

“Traitorous little beast. After all my royal son has done to coddle you.” She turns to Perish. “Your brother was right—her lineage can’t be trusted to uphold the contract any longer. Both girls are tainted with their mother’s brazen audacity. It will carry on to this one’s children as well. Do not waste time seeking out your brother as a fugitive. He will rise from underground of his own accord, if you acknowledge he has devised the perfect solution. Invite him to stand by your side . . . ​to be an advisor to the throne. Allow him to enact his idea of reinstating the Goblin Market, but instead, we take humans as babes. Use our enchanted fruit to bid obeisance from caretakers at orphanages, hospitals, nurseries—anywhere the human spawn are born and kept. Have them snatch the babes and bring them to us at each All Hallows’ Eve, before the stroke of midnight.”

I gulp back a shocked gasp, stunned by the brazen depravity of such a plan. This is why Perish was keeping Scourge under his thumb? Why he locked him up? Why he and Lark joined forces and had him altered?

I’m sickened by my rash interference, by the danger I’ve set loose. I wanted to bargain with Scourge, thinking there was no such thing as the lesser of evils between fey brothers—that Lark’s view of Perish was blurring my own perceptions.

I was wrong. Scourge wasn’t just hungry for the throne . . . ​he wants to hit humans in the one place they revere most of all. Their offspring. Bad enough when it was teens. But now they want to take babies.

My stomach drops like a lead balloon.

Perish steps over the threshold and the door clicks and clacks as it shrinks into the wall, then vanishes. He looks past me to his mother, gold-fringed lashes squinted in an expression of controlled ferocity. “You want that I should appoint my brother a position, knowing what his ultimate plan would entail? Taking male and female babes alike . . . ​growing them here like cattle put to pasture, penning them up, breeding them, and chaining them to their tasks. You would have me acquiesce to such savagery, despite the tenuous threads that weave their dreams and talents?”

Lady Glacia purses her lips. “You needn’t be concerned about the inbreeding, that the progeny may become dull-witted, unimaginative. That’s why we capture fresh batches every year. What’s important is we regain consistency, control. There’ve been too many lapses in our settings of late. Our subjects are growing restless spending so much time in limbo; they’re losing faith in our leadership. Should it continue, they’ll start a revolution, raid the throne. End our reign. Unless we can provide reliable Architects in constant supply. Think of it; there’s no limit to what we can do by having more than one designer at a time, each spinning the world’s threads. There would be boundless variety in such fluid environs.”

Perish huffs. “Variety does not equate to consistency, dear mother. Would that you could understand. Humans are competitive by nature. They would try to outdo one another. There must always be only one. You simply can’t see the ruination our greed and their miscellany would cause in the end.”

Mother and son are so intensely focused on their narrative, it’s as if they’ve forgotten I’m here. For the first time since my arrival, I feel like I’m getting the truth. I envision myself as a firefly on the wall, hidden behind a curtain, and hold myself rooted to the glass beneath my feet, afraid to even twitch a muscle else they remember I’m here and curtail their dialogue. I’m careful to keep my gaze averted, convinced if I don’t see them, they won’t see me . . .

My focus tightens on Perish’s boots. The mud-tinged ice crystals dribble in rivulets along the leather and dampen the sand beneath him, melting from warmth—either from the room or his own body heat.

“We know from our histories,” he continues, “that human innovation feeds on the mortal experience . . . ​it’s why we always have the mate brought in from the world of mortal men, someone who was raised there, untouched and unspoiled by our kind. It’s that crucial spark they bring to the Architect line—absent in the girls shielded here without ordinary human interactions and concerns—that feeds into the baby, spawning an emotional propensity and purity that can be forged only through the human condition . . . ​that fragile symmetry of life and death. Should this be taken away, all is lost here. You think our current situation stark? We’ve learned better—when the Goblin Market began to fail us, when the captives missed their homes and loved ones and lost hope, and inspiration died alongside it. Perhaps since you didn’t bear witness with your own eyes, you don’t remember that dark age.”

“Neither did you! Your great-grandfather walked in those shadows. Your father and I weren’t yet born ourselves. So how could you possibly remember?”

He bares spiked teeth and traces a long fingertip across the bright flashes atop his head. “My crown remembers, and so it will never be forgotten: without hope, earned through experiences, inspiration dies. Barren landscapes and emotionless voids give rise to starvation and deprivation in our immortal populace, the cannibalization of all magic just to subsist—a fate far more damaging than sitting secluded in limbo while waiting for a restructured world. The only arrangement that will serve us, prove us capable rulers and prevent our preying on—or being reliant on—the humans more than necessary, is the contract we have with this family’s line. It’s elegant in its simplicity. We simply need to resume the ebb and flow of the original agreement. We teetered off course, but we’re finding our way back again, so long as I can prevent Scourge from undermining our progress and costing us this precariously earned peace.”

Lady Glacia’s frown deepens, and she squeezes my shoulders tighter. “I would have agreed with your hope for peace, if your Lord Father’s attempt to elevate this Architect’s loyalties in vitro had worked. But Imogen’s escape resulted in premature births, and botched everything.” Lady Glacia grinds her fingernails into my scapula and locks my gaze with her fluid eyes. I yelp and dig at her wrists, trying to break free.

“I’m not so sure of that, Lady Mother,” Perish answers.

In the instant Lady Glacia’s attention shifts from me to her son, Tat darts out from beneath my braid and flutters in the air, reshaping into something resembling a bat. It dive-bombs into the queen’s long hair, tangling it into frizzled knots. The queen frees me, preoccupied with the tiny clawed wings and pricking teeth that leave black-streaked punctures along her flawless neck and chest.

Enraged, the queen growls and captures the tattoo. She crushes its body into a drizzle of sludge in her right hand. I gasp when she raises her fist, ready to launch my blotted friend into the wall alongside my father’s images of the past still playing out in the window.

“Please, don’t,” I plead.

“That’s enough.” Perish’s deep voice ignites behind me, his complete sovereignty a gruff whetstone that grinds the edges of each word to sharp points. “Put the nestling down. It meant no harm and shouldn’t be held accountable for following the commands of its creator.”

“Its creator?” Lady Glacia pales and allows the sludge to drip out of her fingers onto the floor—a puddle of black blotting out the rainbow sands at her feet.

“Tat, come back.” I kneel. Not only is this my creation, it’s my one keepsake from the mortal world. I hold my breath, hopeful as a current of electricity pulses through the puddle then scatters the liquid into a line of oily beads. I rein in my trembling vocal cords, forcing a strong command: “Good. Get yourself together.”

The tiny orbs rise from the floor like a string of black beads, and a few inches up, they reassemble into my lark tattoo.

Determined to keep my companion safe, while also hoping to fix my mistake, I issue a final directive: “Go back to where you came from; then we’ll lead the king to his missing brother.” I stand and wait for the tattoo to weave itself once more into my skin, to imprint its wings onto the outer edge of my left collarbone and suture its dual tail feathers into the tip of my shoulder, so together we can find Scourge.

Instead, in a blurred slash of ink, Tat soars toward the glass wall and becomes one with the window before evaporating from sight. I watch in bewilderment. The tattoo must’ve misunderstood and returned to the tunnels beneath this castle where I first freed it from my flesh.

I turn to see Perish and his mother standing stock-still, both of them staring with expressions of awe at the rippling glass until it smooths, marking Tat’s successful exit.

“How could she have created this being?” the queen asks. “Furthermore, a phenotype of man, foreign to our kind. The only one who had such an ability was—” She cuts herself off. “No. This twin isn’t rooted deep enough in our world’s foundation to enact such a miracle. Unless . . .”

“Yes.” Perish takes up the queen’s abandoned observation. “Unless her other half’s connection is still being facilitated by the magical bond between them, causing a loop of sorts. Which might also explain what’s happening outside. It appears Lord Father’s thwarted spell has taken an unexpected turn. Whether the effect will be fortuitous or fatal is yet to be seen.”

Lady Glacia opens her mouth, then shuts it without speaking as Perish slips the starlit robe from her delicate form.

“You’ll need this for warmth, Architect.” He settles the fabric across my shoulders and back. His mother’s residual body heat sinks into my shoulders, easing the gouges her nails left beneath my clothes—the closest I’ll ever get to an apology from her.

“Aren’t we going to look for Tat? For Scourge?” I ask.

“In due time,” Perish answers. “But first, you need to mend what’s become of Mystiquiel.”

“So you’re taking me to the orchard,” I guess, straightening the robe’s sparkling collar.

Perish resituates the tiara on my scalp, coaxing it to sprout taller atop my head. “To view the winter season, yes. But not just in the orchards. The streets of your new Astoria, the beach, and the forests. Our entire world is withering beneath a cruel frost. And you need to help me find a means to contain it before my subjects become ice sculptures. You’ve been asking of my father’s enchantment upon your sister and yourself. You’re about to get your answer. But be prepared, for the chill out there is nothing to what the truth will spawn within your heart.”

Lark

It’s 7:00 p.m., five hours left till Christmas, and with every turn of the clock’s hand, my own disappears a little more.

Glancing down at my left arm, I flex silicone fingers, animating the robotic skeleture underneath. It’s basically a high-tech ambulatory glove, the harness of which clamps onto my wrist and is concealed by a wide cuff bracelet of black leather with silver studs. The grunge design fits perfectly into Nix’s wardrobe, so no one’s the wiser. The outer silicone shell, crafted by Clarey to fit over my own mechanical prosthetic construct, looks so convincing in its fleshy realism—with knuckles and veins that bulge during strenuous activities—I’ve managed to fool both Uncle Thatch and Juniper for almost a month.

But even as I’ve extended the harness bracelet—from a single two-inch-wide strap all the way to six fat strands—in hopes of concealing my forearm’s regression, the vanishing doesn’t seem to be stopping. It may be slow, but it’s incessant. Soon the hollowness will reach my elbow. And today, there’s an added wrinkle. Fighting a wave of nausea, I reach toward the curtain on my bedroom window with my right hand and watch in the lamplight as the very tips of my fingers slide through the gossamer cloth without causing even a ripple. At this rate, by New Year’s I’ll be a full-blown automaton. How ironic: the mechanic becoming the mechanical.

I’ve already soldered together a second metallic counterpart of carpal, metacarpal, and phalange bones and connected them to an automated wrist joint. This I’ll attach to a studded leather bracelet once Clarey arrives with the silicone shell and we confirm it’s a good fit. Judging by the clock ticking on my wall, Juniper closed up shop a half hour ago, so Clarey should arrive any minute.

My stomach knots, anticipating another argument. That’s all we seem to do lately. Fortunately, even with school out for the holiday break, his stints at work helping Juniper and Uncle Thatch prep for their grand opening while I’m supposedly laid up in bed unable to walk without crutches have made it easy enough to avoid any in-person visits. And I’ve been able to talk him out of telling Uncle anything until we’ve figured out what’s happening to me. My logic being, Uncle deserves to have a stress-free start-up with Juniper, considering all he lost with the fire—not to mention all the people relying on Uncle’s business for jobs, including the couple who had a baby two months ago on Halloween night.

Still, Clarey’s made a point of calling and texting me. He’s been hearing Nix’s voice in his BAHA more frequently. Each night she shares secrets with him as a kind of bedtime story. Apparently, she’s completely unaware that he hears her, as he’s tried to talk back with no success. The frequency is staticky, which means he’s not catching all of her words. But one thing he did piece together is that I wanted her to get trapped in Mystiquiel. That I helped Perish lure her there so we could switch places. I’d think the boy was losing it, if not for the truth behind everything those whispers say.

So far, I’ve been able to hold him at bay, telling him he’s being tricked by the eldritch. That they’re toying with both of our lives. That they’re responsible for my procreant blood and vanishing flesh. That they’re trying to turn us against each other, punishing him for crossing the veil and me for all the damage I left in my wake. But I’m not sure how much longer I can maintain the lies. There’s some real magical reason I’m fading away, and if I can’t stop it on my own, I’ll need both Clarey’s and Uncle’s help. No doubt once they learn of King Talon’s enchanted link between me and Nix, they’ll want me to use it to find a way back to her somehow—which means everything will come out. Then I’ll have to see her succeeding in Mystiquiel where I failed . . . ​I’ll have to face Perish’s disappointment twofold as he realizes I failed him here just as badly as I did in his world.

How many sordid details does Nix know on her end? Is she aware of the traitorous lengths I’ve gone to here, following Perish’s instructions in order to break all ties? That’s the burning question now . . . no pun intended.

If she’s tapped into any of my residual landscapes, she’ll know things only I know. And faerie-kind forbid she share any of those details with Clarey.

I exhale across the window to fog the view. Outside our house, white powdery drifts, tinged blue by the twilit sky, cloak the ground and cap the trees. Snow crochets the window frame and curls in scallops across the outer sill, as if Uncle piped them on himself with a tube of vanilla-bean frosting. A clouded mist hazes the neighborhood, enveloping the trees and streets, making everything appear subdued and abandoned. Earlier today, when bits of sunlight peeked out, children in brightly colored winter coats appeared at intervals from behind snowmen and forts, volleying a rain of snowballs. A picturesque, perfect Christmas Eve—for those ignorant enough not to know the things I know. Not to see the things I’ve seen.

It’s been like this ever since Thanksgiving. The meteorologists failed to predict a snowstorm of this scale and duration. But considering Nix’s scene’s encroachment into both my blood and my dreams, I’m holding my magical bond with my twin responsible, just as it’s to blame for the otherworldly flowers sprouting uncontrollably at ground zero across town and here in my room, under my bed and around my baseboards and window. Even though I uprooted the first batch, I have to pluck new ones daily so Uncle won’t notice.

I won’t have the chance to kill the ones Juniper holds in pots until they can be planted in her boutique’s courtyard. Doesn’t matter anyway. After all, what good would it do to crush the original invasion, considering new seedlings continue to sprout where the bakery once stood? Even in the dead of this winter gale, they grow tall and hearty, garish-bright against the background of powder white.

The phenomenon has actually become something of a local legend over the last couple of weeks. Uncle paid to have a wrought iron fence installed around the plot, and locked the gate to hold tourists at bay. Even our fellow towners seem inclined to stargaze, crowds stalling on the sidewalk all hours of the day and night, conferring as to what kinds of plants could possibly thrive in torched, ice-crusted earth . . . ​and how their growth can’t be natural.

Rumors abound, the most outrageous being that a UFO sent a laser beam into the roof of Uncle’s bakery and leveled the building, leaving bare a place to plant the seeds of a telepathic genus of flowers—so aliens could control our minds and take over the world.

Though most people laugh off that theory, everyone is mystified enough to avoid touching the rainbow blooms, much less eat them. Which means the conjecture has ruined Uncle’s plans to use the candied petals to kick-start his new bakery line. But it hasn’t quashed his idea to use the flowers as bait for the Goblin King, in hopes of opening a line of communication between them again.

After crushing the candied petals, he and Juniper used the colored powders to create bright marzipan-style flowers, which they set atop an assortment of meringue confectioneries flavored with Juniper’s specialized teas. They’re calling them tea-dainties, and their combined clientele are already abuzz, eager for the opening in two weeks so they can sample them for themselves.

I’ve been too preoccupied with my own physical changes to figure out how to stop him. All other concerns center on what horrors I’ve unleashed upon the town that have yet to materialize. The winter scene outside my window is incomplete. Where are the missing creatures—Krampus, the puzzle-piece gingerbread men? Angels with their wings torn and ruffled by the anti–Santa Claus?

The destruction they could unleash on the innocent people here is every bit as disturbing as Scourge’s plans for our world. I cringe and huff on the windowpane again, then swipe away the fog with my mechanical hand. Clarey’s Suburban appears across the street but stalls a few houses down under a bright streetlight. I squint, seeing him press his forehead against the steering wheel.

One of his hands clenches the grip’s leather cover beside his temple, knuckles knotted into pale protrusions. His other hand cups his ear, as though cradling his BAHA.

I gnaw the labret in my lower lip. Is he receiving more enigmatic transmissions from Nix? As if startled, he sits up and shakes his head. Scowling, he gives the Suburban gas and pulls alongside our curb to park.

I rush to my bedroom door, shoving my ear against the slight opening to hear Uncle greet him. My heart thuds as I strain to listen, part of me convinced Clarey’s going to spill everything before he gives me a chance to explain. I inhale deeply when their conversation dances around weather and store-related chit-chat.

Uncle urges Clarey toward my room after promising to bring some cocoa he’s boiling on the stove, and a set of footsteps shuffles down the hall. I rush over to my bed, ensure my crutches are visibly propped against the wall beside my headboard, then settle on the mattress with my legs crossed in the lotus position.

“Come in,” I call while trying to look busy with my tools—untangling the nylon-coated wires running through my newest metal hand.

The hinges creak and Clarey peers inside, his forehead and white forelock awash in lamplight, leaving everything from his nose down drenched in darkness. I squint, trying to see the slant of his lips; when that fails, I force myself to read his eyes. The anger and mistrust there are unmistakable.

I shift my attention to the large canvas pouch he’s carrying. It’s the one he uses to transport any SFX items—makeup, sponges, and small tools—that he may need for touch-ups. It looks like a mix between a purse and Santa’s toy bag.

“Well, if it isn’t the Grinch that stole Christmas,” I quip, my throat scratchy and dry. “That must be the tiniest evergreen ever. What, did you raid Malibu Barbie’s holiday house on the way to Whoville?”

He steps fully inside and shuts the door. The lamp illuminates the rest of his face, revealing a frown that deepens as he clenches the bag tighter at the sight of the skeletal framework I’m holding with my working ambulatory “hand.”

A tremor vibrates along his jaw. “You know, there was a time I would’ve been so glad to see you working on inventing again. That was back when you made things for the pure pleasure of it. Or even because you wanted to help others. Now, it’s all about covering up your fictions. If anyone’s heart needs to grow a few sizes, it’s yours. Tonight, you’re going to be the solid eighteen-karat girl you once were. The one I can trust. The one who cares about her sister. And just so you know, I’m not backing down this time.”

“Easy enough to deduce by the look on your face.” I roll my eyes, still not ready to cave. There has to be some way to fix this without opening up a Pandora’s box. “So you think you heard Nix again. The fairies and goblins must be laughing their pointed ears off at how gullible you are.”

His stare intensifies along with the silence around us.

I lift an eyebrow. “Well, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to tell me what I’ve been accused of now?”

He plucks at the drawstring cinching the bag. “I heard that the bakery fire has your fading fingerprints all over it.”

His words hit hard, and I clench my teeth to hide my shock. If he knows that tidbit, then Nix must know, too. I wish that didn’t bother me like it does.

“Right.” I manage the rebuttal without my voice trembling. “That makes so much more sense than it being arranged by the Goblin King.” I’ve learned by now that the art of subterfuge is all in the delivery. Lies roll off the tongue easier if you can spin them into half-truths. “Think it through, Clarey. He sent his little deviants here to shut down Uncle’s access to his blood so we’d have no way to get back to Nix. As an added benefit, it eradicated our supply of fruits—the last piece of Mystiquiel here in our world—since he no longer requires help feeding the fey populace with human emotions. Makes a lot more sense than me committing arson back when I was in a wheelchair and could barely lift my arms, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that you never needed the chair or therapy. When we went scramsville after the spray-painting fiasco, you forgot to pretend you were a crip and jumped out of the trolley, leaving me to get your crutches. Did you forget that detail?”

I start to open my mouth, to remind him that my legs gave out when I hit the ground outside the trolley, but a sharp shake of his head stalls me.

“Sure, you pretended to fall, like you were so freaked out your adrenaline overtook . . . ​like you couldn’t even think straight. But the truth was, you were so freaked you couldn’t fake straight.”

I align my functioning mechanical fingers with the skeleton’s counterparts to measure them, trying to avoid his stare. I’m furious: with him for outing me and with myself for thinking I’d managed to cover up my faux pas. He’s been sitting on this accusation for weeks, waiting for the right time to trap me with it.

He smirks. “Ah, I see I hit a nerve. Just so we’re clear, kitten, I’m in the driver’s seat now.”

I swallow to moisten my throat. “So, what? You’re going to out me to Uncle?”

Clarey directs his gaze to my fading left hand and opens the canvas bag just enough for me to see three perfect silicone fingertips peeking out. “Don’t have to. He’s going to see for himself what’s happening unless you get what you need from me. And I’m not delivering until you pay with the truth. Until you dish everything you’ve been hiding since you came home.”

Situating the beak of some needle-nose pliers—red handles instead of pink since my own tool was lost somewhere in a maze in Mystiquiel—around several wires, I squeeze. My motorized fingers bend and flex, joining the cluster together.

Clarey leans against the door behind him, squinting as he watches me work. “By the way, it wasn’t only Nix this time in my ear. I heard Perish, too. He said something . . . ​not about you . . . ​ or I guess it kind of is.” He rubs the scar that cuts through his left eyebrow—a self-soothing gesture he developed while I was gone all those years. “It’s about both you and Nix. About a curse of some kind. Something Perish’s dad did to you guys, in vitro. I’m guessing you know what he meant by that, too.”

I clear my throat, hoping to clear the sand filling my vocal cords. “Have you ever considered not wearing the BAHA for a while? You know the old adage—if you can’t hear something nice, don’t hear anything at all . . .”

Clarey snarls and tosses the bag across to me. It lands on my bed, inches from my knee, teetering on the edge of the mattress and threatening to slide to the floor. I snag it before it falls.

Borrowing his smug smirk, I sigh. “You disappoint me. With your love for noir detective shows, you should know better than to hand over the goods before you open the briefcase to count the payment.”

“I’m leaving the counting to you. Tell me, how many fingers do you see there?”

I shrug, feigning nonchalance. He’s toying with me, although I’m not sure what his endgame is—until I tug down the canvas to reveal the full hand. It’s a mess . . . ​all five fingers akimbo like broken twigs, gouges in the palm, and distorted knuckles bursting out from their silicone shell; it’s like a prop from a horror movie, after someone’s arm is caught in a wood chipper. The only thing missing from the mangled specimen is oozing blood. Clarey made the perfect hand, then crippled it.

I glance up at him, the edges of my eyes stinging hot. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Why would you do this to your own creation?”

He shakes his head. “What an apropos question for this entire situation, Lark. Because according to Nix, you and Perish intentionally ruined Mystiquiel for his gain. Then when you couldn’t fix it, your sister had to go in and take care of things.”

I start to open my mouth, but Clarey holds up a finger to stall me.

“I’ve heard your excuses. I’m not buying that the fairies are to blame for the bakery . . . ​for any of it. What’s it going to take for you to be straight with me? With yourself?” He motions to the traveling SFX bag on my bed for emphasis. “I brought stuff to fix that hand . . . ​but I’m the only one who can do it. First, you have to lay it all on me.”

I huff. “You don’t want to help? Then I don’t want your help.” I shove the silicone mess off my mattress, listening to it thud like a fat toad when it hits the floor. “And news flash, bozo, you can retire the sixties slang seeing as it’s the twenty-first century!” I throw my skeletal framework across the room. It drops with a sickening clang next to Clarey’s feet.

Unblinking, he keeps his attention on me.

I snarl and toss the Santa-style bag back to him.

He catches it midair. “So, you think you can go down swinging? How are you planning to do that, when you’re about to have nothing left to swing with?”

I curl my right hand to hide the fading fingertips and wince.

“You know,” he continues, “I get that you were scared when you were there. I get that you felt like you had to do anything you could to cash out and make it back home. But to go along with the Goblin King’s evil plans? To pair up with that fink over your sister? Nix would’ve taken your place without anyone needing to trick her. She loves you that much. That’s the difference between you and her. She’s platinum . . . ​thinks of others over herself.”

I leap off the bed, no longer trying to hide the strength in my legs. My face flushes hot and my stomach clenches tight. “I’m so over her being the sacrificial lamb. You’ve no idea what I gave up because I was thinking of others. Trying to keep all the mortals in our world safe.”

“Saving all humanity? C’mon.” Clarey schools his features into a sardonic glare; his doubt is a slap to the face—despite that I’ve earned it.

I’m about to unpack everything: the truth behind my and Perish’s scheme, my feelings for the Goblin King and what we almost had together, my brokenness at leaving Mystiquiel behind and handing it over to my twin, and the enchantment King Talon put into play that launched it all. Just to shove an example of true sacrifice in his face. But the words gurgle in the back of my throat unspoken when Clarey yelps in pain and grips his BAHA in the same instant a tiny black bird slams into my picture window and explodes in a splatter of oily ink and black smears that pale to white in the cold air.

White—like goblin blood. A king’s blood.

Clarey meets my gaze—looking as stunned as I feel. I forget to grab my crutches as we race toward my door, each trying to pass the other on our way out.