A Liar's Twisted Tongue

1. Sometimes I Think I Could Be a Killer

DESDEMONA

The septic is a worn down and indigent place. All orphia who reside there are equally as depraved as their lands and of no greater value than the corenths that were birthed upon their soil.

– COLONEL JENDA’S GUIDE TO SUPERVISING THE LESSER ORPHIA

Blood soaks my palm, and I press Damien’s dagger deeper. Everyone in my life and I agreed: I would be better off powerless. But as I watch the separated skin of my self-inflicted wound sizzle and blister before turning to one ugly, orange, and closed slit, I know the dreams are more than I’d initially hoped.

The leaves above me rustle, and I clutch the dagger by the tip of its blade so I’m ready when the catch falls into my territory. I push away all thoughts about the dreams or the cut.

The austec scuffles through the tree. An ugly thing with bulky teeth and a long, bushy tail that is almost inedible, but it’s the best we have in these woods. Easy to catch, skin, and cook. Damien lifts his hand and a string of whitish blue lightning shoots one austec out of the tree. Before it reaches the ground, I throw the blade into its throat.

“Pst,” Damien whispers down, trying not to scare the catch. He’s high up now, to the point where the branches don’t even look strong enough to hold him. His words echo down the concave of trees. “Come up.”

I give him a look, one that I can only assume he deems unpleasant because it’s the one I always give him when my answer is no.

Not much later, he jumps down from the tree, holding a smoking gray bird by its feet while it seizes just before it stills. We don’t normally hunt the birds, they’re harder to catch and don’t have as much meat as the austec, but they sure do taste better.

“Should’ve come up,” he says.

“Why? Cause you burnt it?” I open our bag for him.

“No way.” He holds up the bird like it’s a trophy and smiles at me like I’m a child. “It’s perfect, Red.”

I shove my shoulder into his bicep, and while he throws the bird in the bag Marice bound for us I close my fist tighter, even though I want Damien to see the cut, my shaking hands and worried eyes. For his eyes to bulge before he diverts from his concern by saying he knew he couldn’t trust me to handle the daggers. But ultimately when he asks me “What happened?” I would tell him that my magic is manifesting and I’m scared of what it means, if the murder in my dreams is any consolation.

Of course, none of that will happen. Because my hands aren’t shaking and my eyes… well, there may be a hint of worry that I’m unable to conceal, but nowhere near enough to make him wonder any more than usual.

“We’ll have to cut it to see,” I say, wiping the blood—mine and the austec’s—from the dagger before I hold it up, smiling, even though I don’t feel like smiling.

Damien tugs the bird away from me. “No way you’re mutilating today’s prize.”

I don’t mean to get quiet, but I do. Mutilating is a word that hits too close to home these days. The burnt bodies and faces of my dreams haunt me into the waking hours.

“You know I’m messing with you,” he says, using his forearm to wipe his auburn hair from his sweaty forehead. “This is as much mine as it is yours. If you insist on butchering it, have at it.”

I wave his dagger in his face. “Maybe I’ll butcher you.”

Five austec and a bird aren’t enough to feed my mom and his family for the day, not with the trading he’ll have to do. So Damien scales another tree, looking for another catch, and I follow suit, preparing the dagger.

I used to think Damien only let me tag along with him to help my mom and me. It’s no secret that three years ago when we arrived in the welders’ village, we weren’t doing well. No belongings, nothing to trade, and starving. I hated pity, but even now, I think that if pity is the reason Damien and I became what we are to each other, maybe I could live with it. But looking back, he was just as bad at hunting as I was. He couldn’t aim and I’m still much faster, always been better with his daggers too.

Damien stays in the trees and me on lookout until the late hours of the morning. I carry the bag into the septic, but when he holds his arm out to me to take it I oblige, but not before giving him a long look. A warning.

“Be careful,” I whisper. When he starts shaking his head, I grab his arm. “There’s more keepers out than usual. I saw them huddling up this morning.” Then I say again, “Be careful.”

“Always am, Red.”

He walks to the saul, where he’ll trade the catch for the necessities—clean water, since the closest river to our village is a four-hour hike; clothes for his growing siblings, since the nights are getting colder; and the most taxing luxury, salt. I walk to school.

They teach us what they call the useful things here, which is mainly how to use our powers to strengthen our odds of survival, which are never very good in the septic. Even though the Folk can live well into their hundreds—sometimes even longer—most of us die out before we reach seventy. The Fire Folk hardly make it past thirty, and this is the last year I’ll get to be a student before I’m forced to take up a job as a welder. All Fire Folk are required to start working at nineteen, four years earlier than the rest. In the septic, at least. They want to make sure they get a good decade out of us before we self-combust.

This is the only village out of the eight I’ve lived in where there are more than a handful of us since the main job here is welding. Unless you’re trading and hunting illegally, like Damien and me.

Gathering is acceptable, not that berries are enough to keep the kids from malnourishment, and not that it’s easy either. Most of the herbalists’ knowledge is passed by word of mouth, which makes it hard to determine which pretty berries will sustain life and which will take it away. I know some of the poisonous ones, but only because I’ve seen them in action, and that kind of sight doesn’t ever give you the peace of purging itself.

Kind of like my dreams.

Today, Ms. O is teaching us how to hit a corenth to paralyze it—but not for hunting, for defense, so she says. Which doesn’t make any sense, because the corenths don’t attack.

“How many times have you…?” Elliae whispers to me while nodding her head toward Ms O.

Elliae is easily the prettiest girl in our village, with long, straight auburn hair like Damien. Her face is more rounded than most of the other girls, and the apples of her cheeks are high and bulbous. She has every physical feature you could ever want, and I always thought it would do her much better if she were off somewhere in a place like Utul.

Beauty doesn’t lead to pretty jobs here.

“More times than I can count,” I whisper back. But I’ve never paralyzed a corenth, that’s always Damien. All I do is finish the job.

“Did he go to the saul today?” Elliae asks me.

“Yes, why?” She doesn’t normally ask me about that.

“Ma told him not to. Something about a new shipment of Nepenthe.”

Suddenly, I’m cursing Damien in my mind. I knew it was a bad idea, going today, knew I saw more keepers than usual. For the life of me, I’ve never been able to understand why the Royals let them stay after the war. But they’re still here, after killing us for sport.

“Tell Ms. O my mom’s sick if she asks.” I stand up and slip out of class.

On my way out of school, I walk by the same old room I walk by every day I sneak out. One that hasn’t been filled for my entire three years here. Today the walls are littered with new posters spelling out sentences in color. On paper. Color on paper—something I’ve never seen before.

Paper is scarce around here and trees are illegal to cut down—a criminal offense much worse than hunting—seeing as lumber is a Viridian job. So seeing all these pages with things like Hard work makes the worlds go round or Your sacrifices strengthen us all, and my personal favorite, The key to peace is compliance, filling the walls is rather surreal.

I’m sure it has something to do with the keepers, and just what it means I don’t care. I’m more worried about how we’re going to feed ourselves.

My eyes catch on a small note, words spelled out in leaves and dirt, not fancy colors. YOU DESERVE TO BE SEEN.

Maybe that one’s my new favorite, for its comical attributes.

I slip out through another hole in the school that used to have glass in its place—so I’ve heard—and walk straight to the saul. Word around town says it’s the oldest building in this village because the Nepenthe took it over during the war and it didn’t burn down with the rest of the world.

But I’m too filled with anger to let the past get to me too. I can’t believe Damien went to the saul knowing the keepers were multiplying. Trading isn’t exactly illegal—but trading livestock is. Only the wealthy get to handle the corenths, not Folk like us.

I’m halfway there when I see him. I don’t change my pace out of fear of attracting a keeper’s attention, but I want to run. Maybe give him a good slap too. But the Nepenthe are fast. With super speed and agility, you never know when they’ll show up.

When I’m less than a foot from him, I say quietly, “What is wrong with you?”

Damien lazily rolls his eyes. “We needed water, Red. The little ones haven’t had anything to drink in a full day’s time.” I eye his pack. “Yes, I got you water, of course.” He hands me a water skin and I’m sucking it dry. I haven’t had water in a full day either. I can make it two and a half before the paralyzations start. His little siblings don’t have that kind of practice.

I shove the water skin back into his chest, hard. “But the keepers?—”

“Want to say that any louder?” He slips the water skin into his pack and grabs my arm. Instinctively, I look around, to my sides and behind me. “Stop. Eyes ahead.”

“They’re here, aren’t?—”

“Don’t say anything. I still have four austecs in the bag.”

“Shit.” If we’re caught, we’re screwed, and if we’re not, four isn’t enough to feed his family of five and mine of two.

We keep walking, eyes ahead of us, both hoping that they won’t stop us today. The smallest penalty for hunting is twenty lashes to the back, the highest is death. Four austecs is a lot more than one. One could be forgivable—an honest mistake, your first time. Four means you know what you’re doing.

My heart drops to my stomach when I hear someone say, “What’s in the bag?”

We don’t bother to look at one another, but I already know the face he’d make. It’d be the embodiment of we’re screwed. I make a mental vow to not die today.

Or tomorrow for that matter.

“Clothes for my little siblings,” Damien says. “It’s getting cold out.”

“From the saul?” he says.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what’s a kid like you got to trade?” The Nepenthe’s hand reaches for the whip at his side. A display of power. It’s not like he could use it now—whippings aren’t an easy punishment, they have to detain you and bring you to the post. No, he’s just doing it to show us that no matter our actual power, we’re still weak. Always will be.

I don’t understand why the kingdom still brings them here. The Nepenthe are disgusting, power-hungry, and murderous. This kind of thing brings them joy, and after killing so many of us in the war, I don’t get why we keep giving them the satisfaction.

I grab Damien’s hand—telling him to stay quiet without saying it. “Bottles,” I say quickly with a soft smile. “We hiked to the river and collected sand so I could make them.” Technically, making glass is something the welders do, only for the kingdom and other elites of Elysia, but there’s no rule against making it yourself if you get your own material.

“A Fire Folk, are we?” he says lazily, stepping closer and gliding his disgusting gray eyes down my body. I bite my tongue and close my fist.

“Yes, sir.” Not that he deserves the title.

“Shame. By the looks of it, you’ll be in the welders’ quarters soon.” By that he means dead. Damien tenses next to me.

“Yes, sir.”

He leans back a little, his hand still close to the whip but not on it. “Why aren’t you in class?”

I keep my face entirely blank. Unreadable. Nothing to show but what I want him to see. Nothing to use against me, should he find a reason. “Mom’s sick. Wanted to get her something warm.”

He smiles, eyes still on my body, and from the look in them, I know he’s more than just surprised at my fuller frame—which is a common look I get too. I’m stronger than the majority, Damien too, but no keeper ever looks at him the way this one is looking at me.

“She’s real sick, sir,” I say. “Freezing up and all.”

The Nepenthe grunts and then brings his eyes back to mine. “All you got in that bag is clothes and bottles?”

I tilt my head to the side, smile deceptively, and nod. “Yes, sir.”

He shoves his hand in his pocket, leaning to the left and looking around the space—the dirt, trees, and clay buildings—before looking back at me. “Get out of here. Don’t forget I made your life easier.”

“Thank you, sir,” Damien says, and I can hear his anger. He shouldn’t have said a thing.

We walk a little quicker than we did before, and when we’re a good bit away from any visible keepers Damien says, “I hate those creeps.”

“At least we’re alive.”

He stops and pulls me behind a tree. “Which way did you walk to the saul?” he asks me in a hushed whisper.

“Through the barren, why?” The patch of land that never recovered after the war.

“Marice is dead. Same with a dozen others. Whipped.”

This time, there’s nothing I can do to control myself before my face falls, lips drooping down into a heavy frown. Marice. We would give him the skins and leftover bones of the austec in return for the waterskins and the broth he would make of them. He made the catch bag Damien is holding right now.

He must be dead because he was found with livestock remnants. Because of us.

“Shit,” is all I can seem to say. Marice. I think of all the nights me, Mom, and Damien’s family sat around the fire with our broth listening to his stories of how he and Sevyn fell in love and survived the wars together. Every word that came out of his mouth demanded your attention.

“Sevyn? Is she okay?” I ask.

“I think she ran,” Damien says, looking over my shoulder. “Couldn’t find her anywhere. We should get moving.”

After a few minutes of walking in silence, I say, “Four?”

“Yeah, four.” He kicks a pebble.

I hear my stomach grumbling. There’s no way we could hunt again, not with the keepers. Dinner is normally the only meal we get, and just from trading for water and extra clothes, we didn’t make out quite as good as we usually do.

“Wella and Layla make it on one, easy,” Damien says quietly. The little ones, who are probably waiting back home for the water they were promised. Water they wouldn’t have got if Damien was caught.

It’s different for him than me. If anything happens to me, my mom would be fine. His family relies on him. Sure, his mom gathers, but plants aren’t enough to feed a family. And when the occasional survivor of a fire comes around for a healer, they don’t have much extra to offer in turn for her salves.

“Mom and I can split one,” I say.

“No,” Damien says. “No. You get two.”

With my stomach this empty, I’m in no position to argue, but Wella and Layla sharing one leaves him, Elliae, and his mom with one. He takes me back to my dwelling, and we unload the water, two austecs, and salt on the table, throwing a sheet over it in case of any snoops.

Before he leaves, I slip one austec back into the pack.

Night falls while I run my hand through the dirt, brushing away all the debris and filling the newly cleaned space with twigs and bark. I twirl a twig in the gap I made on a piece of wood, and when I see the glow of orange I place it on my pile of twigs and blow until fire catches. This used to feel silly, a Fire Folk using practical skills to start a fire. Now I worry I won’t have to do this much longer.

Mom has the austec skinned and on a stick, holding it over the fire. I tuck my knees into my chest and watch the flame. I try to ignore what it reminds me of, what it means to me now after ten nights of running from it in my dreams.

The dreams are only dreams, I tell myself. I’ll never be what I am in them. Even if I can start fires with my hands soon, I won’t kill anyone.

“You okay?” Mom asks, the fire turning her face orange.

“Yeah.”

“You’re looking at that fire like it’s going to burn you.”

“It might.” I smile to lighten the mood.

“Only if you fall in,” my mom says. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

I wish I could tell her. The dreams and the cut and the fire and the arson come to mind. All the things that occupy my brain when the distractions of the day die down. “Nothing comes to mind.”

“Your magic?”

I hold my hand tighter. “Still nothing.”

“Good,” she pauses, “good. Things are changing around here,” she says. “I saw more keepers today.”

I wonder if she knows Marice is dead and Sevyn is gone. “Oh.”

“I don’t think you should hunt tomorrow,” she whispers, making sure no easy ears nearby can hear. Nepenthe and their super senses.

“We need to eat,” I whisper back.

“Janice can get us berries.”

“She has Wella and Layla to worry about.”

“I’ll watch them while she gathers.” She turns the austec and starts cooking the other side. “It’ll be fine.”

“Won’t there be more work with the keepers here?—”

She cuts me off. “No woods tomorrow. Understand? Stay close to home.”

I push away the thought those words bring. It’s just anxiety, I tell myself. But staying close to home normally means leaving home, in the end.

“Okay.”

The next morning, I wake up before my mom and begin braiding my hair—but I promised not to hunt today. In that, I promised not to worry about our empty stomachs and to surrender to the role of the child despite my not feeling like one.

Despite being only a year away from adulthood in the eyes of the Fire Folk.

I’m a quarterway through the braid when I stop. Like old times, I climb into my mom’s bed. She mumbles something and turns to me, groggily wrapping her arm over me.

“I missed this baby girl,” she mumbles.

“Me too.”

My own grogginess overcomes me and I find myself falling to sleep in her arms like I’m a kid again.

I wake once more, this time to the familiar feeling of Mom tugging my hair into a braid. I smile to myself when her fingers run along my scalp, sending shivers down my arm.

“You have the best hair to braid,” Mom whispers. She used to say this all the time.

I fiddle with my fingers while she fiddles with my hair and when she finishes I turn to face her. Her soft hand caresses my cheek.

“I love you,” she tells me. “It’s you and me against the worlds.”

It is. It really is. It always has been. Everything we do is for one another. It’s that love that makes me think I could tell her the truth—that we don’t have long until I die. Because that’s the truth. That’s my magic. Whatever happens between that ending and now could be terrible, but she deserves to know that it’s going to end.

I open my mouth to tell her. The only words that fall out are, “And I love you.”

Mom smiles. She wouldn’t have smiled if I told her the truth.

* * *

I take the long walk to school. I have to see the posts. Make sure Marice is dead for myself—if they haven’t already hauled his body off.

I can smell the corpses and blood before I can make out what I’m seeing. Rotting Folk don’t smell much different than rotting corenths. When I get closer, I see the thirteen bodies still tied to the top of the wooden posts by their bloodied wrists, their backs barely backs anymore, more a mangled mess of muscle, blood, and bone.

My own back prickles.

But I see Marice’s face, his light-brown hair, and his graying beard. With that, I head for school.

More posters are up in the classroom. There’s a drawing of a glass bottle, one of a bow and arrow, and one of a felled tree, each with six words in red: If you see something, say something. A photo of the keepers, their gray suits and gray eyes, accompanied by red words: The face of justice.

I turn to Elliae, whose already usually white skin is paler than I’ve ever seen it.

“Damien isn’t in the woods, right?” I whisper.

“I don’t think so.” She leans closer to me. “You don’t think they’re here because of you guys, do you?”

“We’re not the only ones who hunt.” That is true, but we are the only ones who hunt every day. Our moms are Light Folk in a welders’ village, the only jobs that are available to them are packing the products the Fire Folk make. It pays even less than welding. There is no way we could not hunt.

Which means I don’t know how we’re going to eat tonight and I should’ve taken the two austecs yesterday.

The time passes fast, up until the point when I hear five taps from outside the glassless windows. Elliae says softly, “Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you.”

She always does, but this time it seems a little more dangerous.

I slip out of my usual hole in the wall, ignoring the influx of posters in the old room, and walk next to Damien. I’m prepared for him to tell me there’s a marenth or winster in the woods, because a bigger corenth like that is something he has no shot of taking down on his own, and I’m prepared to ask him if he’s dense.

But those aren’t the words that come out of his mouth.

“Your mom wanted me to get you. Said it was urgent.”

No. I stop so abruptly that Damien almost loses his balance trying to match my pace. He’s looking at me, expecting an explanation, and I’m looking at the homeless who line the septic, their missing limbs and decaying teeth, wondering how long I could survive as one of them. Because that’s what I’m about to be, considering that I won’t leave. Not this time.

“What was she doing?” I ask with my eyes ahead of me.

“She seemed scattered.”

Packing.

My entire life, it’s been one forced departure after another. It didn’t matter if I liked a place or hated it, we stayed until Mom said it was time to go, then we left. It’s a curse that’s followed me everywhere I’ve gone: the perpetual loss of everything I know. So when I look back at Damien, at his comforting brown eyes and shaggy auburn hair, I can’t help but grab his wrist and run, jerking him along with me into the woods.

“Hang on, Red,” he says with a laugh, but I can tell he’s concerned. I think we could survive in the woods. If I could figure out how to use the Flame I could cook our meals, maybe even kill some of the bigger corenths with it. We could do it. We wouldn’t be like the homeless living on the streets of the septic. We’d be like the corenths. Sure, hunted, but also free. I keep running.

The keepers don’t come this far into the woods, so when we’re almost to where we hunt in the mornings, I stop. Getting in isn’t the problem, it’s getting out, so I’ll convince him that we don’t have to get out.

“What is it?” he asks me breathlessly, but I say nothing. I don’t even shake my head, though I want to. Maybe I could just tell him about the dreams. Right here, right now. Say, Damien, I’ve been dreaming of starting fires and killing Folk. A lot of Folk. Do you still want to be my friend, or do you think I’m losing my mind?

“Will you stay here with me?” I say instead, looking down at the dirt. “Just for the night.”

He’s looking at me like I’ve just asked the impossible, and I’m trying hard not to show my desperation. A lump moves down his neck when he swallows.

“Yes,” he says, and I am in awe. That’s it. He can see how easy it would be to live here, and we can stay. I won’t have to lose anything.

We have hours until sundown, which means hours left to hunt, and all my worries of food for the night disappear. It’s better out here anyway, without keepers and with Damien.

Then he’s pulling something out of the bag. A handful of orange berries—which he must’ve gotten from his mom; a jug of nectar, which I have no idea where he got; and a bottle of rena.

A bottle of rena.

Rena is Lorucille’s makeshift alcohol for the poor, yet most of us here could never afford it. Damien must’ve read my face, because he says, “I traded a dagger for it.”

He only has two. Well, one now. One from his dad and one he traded for. I always used the latter, not because he didn’t let me use his dad’s, but because it never felt right.

“Why would you do that? You aren’t a droozy in hiding, right?” I joke with him, though I’m kind of serious. I can’t imagine why he would trade any dagger for a bottle of rena.

“No,” he laughs, “no. I noticed you’re on edge lately. I thought doing something fun for once could help.”

So much for hiding it. The way he’s looking at me is scaring me. His lips are slightly parted, and his naturally long and curled eyelashes make his eyes look almost romantic. If there were ever a time to tell the truth, this would be it. It’s funny, because I could, it wouldn’t take much work to say the words.

But it’s not just the words, and it’s not just the dreams, it’s what lies under them. It’s the fear. Not just about my powers materializing and not just the imminence of my death due to the Flame. It’s the murders, the endless murders. The proof on my palm that I am not regular. Maybe even more prone to death and destruction than the rest.

It’s showing him the target and handing him the knife.

“I have fun hunting,” I say, and for a moment it feels like nothing in the world has changed. For a moment, it feels like yesterday.

“It’s good to enjoy it.” Damien pulls the cork out of the glass bottle. “Because you’re not very good.” I can see the line of his smile behind the glass bottle. I smile back at him when he hands it to me. I’ve never had rena before, but I’ve always wanted to try it. It’s an ugly color, like someone added dirt to water, and it tastes like it too while also burning my throat. The few Folk I’ve met that have had vesi—the real alcohol from Soma—say that it goes down like silk. The rena feels like drinking the tart acid from an underripe orange berry.

“So what’s going on, Red? You ever gonna tell me?”

There are times when I want to tell you everything.

“What?” I smile and take another sip of the burning liquid, closing my wounded left hand so he doesn’t see the scar. “Nothing’s going on.”

Damien takes the bottle back and puts it in the leather bag before he scales up a tree like an austec. He looks down at me over his shoulder. “Coming?” The only time I ever climb trees is when I am looking for freshwater, and even then, I hate it. He still asks every time.

I shake my head no. He pulls his dagger from his boot and throws it down to me. Our routine. Only I feel guilty using his dad’s dagger after he traded his other for rena, for me, and I can’t even tell him why he thinks I need it.

I run my thumb over the orange stone engraved at the tip of the handle. Looks like a memor, one of Lorucille’s precious stones. It doesn’t belong in my hands. But when an austec falls from the tree, still squirming and unable to run, it’s my instincts that kick in and send the blade just under the ugly thing’s throat. The rustling leaves tell me Damien is climbing higher into the tree.

By the time he comes down, I’m starving, our bag is full, and the sun is setting. I shave a stick until it’s something sharp, start a fire, and Damien has an austec skinned. The purples and blues from the sunset are fading from the sky fast, and by the time I’m pulling a leg off the austec for myself, the sky is black.

When we get to the chewy, disgusting tail, Damien says, “Not it!” It’s funny, really; us and Elliae used to fight over who got the tail during the early days of hunting when there wasn’t enough food to go around. It got so bad our moms came up with a rotating system for us but never took the tail for themselves. Nowadays it doesn’t matter that no one wants to eat it, we would never waste it.

Besides, if I was hungrier, I’d fight for it.

My mouth waters as Damien grabs the orange berries and nectar. It isn’t every day that we get something sweet. He fills my palm with the berries and tells me the nectar is for after the rena. Smart. I try to take my time but end up shoveling the whole handful of berries into my mouth at once. And when the rena is in front of me, I find myself excited for the first time in the ten days since the dreams began.

We play a game Damien came up with—the one we always play when the mornings are slow, but with booze this time. One of us says three words and the other person has three chances to guess what the other is talking about. If you can’t, then you drink.

“Bright, cold, rock,” Damien says.

“The Stone of Light.” Soma’s Soul Stone.

“Good guess. But no.”

“Rock?” I ask.

“Is that a guess?”

“No,” I say seriously. “I’m thinking.”

He pushes his finger into the crease between my eyebrows, above my nose. “No need to get so perplexed.”

I scrunch my nose at him. Bright cold rock. The only thing I can think of is a Soul Stone, and the only one of those that would be considered cold is on Soma. Oh. “A moon,” I say.

Damien tips the bottle back. “That was fast.”

A moon is mysterious to us, seeing as we don’t have one on Lorucille.

Five sips later and I’m lying on the dirt with my head on Damien’s chest, watching the dancing stars. “That one looks like a soldier,” I say, pointing at a cluster of stars that looks like someone holding a sword.

“I’ve heard stories that they put the souls in the sky when they’re ready to rest,” Damien says, referring to the gods. There are three of them that everyone knows: the lunar goddess, Sulva; the solar god, Ayan; and the goddess of balance, Zola. No one talks much about them here besides my mom.

“That’s nice,” I say, but I don’t think it is.

“Des?” Damien says. His voice is soft, and it worries me. He also used my real name—well, part of it—instead of calling me Red. That means this is serious. I don’t want to do serious right now, but I flip on my stomach and look at him.

He doesn’t say anything, he just keeps staring. Until I finally lean in and press my lips to his.

I think I’ve thought about this a lot more than I’d care to admit.

I pull away. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Damien shakes his head, then grabs the back of mine, pulling me into him again. My lips grow numb against his—from the rena or the kisses, I’m not sure.

When Damien pulls away, he still holds the back of my head, and he says, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

Perfect.

“We can,” I say softly.

He smiles at me and pushes a piece of my orange hair behind my ear. “I wish we could,” he says again.

“No, we really can.” I’m sitting up now. “We can hunt, I can cook. We could sleep under the stars. It would be easier than what we do now!”

“Okay,” he says, sitting up too. “What about Isa?” My mom, who is leaving, but I don’t say that. “Or Elliae? Wella? Layla? My mom? The five of them are probably worried beyond wit’s end. Just leaving for the night was a bad enough idea.”

I lean back, away from him. “You think this was a bad idea?”

“No, no, Des, that’s not what I mean.” I can hear in his voice that he’s being honest, but it’s not enough.

I could tell him that the second we go back to the village I’ll be gone. My mom will drag me away to a new place, saying it’s for my safety, and he’ll never see me again. But I know how my mom likes leaving. Without a trace. Just because I’ve made my choice doesn’t mean I will disrespect her.

So all I can do is convince him to stay here, with me.

“You’re never going to be anything there! A Light Folk in a welders’ land? You know you’ll never get ahead, always barely being able to feed your family, having to choose between food and winter blankets. And me? I’ll become a welder and die just like the rest of them. We’re both damned no matter what we choose, so why not choose something for ourselves?” I hope that the mention of the dead welders won’t anger him. I’ve never alluded to his dad like that before. But this is important.

“Are you kidding me?” he says, and I know instantly that I’ve angered him.

“Damien—”

“No, no. That’s not cool. None of that was warranted. I just wanted to have a good night with you, get you feeling better, and you throw that at me?” Spit flies from his mouth, and his words are rolling out fast.

“It’s the truth!” I argue.

“I don’t care if it’s the truth!” he shouts. “This wasn’t the time to be talking about the truth,” he spits.

“I can’t go back,” I say.

“Do you think I want to?” He points toward the village. “That place is full of ghosts,” he says, referring to everyone else he’s lost in the fires. “And you’re right, I never will be anything here, but it doesn’t mean I can just leave. I was raised here, my family is here, and I’m sadly sure my future family will be here too! What you’re asking me is ridiculous. You’re asking me to give up my life!”

I wish I could tell him that that’s exactly what will happen to me if we go back. I’ll lose my life. I’ll lose him. I’ll lose everything. I want to grab his arm, pull him with me, beg him.

“Damien, you don’t understand!”

“Then tell me. What am I not understanding?” His face grows redder with every word. “I’ll be nothing and you’ll be dead. Does that not sum it up enough?”

I swallow and wish it was enough to soothe my throat. “That’s not enough for you to want to run with me?”

He shakes his head while sucking on his bottom lip before he says, “I don’t think I could ever run.”

So, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ll never convince him. If my imminent death isn’t enough, my leaving tonight wouldn’t be either. I drop his hand that I hadn’t even realized I was holding and I don’t think about how close I was to begging. I think about kissing his cheek as a final goodbye, but I just turn back to the village and walk instead, leaving the rena, the nectar, and the leather bag Marice bound.

I can’t bring it either way.

“Des!” Damien shouts. I keep walking. “Desdemona!” I don’t turn back. I kick a rock and try not to focus on the hole in my chest, in my stomach. Wow, my hands are really shaking too. My whole arm is; no, my whole body is. I have to do something. I have to do something. I run. I run all the way back to the village, all the way to my dwelling, where my mom runs out and right into me.

“We have to go,” she says to me, grabbing my shoulders. I turn back to the woods, hoping Damien will be exiting them too. It’s not safe out there alone, not if a keeper saw me run out, but he doesn’t come. I should’ve been more careful.

My mom pushes my hair out of my sweaty face. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been or what’s happened. She just ushers me into our dwelling and tells me to pack the things I need. I realize I still have Damien’s dagger. I have to get it back to him. If not to him directly, at least to Elliae.

I run out of the dwelling. “I’ll be right back!” I call. “I have to go to Damien’s!”

“There isn’t any time!” my mom calls, but I’m already so far down I can barely hear when she calls my name.

I knock on the door to Damien’s house and am glad when Elliae answers.

“Des?” she asks me in a hushed voice. “Is Damien with you?”

“No. He’s in the woods. I’m leaving tonight,” I try to whisper, but I’m so out of breath it comes out harsh. “I didn’t realize I still had this, but I couldn’t leave with it.” I hold out the dagger, the austec’s blood now dried to the blade. Elliae takes it quickly.

“Why are you leaving?” I can hear the worry in her voice, so I pull her in for a hug.

“I’ll be back,” I say. “I just had to get the dagger back to him somehow.” When I pull away, I look at her and say softly, “I’ll miss you, but not for long. Tell Damien I’ll miss him too.” Then I dart back through the village.

Mom is at the door, clutching onto the stone around her neck, a memor like the one on Damien’s dagger. She doesn’t look at me, not even when I’m a foot away from her face. “Mom?” I ask, but she still doesn’t look.

“We’re too late,” she says, clutching the necklace. “Oh Zola, we’re too late.” Her gaze sweeps through the village one more time before she pulls me inside. She rips the stone from her neck and picks up my hand. “Wear it at all times, under your clothes. Let no one see it.” When she sets the necklace down, she asks, “What happened to your palm?”

“Hunting accident,” I say, but there is a weary look in her eye.

That weary look translates to a weary tone when she says, “You’re sure about that?”

My voice is unwavering when I say, “Positive.”

She doesn’t push, just nods and pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. Something I didn’t know she could afford. “Read this as soon as you can, not now. Burn it when you’re done. No one can see it.” She pushes me further into the dwelling.

“Burn it? Mom?—”

“You can,” she says calmly. “I know you can.” She pulls me to the back of the house, to the one mirror we own, and I know what she’s doing—opening a portal. We don’t normally travel by portal. Too traceable, she’s always told me.

Her hand rests on the mirror’s surface and it turns pitch black, growing until it is as tall as she is. I’ll have to duck to get through. Before I have that chance, the door to our dwelling has opened and two people walk in. I look from them to my mom, who shakes her head and tells me to go. The closer they get, I can see that their eyes are red, like in our ghost stories.

Before I can assess the situation, I’m falling into the empty mirror.