Curse of the Divine Read online

  Neither did Griffin. “He grabbed your wrist?” Griffin said, as if he needed confirmation that his memory was sound.

  Celia nodded. “That was Halcyon, then,” she said with something like wonder.

  For the first time, Griffin didn’t look like he appreciated the madness. “This feels like the stage I know—theater tricks and deflections and sleight of hand—so how can it be fooling me?”

  The bell above the door tinkled as Lyric left with their friend, and Celia let out a long exhale. The only thing Halcyon had lied about in that conversation was that only those born in the town were afflicted with poor memory.

  Because Celia and Griffin were afflicted, too.

  Chapter 5

  Celia paced circles around their room at the Outside Inn, banging her knee against the rickety table every time she passed it. “We need to flush him out.”

  After three days of questioning the locals and getting nowhere, she was in a mood. Every time she looked at Griffin now, she saw Diavala laughing, mocking her. You think approaching Halcyon will be simple, Inkling?

  Not only was Celia unable to talk to him, she couldn’t figure out who he even was.

  “You’re making me dizzy,” Griffin said, sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching her pace. He’d made some contacts in the town—Davi and the bartender, Giada, among his new friends, but none of them were the particularly helpful variety. Griffin was convinced that they were the best players in the world, despite not claiming membership in any Rover troupe. “They’re all in on it!” he’d said with glee. He delighted in the mystery of being fooled. His biggest issue was that they still hadn’t seen any Kids. In fact, there were very few young people at all in Wisteria: Lyric, Giada, and the town’s tailor, Michali, among the rare exceptions.

  “We’ve tried the cautious approach,” Celia said, ignoring him and continuing her pacing. Her nails were chewed ragged. “We need him to want to talk to us. And what could do that?” She stopped. Looked at Griffin. Truly, she had no idea.

  He stared back, then sighed. “My answer to everything is a performance.”

  Another beat passed. They could come up with some stage show to pique interest—something about Diavala, Profeta, and the Touch, perhaps—but most of the town already knew they were that inkling and that plague doctor from Asura. Word of their identities had reached Halcyon’s ears, she had no doubt, and it still hadn’t been enough to coax him out of hiding. Nothing they could come up with would top what they’d already done.

  No, it would have to be a performance of a more intimate variety.

  Shuddering with revulsion, Celia rifled through her bag, pulling everything out until she found her inkling quill. She paused slightly at the bunch of wisteria flowers from their first day; they hadn’t wilted despite being stuffed in a bag all that time.

  Griffin flew from the bed in a burst of agile movement, snatched the quill just before she could press it to her skin, and was back on the bed playing with it before she could even blink.

  “I meant we should go the main square in costumes and play with some purple and blue fire. I meant we should be our incredible selves and embrace our celebrity again.” He stopped lightly moving the feather through his fingers and looked about ready to snap it. “I didn’t mean we should be stupid.”

  A hot flush took over Celia’s face. Always so stupid, Cece. You’re always such a mess. Anya’s favorite lines.

  The pain behind Celia’s eyes flared, sending waves of stabbing agony through her skull. Her breath came in gasps, and she twined her fingers together, trying to still the way her hands shook.

  Anya had wanted Celia to be free, she’d wanted to stop the oppression of a crooked religion, but if Celia wasn’t free, and if the people of Illinia didn’t know the crookedness of their religion, Anya’s sacrifice had been for nothing.

  I’d give anything to go back in time, Anny. I wouldn’t go back to that stage and still my blade, I wouldn’t go back to the first day at the temple, or to our final inkling test when we thought there was no turning back. I’d go to that day before meeting Kitty Kay and make sure Lupita didn’t get you that message. I’d have never tried to escape in the first place.

  This prison was worse. Cold and lonely.

  With constant pain.

  Her headaches were penance for what she’d done. She knew she’d never be rid of them. They were manifestations of her guilt, the poison she was, her inherent badness.

  Sitting down on the bed, Celia bit her lip, chewed on it, breathing through her nose and trying to calm the mad fluttering of her heartbeat. “Theater won’t help us now.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to use your ink again.” Griffin’s hand hovered near her face as if he wanted to cup it, maybe stroke her hair, maybe bring her into a hug. But the last time he’d tried to do something like that during one of these attacks, Celia had lashed out and they hadn’t spoken for days.

  Inside his hesitation, Anya’s name became a refrain—An-ya, An-ya—as Celia fought to quell the wave of pain.

  It was a lullaby, a whisper, a plea, a question. An-ya . . . ? Should I?

  The ink was the only thing Celia could think of that could command attention. She’d done it for ten years.

  “If he and Diavala had a falling-out,” Celia said, inhaling a ragged breath and snatching the quill from his hands, “he’ll know about the ink. He’ll think this is intriguing or infuriating, but either way, it’ll get his attention.”

  She lifted it, pressed it to her skin, and drew, but paused after a few stokes; the black lines on her arm, in the form of a picture frame, gaped at her, distressingly blank, full of potential. “What should it be?” she asked, her voice quivering.

  Griffin looked up and met Celia’s gaze. “Are you sure about this? It’s the exact opposite of careful. Divine ink shouldn’t exist any longer. Beyond your personal stance on using it again, it also doesn’t fit in this world anymore.”

  “We need him to listen, and in order to get him to listen, we need his attention. So yes, I’m sure.” Celia wasn’t sure at all, but at the end of the day, the ink was the only thing she had. She was exceptionally unexceptional, except for the ink in her blood.

  Griffin cleared his throat. “Well, he clearly loves his town, and the town loves him,” he said, collecting the still-fresh (yet three-day-old) wisteria bunch Celia had tossed aside earlier. “Give him an innocuous image—something that can be seen as a gift.”

  With the quill in her hand, the familiar movements calmed the last of her shaking, the panic attack fell away, and she immersed herself in the drawing. She traced each tiny floret with care, shading them to create depth, until a hanging bunch was captured in the frame like a still life. Her stomach revolted from using the ink, but she couldn’t deny the feeling of contentment that surged through her for creating her art again.

  Griffin stared at the image for a long while. “It’s perfect,” he finally said with resigned acceptance.

  Celia sent the tattoo to Halcyon, transferring it to his upper arm. Griffin didn’t blink the whole time the image disappeared, line by line, from Celia’s skin.

  “Is that what it looked like when you gave me Chappy?” he asked.

  So unexpected, her bark of laughter, that it momentarily stunned her. “You named your plague doctor tattoo Chappy?”

  He graced her with the old plague doctor smile—the one that took over his face, wide and brazen. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Hmm,” she hummed, savoring that small burst of warmth, even though, for some reason, it also made her eyes prickle.

  When her forearm was bare, she severed her link to the ink and gave it to Halcyon. She’d debated making it temporary, pulling the ink back into herself so it didn’t stain his skin, but if she was going for a statement, it had to be as loud as she could make it.

  This would either go very badly, or it would work and he would listen.

  “Let’s go then.” Celia’s headache raged as she wa
lked to the door, the small burst of warmth already gone, but in order to capitalize on the tattoo’s message, she couldn’t stay hidden in their room.

  As soon as they were out in the street, they sensed something wrong.

  Deep rumbles rolled through the air around them. A dog barked in answer.

  Looking up at the sky, Celia pulled her sweater around her tight as the wind picked up. “Thunder?” It hadn’t been anything but clear and sunny the entire time they’d been there, but the clouds were forming and darkening at an alarming rate, swirling above their heads and blocking the sun. Another dog began barking in the distance when a second rumble of thunder boomed. A few people scurried for shelter, watching the skies with undisclosed alarm.

  The wind pulled Celia’s top hat off her head, and with a shout, she tore after it as it rolled along the cobblestones, pulled this way and that with every swirl of wind. She heard Griffin call after her, but it was a distant shout, swallowed by the howling wind. She finally caught up to it where it was trapped against a metal gate barring a private courtyard, flopping left and right and looking very much like it was demanding entrance.

  Despite their endless rounds of the town over the past three days, Celia didn’t remember ever seeing this gate. Beyond it, a wide cobblestone path led to a serene garden. Though most of the garden was hidden around corners, she glimpsed a bench, a large stone water fountain, and a series of torches and lamps, freestanding or hanging from the sides of the bordering building.

  Along the length of the path that led to that garden—climbing up the walls and arching overheard—was the thickest, tallest growth of wisteria she’d ever seen: wisteria wallpaper, a wisteria ceiling.

  Griffin pulled up beside Celia and quickly assessed the garden beyond the gate. “I wish I thought this was coincidence!” He bellowed the words so Celia could hear him over the wind, his hair whipping up and around his face, coils of black, loose curls writhing like snakes.

  “Look,” Celia yelled, grabbing her hat and holding on tight as she gestured to the courtyard. “Nothing’s moving in there!”

  Shingles screamed off of rooftops, window shutters banged and tore from hinges, and shouts from frightened Wisterians added to the cacophony. Yet the courtyard remained blissfully untouched: the plants didn’t sway, a butterfly flew by without trouble, and when Celia pressed her ear right up to the gate, she heard the soft burbling of the fountain.

  She pushed herself up the gate, putting her foot on the top of a NO TRESPASSING sign for leverage. “Come on,” she said. “This is where he is.”

  Celia jumped over, landing hard on the path. The wind still screamed on the other side of the gate, she could see its destruction, and when she reached her arm through the wrought iron bars, the wind bit into her skin. The clouds swirled in a heavy mass, black and crackling with energy.

  On her side, everything was calm. The fountain trickled, birds chirped, the sky clear above her head. The high tunnel created from arching wisteria vines was a luscious, inviting purple.

  Impossible. It was the same world, but the gate separated it into two distinct parts.

  Griffin was up and over the gate in a flash. “I love being guided by a hat,” he said absently as he looked around the different space they’d jumped into. That almost made her laugh again, despite her headache, despite her churning stomach and disorientation. Griffin wasn’t being sarcastic; he literally loved that they’d followed her hat.

  “I followed a dandelion seed once,” he continued, “but that adventure took a grim turn.” He didn’t expand, but his eyes darkened and his voice lowered. “As I suspect this one might. As skilled as I am with illusions, I can’t fathom how someone can manipulate weather. Are you sure we want to talk to Halcyon while he’s in a mood like that?” He gestured to the other side of the gate as the clouds finally unleashed their spoils: heavy rain pelting sideways from the wind, with the added ping-ping-ping of hail hitting like miniature cannonballs.

  After the chaos of the storm they were now separated from, even his quiet words sounded harsh and out of place. It unnerved Celia too. Halcyon could control the weather, disguise himself in plain sight, and frighten Diavala. This was no stage show. All of it was impossible. Who exactly were they demanding an audience with?

  Celia turned toward the wisteria archway as a tiny bird flitted among the flowers.

  “Part of him is also in a mood like this, though,” she said. “Whatever’s going on here, we’re behind the curtain now, plague doctor. He’s allowed us backstage.”

  Light footsteps sounded from the direction of the courtyard. Celia forced her shoulders to relax, dropped her hands to her sides, and straightened her spine. Inhaling and exhaling with exaggerated calm, she waited, each footfall clomping along with her heartbeat.

  Framed in the archway at the other end of the wisteria tunnel, Sunflower Tattoo—Lyric—faced them.

  Celia and Griffin shared a questioning look.

  “That’s not Halcyon,” she said. But truthfully, she didn’t know for sure. Everything was mixed up in her memories of that first night at the pub. Scrambled and opaque like the town itself.

  Griffin’s hand found the small of Celia’s back. “Hello, Lyric! Is your true name Halcyon, by any chance?” he called.

  As if summoned, a taller, much fancier person walked gracefully to Lyric’s side. The purple of the flowers acted as a filter, dulling his glowing—and quite confusing—tenor. Through the tunnel of arching wisteria, the two couples assessed each other.

  “What part of go away did you not understand, exactly?” he called. “I was pretty clear.”

  Griffin looked sideways at Celia, cocking his head. “So it wasn’t an invitation-by-hat after all,” he said.

  The storm, still raging behind them, had been their warning.

  Still, this was the most progress they’d made in three days. They couldn’t lose the opportunity, because Celia was positive they wouldn’t get it again.

  All in.

  Even if it was a most confusing play so far.

  “Did you get the tattoo I sent you?” Celia called back to Halcyon. “It was a gift.”

  He frowned.

  She’d gotten his attention, now she had to keep it. “I know you have something to do with the trickster deity I killed in Asura.”

  “You killed her? Or you convinced others you did? Don’t try to deceive me with wording, former inkling. There’s a big difference between the two, and you’re smart enough to know that.” After assessing her a beat, his hands fell, and he shoved them into the deep pockets of his sharp-cut black skirt, a gesture so unthreatening and normal that it shocked her.

  “I have a suspicion about what you want from me.” Halcyon turned and walked around the corner, disappearing from sight. “Come. Let’s get this over with.”

  Celia swallowed and took a step forward.

  “Not you,” Lyric said with a scoff to their words as Griffin stepped forward to follow. They held their hand up as if to push him back. “You are nothing. You have nothing he needs.” They smirked. “And you’re annoying as hell on top of that.”

  Celia looked back in time to catch Griffin shaking his head and smiling. “Honestly, what did I do to them?” he mused.

  “We work together,” Celia said. She reached out, trying to take Griffin’s hand in a show of solidarity, and . . .

  Her hand traveled through his.

  She couldn’t touch him.

  It was as if he’d disappeared, yet he clearly hadn’t.

  “Interesting,” Griffin said. All merriment gone, he frowned at the tunnel, at Lyric, at the corner where Halcyon had disappeared, before turning back to Celia, who was having a hard time remembering how to breathe. Impossible, impossible. She could see him, but her hands found only air. “This might be worse than the dandeli—”

  And then even the specter of Griffin was gone, taking the rest of his sentence with him.

  It was only Celia and Lyric at either side of the tunnel now. “Le
t’s go,” Lyric said, walking away.

  “How did you do that?” Celia demanded, her voice cracking.

  Distantly, Lyric chuckled. “If I’d tried to do that, he would be splattered on the bricks.” Their words were immediately swallowed by the flowers.

  In a panic that she might lose both Lyric and the one who’d made Griffin disappear, Celia ran through the tunnel.

  She reared to a stop at the other side, turning to the right, where Halcyon stood in front of a bright cherry-red door leading into a large stone building. Lyric strolled inside and vanished.

  “Where is he?” Celia said, her voice a shriek. “What did you do to him? How did you do that?” She looked around for mirrors even though she knew she’d never find them: he was too good to give away his secrets with carelessness.

  Halcyon laughed, a gruff sound like an avalanche of boulders.

  Panic rose in Celia as he spoke, but instead of letting it take over, she focused on the headache, the familiar thumps of pain against the inside of her skull. She welcomed each bolt, each torturous stab. They grounded her, reminded her of . . . Anya.

  Of everything she’d already lost.

  And what she could gain.

  She closed the gap between them, stopping only when she was within arm’s reach, and looked up. Damn, he was tall. His suit was perfectly cut, the buttons sparkling strangely, as if they were made of gems rather than metal. His features were angled and cunning, his chestnut hair speckled with gray that served to highlight his youth rather than detract from it.

  Celia’s gaze darted to his hands: long-fingered, slim, and fine, unused to work. He looked very much like he belonged on a throne—folding the long lines of his thick skirt over crossed legs and sitting back disinterestedly, burdened by the demands of his people.

  Celia tried to commit every angle of his face, clothing, features, and tenor to memory in case he managed to disappear on her again.

  He took a step even closer, his slender frame towering a full head and half over her. So close, she could see flecks of something moving in his irises: a tornado of variegated greens and browns, like fresh leaves mixed in a compost pile but flecked with bursts of moving darkness, like imploding stars.