Chapter 21
Nothing Lasts For Ever (Especially You)
TIA
The news hits on a Wednesday.
It’s still early in the morning, and I’m talking to Kiran about wedding plans.
It’s fanciful and a little bit unrealistic, knowing queer marriage isn’t allowed in Singapore, but I’ve already squeezed out what colour decorations he wants, what kind of invites.
I’m noting it down to tell Niko, who’d caught me last week and sent me on a covert mission to find out everything Kiran wants for the wedding.
Kiran is laughing about something, when he glances down at his phone and his smile dies.
I swallow my own laugh. ‘Is something wrong?’
He picks his phone up, unlocks it and peers at its screen. ‘Do you remember that bomb incident we had a while back at Sentosa, when Niko and I were in Malaysia for a business trip? You handled it yourself.’
The memory lodges something in my throat. ‘What about it?’
‘Did you know the Foxes were behind it?’
He flashes his screen at me.
A uniform I recognise.
A girl in a mask.
HARPER
RULE No. 1 OF NOT DATING YOUR ENEMY: DO NOT IMAGINE IT AS A RULE.
Rules are made to be broken. Instead, I prefer to frame it as a strategy, which I’m much better at following – and, in this case, it’s strategy that you cannot date the person you’re about to assassinate. Whatever the case, the simple conclusion is that Harper Leong and Tia Njauw are not dating.
RULE No. 2 OF NOT DATING YOUR ENEMY: DO NOT LIVE WITH THEM.
Some nights I hear about the Sentinels fighting Nagas or Foxes for moonstones, and I learn to set out a cup of coffee with no sugar on Tia’s bedside table while the morning news reviews an overnight arrest by the Sentinels of illegal magic users.
Other times, on mornings after slumping exhausted into bed after a night of Fox activities, I wake up to a hot breakfast in the kitchen as the Channel News Asia reporter on the radio condemns the latest ‘Fox heist’.
I take it as an apology from her for slamming me into the ground during a fight.
I pretend I don’t deliberately sabotage some of our heists to appease the Sentinels’ growing anxiety.
Basically, I break that rule – didn’t I mention I’m horrible at rules, anyway? – and cut my fingers on the shards of hope I harbour each time we do something nice for each other, on the shattered future I can’t stop envisioning. It’s whatever. Collateral damage.
We’ve settled into our separation. Even if it’s jagged and raw and avoided like a wound left to heal, I stay clear of Tia, pretending my heart doesn’t linger on her constantly.
I’m a Fox, and she’s a Sentinel, and life goes on.
RULE No. 3 OF NOT DATING YOUR ENEMY: IN ORDER TO STOP THINKING ABOUT DATING YOUR ENEMY, THROW YOURSELF INTO WORK.
‘Raven.’ Avyaan’s sharp voice snaps me out of my mental list, and I pinch my nose to ground myself. ‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes. Yes, sorry. You said we have a moonstone heist next week?’ God, I don’t remember the last time I slept soundly.
My powers pay the price, green fuzzy stars drifting around the phone screen with Avyaan’s exasperated face.
‘Isn’t this a bit soon? I thought our next heist was meant to be, like, three weeks away? ’
Avyaan clicks his teeth. ‘It’s changed. One a.m., Wednesday, yes. And I don’t know why it’s next week. The order came from the Foxes.’ He leans closer to the camera with a frown. ‘Look, have you been talking to Maria?’
What? ‘No?’
‘She said something . . . strange, the other day.’ He glances around, pulls closer to the camera. ‘She told me she has a deal for me. How do you not know this?’
‘I—’ My door flies open.
Tia bursts in, her chest heaving, her eyes wide. ‘Kit?’
‘What—’ I end the call and stand, taking a few instinctive steps back. We’ve been so good at keeping our distance that we’ve almost made an art of it. Habit kicks in as I walk round my bed to put space between us, and regard Tia from the other side of the room. ‘What are you doing in my room?’
Tia pulls her phone from her pocket and tosses it on the bed, gesturing for me to take it, which I do.
My gut sinks as I scan the headline. Why is this coming now, so long after?
When I look up, Tia’s gaze searches mine.
‘It’s not you,’ she whispers. ‘Right?’
‘It’s not,’ I confirm.
All the hard edges to Tia’s body seem to leave at once, rendering her a girl again.
Every Fox mask has identity-concealing magic, and Tia only recognized me because she’d practically figured it out. Now, she’s only able to recognize me because my mask’s spell has broken for her, but every other mask would still work on her. ‘You thought it was, didn’t you?’ I joke.
Tia rolls her eyes. ‘Only for a split second. But it’s a Fox, right?’
The masks’ magic doesn’t work on me.
‘Yeah,’ I confirm as I stare at the picture of Maria by the rollercoaster, a huge duffel bag on her shoulder.
‘I know we’re . . . weird right now.’ Tia gestures vaguely between us, her ears pink. ‘I just needed to ask. Did you know about this? Is this just the news trying to frame an innocent picture, or is this really the Foxes?’
My phone chooses to ring, and I tug it out.
It’s Avyaan again, and I pick up.
‘I know you’re probably handling something right now, but I need you to know,’ Avyaan says, his words strung together in a rush. ‘Maria’s texting again. She said there’s someone she wants me to meet. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t trust her.’
‘Do you have an address?’
‘I’ll send it.’ He goes silent for a second. ‘I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.’
Tia’s been looking at me expectantly. ‘Who was that?’
‘Naga leader.’ I check through our chat, and his message comes in. It’s an address I don’t recognize, somewhere in the industrial areas in the east. ‘You know where this is?’
Tia is blinking, her lips parted. ‘You just have the Naga leader on speed dial?’
‘Uh, yeah?’ I toss my phone onto the bed to her. It hits me how ridiculous this is, the back and forth, the bed an arbitrary obstacle to keep us apart. I don’t call it out.
‘God, the Sentinels would kill for your contact list,’ I hear Tia mutter as she takes the phone. She squints at it. ‘Hey, I know this place. We’ve been transporting moonstones here for Ferrix.’
I perk up at the mention of the moonstones. ‘Wait, it’s all there?’
Tia shoots me a sharp look. ‘Do not even try.’
Worth a shot. ‘We have a meeting there this Thursday, apparently.’
Tia tugs at her moonstone necklace, her eyes still fixed to the address on my screen. ‘Who’s “we”?’
I walk back around my bed to pluck the phone from her hand.
I’m reminded that the last time we were this physically close, we’d proceeded to break every futile promise we’d made about our separation.
I revel in it anyway, the brush of my skin on hers as I retrieve my phone, the smell of her shampoo and the tiny scar by her cheek.
It hits me that we’re on opposite teams still, but this feels like we’re okay again.
The observation unknots something tight in my chest, as if I’d tied myself back from Tia with string so tight that I’ve begun to bleed.
I imagine it snapping back over me the second Tia and I return to being Lune and Raven, digging back into my old wounds of loss, and I fight a shiver.
Does Tia know? How much I need her? How tightly I’m willing to grip the shards of our broken relationship, how ready I am to hurt for it?
I tuck my phone back into my pocket. ‘It’s going to be me, you and the devil.’
RULE No. 4 OF NOT DATING YOUR ENEMY: IF YOU CAN’T IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT THEM, YOU’RE ALREADY FUCKED.
TIA
I’ve never given serious thought as to how tight-fitting Raven’s suit is until I put it on. It’s tight enough on Harper – trust me, I can attest to that – but I’m a couple of sizes up and also not incredibly short, which is boding horribly for me.
Harper – Raven, I remind myself – stares unabashedly at my ass as I grab an enchanted mask off her bed.
I consider telling her to get herself together, but lately it feels like we’re both racing to see who can say less while holding the crushing weight of everything left unsaid on their shoulders.
Most days it feels like I’m winning, until I catch Harper staring at me with eyes so sad that my chest tightens and I look away.
The Fox mask is thin and breathable. I tuck my blasters into a cargo belt Raven hands me, feeling naked without my sword.
‘Can’t spare a dagger?’ I ask as we leave the car park. I drove us here and we changed in the cover of darkness, Raven’s illusion magic making up for everything the shadows could not.
Raven casts me a sideways glance. ‘To someone used to a sword? You’d be lucky if you didn’t stab yourself accidentally.’
‘You’re leaving me defenceless.’
‘Poor you.’ Raven cranes her neck to peer at something in the line of trees ahead. ‘You have the leader of the Foxes beside you. You’ll be fine.’
‘I’ve beaten you in fights – that’s not reassuring.’ As we approach, I see the moving figures darting into the warehouse – a Fox heist.
‘Name one.’
We walk past the heist. I quash the urge to stare in disbelief. Just let it go. I can do this, for the greater good. Follow my criminal ex-girlfriend through the darkness while her clan members break twenty different laws.
‘I beat you that time,’ I say instead. ‘On the Esplanade.’
Raven seems to take a second. ‘I fell – that doesn’t count.’
‘Chinese New Year.’
‘I was going off to . I lost that on purpose.’
‘There’ve been other times.’ When I look over at Raven, I catch her looking at me fondly. It’s jarring to see her like this, soft eyes over the hard line of her mask, and I tear my gaze away.
Raven tugs me to bushes and gestures for me to crouch. Several hot, sticky moments of waiting later, a girl exits the sliding doors, masked like the Foxes, tall and bony and stalking.
‘Maria,’ Raven breathes beside me.
Jealousy spikes in my gut. I ignore it, dimly wondering how we’d compare if I stood beside her.