19

the inevitable, regrettable nature of reality

Lark

In one move, I spin away from Nix’s cocoon and the queen, diving for Perish’s dagger on the floor.

The queen rushes by, then throws herself across her son’s prone form. He’s stirring but not fully awake. Since I sliced his preservation casing, his head’s been left vulnerable. She focuses all her energy on the opening in the bubble, forming a line of impenetrable ice to seal him in. It’s good to see her finally acting like a mother.

Scourge waits at the doorway as his rebels pour into the lair. Another ominous roar outside. The ceiling crumbles, moss-draped stones and plaster raining all around. Overhead, a giant gaping hole reveals Krampus. I gawk open-mouthed; he’s exactly as he looked in the mural, as if peeled directly off the wall—except here he’s as tall as a dryad, and powerful enough to rip the roof off the sky-high sanctuary with his bare claws.

More debris falls from the ceiling as he shakes pieces free. To shelter my head, I convert the dagger into an umbrella of steel with syrupy rainbow lights burbling along the hooked handle. Falling chunks ricochet off the shield, as loud as hailstones hitting a tin roof. Krampus reaches down and uproots the giant tulip from its place of honor in the center of the lair. He shreds the petals into strips of creamy white confetti, tossing it to the floor. The vicious extraction of Mystiquiel’s Heart gouges through my blood, my magic-filled marrow sprouting thorns that pierce my bones. I cry out and double over.

My bond with Nix tangles with the enchanted strands tethering me to Perish, triggering myriad warring instincts: protect Nix and Clarey, protect Perish, protect the fey who are being chased around the lair by henchmen and the flying gingerbread cookies seeping one by one through the sieve of the ceiling.

I grip the umbrella’s handle until my metallic fingers creak with the strain, trying to visualize some way to use the dagger for everything, but then Perish’s knowing overtakes, honing my turmoil to one pointed thought: save all the innocents. Our shared crown magic sears through my bones, a shuttle of power that forces me to open my mouth on a scream.

The wail shatters me—long, loud, and brutal. My lungs shrivel with the effort, and my crispated heart withers, but I push through the pain, craving the release of pressure. The crown’s frenetic surge swells to a crest inside me, and I open the chasm of my chest, allowing it passage.

It billows into my throat—a swarming flutter like butterflies trying to clamber free. I open my mouth wider, and a gush of bubbles rises past my lips, swirling around the room and growing to encompass the victims—Clarey, Angorla, Slinx and Binx, the tinkers, and every other faithful subject who tried to help their Goblin King in his time of need—then one last bubble stretches around my sister’s encased form.

Only Perish’s mother remains unprotected. I start toward her to share my umbrella, but manage just one step before a searing-hot ache ricochets along every nerve in my body. An excruciating throb inside my skull knocks me to my knees, and an all-encompassing weariness ebbs along my muscles. I’m sucked dry of everything I had to give.

Unable to pull in enough air, I roll to my back and gasp like a fish, watching from under my umbrella—in a woozy, achy fugue—as the bubbles containing the refugees float upward in a beautiful glimmering parade. The impenetrable casings repel the sweeping swords, gnashing teeth, and falling rubble that endangered their occupants moments earlier. Nix’s bubble remains grounded, as if something holds her secured to the floor. Still, she’s safe from harm.

The other bubbles continue to rise, drifting out through the gaping ceiling. With the roof completely gone, there’s no more falling refuse, so I release the umbrella from its shape and allow the dagger to reappear. Clarey passes by in his bubble, still wrapped within the queen’s wintery thrall, but his eyes flicker in dual-toned warmth, an acknowledgment that he’s thawing and will be okay. The fey also meet my gaze as they glide past, offering expressions of disbelief entwined with gratitude.

I grunt, lifting Perish’s dagger in a salute of solidarity. But my metal hand paired with the weapon proves too heavy, and both fall back at my side. I startle when the gingerbread men begin to chase the bubbles through the gaping roof, trying to capture them. Krampus, too, stretches his arms to grab at the soaring escapees. Yet the casings bounce off his claws and escape the sugar-and-spice stalkers like slippery soap bubbles, refusing to burst. In minutes, they’re strung up in the midnight sky, too far out of reach to be captured. They settle there, like a galaxy of iridescent planets, untouchable and bright.

It’s distant, and difficult to hear over the grumbles of Scourge’s thwarted lackeys standing slack-jawed on the lower level, but I almost think there’s hooting and relieved laughter coming from the hovering fey.

Growing bored, Krampus and the gingerbread men leave; I catch sight of them onscreen, headed in the direction of the royal orchards’ scorched remains.

I roll to my side, head pounding, unable to find the strength to stand as Scourge’s henchmen turn their attention to the upper level. They haven’t even reached the first step when Perish’s knights storm across the threshold, looking harried from the effort of beating back rebels along the stairs to press their way in. A new battle begins for the lower level.

“Larkling.” Perish speaks from the table, still lying on his back, his voice a frail husk of the rich, resonant depth I’ve preserved in the shrine of my Mystiquiel memories. “Where is she?” he asks, attempting to sit up. His bubble stretches around him, the fissure I made sutured together with an infrangible seam of hoarfrost. He groans and lies back down, lacking his full strength. Undeterred, he holds up his hand to his mother, showcasing a braid of red thread through his transparent shell.

I squint to be sure of what I’m seeing.

Dad’s ring.

How could it be? Maybe, during our power-surging kiss, it resurfaced in me then passed to him, settling itself on his finger. Or am I so oxygen deprived I’m hallucinating?

“Bring her to me, Mother,” Perish commands. “I need to—” His hand drops to his side as he fades again to unconsciousness. The lightning around his antlers retains its brightness but ripples in disorderly waves around the prongs, as if he’s recharging. He’s as drained as me from the magic we spent to save his subjects.

Lady Glacia glares in my direction, bits of ceiling debris sifting from her hair. All I can manage is a wheeze. Her tinsel-bright eyebrows furrow as she prepares to say something, but her attention shifts to the steps from the lower level. I follow her gaze where a silhouette creeps across our platform, having sneaked past undetected while the fight downstairs proceeded around him.

“Greetings, Lady Mum.” Scourge rushes forward, completely dismissing my inert form as rubbish.

Yelping in surprise, the queen turns to face him. Scourge presses a sword tip to her throat upon noticing the unbreakable seal she’s made along his brother’s casing.

“I’m ending this tonight,” he snarls. “Either you drop your spell and step aside, or I run this blade through your throat and kill your magic along with you.”

She spreads her arms wide to shield her firstborn. “You won’t win.” Her throat puckers under Scourge’s sword with the effort to speak. “Not like this. If you kill your brother, the crown will forever deny you. It will penalize you, consider you the loser of the challenge. Do you want to be indentured to all the throne’s successors forever?”

He shakes his ugly head. Strips of tulip confetti—suspended from his skeletal antlers—flitter loose, like dead leaves dropping from emaciated twigs. “Aw, Mum. How generous of you, to be worried for your less favored son. Or would this be another ploy, like the one you pulled when you pretended to be in league with me all the while sneaking away to retrieve Perish’s body and hide him here in hopes of reviving him? Obviously, you were setting him up to recoup the crown all along, so wouldn’t you already have made peace with seeing me as a lowly tinker-gnome?”

The queen doesn’t budge, despite a trickle of blood oozing from her throat where the sword tip pierces her skin. “But with your brother gone, and you indentured, another king will step up to reign over Mystiquiel from another family. Don’t you realize that? Either way, you lose.”

Scourge snorts. “You’ve always been so one-dimensional when it comes to politics. Try to think outside our little fairyland box for once.”

With his free hand, he withdraws something hidden inside his jacket. It crinkles in his grip. I squint, barely able to make out several folds and cuts along a yellowing piece of paper. It springs open as he tosses it up, taking the shape of a halo-less angel, torn wings stapled back in place. Scourge throws a knife into the air, which the living stationery neatly snatches up. It flaps wafer-thin wings and hovers above Perish, waiting for the enchanted seal to thaw and reveal the king’s vulnerability.

“See, it won’t be my hand that kills my brother. It will be an avenging angel’s. And once Perish takes his last breath, I will have won the challenge, and the crown will materialize upon my head, granting me a fully formed glorious king’s body, with all the heirs’ powers stored therein.”

Swords and shouts continue in the background, the battle in full swing. But here, on our upper-level island, Scourge has already claimed victory.

Sipping another shallow breath, I grind my teeth at my failure to do more than budge my arm, then I silently curse my fragile state.

Scourge trails the sword tip along his mother’s neck, resting it at the dip between her clavicles. “Make your choice, Mum. Last chance.”

“Scourge, think this through. You’ll still be plagued with the metal defects. You wish to live your eternity shackled to rust and rot?”

“No worries there. Before my Christmas beast ends their lives and nullifies our contract with their kin, I’ll unite the girls long enough to exploit their combined power of genesis . . . ​I’ll force them to restore my blood and bones, and in the process meld the crown with my flesh, permanently.”

I press the dagger’s horn handle to my temple, using the warmth from the fluid light to ground me, soothe my aching head. What does Scourge mean, my and Nix’s combined power?

“You intend to absorb the crown? Into your . . . flesh?” The queen croaks the words as if sickened by them. “To what end?”

He shrugs his narrow shoulders, the tinny crumpled side crimping awkwardly. “To what end, you ask. To the literal end of our tedious monarchy successions. Without a crown to claim, no one will have the means to challenge me. Ever. And with all my indestructible pets guarding me, I’ll be perpetually preeminent. An undefeatable sovereign, ruling over a stable of domesticated humans who will maintain this world as I see fit.”

He cackles madly, and something in his sagging chest pings, grating and discordant, like a wind chime made of rusted knives.

It’s his heart. His metal heart.

Wincing, I inch the dagger nestled at my side onto my chest without making a sound. I focus on the blade, straining for any modicum of magic—whatever I have left—to gather inside my legs, arms, and wings. The blade fluctuates in a flash of silver, reshaping to a hollow cylindrical rod with circular handles sprouting from the top. Bone weary, I move in increments, rocking onto my hands and knees, then shoving to my feet, hands on my thighs. Fighting a wave of nausea, I teeter upright—holding tight to the reshaped dagger.

The queen has fixed an icy glower on Scourge, but like Perish, he’s immune by blood. She yowls in defeat then slams her eyelids shut in outright refusal to lift her glacial buffer from Perish’s casing.

“Such a shame,” Scourge taunts, “that you would choose to side with the weaker son. To martyr yourself for the one who was more loyal to human-kind than his own kin. Let it be done, then.”

In the instant he shifts his elbow, preparing to drive the blade into Lady Glacia’s chest, I lunge, willing my weight to propel me forward. My wings flutter frantically to offer momentum and balance, and my metal hands hold the winding key true.

Upon hearing the scuffle of boots behind him, Scourge whirls around just as I arrive close enough to plunge the key home, ripping through his shirt, seating it deep into his chest—twisting it inside the organ’s keyhole, a design made possible by the machine conceptualized and created by me.

I growl. “Meet your maker, tinker-toy. You lose.”

We slump to the ground together, and I press my lips to his cheek, allowing punishing threads of crown magic to shuttle into him. Staticky glimmers flash across every part of his cyborg body, releasing him from my curse of metal at last. He’s himself again for only an instant before warping into something both organic and unfortunate. A beaded, bony armor sweeps over his withering back and torso, lizard scales curl across his shrinking head, his pointed ears grow smaller, fuzz sprouting out along the edges, and his nose curls up to a slender ratty snout. He’s no longer a prince but a gnome forever indentured to the throne.

Fighting heavy eyelids, I glance at Lady Glacia. She faces me—still standing in front of Perish and no worse for wear other than a bloody sliver on her neck.

“A simple human girl, huh?” I murmur, half laughing, half coughing.

She awards me a nod of stunned respect. There’s movement behind her as Perish again struggles to sit—but I can’t hold my eyes open any longer.

With a tremulous smile, I inhale a thready breath then let the darkness take me.

Nix

Let me OUT!

I’ve been screaming in my head for what feels like hours, yet has to have been only minutes, watching the sky fall down through a hazy screen; feeling anguish gouge my vines and flowers when Krampus mauled Mystiquiel’s heart; locked in ice by Lady Glacia’s spell, trapped inside a bubble, and unable to do a thing to help my sister or Clarey.

Even now, with the royal knights having defeated and bound the rebels in in chains, with Perish opening his preservation casing and his crown materializing where it belongs on his head, even as everything seems under control—seeing Lark beside Scourge’s tinker form on the floor, both of them curled up like empty, discarded dolls, I’m still screaming.

I haven’t spent time with my sister in months—or in reality, years. The torture of being so close but still so far is too much. Then the horror of remembering that although in my heart she’ll always be my twin, she’s also my other half and she’s fading fast; I can’t shed my cocoon; I can’t hug her or even look into her eyes . . . ​if I do, she’s lost forever.

As Perish sits up, I resign myself to wait just a little longer. I’m out of plans and options. I have no other recourse but to trust him. He’ll stop his mother from forcing Lark and me together until he can find a way to preserve us both, so we can finally be together again. So I can hold her in my arms and bury my face in her hair and link pinkies. So we can share memories of times with Uncle and Clarey, of Halloweens, Thanksgivings, and Christmases spent together as a family. To declare aloud our feelings, for each other, for the boy or goblin who has captured our heart, for future dreams and hopes. These are things you share with a sister . . . ​with a twin. And we’ll be that again.

Perish will see to it because he loves her.

A shuffle of heavy, booted feet tromping up the steps catches my attention, distracts me for a moment.

A half dozen royal knights cross the upper level, tusks framing blissfully hideous smiles. They kneel before their king, welcoming him back. Perish nods to each one, commending their bravery and loyalty. He shrugs off the remains of his preservation casing in a shimmery burst of iridescence.

A sudden yelp from the queen prompts everyone to look up as Scourge’s forgotten pet angel dive-bombs from a shadowy corner of the busted roof, aiming straight for Perish’s exposed chest with the knife.

The boggles don’t even have a chance to react. All it takes is one glance from Perish’s alert burgundy eyes, and the magic enmeshing his crown and antlers strikes out with a firebolt. Flames spark along the paper ornament. The wings writhe then blacken, the triangular torso and round head following suit. With a sizzling pop, the angel burns to a crisp, then poof!—its pieces drift gently to the floor in a snow of cinders. The pile lies there, sifting on an invisible wind, preparing to regenerate.

Perish plants his naked feet on the floor. In the moonlight streaming from outside, his skin glimmers golden and healthy, every taut tendon and ridge of muscle highlighted by gauzy form-hugging tunic and pants. The Goblin King has returned in all his glory: a feral, majestic warrior—part beast, part man, part seraph.

“Get that dross out of here,” Perish growls; whether in reference to the paper ornament’s fidgeting ashes or his defeated brother, the knights appear unsure. For good measure, one of the boggles scoops up Scourge’s wriggling, armadillo-shelled form. The knight allows Lady Glacia a moment to say her piece—an abbreviated soliloquy made up of equal parts criticism and sorrow—then carries Scourge to the lower level to share manacles with his rebel accomplices.

Two other knights sweep the angel’s ash into their large craggy hands and toss the sooty bits out the entrance, letting the breeze carry them different directions, in hopes of slowing its reassembly.

Perish’s concerned gaze anchors on Lark. He takes a step toward her.

“Majesty,” a boggle interrupts. “The screen.”

With marked reluctance, the Goblin King shifts his focus to the window showcasing Mystiquiel’s landscapes.

With my spine nailed in place, I can’t turn to look, but even through the film over my eyes, I see the destruction reflect in miniature across Perish’s fathomless irises. Having leveled the orchards to sawdust and pulp, Krampus and his sugar-and-spice conspirators gather at the castle. Ripping off the metal drawbridge, Krampus bends it into a sledgehammer to reduce the tungsten fortress to piles of rubble. The gingerbread men gather up small chunks that resemble rock candy and press them into their faces between licorice lips. They gnash their new teeth, eager to find things to bite.

“We can’t stop what won’t die, Highness,” the boggle says, his blunted head lowered in defeat. “Their destruction has no bounds. After this will be the town, and then the beach; our populace hiding there will be in danger. At some point, they’ll reach the sky. Everything the Architect made will be brought to spoils. Unless those things are sent back or killed somehow, it will be an endless cycle for all eternity. We will never be free of the bubble sanctuaries.”

Even if I couldn’t see the effects my mural pieces are having on the world, the truth of his fears run deep. I feel the destruction in my depths, in Mystiquiel’s weeping roots that are soldered to my flesh and bones.

Perish’s jaw clenches. He stalks over to Lark, his movements graceful with measured intention. The remaining knights part as he arrives where the queen already kneels at her side.

“You know what must be done,” Lady Glacia says, looking up at him with ice storms building behind her eyes. “Take comfort that she’s almost gone already. She’s a human. It’s what they do. They fade.”

Perish growls. “Take comfort, you say. You spit the word ‘human’ as if it’s a defect. Yet it’s her humanity that moved her to save you, even after all your cruelties and bitterness. That same humanity brought her here to save all of us, in fact. Even the fey who turned their backs on her . . . ​who feared her.”

Lady Glacia nods. “You’re right. I regret this end for her now. I admit, I was wrong about everything. She proved her worth and her love for you . . . ​for our world; she’s an eldritch at heart, with a strength beyond my expectations. Would that things could be different.”

Perish cocks his head her direction. “Would they be, in fact? Would you accept her? Would you stand by and allow her to rule at my side, could things have been different?”

“More than that, my son. I would never stand in her way again. I would open my arms and give her my robes; I’d spangle her hair with star crystals, gift her the crown of sparkling permafrost. I’d seat her upon my very own throne.”

“You vow it?” Perish asks, his gaze penetrating.

“I do. But it’s a vow that must die with her. The Architect has already been chosen; she wears the acceptance of our subjects around her neck. And she can only defeat our attackers by making them real, flesh and bone. Only when she’s whole will she have the power to breathe life into the lifeless. To create living beings out of any medium. And to become whole, the Architect must absorb—”

Perish holds up his hand to silence her. Something red upon his ring finger catches my eye . . . ​a circlet-scab of blood. He must’ve been cut at some point.

“Your Highness.” The boggle monitoring the screen speaks up. “The Christmas beasts are moving toward the town . . . ​we’re losing time.”

“Perish,” Lady Glacia says, a melted softness to her voice. “Say your goodbyes, then have the strength to do what’s right for your kingdom.”

No! I scream again, unheard. Even after she saved you, you would kill her? Don’t let her do it, Perish. Don’t you dare give in!

The Goblin King’s pointed ears fold low, a movement parodied by the droop of his broad shoulders. Crouching beside the queen, he cups sharp-nailed fingers over Lark’s head with a marked tenderness that tugs his lips to a frown. “Larkling, do you hear me?” His white double-pupils swallow up his dark irises as he seeks the flavor of her emotions . . . ​searches for any sign of consciousness.

When she doesn’t respond, Perish nudges his mother aside and lifts Lark from the ground. He cradles her against his chest, pressing his lips to her temple. His antlers brighten at the contact, a captive lightning storm that spreads to encompass his head and hers. Her eyes flutter open. With a strained breath, she offers the frailest of smiles. His lips quiver, as if struggling to return the expression but unable to.

He whispers something to her. She pauses for a minute and glances my direction, a look of horror and disbelief in her eyes. Then, eyebrows furrowed, she whispers back to him. He swallows hard, a visible lump in his throat as he nods. Lifting her carbon fiber fingers, she grasps each side of his trembling jaw. He startles at the touch of cold metal against skin, then their lips meet with a tenderness that guts me.

When he pulls back, a deep sadness wells behind his eyes, and I know it for what it is. He’s going to sacrifice my damaged sister for his world. And she’s going to let him.

NO! No, no, no!

A slushy wash of tears knocks against my lower lashes, too cold and thick to be released. The inability to cry them out only makes the agony cut deeper.

I wail inwardly as Perish’s magic bursts the bubble around me, as the queen peels away my webbed covering. It’s not for the pain of my walls coming down; it’s impossible not to notice the effort Lady Glacia’s taking, a slow divulging of my frozen skin, as if she’s trying to be gentle. But it’s a farce. Their kind doesn’t care who they hurt. Our family’s always been their pawns . . . ​an end to a means. And now, they’ll commit the ultimate evil by forcing me to murder my own sister.

The queen slips the last of the baby’s breath shroud from my eyes, and my tears burst free. I see everything in a smear of garish bright colors . . . ​but it all looks like death to me. Black and white and gray leak into my view, despair washing out my retinas like a cruel rain.

Perish props Lark in front of me, helping her stay upright. “Give me Nix’s hand.” His deep command resonates in the space, his voice gruff and robust—a testament to his indisputable sovereignty. And I hate him more than I ever have.

The queen takes my limp arm and coaxes my half-thawed pinkie to bend as a hook. I jerk free when Lark’s metal digit curls around mine, but she throws her arms around me in a hug and we’re locked together. She leans closer until our foreheads meet. Her eyes gape wide, echoing my gaze—an infinity of gray. It triggers a memory of seeing hers stitched shut three years ago in a coffin when I thought she’d died.

Last time, Perish wore her likeness for the hoax; it’s unbearable to imagine it being real this time. I can’t lose her again.

I hear the words she doesn’t speak: It’ll be okay.

My heart breaks. Lark, my twin, the strongest of us both. The one I always wanted to be. Or maybe, the one who left a hole in me? The thought is unprompted, and I wonder if she sent it to my mind. My viewpoint shifts, and the bleak, inescapable reality shatters any doubt that remains. I don’t even have time to tell her that I love her before prisms of color bleed back into my retinas. Her hair grows long and serpentine, tie-dyed pastels replacing silvery-white and ebony strands. Her vampiric fangs file down to normal, her front teeth fill out, sealing up the space between them. Her scarred hairline smooths, allowing a widow’s peak to dip down. Every choice she made that modified her, that set us apart, disappears: a forgery put to rights. A flash of flesh softens her metal hands and forearms, transforming prosthetics into skin, thawing the spike through my spine and every other part of me in the process. Even her dress—a glittery blue confection of netting and lace—conforms; the flowers and ivy held in tatters across my body blossom and grow, hale and hardy once more, spinning me up in dewy petals and verdant leaves. The living wardrobe spreads like a fungus between us, eating away at her clothes, gracing her with the perfect replica of my urban decay gown.

I squint and no longer see another girl. Was she ever there to begin with?

I stare instead at my own reflection; that half of me who’s been trapped behind glass—cold, lost, and lonely—since the day I came into the world. Hungry like a puddle craving a raindrop, I draw the part of me in where it belongs, assimilation through osmosis: palms consuming palms, chest consuming chest, face consuming face, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes.

Last of all, breath consuming breath.

I blink, and only I remain. Everything else is forgotten, all the pointless distractions jettisoned away to make room for divine duty. The singular splendor of creation fills my being with a rainbow palette and brushstrokes of light.

I’m who I was born to be. Myself at last. Mystiquiel’s eternal Architect.