ItCP26

## Chapter 26

**Chapter 26** of **Into the Crooked Place** follows **Karam**.

## **Full Version**

KARAM SPENT MOST OF HER time training the crew on how not to die.

They had spent a week on the train, crossing endless waters to reach Ejm Voten, following the map Saxony traced from her mind. Their army was split, with the buskers they had gathered from Creije on one side and the Grankan Kin on the other.

The buskers were versed in violence and the Crafters were versed in all manner of magic they had never seen, and so their army, haphazardly flung together, mortal enemies in another life—and in this one too—became mentors for each other.

On the days Karam headed things up, the Crafters were split into groups and assigned a busker to school them in hand-to-hand combat. On the days in between, Saxony and Arjun took the lead, and the Crafters played teacher to the chosen crooks of Creije, giving them access to new magic and showing the best way to use it as a weapon.

It was a hard thing to do cramped within the confines of a train, but the supply carriages were large enough to provide a worthy enough arena.

“Was this what you had in mind when you wanted to be a protector?” Arjun asked.

Karam heard the carriage door close behind him.

She continued wrapping her fists, preparing for the day of training ahead. When she finally turned to him, she saw that he was shirtless, too many staves to count inked on his skin. All the magic he had conquered and created, bound to him forever.

She understood taking pride in his accomplishments, but she wished he could do it with his clothes on.

“I’m saving the realms, aren’t I?” Karam said. It felt good to speak in the holy language again. “I’d say I’m fulfilling the duties of the Rekhi d’Rihsni pretty well.”

Arjun looked at her in the same way that a disappointed older brother might. He still hadn’t forgiven her for leaving Granka and while Karam understood that, acting as though she had failed her childhood self was something she couldn’t quite get behind. Maybe this wasn’t the future she had anticipated, but taking down a Kingpin and rescuing Crafters wasn’t a bad course to be on.

It was still honoring the ways of the Rekhi d’Rihsni.

“You wanted to save the realms from people like Wesley. Not work alongside him,” Arjun said.

Karam raised an eyebrow. “Look who’s talking.”

At this, Arjun smiled, though it wasn’t the wide grin Karam remembered. It was stiff and a little resentful.

“I felt betrayed when you didn’t come back,” he said. “When you left me to pursue our dream on your own.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Karam said. “Mete and Pehta—”

“I know what your parents are like. You forget, I’ve known them longer than you.”

Karam tensed with the truth of it.

All the years she was gone, Arjun had remained. He saw her mete buy fruit from the markets and had, perhaps, been witness when her father spoke his last words.

Arjun was part of the family Karam had left behind and it hurt her to realize they had gone on being a family in her absence.

“I cursed your name to the spirits every night,” Arjun said. “I told myself you could’ve taken me with you if you planned to stay away. That we could’ve run and been warriors together. We could’ve been brother and sister against the realms.”

He looked back at Karam and she noticed how the *teera* wrapped around his head had the same golden hue as his eyes. It made the color look sad.

“I know that’s not true,” Arjun said. “I’m glad you left me behind.”

Karam shook her head. “I didn’t see it that way. Only that I wouldn’t be able to breathe if I stayed and that all I’d become would’ve been unmade if I returned.”

“And I would’ve died if I left,” Arjun said. “The realms are dangerous for Crafters, and for the reckless boy I was, it would have been deadly. When you left, it taught me to trust nobody and never let my guard down. Crafters can only rely on ourselves.”

Karam didn’t think that sounded like a good thing.

“I’m not saying this to hurt you,” Arjun said. “I don’t resent you. After all these years, I’m happy to see you, Karam.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.”

Arjun placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. This close, she could see the echo of the elixir’s mark on his neck.

“I am glad,” he said. “But it would be foolish to leave words unsaid between us while we have the chance to make things right.”

Karam took Arjun’s hand in hers. “If we’re being honest,” she said, “then I should tell you how embarrassing it was to watch you get beaten by an underboss with novice Crafter magic.”

Arjun laughed. Glorious and loud and Karam’s heart swelled with the sound. She saw the boy of her childhood again. Her brother. Her friend.

They had both changed so much from the children who dreamed of being heroes, to the killers they had become. But something about Arjun was so severe in certain moments, that when his guard did slip and his eyes creased with happiness, Karam felt like she was looking at the person he could have been if the realms weren’t so awful.

“Perhaps I let Wesley win,” Arjun said.

Karam scoffed. “Asees must have her plate full with you as her second.”

“Asees can handle herself.”

Karam didn’t fail to notice his smile. “You should see your face when you say her name. It’s a little sickening.”

Arjun’s grin didn’t subside. “She really is wonderful, Karam. She brought life back to our Kin. The children roam free in Granka, unafraid, because she’s there to take care of them. The people of the city don’t fear us, the buskers don’t come near, and though we might not be what we once were, we’re not hiding, either. It is a sanctuary. Asees built us a home.”

“I’m not denying any of that,” Karam said. “But even after she saw what the elixir did to you, she still refused to fight.”

Arjun leaned backward. “I know you think she was being stern, or even afraid, but she cares for her people. Staying behind to protect them is her way of fighting too.”

Karam wrinkled her nose. “Are you speaking as her second, or as her lover?”

Arjun raised an eyebrow. “You are not allowed to say the word *lover*,” he said.

“Then you’re not allowed to talk about your Liege like a lovesick child,” she countered, trying to resist sticking her tongue out as Tavia would have done.

Arjun ruffled her hair and Karam scowled.

“Do you want me to kill you?” she asked, flattening it back down.

Arjun kept his grin and Karam wished that such happiness would never leave his face again.

“One day,” he said, eyes twinkling. “That fight will come. And you should hope Saxony isn’t there to see you eat your words.”

Karam gestured for the Crafters on her training team to make their move. They were in the largest of the storage containers with the doors thrown wide to allow the light in. The ocean was calm and endless on the other side.

A dozen Crafters surrounded her like starved vultures, hungry to prove they had learned well from their training sessions and desperate to rip Karam apart to do it.

The first Crafter barreled toward her like the train hurtling through the ocean. His shoulder angled for Karam’s chest, but he was slow and clumsy and she glided out of his path quick enough to send him straight into the Crafter who tried to attack her from behind.

They both crashed to the floor. An uncoordinated mess.

Karam threw her fist out and the punch sent her third attacker looping.

She grabbed his shoulders, flinging him the rest of the way, and then brought her elbow down hard on his neck and thrust her foot into his spine.

Another came from behind and Karam threw her head back, hearing the crunch.

She propelled her foot forward when the fifth lunged, then drove her boot into the woman’s chest, sending her gasping onto her back.

Two more to go.

Karam charged for another and he jabbed out defensively.

His fist caught Karam’s eye, but there wasn’t enough power in the punch to make her dizzy.

She blinked away the hit, feeling blood dampen her brow as the Crafter’s ring cut through her skin.

He went to punch again, but he was too slow, and all Karam had to do was drop her shoulder and slip to the left before she landed a hook straight across his cheek.

She grabbed his shoulders, pulling him low enough to ram a knee into his stomach.

The Crafter pitched over and Karam leaped onto him, her feet springing off his shoulders so she could propel herself into the Crafter behind.

Her legs wrapped around the girl’s neck and twisted, flinging her backward and slamming them both onto the ground.

In the ring, this would be the part where Karam squeezed until she heard the snap.

But this wasn’t the ring.

Karam released her hold, catapulting herself back to her feet.

“And you are dead,” she said, sighing.

From the side of the carriage, leaning against the open doors, Saxony slow-clapped.

Her hair was tangled into a bun, curls flying every which way in the wind, as wild as she was. Beside her, Tavia sat on the floor, one arm leaning out to sporadically touch the ocean below. A trademark busker smirk on her painted lips.

“Can anyone tell me what they did wrong?” Karam asked.

“Aside from pissing you off?” Tavia said. “Remind me not do that, by the way.”

Karam blew the hair from her face. “Too late,” she said, and turned back to the Crafters. “Every one of you signaled your moves. When you wanted to punch, you glanced to your fist. When you wanted to kick, you stepped forward. Not to mention how loud you were attacking from behind. Your breathing was like a hurricane.”

Saxony and Tavia laughed.

Karam did not.

Dying wasn’t something to take lightly.

“You have to be shadows,” she said. “The worst thing about death is that you rarely see it coming. It sneaks up on you and snatches your life away in an instant. That is what you all need to become.”

“You want them to become death?” Tavia asked.

Karam exhaled. “I want them to survive. The shadow moon is approaching and we will be at war with the Kingpin soon.” She cranked her neck, hearing it click as she worked out the kinks. “That is enough for today.”

Most of the Crafters left the carriage quick enough that Karam suspected they were worried she might change her mind and demand to beat them senseless again. But there were a few still bleeding by her feet, gulping down air like it was water, until eventually Tavia gave them a hand and led them to another carriage, where Karam assumed a healer waited.

“You’re a tough teacher,” Saxony said, once everyone dispersed.

“As though the Kingpin will take it easy on them.”

“There might not be anyone left to fight him if you keep this up.”

Karam shrugged. “A few less loose cannons.”

She collapsed to the floor and reclined back on her palms. The ocean air smelled like sweat and salt water, but it was cool against her damp neck.

“How are you holding up?” Saxony asked.

“If you think the likes of them can hurt me, I am taking offense.”

Saxony slumped down beside Karam. “I meant what happened with your father. We didn’t speak about it in Granka.”

Karam tried not to think about that.

No good came of wallowing or resentment, which she knew because she had spent the last few years in Creije doing both of those things. She’d lost her father a long time ago and she’d mourned for him then. It felt odd to do it again now.

Still, she hated that everything was so final. There was no going back. No jumping on a train home to say her apologies and beg for forgiveness. Everything had truly gone to the spirits and she was going to put off thinking about it for as long as she could.

Karam swiped a hand across her face.

“Are you crying?” Saxony asked in alarm.

Karam gave her a sullen look. “I have blood in my eye.”

She gestured to the cut on her brow and Saxony’s laugh echoed like a music box. “Anything to change the subject.”

“There is nothing to say on that subject,” Karam said.

She heard cheering filter down from the other carriages and checked her wristwatch. It was about time for dinner. They really were like vultures.

“What about you?” Karam asked. “The Kingpin tried to get inside your mind.”

Saxony kept her eyes trained on the ocean, away from Karam’s. “I live to tell the tale,” she said. “We should be more worried about whatever regrets the Kingpin will make us face. I bet they will be doozies.”

“A doozy sounds terrifying,” Karam said.

Saxony placed a hand on her knee.

Karam tried to stop her whole body from tensing.

“The offer to talk still holds,” Saxony said. “If you decide to stop repressing every single thing you feel.”

“And you are always so open about everything,” Karam shot back.

When Saxony sighed, it was like the light around them dimmed. She took her hand off Karam’s knee and the absence of it gave the night air a bite.

“What happened between us wasn’t about you,” Saxony said.

Karam didn’t think that made it any better.

In fact, it made it a little worse.

“Then who was it about?”

“My sister was gone and every time I spoke to my grandma I was reminded about how I had failed to find Zekia and heal our family. I wanted to do something, to do just *one* thing right, even if it was only spying on Wesley. I could still make a difference. And what was between us risked distracting me from that mission.”

“You dumped me under a disco ball,” Karam said.

She was never getting past that.

Saxony made a noise halfway between a whine and a grunt and threw her head back onto the floor.

Slowly, Karam lay down beside her.

She didn’t realize how much her body ached until she let her head touch the ground. The days had been too long and the nights were stretching even further.

“Would you have preferred for me to end things under the fluorescent lights of the changing rooms?” Saxony asked.

Karam turned so her cheek was pressed against the cold cement of the carriage. Saxony’s eyes looked far too brown from this angle, and her lips were damp and Karam could see freckles splashed across her forehead.

*Do not think about it*, she told herself.

But she could never stop thinking or overthinking when it came to Saxony. No other girl had done that to her. Not because they weren’t special or smart or pretty enough for Karam to lose her breath. They just weren’t Saxony, and that seemed to be the only thing that mattered.

“You know, my father always wanted me to live a normal life,” Saxony said. “To abandon Kin traditions and stay true to our family’s fifty-year legacy of hiding. He’s never been the same since the fire took Malik and my mother. He’d probably have a heart attack if he saw me now.”

“You rarely talk about your father,” Karam said.

“You never talk about yours,” Saxony countered. “You didn’t tell me much about Arjun, either.”

Karam did not want to think about Arjun right now.

“I suppose both of us have complicated families.”

Saxony nodded. “Nothing’s ever simple when it comes to a pretty girl.”

Karam gave her a look she usually reserved for the likes of Tavia.

“What?” Saxony asked, the picture of innocence. There was an awful thumping inside Karam’s chest. “I think you’re real pretty.”

Karam looked to see if anyone was listening. “Stop,” she said, embarrassed.

“It’s just a different kind of pretty is all,” Saxony said, as though she hadn’t heard her.

Karam glared, trying to dull the sound of her heartbeat. “Just how many kinds are there?”

Saxony pretended to count on her fingers and when Karam’s scowl grew, she shot her a smile as fierce as her eyes.

“You’re not the polished kind,” Saxony said. “But polishing is a waste of time. Gold is still gold, no matter how shiny it is.”

Karam swallowed and when Saxony pushed a clump of hair from her sweat-licked brow, she didn’t shift away. At which point Karam forgot how to blink—and also how to breathe—and Saxony did nothing but smile.

Karam was tired of the endlessness that wouldn’t stop stretching between them.

She wanted to rest, finally. She wanted everything to undo itself and then fix back the easy way.

There was a moment when Saxony paused, like she was waiting for Karam to back out, but when she didn’t, Saxony ran a tongue across her bottom lip.

Karam’s feet curled in anticipation.

Saxony sucked in a breath and just that nearly sent Karam over the edge. She was waiting, her eyes wandering to Saxony’s lips, her fists clenching by her sides as neither of them moved.

Karam knew this game well.

Saxony liked to test the waters and watch the ripples form, but she was so rarely brave enough to dive in.

It was Karam who broke the silence.

“Now who is repressing,” she said.

Saxony grinned, licked her bottom lip once more, and then she kissed her.

It was both everything Karam remembered and nothing like she had ever imagined.

Saxony’s mouth was soft and warm, tracing Karam’s lips delicately enough to make her groan. But there was nothing about this moment that Karam wanted to be delicate.

She pushed herself forward, grabbing Saxony’s collar with one hand and sliding the other to her waist. The fabric was rough beneath her hands and Saxony curved into her touch, pressing harder against her.

Her lips and her body and Karam felt too dizzy to focus on anything else but the heat between them.

The moment Saxony’s tongue grazed hers, the realms burst into fire and ash.

Her hand was in Saxony’s hair and Saxony’s hand was clutched around Karam’s jaw and they were tangled, inseparable, unable to unravel themselves from each other even if they wanted to.

There was no beginning or end.

Just the fire and the realms that Karam would happily let burn around them.

She thought they could stay like that forever, but the Indescribable God had other plans.

Above them, a bat screeched, shrill enough for Karam to pull back from Saxony.

They looked up to the sky. The creature screamed down at them, circling the train over and over with bloody cries.

“Somebody put that thing out of its misery,” Wesley said, walking into the carriage.

He looked out of the open doors with a disgruntled sneer.

Tavia and Arjun were beside him. The creature’s cries had apparently pierced the dinner carriage and interrupted their sacred mealtime.

“It is a messenger bat,” Karam said. She got to her feet and held out a hand to hoist Saxony up.

When they stood, Saxony didn’t let go.

“Well, we’ve gotten the message loud and clear!” Wesley yelled, raising his voice over the bat’s shrieks, as though it were a competition.

Tavia smirked. “Now you know what you sound like when you bark orders at us.”

Wesley shot her a rude gesture. Outside, the creature continued its cries.

“We need to beckon it down,” Arjun said. “At this rate, even your Kingpin will hear it.”

“Is anyone expecting a bat?” Tavia asked. “It won’t land without its code word.”

“Zekia,” Saxony said, which Karam assumed was the code she used with her Kin.

When the bat didn’t land at her sister’s name, Saxony shrugged.

Wesley sighed and, under his breath, muttered the Uskhanyan word for *almighty*, at which point Tavia shot him a filthy look.

Karam wasn’t sure why. It seemed like a very Wesley code to have.

They turned to her next and Karam rolled her eyes. “Everyone I know except for my mete is on this ship,” she said.

Arjun stepped forward, resigned, and took in a deep breath. *“Hei ithna,”* he said.

The bat shrieked in recognition and barreled down to them like a lightning bolt.

Arjun lifted his arm in the air and the creature swooped into the carriage, latching onto him. He ran a hand along its stomach, stroking the tired beast. It cooed with his touch.

“What does *hei ithna* mean?” Tavia asked.

“Land,” Karam said dryly, even though the translation was closer to *come to me*.

Tavia snorted. “Your Kin’s code word is *land*?”

“Highly secure,” Wesley agreed.

Arjun ignored them. “Speak, my friend,” he whispered in Wrenyi.

The bat shook, its head turning in circles like the hands of a clock.

When the creature opened its mouth again, its eyes glazed to mirrors and the voice that echoed from it was no longer animal.

“Arjun.”

Asees’s voice was low and throaty, but Karam recognized it.

“The Kin has fallen,” Asees said in Uskhanyan. “The holy temple was attacked. We were outnumbered. I tried to—” She broke off. The bat screeched. “I tried, Arjun. But any minute now the enemy’s forces will break through to this room and take what survives of us.”

Karam’s heart pounded.

“Granka is unprotected,” Asees said. “We are destroyed.”

It couldn’t be.

The Kin protected Granka and in return Karam’s family protected the Kin.

If they were gone, it meant she had failed in her sacred duty, both that of the Rekhi d’Rihsni and of her father’s peaceful guardianship.

The weight of that pressed against her heart.

Arjun stared at the floor. His fists shook by his sides and if he had his dagger, Karam thought he might just tear through the realms with it.

She should never have fled Granka when she was a child. She should never have dragged Arjun into this war. This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for her actions. Without the Kin, Granka was vulnerable against the Kingpins of the realms.

Destroyed.

All those people. Asees. The children who had thrown mud at Wesley.

They had taken more than half of the Kin for their mission and Ashwood seized the opportunity to decimate those who had stayed behind.

Karam’s breath got stuck halfway down her throat, so she had to swallow it the rest of the way.

Saxony squeezed her hand.

Karam didn’t realize she had been shaking.

“Arjun,” Asees said.

Her voice faded to a whisper.

*She’s dying*, Karam thought.

And then she realized that wasn’t true at all, because Asees was already dead.

The message had probably taken the week to reach them. Asees was long gone. The rest of the Grankan Crafters were long gone.

It was all too late.

“You were right to want to fight,” Asees said. “Rescue the others. Avenge this madness. Create the future our ancestors fought to give us.”

Her voice sounded like the wind.

*That’s all there is*, Karam thought.

The legacy of an entire Kin packed into a messenger bat and then gone, just like that.

Karam looked to Arjun.

He did not blink.

He did not speak and he did not cry.

He looked like Karam felt. As though the realms had ended in the time it took for him to breathe. All this time and they hadn’t even known.

Arjun’s people, Karam’s people, Saxony’s people.

“Ashwood killed them all,” Tavia said.

Her voice was softer than Karam had ever heard. Delicate, even. She swiped a tear from her cheek.

“Because of us,” Tavia said. “Punishment for helping us.”

Something like guilt flashed across Wesley’s stoic face. He adjusted his cuff links, like there was nothing else to do but that.

Karam wanted to cry. Her father’s pendant sat on her heart like a weight. *Hei reb*, if he were alive to see this, it would have broken him. To know that their family had failed their duties because there was nobody left to carry them out.

Karam’s selfishness had damned them.

“I am going to find Dante Ashwood,” Arjun said. “And I am going to make him pay.”

“You won’t be alone,” Wesley said. “We’re in this fight together.”

Arjun looked up at him and something new passed between them. An unspoken truce to put away their differences. To forge a true alliance, even if it was temporary.

Arjun had lost part of his family, and Wesley Thornton Walcott, underboss of all of Creije, would fight to avenge them.

If there was one thing a man like Wesley understood, then it was vengeance.

Karam clutched her father’s pendant. “Whatever it takes,” she said. “If it is blood the Kingpin wants, then we will spill his next.”