Chapter 6 #2
It turned out the mountain was actually a volcano. There was a violent eruption, half the mountain collapsed, the earth was scorched, magma chambers exploded, lava fountains shot everywhere, and a new land was formed—and, hey, the lava was still shooting. The supervolcano was still active.
He roared with power. It vibrated around him and hung in knots of illusion. They floated in golden threads above his outstretched hand, twisting in a fiery inferno.
I hadn’t seen much illusion since coming back as a mine. I’d been locked in Hell Gate, hadn’t I? So I wasn’t prepared for the ropes and knots gathering around Finn, licking at him like flames.
He created illusion like a Smith, using their no-nonsense, military-style knots: bowline, square knot, overhand knot, reef knot, rolling hitch, half-hitch, cleat hitch, figure eight. They were all there—a giant, complicated mass. What was he creating?
The spider-crawling feeling tickled the back of my neck. This time, though, it wasn’t from the thing watching me: I’d realized which illusion was hanging over Finn’s hand. It was a death trap.
Finn wanted to kill me?
I wrinkled my forehead.
The illusion paused, half-formed. Then it unraveled and fell to the pavement.
Finn took half a step forward. “Mari?”
His voice hit me—the deep, summer-storm rumble of it. It gripped me and shook me. The locks inside me rattled and raged.
What do you do when you want so badly to speak but you don’t have a voice?
What do you do when you love someone and you can’t let them know?
It hurt, and suddenly, I understood what Jagger meant, because as soon as the pain blossomed, it was greedily devoured.
“You’re here,” Finn said, taking a slow step toward me. “It’s all right. Put down the omnibus. Mari. What took you so long?”
He knew me. Even without me having to speak. Even when I looked so different. He always knew me.
Maybe it was the little wrinkle that formed between my eyebrows—the one Luvic said I wore when I was up to no good. Maybe it was the knot that connected my soul to his—the one we tied years ago and promised to never unbind.
I wanted to cry, but my eyes stayed dry.
The wind and the rain wept for me.
The rusted metal door of the Night Den burst open, and Darin sprinted out. He conjured a blue bow and pulled back an arrow, still running.
“No! It’s Mari!” Finn held out his hand.
“That creature? I don’t think so,” Darin snarled.
He was probably more right than Finn. I wasn’t myself.
They were both here. Both Smiths who could conjure blue fire shields. It would be okay.
Please let it be okay.
They’d save the Night Den. Or at least the people inside.
I stared into Finn’s eyes. One was the cosmic navy and silver nebula of solange; the other was the deep green-gold of a forest at sunset. The hazel I’d always loved.
What had happened to his eyes?
What had happened in death?
He didn’t look like the evil conjurer Jagger claimed he was. Instead, he was a volcano of power. He moved differently, like an eruption. His hair was darker, coal blue-black. He was bulkier than before, taller, as if death had carved away all the softness and excess and made him something more.
He was terrifying.
Looking into his eyes felt like stepping over the volcano’s edge and dropping into the lava. I knew I’d been charred to ash even before I’d hit the fire, because the heat was so intense. I burned from his heat.
He smiled, and even though everything else had changed, his smile was the same. “Mari.”
I wanted him to burn me to ash. I wanted his touch.
I savored the pain of him looking at me with love. As soon as I felt it, the pain was gobbled up by sharp, greedy teeth.
Finn started toward me, hurrying through the fog. Had the wind found him? Had it told him what had happened and why? Had it shared all my secrets? Did he know I remembered him, or did he think I was still lost to him, the nine who’d killed him and become a mine?
At the longing in Finn’s eyes, I knew he wanted to yank me into his arms. Whisper my name. Kiss me.
But then what?
I’d still burn down the Night Den. I’d still shoot the omnibus, kiss or not.
It was better if he was closer to the building. Closer to Darin. That way, they’d survive, and hopefully, so would everyone else.
So, as Finn ran toward me, I pressed my finger to the needle.
I made myself bleed.
The omnibus fired.
Finn’s face flashed with disbelief.
Darin swore and threw out a fire shield. A millisecond later, Finn’s shield joined his.
The missile slammed into their blue fire. It exploded in a violent eruption. The heat swept over me, hellfire-hot. I sucked in a breath, and it seared my lungs.
Their shield bowed then held. The ice-blue fire and the red-hot fire wrestled like two angry giants.
A half-second after my first shot, I pivoted and aimed at the northwest side of the Night Den—the uninhabited part. I shot again. Then I hit the southern edge. Another shot. Another.
Finn and Darin shielded. I fired. I bombarded the Night Den, just like Jagger had demanded.
And while I burned my favorite place in the world to the ground, I watched Finn.
I never took my eyes off him.
In the ten seconds it took me to empty the omnibus of a dozen missiles, his expression shifted from love to disbelief, to shock, to rage.
Flames shot from the brick, curling into the fog and painting it red.
The thick mist hissed as it hit flame, and black smoke writhed as it combined with the fog to create a ghostly new creature.
The acrid smoke burned my lungs, smelling of Furtig, blood, and bone.
My eyes stung from the hellfire burn, tearing and blurring Finn’s face.
I blinked the tears away. I wanted to see him. I wanted . . .
I slung the omnibus into my holster and threw myself onto the motorcycle, kicking the cold machine to life.
Across the street, the fiery explosion ate through the brick.
Battling it, Finn conjured mist that ate flame and darkness that swallowed fire.
Darin turned as I revved the motorcycle.
He snarled and launched a blue fireball at me.
I ducked, and it skimmed an inch over my back.
It hurtled past and rocketed into the Hudson, swallowed by the black water.
Time to go.
I gunned the engine, and the bike roared. I dropped low and sped into the fog.
I chanced one last glance back. Darin had turned back to the warehouse, wrestling with the flames, but Finn was staring after me.
His eyes reflected the violent fire. The Night Den burned, and towering before the inferno, Finn’s rage burned even hotter.
The hot flames of him licked at my back. A fiery oath.
I left him and was swallowed by the fog.