Chapter 11

Where Do We Go?

“I don’t think that was a coincidence,” Wyatt says. “Lucius and Erebus can work in mysterious ways. I’ve heard stories of those who I’ve treated or their family members who have interacted with those they know whom Lucius has taken into their claim. They have told me who they have spoken to and the signs they have seen; something that to another would seem unremarkable but to them held such meaning. Such as a field full of poppy flowers.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Phoenix snaps, insistent. “Ivy isn’t gone. Onyx isn’t either, and neither is Poppy. They aren’t gone. Lucius just won’t give them back. They did with Freedom, and so they must with my family. Freedom wasn’t supposed to die that day when Arcane killed her, and my family wasn’t supposed to die that day when the Guard with the torch set fire to our home with the others at the orders of the fucking cream puff.”

Phoenix’s entire face twists and contorts into a grimace mimicking a demon, something monstrous, something so wicked, yet filled with such pain and heartbreak.

Who would he have become if the King had never ordered the deaths of his parents? Who would Ky have become?

Another thought crosses my mind: Just how many lives has the King touched? Have any of us managed to escape unscathed?

I’m not sure any of us have. I’m not sure there’s a spot on Ragdon the King’s touch hasn’t reached.

“We lived for a decade on our own, and then we found you.” Phoenix fixes me with a harsh stare. “We found you and Alex. We killed Guard and Soldiers, every single one we came across. I never got my shot at the cream puff, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was getting stronger. Nothing will burn unless I want it to. Never again will a home burn down under the orders of the cream puff.”

The skin where Phoenix burned me itches with the ghost of his fire and I resist the urge to scratch.

“We’re stronger as a team,” Myles says.

“We are,” Ky agrees, “but we don’t know where to go. Phoenix and I were stuck for a decade. No, don’t give me that face and disagree— we were. We’ve gone a hell of a lot farther in the time we’ve known Grey and Alex than we ever did in the previous decade. But still…”

“Poppy is her name.” Phoenix flexes his claws, jaw tight.

“Her name is Poppy,” I say, nodding.

“The cream puff took everything. I didn’t even know what it truly meant to lose someone to death when I was ten, but the cream puff took everyone except Ky. He would have taken my entire family, including me, if not for the fact that Ky and I just so happened, through sheer luck, to be playing out in the forest.”

“Grey’s killed, we just offed a slew of Guard and Soldiers and sent them to Lucius on one of the King’s shiny silver platters, and we’re on the side of the Badlands we know the least about,” Myles says, swinging his red wooden staff in an arc. “What do we do?”

“The better question is where do we go,” Wyatt adds.

“We find where the Midnight Wolves originate,” Ky says.

“We find the new Midnight Wolf,” I say.

“I get that.” Wyatt nods, twisting their lips and rocking back on their feet. “But where. We’re past the Badlands. We’ve made it through, but this is still far too big an area to reasonably search.”

Wyatt gestures to the expanse of land around us. Scraggly grass surrounds us, rising up to above our knees a ways off in the distance up ahead, but off to the east, walking alongside Ragdon Volcano, the ground turns into rocky sand. They are right; Ragdon isn’t exactly a huge island, but it’s not small. We cannot search it all in any sort of short amount of time. We could never hope to find Alex with anything short of extraordinary luck and both Erebus and Lucius helping.

“I…” I hum, tapping my fingers together as nerves begin to twirl and stir and tighten.

Which way, which way, which way? they ask, taunting and demanding and whispering such horrible things.

How come you haven’t found Alex yet?

How come you haven’t found her?

She would have found you, you know. She would’ve found you by now. She probably hates you. She’s probably wondering where you are. She probably thinks you betrayed her. She probably thinks you’ve turned your back on her, you monster.

I’m not a monster, I reply.

Monsters do monstrous things, they respond, echoing what Phoenix told Jabez when the Guard and Soldiers attacked the Sea in the fight that resulted in Arcane coming down from Ragdon Volcano, shedding the Midnight Tear, and Alex disappearing.

I would never abandon my sister.

Are you sure? Where is Alex right now?

I’m trying to figure that out, I plead. I’m not a monster. I’m not.

I dig my nails into my palms, leg shaking so I shift my weight to the other. I clear my throat and run a hand through my hair.

“Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas?” I ask, forcing my attention away from my mind. It’s too mean, too cruel right now. I need a distraction; I need to do something to show myself that I’m going to find my sister, that I’m not a monster. “Anything they might’ve heard that could be useful?”

“I say we head up to Ananta Spring,” Myles says. “I feel like that’s a good starting point. We can walk along Aiyana River to the Arcane Delta. Perhaps the spawning place will be somewhere along there? I don’t think it would be somewhere here, out in the Badlands. That’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Wyatt purses their lips. “True.”

I exhale and curl my fingers through my hair. “But what if that’s wrong? What if it is in the middle of nowhere? What if it’s intentionally exactly where no one is gonna look? What if it’s right where we’d never even think of? What if we miss it and we never find the new Midnight Wolf and then we never find Alex and I never, ever see her again? How could I live with myself?”

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“Deep breath, Grey,” Wyatt murmurs. They take an exaggerated breath in, then blow it out loudly. “Inhale with me. Then exhale.”

I watch them and force myself to follow. My heart pounds in my chest, loud enough that I can hear it, can feel it throughout my body. Fingers tingling, a sort of hysteria bubbles up in my chest. It’s the kind that makes me want to giggle. The absurdity of the situation strikes me like a fist to the chest: Alex and I went from living as nobodies in the Sea to finding necklaces to nearly getting killed at the King’s orders to running for our lives with the knowledge and the weight that we’re supposedly supposed to defeat the very King who nearly had his Guard and Soldiers slaughter us. I wanted to teach. I never wanted to hold that weight of that responsibility on my shoulders. I never thought that scratching the itch of the urge to seek out the Erebus Tree would lead to such disastrous consequences.

I want the King gone, but does it have to be me? I don’t want to kill. I don’t want that attention. I don’t want a fight.

Can I do it?

How am I supposed to defeat a King if I can’t even find my sister?

No, I tell myself, knowing that Alex would tell me the same; she wouldn’t let me speak so poorly. I cannot let myself do the same.

With several deep breaths, I center myself.

I can find Alex. I can, and I will. I won’t stop searching.

“I have an idea,” Ky says. “I don’t know if it will work, though.”

“Try it.” It’s worth a try. Anything is.

Ky nods and closes his eyes. Widening his stance, the tan cat lets his ears fall to the side as he concentrates. His sides heave with several long inhales and exhales through gritted teeth, bordering on hisses.

When Ky opens his eyes, they’re glazed over, but I see no illusion; no one around me appears affected, either. Nothing seems to happen for what feels like a short eternity, some long while that stretches on for seemingly forever. Ky breathes slowly, every inhale longer than the previous.

But then I start to see flickers of color, little bits and pieces of illusions, things I know are not real but look so convincing. They seem to be right there, right in front of me and Ky, floating between all of us. If I just reach out my hand, I feel certain I could touch them. Ky’s fur begins to sway and my hair rustles against the back of my neck as a wind picks up, then blows harder as the illusions grow in number and strength.

With a grimace, Ky braces himself and furrows his eyebrows, unsheathing his claws and pinning his ears as he waves his tail back and forth.

Illusions swirl all around Ky, battering him and sending his long, tan fur thwacking his sides in uneven beats as it hurtles around and stirs up dirt and rustling the plants until branches crack and leaves scatter to the ground. Light glows and reflects in his brown eyes. Unfocused, he’s watching something I cannot see nor follow. Some of the illusions I can see, however, and what I can see I cannot understand.

I almost miss it. The red bandana around Ky’s shoulders —the blanket Ivy made for Poppy— starts to loosen. Myles reacts faster than I do; he grabs the bandana as it slips off.

Too absorbed by the illusions, Ky doesn’t react, and Phoenix becomes entirely focused on the blood dripping from Ky’s nose and mouth as soon as he sees it. A little trickle trails down from his lips and soaks into the fur along his jaw and droplets of red run down his chin. A single scarlet tear falls from the corner of his eye, much like I’d seen on the Blood Demon.

Shit.

Phoenix inhales as his eyes widen. Nostrils flaring, he clenches his jaws and pins his ears. Fear erupts in his expression like an explosion and his flames crackle, out of control.

Ky’s eyes flicker between the illusions as he tries to work them out, and his ears swivel, tip of his tail flicking back and forth. Some are recognizable shapes —animals, locations, things— but others are far more abstract, and I don’t know what they mean. I can only hope Ky does. If he can figure it out, I don’t care that I don’t understand. It doesn’t matter. The Midnight Wolf will know where Alex is, and then we can find her and bring her to safety.

Phoenix bunts into him with his head, trying to snap him from using his powers, but Ky shoves him off and drives his shoulder into his brother.

“Uh, uh,” he murmurs distantly.

“What the fuck is going on?” Phoenix snaps.

“No,” Ky mumbles, turning away to focus on a smear of color in the air that I cannot make sense of.

I look between the two of them, as does Myles, who still holds onto Ky’s bandana. Poppy’s baby blanket.

“The fuck you mean no? You’re fucking bleeding, Ky! Stop using your powers, and let me help you.”

Phoenix rears up and pushes his forepaws into Ky’s flank. He stumbles, then sits down with his back to his brother.

“My choice.”

“It’s a fuckin’ stupid one. I’m not letting you make it. You always get to choose, but I won’t let you choose to hurt yourself. I’m your brother, Ky.”

“Fine,” Ky says. “I’ll stop.”

“Thank you,” Phoenix mutters. “Don’t hurt yourself. I won’t let you. I’m your brother. It’s us against the world, remember? Nothing comes between us.”

“I’ll stop because I know where the Midnight Cave is.”

“Midnight Cave?” I echo.

“It’s where the Midnight Wolves spawn.”

Hope blooms in my chest, a flower revealing its colorful petals to soak up the sun, a bird unfurling its feathery wings to take to the sky. If Ky knows where the Midnight Wolves spawn and where the so-called Midnight Cave is… then we’re close. Potentially so close. The dove within me flutters, chirring as it responds to the idea that we could be so close to Alex.

A shiver passes down my spine, and I rock up onto the balls of my feet, digging my toes into the sand through my worn shoes. There had never been a pressing need to seek out new ones in the Sea, and now I was regretting that decision, though I just had to find Alex first; everything else could come later.

“Where is the Midnight Cave?” Wyatt asks.

“Near Ananta Spring. Close to where Ragdon bends to turn into the strip of land that runs along the opposite shore of Aiyana River to the Garden.”

“We really need to burn that fucking place down,” Phoenix grumbles, curling his lip.

“Not right now.” Ky shakes his head. “We need to find the new Midnight Wolf and ask them about Alex.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Phoenix doesn’t sound convinced.

I take a breath. “Alex is my sister,” I say softly.

I know it could easily strike a nerve with the story Phoenix told me about his own sister, Poppy.

And it does.

Phoenix scowls, expression darkening until he’s glowering at something somewhere around my shins.

“You think I don’t know how familial relations work, Grey?”

“I can’t let Alex go. I have to find her. We can go after the Garden, but I have to find Alex. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know what’s happened to her.” My breath catches in my throat. “If… if there’s something I need to do, then I have to do it. She’s my sister.”

Phoenix huffs, rolling his eyes. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry so much.”

But he himself doesn’t sound like he believes his words. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. With a clenched jaw, Phoenix stalks a few paces away.

“Don’t do something so fuckin’ stupid as letting a sibling go. You become able to do that, you’re as shitty as the cream puff and I’ll kill you myself. Only a monster can let go of a tie like that.”

“No one’s forgetting Alex,” Myles says, cradling Poppy’s baby blanket in his hands. “We’ll find her. We’ll figure out what happened. Where do we go next, Ky?”

Ky tilts his head to the side, drawing an oversized ear back as he thinks and scans our surroundings. A breeze blows by and stirs up sand and dirt. He licks away some of the remaining blood on his jaw.

When he gives Myles a pointed look, he hands the red bandana back to Ky, helping to slip it over the fluffy tan cat’s head and arranging it over his shoulders.

“This way.”

He pushes up on his haunches and starts off in a direction I wouldn’t have walked in myself. I would have guessed we should be heading more directly toward Ananta Spring. Instead, Ky makes his way to the east.

However, as we begin walking, I start to feel. A thrum of something hums within me, buzzing through my skin. The malachite medallion responds in kind, heating up against my chest with a pulsing energy. Feathers sprout along my neck and back. I extend my fingers as my arms go rigid and I resist the urge to shift into my dove form.

“Grey, what’s going on?” Wyatt asks. They move to stand at my side.

I force my legs to keep moving.

I have to find Alex, I tell myself. Have to find Alex.

“Keep going,” I ground out. “I’ll be fine. We need to find the place where they spawn.”

“The magic of the Wolf and the Dove must be more closely tied to the magic of the Midnight Wolves than I thought,” Ky muses.

“I thought you said-.”

“Whatever Ky said, he doesn’t really know,” Phoenix interrupts.

“I only have some educated guesses. Let’s keep going.”

We’ve only walked for another few minutes when Phoenix speaks again.

“So, Ky,” he says, “what was that blood about when you were weaving those illusions? You gonna tell me? I’m not gonna let it happen again.”