Working with the Enemy

Part 1 by Colleen Cowley

The look on Henry Tarrant’s face told Zara that she’d thoroughly shocked him.

Warwicks did not ask Tarrants for help. Warwicks and Tarrants had nothing to do with each other—beyond competing with cutthroat vim for the largest slice of the country’s magics trade, of course.

“No,” he said flatly.

“You haven’t let me explain—”

“It doesn’t matter what the reason is, the answer is still no.” He glared at her, leaning against the closed door of his rowhouse as if she might otherwise rush in. “Leave, or you’ll be sorry. You and your whole family.”

“They’ve made something dangerous!” As the words burst out, Zara felt sick. It had come to this: Betraying her family. To a Tarrant. “They insist it’s fine, but it’s not, and if I can’t figure out how to stop them before they start selling it …”

He stared at her, green eyes narrowed. Listening. Wavering?

“If I can’t,” she said, “I think this new product will kill people. So slowly they’d never make the connection.”

“Tell the government, then.”

“I don’t have proof. It’s a hunch. And you know my family.”

His lips thinned. Both their families paid bribes, but the Warwicks were better at it.

“Please,” she whispered.

Henry Tarrant thunked his head against the door.

Then he turned and opened it for her.

“If you’re lying,” he said, “I will kill you slowly.”

Maybe she should have tried a different Tarrant.

“Well?” he snapped.

Heart rattling, she scuttled in.

Part 2 by Jennifer Estep

Henry’s rowhouse was not what Zara had expected. She had been prepared for a villain’s lair.

Something dark, dank, and moldy. Something with little light and dark pools of water and perhaps a few miniature crocodiles thrown in for good measure. Something dirty, like all the tricks his family used against hers.

But the front room was neat and tidy and, best of all, filled with crystals.

Colorful crystals of all shapes and sizes were sprouting in glass vials, and the light streaming in through the round windows filled the room with cheery rainbow prisms.

Zara brightened and rushed over to a nearby table. “You grow your own magic crystals? Me too!”

Henry shifted on his feet, clearly uncomfortable, but after a few seconds, he came over to stand beside her. “Of course I grow my own magic crystals. It’s the safest way.” A shy smile spread across his face. “Plus, I enjoy it. Experimenting and seeing what colors and powers I can come up with.”

An answering smile spread across Zara’s face, although she quickly cleared her throat and looked away from his green, green eyes. “Yes, well, crystals are what I came to talk to you about. My family has been experimenting too—and it’s gone very badly.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Badly, how?”

Zara opened her mouth to confess the awful truth—

Thump-thump!

A violent knock sounded on the front door, followed by several more.

“Oh, no,” Zara whispered, ice filling her veins. “They’ve found me.”

Part 3: Kathryn Ann Kingsley

“What do you mean, they’ve—” Henry sighed halfway through his sentence, already discovering the answer on his own. Her family. He ran a hand over his face, clearly regretting his decision to let her inside.

Meanwhile, Zara was in a full-on panic. Looking around the room, trying to come up with somewhere, anywhere, she could hide. A trunk! Perfect! It was a large wooden steamer, the kind that latched and locked on the front. Throwing the lid open, she threw the contents all over the room. Books, notes, scraps of fabric, bits of rock and bags of dust she recognized as components.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like?” she hissed. “Hiding!”

Thump-thump! “Zara, we know you’re in there!”

She swore. “Uncle Urig. Oh no … not him. Not him. This is serious.” She climbed inside the now-empty box. “You have to hide me.”

“I don’t have to do anything, let’s make this perfectly clear. I …” He glanced back at his front door and the continued hammering on the wood surface. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. Now hide me, and then play dumb.” She shut the lid on herself, shuffling onto her side. She heard rustling, as though Henry were setting things on top of the steamer trunk. 

And then she heard the lock click shut.

 “I hope you have the keys for this thing,” she half-shouted.

“I’m not entirely sure,” came the muffled reply. “Now shush.”

She shut her eyes. Great.

Part 4: Melle Amade

“Where is she?!” Uncle Urig’s voice bellowed into the house as he burst through the front door, backed by the burly Warwick men.

“Where is who?” Henry asked, positioned nonchalantly in a high back red velvet chair with a book in his hands. “And why are you Warwicks in my house?” he asked with a sneer.

“I can smell her.” He inhaled loudly.

Henry didn’t. The sweet smell of flowers and sunlight had been clinging to every piece of his living room since she had entered it. Her scent was heavenly and there was no way Henry could deny it was drifting in the air.

Urig’s gaze narrowed on the trunk. “There!” His arm whipped around. Henry’s eyes went wide. Urig was holding some sort of weaponized crystal machine! “Don’t you move a muscle,” he hissed. “I’m going to take my niece and we’re going to leave nice and quiet.”

Henry looked at the crystals. What was she doing? “Get out! They’re going to explode!”

Henry pushed Urig out of the way, pulled out keys, and opened the chest. He scooped Zara up in his arms, holding her tightly against his powerful chest. His heart raced even faster. She was intoxicating.

Zara looked up at him, her blue eyes filled with fear. “Run!” she cried, throwing her gem into the sea of crystals. She clung to his chest, their hearts beating against each other as he raced towards the exit and the room exploded in a cacophony of flying shards.

Part 5: Michelle Matteson

Zara sighed and pushed away the man who was currently crushing her. It had been a gamble, combining the crystal she found in the trunk and her gem to activate it, but the crystal’s purple color meant it was for mental manipulation and not physically dangerous. She’d hoped it would make her family afraid, and then she and Henry could run, but Henry had been affected as well when she’d popped out of the trunk.

She looked around the room. One cousin was using his hands to shovel something in his mouth. One cousin was doing an exaggerated breaststroke. Uncle Urig, holding thin air, said: “See? I got her! I got Zara!” So not fear. Desire? What the person desired most?

Henry pressed his nose in her hair. “So beautiful,” he murmured, and Zara blushed. She would ignore that implication for now.

Zara crouched down and grabbed her family’s experiment. A crystal that would make the victim fall asleep. Only Zara wasn’t sure they always woke up. That Uncle Urig would try to use it on her, when they weren’t sure they could reverse it … Zara had done the right thing, betraying her family to stop them.

She got back up, taking Henry’s hand. She wasn’t sure what vision he’d had, but he’d grabbed her like he was shielding her from harm. She blushed again as he kissed her fingers. A Tarrant, desiring her.

Would wonders ever cease?

She tugged him out the door, leaving her family to their visions.

Part 6: Daniela A. Mera

Henry raced down the street with her into a garden. She hadn’t realized how dark it was until his face was inches from hers. The moonlight shone through the trees and skimmed his unruly curls.

Without warning, he pinned her against a tree and ran a hand down the side of her face.

“What do you see?” Zara managed to whisper. Half of her wondered what the hell was happening, and the other gave way to the surprisingly sweet sensations tingling across her skin. 

“I see you, Zara.” His eyes searched hers. “Zara.” His breath brushed her lips, and there was something about the way he said it. Like a prayer. Like there were months, years, of yearning behind it.

Her eyes widened.

“Kiss me, Zara,” he said, “break the spell.” 

Maybe it was the urgency to have things returned to normal, for their families to go back to hating each other, or maybe it was the nearness of him, but Zara twisted her fingers into his hair and crashed her lips to his.

The world exploded. Her unsurety was met with a rush of power and desire. It felt like she was soaring through the air and then …

Something shifted. Henry’s lips froze.

She pulled back. The foggy, passionate look in his eyes was gone. 

He stepped back, patting down his hair that her fingers had thoroughly mussed.

He cleared his throat. “Right, well … I better get going.” He turned around and walked back into the night.

Part 7: Lauren L. Garcia

“Wait.” 

The word hung between them, a tether or a plea. What was the difference now?

Zara’s heart raced as he froze but didn’t look her way. “What?” he murmured.

Slowly, she reached into her bodice and withdrew the crystal she’d nearly died to save. The moonlight caught in its sparkling depths. 

Henry’s green eyes widened. “That’s a pax crystal. I thought my family destroyed them all.”

Zara blushed but smiled. “You thought wrong. This is our future. It will neutralize all the other weaponized crystals that our families have been warring over since before we were born.” 

“And what,” his gaze on her held fire and ice all at once, “do you intend to do with it now, Zara?”

A shiver ran up her spine at the way he said her name. Her lips tingled with the memory of his kiss. “It’s time for peace between the Warwicks and the Tarrants, don’t you think?”

He snorted. “You make it sound so easy.”

But his voice gave away his uncertainty—and his hope. Zara seized both and risked a step toward him. “Help me stop this pointless feud and make our world a better place. We can do it. Together. What do you say, Henry?”

He was silent for several long moments. Until he gently took her hand and pulled her toward him to wrap her in his embrace. As he tipped her chin to kiss her, his gaze burned brighter than the sparkling gem they now shared. “I’m in.”

The end