Chapter 47
I blinked awake, pulled out of a thick black fog. Someone was roughly shaking my shoulder.
“Wake up, you. Wake up!”
I moaned and rubbed my eyes. My mouth was horribly dry, and oddly, there was the taste of garlic and basil. “Rou?”
She clicked her tongue, which she always did when she was annoyed.
It was as dark as the inside of a creature’s mouth, and I was lying in a bed of ash and blackened rubble.
The noxious scent made my eyes water and stung my nose.
I rubbed my eyes and sat upright, knocking aside stone and mangled iron.
Rou scowled at me, and I was so happy to see her fierce frown I almost jumped up and hugged her.
Two things stopped me. First, the joy at seeing her was causing my blood to sizzle and pop in painful blister-bursts.
Second, she was as insubstantial as morning mist rising from the river.
Her skin was a cloud-white, her hair a spray of gray—even her eyes were a solid pearl-white.
Her form shifted from spirit to solid as she frowned at me.
“Well. Get up! Luvic said you’d taken a hit to the head.”
I touched my forehead and winced. “He did?”
“Dropped you off like a load of laundry, said a loose jackaltooth had brought you to them.” She shuddered, and her misty form vanished for half a second.
Then she reappeared. “Nasty things, jackaltooth. Nasty Bard creatures. The world would be better off rid of them.” She pursed her lips and added, “Perhaps Jagger will kill them all once the conjurers are gone. Wouldn’t that be a treat? ”
I blinked again, trying to make her come into focus. There was something wrong here.
“Luvic brought me?”
“What did I just say?” Rou clicked her tongue again.
“Stand up, Mari. Get up! It’s moving night.
The Smiths destroyed Hell Gate. Griff’s worried about you, poor boy.
I told him you were fine. Jagger wouldn’t have been in such a good mood if you’d died.
Honestly, I haven’t seen him this cheery since 1952.
” Then she added with a motherly smile, “Oh. Did you have a good day with the Bards?”
“I . . . umm . . .” I flushed, thinking about Rockefeller Center. “Not really.”
Rou gave an “oh well” shrug. “I didn’t expect you would. Hopefully, they’ll all kill each other before summer’s end. Do you have anything you want to collect before heading over?”
I looked around the remains of Hell Gate. Sometimes, when you light a piece of paper on fire, it burns so quickly that within seconds, the only thing remaining is a bone-gray rectangular outline of where the paper once was. When you touch it, the entire thing turns to ash.
The Smith’s fire had been so hot and raging that all the stone and iron of Hell Gate had gone up like blue touchpaper.
Touchpaper was impregnated with potassium nitrate, but what was Hell Gate soaked with?
I frowned at the melted iron fencing, the twisted electroliers, and the charred amorphous shapes that hours ago had been something.
But the something was indiscernible now.
Maybe Hell Gate’s basement, with its cage and its listening stones, was still intact, but nothing else was.
I was surprised the surrounding neighborhood hadn’t noticed Hell Gate’s fall. Sure, there was illusion wrapped around its perimeter, but the acrid stench was overwhelming. It was muggy, hot, and the lingering smoke made the humidity a painful soup to inhale.
I peered through the dark. The grotesques were nowhere to be seen. “How many died?”
Rou shrugged. “Oh, plenty. Who knows? A lot, I imagine, else Jagger wouldn’t be looking so pleased.”
She was right. Jagger was a leggerock, which meant the only time he was upset about death was if it inconvenienced him.
The only time he was happy about it was if it benefited him.
Usually, he didn’t care at all. He was as unmoved by death as a cliff was by the shadows that moved across it.
But if he was pleased, then a lot of his creatures had died.
Which meant—in his mind—the Smiths had decided he was an adversary.
He’d crowed with delight when Luvic set Hell Gate’s kitchen on fire. He must be singing with glee over the Smiths’ attack.
What was a slipshot to him? To a leggerock, they hatched like mayflies and died just as quickly. What was a growling but something to be used? What were shills and spirits? What were any of us?
“Was Winnie here?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen her in a while.
“What do I know? I was in my kitchen baking blueberry scones. Besides, can death die?”
Was that truly what Winnie was? Death?
“Ready? You can help me carry the cornerstone to our new home.”
She kicked at a sizeable piece of granite that had somehow survived the inferno. Her misty foot passed through the edge. It was the stone that read “Hell Gate—Home for Lost Souls—MDCCCXV.” It had to weigh as much as a piano.
“I can’t lift that.” I shook my head and wiped away the ash that had blown into my eyes. “Wait. Go where?”
Rou gave me a grimace of distaste. “Wards Island. The asylum.”
I stared through Rou, suddenly remembering something from earlier. It was after I’d yanked down the building. Jacob had been there—eating a hot dog, of all things—and Luvic had been on the ground writhing in pain.
I’d told Jacob I didn’t want to collapse the building, and he’d said, “I know. But as soon as you do, we can go.”
And then I’d yanked out the knots. The building had collapsed. And . . . then nothing. I’d blacked out.
Had I been hit by debris?
Had Jacob left?
Had Luvic really carried me back to Hell Gate?
“The Wards’ asylum?”
“I know,” Rou said, her mouth twisting with distaste. “Jagger purchased it in 1898 through a maze of intermediaries. He always found it funny that he owned one of the four families’ mansions and they never knew it was him. It was something to hold over them. To have a laugh about.”
“But . . . the asylum was destroyed. It’s just a ghost now.”
Rou shrugged. “Well, the basement is still there. And an outbuilding. A kitchen too. As long as you don’t mind the figments, it’s all right.”
I shuddered, and Rou rubbed my arm. Her touch felt like walking through a cold fog.
“Come on now. Jagger’ll want to see you. Are you sure you can’t lift that?”
I stared at the stone. “I’m sure. You’ll have to ask Griff.”
“Oh, I can’t. Griff was upset about the jackaltooth. He wanted to go after you. Jagger had to . . . well, you know how it is. Griff needs to learn. Should’ve learned by now. He’s almost a mine . . .”
When Rou looked at me, I saw the worry she tried to cloak. It was obvious she didn’t think Griff would survive the transition. I wasn’t sure he would either. The human half of him was too good, and the devil half of him might not stand for bowing to a leggerock.
“It’s better a little pain now than a lot of pain later. He’ll see.”
I nodded.
When I’d told Justice we needed to protect Griff, he’d told me if we tried, Jagger would have us kill him just to make a point. He was right. Whatever was happening to Griff, it was because he’d showed he cared.
That was always the case when you stepped into Hell Gate. Now, I’d have to remember it when stepping into the asylum.
My ancestors’ home.
Rou toed at the ashes and then made a happy sound. “Dandelion wine. We’ll take that!”
I bent down and pulled out an ash-covered glass bottle. The green glass glinted in the moonlight. Rou’s paper label had burned off, but the cork was still intact, and the glass hadn’t melted or warped. I tilted the bottle. It was still full of wine.
“I wonder how it survived.”
Rou shrugged. “Hard to say.”
You might find it funny, or maybe you’ll find it appalling, but it was hard to walk away from Hell Gate.
It was my home, and although it wasn’t good, it also wasn’t all bad. And even though it’d burned down, the memories hadn’t burned with it.
It didn’t take us long to make our way to Wards Island.
It was quiet. The water was still. The wind was silent. Even the crickets were asleep in the tall grass. There were no car noises or boat horns or water lapping against the shore. The only noise was the crunch of my shoes over the crushed limestone path leading toward the asylum’s ghost.
Rou walked next to me, but she was more vapor than solid, and her footsteps didn’t make a noise.
The air was cooler here. Maybe it was all the trees and the grass with the loamy, river-wet soil. Or maybe it was the lack of concrete and buildings. The wind could move. It was why there were so many kites flown here during the summer. Picnics too. The island was more park than metropolis.
We stopped at the ghostly outline of the asylum’s facade. It was limestone. Four stories tall. There were towers and spired rooflines. Narrow, iron-barred windows that peered at us from the hazy dark. The front door gaped open like a screaming mouth.
I shivered.
Misery leaked from the mansion. It seeped into the soil, so nothing grew at its base, and even twenty feet out, the grass was scraggly, and the trees were twisted and stooped.
“Welcome home,” Rou said, almost chipper. Her hands twitched. I think she was imagining rolling out dough or putting a pot of soup on the stove.
“Home?” I glanced over at the figment standing in front of the asylum’s facade. I’d seen her before. She was missing an eye, and she looked up at the building with a melancholy so deep I was certain either she or someone she’d loved had been trapped inside the asylum’s maze.
It was then Jagger appeared at the ghostly outline of the front door.
He grinned, his sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight.
He had more wrinkles than I’d ever seen, as if he’d sprouted another dozen in the past twelve hours. His skin was thicker and grayer than usual too. Like a rhinoceros’s hide.
His eyes gleamed as he looked me over, sliding his finger along his obsidian knife.
I nodded at him. “I’m back.”
He laughed, and it sounded like the stone walls of a building collapsing.
Rou was right. He was gleefully happy.
“The Smiths left a message at Hell Gate.”
I swallowed. Waited. My heart made one hard, painful knock and then trundled back to its normal rhythm. They’d tried to kill us in our sleep. Finn, Darin, the Smiths—they’d tried to burn us alive. Was there more?
Jagger’s sharp-toothed smile grew. Could he feel the fear in me?
He pulled a wrinkled, charred piece of paper from his pocket and read in a menacing growl, “Stopped by. Sorry I missed you. Will try again.” His voice was filled with amusement. “Is it a death threat or a love note?”
He handed the note over, and I stared down at Finn’s slanted scrawl. He’d written the note. I’d know his handwriting anywhere. I crumpled the paper, hiding his words, and let it fall to the ground.
I wasn’t sure if Jagger expected an answer, but I gave him one anyway. “Death threat. Obviously.”
After all, it wasn’t the first.
He laughed.
I didn’t.
Which made him laugh even more.