Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

34. Envious of Fire.

—?—

Tristan watches from his chair, many tables away, as Mance perks up, completely thrown by the voice. The room seems to calm as well, despite the very air still vibrating with terror and mounting heat. The perimeter of the room has begun to glow a deep and threatening red, suggesting other things have caught fire, too, out of view. As of yet, the flames still seem completely under Mance’s control. This is important, Tristan decides.

As the last thing he wants is for the House itself to burn.

Mance appears amused by the voice. “My, my. You love to make a dramatic entrance, just like I do. Where the fuck are ya, sugar bottom?” He squints at the guests one by one, circling the top of his table. “Gonna make me play Where’s Waldo ?”

We are nothing without the gifts we give one another , Tristan goes on—and it is entirely with his mind that he makes these words, his lips remaining still. Gestures of acknowledgement, no matter if the gift is well-intended … or a mysterious threat in a box . It is the world’s earliest form of communication, even before words …

Mance laughs, finding that funny. “Tristan, you feisty little minx. Am I well-intended? Or am I a threat?” He leaps onto a neighboring table, inspects more faces. “You’re just in time for my big finale. Aren’t you excited? I know you wanna see this pompous asshole dead as badly as I do.”

Did I really say that? I can’t be so sure . I say many things I don’t mean . Once, I told my dentist he had astounding bone structure and should drop his practice and go into modeling …

“If you keep yappin’ and bein’ cute …” Mance crouches down, yanks back someone’s head by their hair to inspect their face, lets it go. “… this whole place and every last snob in it will burn to the ground before you arrive at your point.”

Thankfully he didn’t follow my advice . But he was murdered a year later by his own wife after she caught him cheating with the babysitter . A pity . My point is that everyone in this room can walk away satisfied . Everyone could get what they want . Including you .

“And how do we do that? By not followin’ your advice? Tell me where you’re hidin’, I’m runnin’ outta patience awful fast.”

As it turns out, I am unable to hide . I’m trapped in a chair, same as everyone else, with my ass slowly falling asleep . If you allowed us to move, I might cheerily rise to my feet and give you a wave .

“Nice try.”

By the way, do you realize you are showcasing both your skillsets at once? Fire and death … You have such incredible talent .

“Sayin’ things you don’t mean again, huh? Could’ve talked earlier usin’ your mind talent long before I let y’all scream.” He leaps on another table, each time causing its contents to rattle, puts his foot on someone’s face, gives it a shove, lets their chair fall back as they shout out. “So why’re you chimin’ in now?”

We had a deal, Mance .

It’s then that he comes to a stop, eyes landing on Tristan.

The corners of his lips curl up with chilling satisfaction.

Mance approaches, crouches down, props his elbows up on his knees. “Howdy, partner. Cute hair.” He chuckles. “It don’t matter what you say. Your Lord Markadian’s life ends tonight. What happens with my fire, well, that’s up to the fire. It enjoys to eat its fill just like a fuckin’ vampire does, eatin’ and eatin’ ‘til there ain’t even a carcass left to suck marrow out of.”

I find myself so envious of fire . Tristan’s smile persists, lost in Mance’s eyes. No one ever blames the fire for eating its fill, only the person who sets it loose .

“So am I the one to blame?”

We’re all to blame . Tristan’s face twists. Please honor our deal .

Mance smirks, gnaws on his bottom lip, looking positively tickled by the power he wields.

“For fuck’s sake,” comes Markadian, “I have told you what you needed to know! The truth! Your witch-hunter wife is dead and gone and deserves to be! Now end this performance, let us go, and I will see to it that all your past crimes are absolved, including this one. My council is here, all of them witness. Do you all concur? Excellent,” he says without awaiting an answer. “Mance, your crimes were made in the heat of not knowing the truth. All is forgiven. Now be a decent man and end this.”

Tristan grimaces.

Mance clenches his eyes shut. Bows his head.

Slowly, the flaming tables begin to weaken, lowering, down and down their fingers pull, until they’re nothing more than glowing embers upon the red tablecloths.

“A decent man …?” asks Mance.

Then his eyes pop open. He slides off the table. Grabs the back of Tristan’s chair, startling him—and proceeds to drag it across the room.

Mance … Tristan tries. He can’t budge even a finger. Faces pass by, faces filled with fear, eyes connecting to Tristan’s, all of them watching, worried, wondering what’s next. Mance, please .

Mance carelessly flings Tristan’s chair next to Markadian’s, putting the two side-by-side. He steps back, his shape eclipsing the gloomy, deep-red darkness behind him. “Peas in a fuckin’ pod, you two.” Mance snorts, shakes his head. “Manipulators. Tricksters. You both will say whatever the fuck you need to, lie through your fangy-ass teeth, actin’ like you’re above punishin’, above everyone else, worm your way out of anythin’, like you’re un-fuckin’-touchable …”

Tristan glances past Mance.

A few tables beyond, not too far away.

Kyle is watching, prisoner to a chair of his own. His eyes, wet with fear and emotion, close enough to the stage that the spotlight glimmers in them, staring back at Tristan.

Tristan can’t imagine what Kyle is thinking right now. The pain in his heart, feeling betrayed by all the lies Tristan has told over the decades they spent together, all the times he consoled Kyle over a family he lost, a brother he could never imagine he would see again.

How does one even begin to process such deceit?

Kyle may never forgive him. He may never understand why Tristan didn’t just bring Kaleb along for the ride. That it was a fleeting moment of selfishness that caused Tristan to hesitate, to hide Kaleb, to cause him to get caught by the wrong people and taken away.

So many terrors in their lives, caused by little moments of misjudgment.

Then Tristan notices the person standing next to Kyle, a vampire with long white hair in a reddish-purple catsuit—one of Mance’s new Feral pals. This one carries a long, curved sword at his side and seems oddly fixated on Kyle, eyes wide, lips pulled into the most bizarre, lopsided grin.

“Oh, hold on now.” Mance follows Tristan’s line of sight, sees Kyle. “Did I … Did I misjudge?” A glint of mischief enters his eyes when he peers back at Tristan. “Is that the guy you’re so desperate to protect? The loser from that rinky-dink town?”

Tristan peels his gaze from the vampire and Kyle, looking upon Mance with innocent, blinking eyes.

Mance grins. “Y’know what, Tristan? You’re right … dead right. About it all. Givin’ gifts, honorin’ deals, the whole thing. And I think I will honor that deal of ours.”

He lifts a hand, snaps his fingers.

At once, Kyle rises from his chair, leaves the vampire with the sword, walks toward Mance.

Then trips over someone’s foot.

Slams face-first onto the floor.

“He’s a clumsy dude, huh?” Mance chuckles, then twirls his finger in the air. Kyle grimaces as he, with forced and unnatural movement, rises back to his feet, now with a bright red spot on his forehead and cheek, wincing, breathing hard, continues his way. “Hey, watch your step,” taunts Mance, “don’t go trippin’ on anyone else’s Louis Vuitton’s.”

Kyle comes to an abrupt stop in front of Tristan, breathing heavy, still cringing in pain from the fall. Their eyes reconnect. He is in a full state of panic, and for so many reasons, one of which still clings to the ceiling of a cage far behind him.

Mance clicks his tongue at Tristan. “It’s rude of you to stay sittin’ in the presence of the man you care so dang much for.”

Tristan at once stands, unable to stop his body from acting at Mance’s behest, turns militantly, faces Kyle.

The two stare silently into one another’s eyes.

Kyle into Tristan’s. Tristan into Kyle’s.

Mance lets out a snort of amusement, then reaches into a pocket and pulls something out.

A test tube of dark liquid.

With a smirk, he extends it to Tristan. “Here’s to honorin’ the deal. Giving back your precious collateral. See? Ain’t I such a stand-up guy?”

Tristan stares at the tube, the dark blood swirling inside.

Kyle, too, but with a note of confusion.

“What?” asks Mance. “Ain’t you gonna take it?”

Tristan’s jaw tightens. It may have escaped your attention, but I still cannot move my —

“You do know what happens if this spills, right? Wait.” His eyes gleam with wickedness. He’s getting off on this. “I never went into it, did I? You don’t know the nitty-gritty. Like, what actually happens if this dark shit spills out. Let me describe it to you. In detail.” Wiggling the test tube precariously between two fingers, its contents seesawing from side to side in front of Tristan’s eyes, Mance lowers his voice. “Every bead you ate, it was like the slowest-ass signature you’ve ever scratched on the bottom line of a contract with Death. Every bead you ate, you locked up the soul of the one you were so desperate to protect. It’s like you took that soul outta Death’s daycare, arrogantly tellin’ Death that you can take better care of it. Death listened every single time you crunched a bead between those teeth and gave a pretty little thought to your loved one. Death obliged you, too. Death let go. Their soul’s blood is trapped in this test tube whether they want it to be or not. How’s that sound? I bet you didn’t even know souls can bleed.”

Kyle’s eyes reflect terror. “Tristan … what did you do?”

Tristan stares back, silent.

“So when this lil’ ol’ thing spills,” Mance goes on, “the soul of your dearly beloved spills out, too, bleedin’ all over the place, all of it, right in front of your eyes. You ever seen what a person looks like without their soul?” He wiggles the tube again. “Just reach out and take it. Otherwise this cutie-pie you love so much ain’t gonna look all that cute in a little bit …”

“T-Tristan,” hisses Kyle, panicking.

“Why the hell aren’t you takin’ it? Tell you what. At the count of three, I let go. The moment it’s outta my hands, it’s no longer my concern. Last warning. Reach out n’ take it.”

“Tristan!” cries Kyle, shaking.

“One …”

Do you know what I miss the most about our years together? asks Tristan—only to Kyle’s mind, no one else, lips remaining still.

“Two …”

Kyle’s eyes fill with tears, lips quivering.

That nothing else existed in the universe except us . Not even our pasts . Our pain . It was only you and me, my love .

“Three.”

Only you … and me .

Mance lets go of the tube.

It spins in the air, flipping round and round.

Past their eyes, lower and lower it falls, dropping between the canyon of their bodies, out of sight.

Shatters on the floor.

A moment passes, breathless, weightless, and silent.

Even the Ferals have frozen in place, waiting.

Mance takes a step back. He squints in thought. “So … it wasn’t this Kyle guy here? I got it wrong? Who—” He points at Kyle, then Markadian, then drops his hand. “Who the hell—?”

The next instant, thick black fluid spews from Mance’s lips.

Splatters across Markadian’s face and chest.

Pours over the floor.

“What in the f—?” Mance gags through the fluid, chokes, staggers backwards, slams against the nearest table. “F-Fuckin’ fuck?! Did you—?” Then he retches again, black spilling over his chin, creating a bib down his chest.

Specks of black now paint Tristan’s cheeks. I really wish you hadn’t spilled the tube like that .

“D-Did you seriously fuckin’—” Mance doubles over and hollers out in anguish, gripping his stomach.

You were the only one I thought of with every bite of a bead … the one I wanted to protect . You were doing such a deadly deed for me, after all . Wouldn’t you need all the protection you could get?

Shadows have emerged around Mance’s eyes, swirling and pulsing. He slaps a hand to his mouth to stop another wave of dark blood spewing out, but it only succeeds in seeping through his odd fingertips, which Tristan notices have gone completely black, the darkness spreading up his arms in twisted veins.

It breaks my heart that in the end, the one you needed the most protection from … was yourself .

Mance screams, with a force from the deepest abyss in his being, filled with earsplitting rage and torment, he screams and he screams as the black spills from his lips and his eyes.

The tables reignite, blazing with frightening power.

Everyone in the room stirs, their bodies freed.

The Ferals react, noticing, instantly on-guard.

Then it’s an all-out war. Fangs and torn dresses, throwing cutlery, clawing at faces. Screams ripping across the room. Glasses shattering. Guests charging at Ferals, grappling them, attacking. Ferals fighting back with wild ferocity, enraged.

Tristan doesn’t think. He grabs hold of Kyle’s wrist, tears off in the direction of the exit.

He barely manages three steps before Kyle yanks his wrist free. “My brother! We need to save my brother! He’s still—”

Your brother is safe , Tristan insists. We have to go . Now .

“I’m not going without my brother!”

Kyle …

“Not this time,” he growls.

Tristan stares back at Kyle, realizing what he means.

What he’s feeling.

How this scene of chaos so reflects the one Tristan dragged him from so long ago, urging him to leave behind his family in the bloody aftermath, his mother, his father, his brother.

Then Tristan gazes past Kyle at a sound.

A shout of anguish he did not anticipate.

Or perhaps he did.

It wasn’t just the tables that burst into flames. Markadian is engulfed in fire from head to toe, screaming, as Mance stands over him, black oil dripping from every orifice in his twisted, demonic face. Ashara appears to have made an effort to strike Mance with a chair, but is being held back by a Feral, and all she can do is emit inhuman shrieks Tristan had not thought her capable of, tears falling as she cries out for her brother.

Through it all comes the roar of a lion—as the room itself begins to flicker and twist in and out of shape, giving way to reality, its writhing synchronized with Markadian’s screams.

???

The fire rages around Kaleb.

The air so impossibly hot, stifling, agonizing.

He clings to the bars, but there is little strength left.

In his final moment of clinging to the roof of the cage, his shaking muscles giving away, he suddenly finds it funny.

That man who was shouting at him earlier.

Shouting at him to climb up the bars.

Banging against the cage to draw the lion away.

Kaleb could have sworn that voice … was his brother’s.

“Oh well,” he sighs as the flames rage on all around him, as the audience screams and fights and throws glass. “Maybe he is here to carry me to the other side. That’s why I saw him, here, for my final performance … I never woke from the dream. This is the angel come to deliver me. It’s my time. I must … let go.”

Yet still, Kaleb clings. He’s not ready to die.

He had hoped his time with Markadian would have led to something greater. His patience with Ashara. His love for Raya.

Perhaps it was foolish to wish for anything more than this.

It’s time to let go.

Kaleb squeezes the bars one last time, like a hug goodbye, and closes his eyes. “See you soon, Kyle … Mom … Dad.”

He begins to let go.

Until he hears: “Over here, Mister Lion!”

Kaleb flinches, turns his head one way, then the other, then veers his head back, seeing the stage below upside-down.

At the other end of the cage stands a short woman in a black dress and stockings, though with Kaleb’s perspective, she seems to be glued to the ceiling herself.

Raya.

Kaleb nearly lets go on accident from the shock of seeing her. “R-Raya! Be careful! The lion—!”

“The lion isn’t the enemy,” she calls back. “He is innocent, a toy in Markadian’s game. He’s just malnourished and doesn’t deserve to be here either. Here, kitty-kitty! Eat!” She dangles a thick slab of raw meat from her hand, her other arm not visible, perhaps buried in the folds of her dress. The lion approaches her, roars, licking his lips. Then to Kaleb, she shouts: “You had better get down here quickly! The banquet hall is on actual fire, if you haven’t noticed, and no, that’s not an illusion!”

Kaleb doesn’t hesitate, scrambling to wiggle his way back down the bars. But his muscles are weak, shaking, burning from having expended all his energy. His hand slips once, then goes his leg, and suddenly he’s freefalling toward the stage.

Until the violin he’s holding gets caught between the bars, sticking, keeping him in the air by one arm.

Kaleb cries out in distress, staring up at the violin, the only item keeping him aloft.

Somehow, holding on to it feels significant.

Like he’s holding on to many things.

But he can’t hold on much longer, even if he wants to. His hand, aching and sweaty, slips from the neck of the violin. While he goes falling toward the stage, the violin slides down the outside of the cage, vanishing into the fire.

His back crashes onto the ground.

When he blinks, only one eye shows the roof of the cage far above him, glowing and flickering in the flames, the other eye dark, likely blanketed in blood, a bloody eyepatch.

“Are we taking a nap??” comes Raya’s voice. “Up, up, up!”

Kaleb tries to wipe blood out of his vision, hisses as his fingers discover claw marks, stinging, throbbing with every beat of his heart. “Oh god …” he moans, in agony.

Raya appears over him suddenly. “Sorry, I don’t have time to be graceful, everything is sort of burning.” She takes hold of his hand, yanks him right off the ground with ease. “God, you look awful,” she says, then grimaces, likely not meaning to say it so bluntly. “Let’s go. Follow me. There’s a door.”

His wrist caught by her hand, Kaleb has no choice but to follow her to the back of the cage, where there appears a large door he did not see earlier. Just outside the cage, cradling a slab of meat within his paws, the lion sits, entirely ignoring them, now and then glancing over with concern at the pillars of fire dancing across the other side of the room.

In a flash, Kaleb and Raya are running through the great corridor that leads to the Midnight Garden. Every time Kaleb blinks, the hallway seems to change. A blink, it’s fully furnished. The next, it’s empty. Then it’s missing any color on the walls. Then there aren’t any doors.

“What’s happening?” asks Kaleb. “The hallway keeps—”

“It’s Lord Markadian. His illusions are breaking apart.”

“Why?”

“That Mance bastard set him on fire. All of these flickering illusions you’re seeing, that’s our Lord Markadian getting what he deserves—that’s Markadian dying.”

Kaleb slows, feeling gutted, comes to a stop. “Dying …?”

Raya stops, too. “Kaleb, we’re still in danger, we can’t—”

“We should help him.”

Raya stares back at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” She lets go of his wrist and touches his shoulder, leaning into his face, his one available eye. Her voice is soft. “Do you really not understand what happened in there? The lion? The cage? That was all Markadian. You … You were literally being fed to the lion for sport, for a damned show, to entertain his stupid guests because he found out you’re—” She chokes, sighs, does not finish that sentence.

Kaleb frowns. “Found out I’m what?” She doesn’t answer. “Raya …?”

The noises of flames and screaming still reach their ears, as does a sudden roar of a lion rippling through.

Raya sighs. “We don’t have time for this right now.”

Kaleb can’t stop his stomach from spinning. He might be sick. “Okay,” he says, deciding to trust her judgment, and no sooner than the word leaves his mouth, they’re running again.

They pass through an archway into the Midnight Garden. All around, the trees pop in and out of existence, but only some. Others remain when the illusionary ones twist away, the real trees and flowers mixed with the lavish embellishments of Markadian’s talent. Pretty cobblestone roads flickering away to plain cement and brick. Kaleb’s lone eye gazes upward at the glass dome that should show a beautiful array of stars, but all he sees is old rafters and beams stretched over a barren roof of a warehouse.

Like a dream fading away, showing its bare bones, showing its unremarkable truth.

Kaleb, waking up.

“Your life is about to start,” says Raya as they take a corner, hurrying down another path, passing the flickering trees and the real ones, the colorful flowers, the dull ones. “I’m going to find a new life, too, outside of this evil place. I’m never coming back.”

The words seem to chill Kaleb’s bones. “Really?”

“There’s nothing here for me. Not anymore. Perhaps there never was in the first place.”

Suddenly, it’s the escape plan all over again. His fellow Bloods. The night they crept down twisting, changing hallways. The night they trusted their lives to a nurse they’d never met, with dreams of a better life outside of this place.

But this is no test in disguise. This is the real thing.

Kaleb stops again. “We need to get the rest of them.”

Raya stops. “The rest of what now? Kaleb …”

“The Bloods.”

Those words cause Raya’s face to change. For a moment, she shakes her head, surely preparing to tell him no, to say it’s too dangerous, to say there’s no use—but she doesn’t seem able to let the words out.

“All of them,” says Kaleb. “They don’t deserve to die. My friends I made over the years. The ones who tried to escape with me. If they’re still alive … if Ashara didn’t actually kill them … I can’t leave them behind.”

She closes her eyes. “What you’re asking … I don’t know if we can, if it’s even possible, if—”

“You know the way,” he says. “You visited me those times, down in my cell, to hear my music. You can take us there. Let’s free everyone, every last one of them.”

Raya averts her eyes, appearing to regret seeing the truth of it. “Alright,” she at last concedes. “Yes, that seems like the right thing to do. It’s close by, just that way through the infirmary.” She eyes him. “That’s a lot of people, I hope you realize.”

“Every last one of them. We have—” Kaleb fights a sudden lightheadedness. He staggers, squints, grips his head.

Raya touches him. “Kaleb?”

“We have to get— god, it hurts —all of them out of here.”

“We really should clean your wounds. That poor, starved lion really did a number.” Raya looks him over. “Your cuts are so much deeper than I realized. Oh, and … and your eye …”

“I’m fine,” insists Kaleb. “Just feeling my pulse in my face. Or everywhere. Bit difficult … to breathe. I think. Let’s go … Let’s go and save the Bloods. I—I’m totally fine.”

“Kaleb …”

“Totally fine,” he repeats, takes a step.

And collapses.