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  For the genderfluid teens, enbies, and transgender kids who, like me, want to be the dark, wicked love interest more than we want to kiss them.

  THE SORCERESS WHO EATS GIRLS

  AT THE FORK OF the Selegan River, a full morning’s walk from the Fifth Mountain, a girl knelt against the damp bank, carefully holding the end of a fishing thread between her thumb and forefinger.

  She was alone, wrapped in a robe embroidered with spring leaves and crocus blossoms. At any moment she could fling it off to leap naked into the water and grasp the tail of a rainbow eel caught by one of her shiny lures. Her fishing thread stretched across this narrow channel of the Selegan, tied at the opposite bank to a strongly rooted maple with leaves as wide as dinner plates.

  For a little while, the girl thought she was being watched. But when she looked over her shoulder at the line of moss-covered alders and spearing-tall hemlock trees, nobody was there.

  As it flowed, the river rippled, catching sunlight in flashes and white-hot winks like the scales of the river’s inhabiting spirit. She reached her free hand to stroke the surface as if stroking a friend, for the Selegan was as friendly a river spirit as they come. Her bargain for fishing in its waters was that in return she always left a coil of delicate hibiscus incense burning against the nearest bed of ferns. The smoke collected in the curling fronds and lingered for the spirit’s pleasure.

  Water splashed up for her attention, licking her cheek. She brushed it away.

  “Hello,” said a cool voice behind her.

  The girl squeaked and dropped her fishing lure. She scrambled to the edge of the water, one hand diving beneath the surface before fear caught up with her and she let the lure go to turn and face the stranger.

  Standing under the dappled shadows at the edge of the rain forest was an elegant lady in a draping silk gown. Strings of dark pearls twisted through her black hair, and thin obsidian rings circled her bare toes. By the soft beauty of her features and fine clothing, and her sudden appearance so far from a road, the girl suspected this was a spirit of some kind.

  “Hello,” she said, for she ought to be polite whether this was spirit or human, ghost or demon.

  The lady stepped carefully against the moss, leaving narrow footprints. Not a ghost, then. Her voluminous skirts were gathered in one arm, but still a gilded hem trailed behind. None of the creeping ferns she brushed against withered and died—not a demon, either. The lady carefully chose a place to kneel and arrange her gown around her on the bending grass. Surely a spirit’s skirts would’ve arranged themselves.

  Nearer, the girl could see the lady’s eyes were a deep brown, streaked with gray and rust red, like the lava fields around the Fifth Mountain. The lady seemed only a few years older than the girl, and her skin was powdered a perfect moon-white, with a pink like peonies upon her lips.

  “How may I help you?” the girl asked, shifting the folds of her robe to hide her dirty knees. She knew she must smell like fish and mud, and her hair had fallen out of its topknot, black wisps itching down her neck. Compared to the lady, she was grubby and inelegant.

  “I saw the glitter of water and thought to seek relief in a drink.” The lady tilted her head so the dancing shadows slid over her face like a caress. “Then I spied you, and a sparkle of rainbow in your lure. I thought to myself, the Queens of Heaven have brought me here.”

  Breathless, the girl blinked a few times to clear her heart of its fluttering distraction. “The river will share a drink with you if you ask. And perhaps drop it a pearl.”

  “A pearl?” The lady laughed sweetly and touched her hands flat together in delight. Her nails were lacquered a shocking black.

  Both offended to be laughed at and tingling at the lovely laughter itself, the girl asked, “Would a pearl not be a wonderful gift?”

  “I have heard the Selegan River needs nothing so rich, but prefers more intimate bargains. An eel or two in return for pleasant smoke? That is personal, at least. Nothing like a pearl, which anyone might have.”

  “I have no pearls,” the girl whispered, dropping her gaze to her hands, confused how this stranger knew her bargain with the river spirit. Her own nails were even, and mostly clean, but the skin of her knuckles was roughened and dried out from so often being dipped in water.

  One lovely white hand touched hers, pleasant and gentle as a blanket warmed by the fire. “What would you give me for one of my pearls?”

  The girl turned her hand over so the lady’s palm fell against her own, and heat collected there. Beneath her robe, the girl’s skin prickled with a yearning she recognized but had never felt at the touch of a woman before. When she glanced up, the lady had leaned nearer.

  Those pink lips parted, revealing a small sliver of blackness. Beyond that pretty entrance, mystery and breath mingled.

  “Oh,” said the girl. “A kiss. A pearl for a kiss.”

  “That seems a fair bargain,” murmured the elegant lady. She lifted a hand to pluck free one of the combs holding her hair behind her left ear. Two round gray pearls shimmering with ocean reflections were set into the edge. “Or two kisses for two pearls?”

  The girl giggled and touched her finger to a pearl. It, too, was warm.

  Then the lady took her chin in hand and put their mouths together in a sweet, tender kiss.

  It ended before the girl even realized it had begun, and as her eyes fluttered open, she was very glad the bargain had been for two.

  But the lady’s eyes, so near, had changed: no longer rich as lava flow, one had sprung pure green; the other faded death white. Both pupils stretched long and narrow as a snake’s and were as red as blood.

  Before the girl could cry out, the lady took her second kiss.

  ONE

  NOTHING KILLED THE PRINCE.

  TWO

  KIRIN DARK-SMILE WAS EIGHT years old when Nothing met him playing in the wide Fire Garden in the third circle of the palace. Smaller, slighter, two years younger than the prince, Nothing stared at him from between willowy fronds of imported elephant grass and a dying orange tree that housed a skinny demon sticking its tongue out for her attention. She paid it no heed, perfectly intent upon the prince. Seven other children played in the garden, different ages and shapes but with mostly the same light-copper to shell-white skin, with black or brown hair and round faces. Nothing stared because Kirin was extremely deliberate in a way few children were: it came from being the heir to the Empire Between Five Mountains and knowing, even at a young age, how to pretend he knew who he was and what was his place. Nothing had no place, being Nothing, and her own deliberation was the result of taking great care never to offend or especially entreat. She recognized their similarity and was so pleased, she stared and stared until Kirin Dark-Smile walked around the star-shaped field of gilded impatiens and put his face in hers. He said, “A heart has many petals,” and stared right back until they were friends. They’d seen into each other’s spirits, after all.

  That was why Nothing knew, eleven years later, she had to kill him.

  THREE

  SHE PREPARED VERY CAREFULLY, for any mistake might ruin her chance to destroy him and escape unscathed.

  It would have to be done before the investiture ritual began, in the presence of many witnesses, in case Kirin vanished into the wind or crumbled into crossr
oads dirt. Nothing would greatly have preferred taking this risk privately, to kill him alone and never be noticed.

  She entered the hall between two black pillars, dressed simply in black and mint green, her face unpowdered and set with determination. In one deep sleeve she carried a long, keen-edged dagger, its hilt beside her wrist. She would draw it when she reached Kirin, slicing free of her sleeve and into his neck before anyone suspected.

  Nothing stepped lightly, slippers threadbare and silent. Her blood raced, giving too much color to her cheeks, and she struggled to walk at an even pace, to keep her eyes lowered as usual. She was terrified. Even though she knew she was right.

  The Court of the Seven Circles was a perfectly symmetrical fan-shaped room, from the black-and-red lacquered floor to the vaulting red-and-white ceiling, the number of pillars and their black spiraling tiles. The Empress with the Moon in Her Mouth ruled from the heart of the court, near the tip, enthroned upon a dais with six points. Her headdress lifted in five spires for the five mountains, and a thousand threads of silk and silver fell from the spires, veiling her in shimmering rain.

  Courtiers filled the room like chains of pearls and clusters of songbirds, in elaborate robes and gowns of contrasting color. Black and white was the mode of the empress’s family, and so most courtiers chose from the other bold colors: red and purple, pink and orange, or all six at once if necessary. Priests mingled in their dreadful pastels and palace witches moved in pairs, shaved heads painted with the sigils of their familiars and cloaks a blur of messy gray scale. Nothing saw Lord All-in-the-Water, commander of the navy, and his brother, the Lord of Narrow, and a scatter of Warriors of the Last Means in dour blood-brown lacquered armor. Only servants with their peacock face paint noticed Nothing, for they were trained to notice her. Notice, and ignore the prince’s creature. They might wonder why she’d come, but they would not ask. Nothing belonged in Kirin’s vicinity.

  Everyone necessary was present but for the First Consort. Once Kirin’s father arrived, the investiture ritual could begin. Nothing had to act now.

  She spied the prince a few paces from his mother, chatting with a lady of the empress’s personal retinue.

  Kirin Dark-Smile was willowy and tall, with white skin still slightly tanned from his summer quest but powdered pale to better contrast with his straight black hair, which was long enough to wrap a rope of it twice around his neck. He wore a sleek black-and-white robe that accentuated the same bold contrast in his natural features. Black paint colored his lips and lashes, and cloudy-white crystals were beaded into his hair. One flash of bloodred clung to his ear as always—a fire ruby, warm and glowing, which made his golden-brown eyes light up from within. Exactly as they should.

  Nothing slipped between two gentlemen and stood beside Kirin’s elbow. “Kirin,” she said, breathless with fear.

  He glanced at her, pleased. “Hello, Nothing!”

  It was his face, his friendly and teasing voice. His shape and tone, his long fingers and bony wrists, the lean of his body upon one hip so it seemed he lounged more than stood. That mole along the hairline at his temple belonged there, and the slight knot in his nose.

  But how could anyone mistake the left tilt of his dark smile when her Kirin always tilted to the right?

  He’d been gone for three months this summer, returned only yesterday, and everyone in the palace decided, it seemed, that such slight changes were but the result of maturation and adventure on the open roads.

  In her heart—in her stomach—Nothing knew this was not her prince.

  “Come with me,” he said. “Let me tuck your hand against my arm. I have missed you.”

  For the first time since she was six years old, she did not want to do as he bade.

  Nothing drew her long knife and stabbed it into his throat.

  It cut too easily through his flesh, up to the hilt, and Nothing let go, stumbling back. Her slippers skidded across the floor.

  Kirin Dark-Smile, Heir to the Moon, fell, his eyes already cold.

  Sudden silence fell with him.

  Nothing bit her lip, staring at the corpse of the prince, and nearly giggled her horror: the prince was killed by Nothing. How would they sing such a thing in the villages tomorrow? She caught her breath, eager to flee, but the court tightened around her. Silk robes whispered frantically, and she heard the clatter of lacquered armor closing in.

  Then the Second Consort screamed, and like a burst dumpling, the entire court bellowed in panic.

  Nothing backed away slowly. If she made no noise, attracted no more attention, they might ignore her another moment, and then another. Focus on the prince’s body. It couldn’t have been Nothing, could it, she begged them to say to one another. They’d missed the perpetrator—it was a knife that appeared out of nowhere. Search for demons!

  But Lord All-in-the-Water said her name with the weight of an anchor:

  “Nothing.”

  She froze.

  Her name whispered again and again, then rang out in cries of shock and wonder. They all said it. Ladies and lords, the musicians who circled the edges of court, servants, dancers, priests, and even from behind her silken rain, the Empress with the Moon in Her Mouth said it: “Nothing!”

  “But look,” said Kirin’s bodyguard, Sky, as he shoved past a pair of witches whose raven familiars shrieked through the aether—Nothing could hear them, but few others could.

  Sky said again, “Look at him.”

  The empress’s doctor and the pastel-robed priest who bent over the body fell back because they saw already what the bodyguard would show the court.

  There was no blood at Kirin’s neck, and his skin flaked away like the ashes of a banked hearth. It was an imposter.

  Nothing sank to her knees in a wash of complete relief.

  FOUR

  THE PRINCE’S BODYGUARD WAS named The Day the Sky Opened, and it was he who lifted Nothing back to her feet. He caught her gaze with his demon-kissed eyes and cuffed her gently on the chin. This was his only way of communicating to her his shame for not seeing the truth and his appreciation that she had. He’d never been one to speak volumes, especially to Nothing.

  “How did you know?” the priest beside the crumbling imposter demanded.

  Everyone stared at her. Sky shifted out of the way but remained at her side, looming.

  The Empress with the Moon in Her Mouth had stood from her throne, and though she did not speak, she moved one hand, demanding an answer. Her veil of silver tinkled softly.

  Nothing knew not to say that to her it was obvious the thing wearing Kirin’s dark smile was not their beloved heir. She knew not to act angry or upset, but to answer in the least memorable way. It was how she’d survived all these years.

  She said, “Because I am Nothing, the monster did not know to hide so well from me.”

  It worked. The empress sank gracefully into her throne again, and most courtiers turned away from her to speculate and worry and demand action, comfortable with thinking of Nothing as little as possible.

  Lord All-in-the-Water called for a great party of warriors to set out to scour the country for the heir, and the empress touched the red pearl at her right shoulder to approve it. While the Second Consort fled in a cluster of her ladies and the First Consort was sent for, the witches and priests danced around one another to study the remains of the imposter. Nothing listened to their conference, to the there was no demon residue and my raven did not shriek at any aether-marks and only a sorcerer with a great spirit—or a great demon—could make so neat a simulacrum. Then: Not a great demon—only the Sorceress Who Eats Girls keeps a great demon, and why would she touch our prince? Did the great demon of the palace know? How did Nothing know?

  As they argued, Nothing darted her eyes everywhere for a path through the colorful labyrinth of people. If she could slip behind one of the screens, from there she could climb into the smoke ways in the ceiling and disappear. She needed to be alone before she began to tremble.

  But the
re were eyes upon her. Eyes painted fuchsia and eyes painted peacock green and blue, the bright paint of the palace servers who usually avoided Nothing, or otherwise pretended to cough when she darted past. They would see her vanish and spread the tale that Nothing was a coward. She couldn’t have that. Coward or hero: either came with too much attention. Kirin—the real Kirin—had told her once, “If you do not wish to be taken from me, you can’t remind people you’re with me at all.”

  She leaned her shoulder into Sky’s chest, and the warrior stiffened but did not remove her. It was the closest he’d allowed her to be since she fell down from the rafters upon him and Kirin alone together last year. (It wouldn’t have mattered that they were alone but for how they’d been occupying themselves. Sky had suggested they kill her to keep their secret, and Kirin had laughed, promising he trusted Nothing’s discretion even more than he trusted Sky’s. That perhaps hadn’t been the wisest way to put it, but Kirin disliked allowing wisdom to hold him back from what he wanted.)

  Too late it occurred to Nothing that taking comfort from Sky’s present strength was the wrong move. They surely were the two people most in danger at that moment. She for stabbing the prince, even though it’d been an imposter, and Sky because he’d been with Kirin on his summer journey and was therefore the only person who might’ve witnessed the change from true heir to imposter. If Nothing correctly read the frequent glances of Lord All-in-the-Water and his brother, Lord of Narrow, they’d be coming for Sky soon, to demand answers. And she’d be in their way, reminding the world again that she existed.

  She pulled slowly away from Sky, eager to slip behind him, when someone hidden within the crowd called out wondering if Sky, too, was an imposter.

  Nothing shook her head, believing Sky was Sky, though only one of the frightening witches seemed to acknowledge the gesture. As the First Consort swept in ahead of his retinue, Sky stepped forward and plucked up Nothing’s fallen knife.