Chapter 9
Now that the wind had peeled back the thick-scabbed crust of mourning, it found only the rough, pink-skinned ache of its bleeding grief.
Grief, it decided, wasn’t strictly a human thing.
It was a thing of spirit. The wind saw that when it gave birth to love, it also gave birth to the possibility of grief.
It was the same as when the world had been spoken into existence.
The world was only good, but the birth of good had allowed the possibility of evil.
In this world where the wind existed, one thing couldn’t be born without the possibility of another.
And so the wind had left the girl in the solemn one’s arms, recognizing both love and grief in the way she rested her head on his shoulder, and in the way he gently held her in his arms. The girl’s eyes were closed, her hands clutching the man’s shirt.
But the man’s solemn eyes were open, and he stared wretchedly at the knife stuck in the loamy riverbank soil.
The wind had never been good at naming human emotions, but perhaps it was learning.
The solemn one was still holding tightly onto that painful shard of love in his heart.
It had almost shattered and disintegrated many times, but it still pierced him.
The day he let it dissolve would be the day he stopped feeling both love and grief and became only rocklike hate.
He would be a soul so barren the possibility of good would never sprout.
It would be better for them both if the girl killed him before that happened.
The wind tapped the girl’s cheek goodbye and ruffled the solemn one’s hair. Then it caught the sun-glossed black wing of a cormorant in flight.
The water bird dove toward the East River, catching the last froth of mist and splashing through its cool breath.
The wind laughed as the cormorant torpedoed toward the waves.
It was an iron-black arrow, shooting through the sunrise’s orange flame.
It burst through the water, cut the sun’s reflection of cold orange fire, and dove into the depths.
The cormorant tucked its wings against its body, and the wind clung to its slick feathers.
Air bubbles raced free, and the wind shrieked as they rocketed down.
Then, climbing with powerful kicks, the bird burst from the water, breaking the sky.
Air crashed around the wind, and it laughed wildly as the bird thrust its black wings wide.
The diamond-bright scales of a white perch glistened for a flash then disappeared down the cormorant’s throat.
The bird flapped its wings and threw the wind into the air.
The wind spun wildly like a swirling eddy and was caught in the diesel pull of a speeding boat.
It sneezed at the heavy fumes and bounced over the coughing rumble of the boat’s engine.
Then it skipped over a tour boat, and the guide’s hurried words dropped like stones flung into the water.
It hopscotched across the waves toward the sound of morning traffic, the boom of construction, and the hungry coo of pigeons hunting for breadcrumbs.
It caught the sunrise’s bright luster slanting off glass and stainless steel, and it felt—
Oh!
It felt this. This! The wind had forgotten the dizzying joy of the world. It had forgotten the feel of life. It had forgotten what the world was when it wasn’t shrouded in mist and grief.
It had even forgotten there were other beings it cared about.
The wind gusted south and spread itself thin, searching. It slipped through alleys. Skipped across intersections. It twined through the city, searching, until the sun had topped the skyscrapers and hung on top of their spires like an orange balloon about to be pierced by a needle.
But finally, the wind found him.
He was in the catacombs. It was bone and parchment scented. Cold and lung-dry. The yellow-green lights tinged the man’s skin a sickly, unearthly color.
Outside the mansion, in the fresh air above, the church bells rang a bright, harmonic noonday song. And although it loved to slide down the notes and tug on the bellpulls, the wind resisted the tug of music and instead puffed over the dirt floor to the man.
It made a happy, humming noise. Even though the man wasn’t the boy, he was still beloved.
It rubbed along his legs, twining between them.
The man ran his hand through the air, telling the wind he knew it was there.
A group of conjurers crowded into the tight catacomb room. This was where the girl had died. Where the boy had killed the old woman who’d raised him and loved him.
The room was different now. The door had been replaced with thick, cold metal. The bone and mortar walls had crumbled and were reinforced with illusion. The long, flat stones that glued beings in place were cracked and charred. Their sticky, wrong feel was gone. They were only rubble now.
The wind hummed happily as it nudged at the cracked gray stones. It was good they were broken. The cruel one had tortured too many beings on those stones.
The cruel one stared at the stones now, his eyes thin and poisonously dark. He’d always smelled of parchment and cruelty, but a new scent was there. It was a dark, hungry thing the wind couldn’t name. When the wind drew close, the hungry, dark thing turned as if it could sense the wind.
The wind screeched and flew back, throwing dirt and bone dust into the air.
The Bard coughed and waved his gold-ringed hand. “Why must we meet in this musty, miserable wreck? I have a perfectly good mansion—”
“Why?” the cruel one’s father interrupted. The Clark who smelled of parchment and molting snake skin. The wind wouldn’t climb over his smooth skin; it wouldn’t feel his cold pulse. “Have you forgotten the null is killing conjurers? He’s hunting us—”
“Yes. And here you are, cowering from a null.” The Bard’s lip curled. He wore a deep indigo suit and a black fabric band around his left arm. Ah. He was in mourning too.
The wind slid over the black fabric and wondered at the cold, emotionless scent of it.
Next to the Bard, the trickster lounged against the rough bone wall. He wore a black armband too, although it was almost obscured by his night-black suit.
He leaned negligently against the rough bone wall, a skull and a femur pressing into his spine. His shoulders were relaxed, and his hands were shoved carelessly into his pockets. He was posing, a great actor on a dusty, wrecked stage. The wind laughed. It had missed the trickster.
His mouth curved up on the right side, his dark eyes sparked mischievously, and he looked over the broken-bone-rubbled room as if he’d just played the greatest joke of all time and none of them knew it yet.
The cruel one’s sister stood behind her brother and stared hatefully at the trickster. He didn’t notice—or if he did, he didn’t care.
“Perhaps,” the trickster said to the Clark, drawing out the word, “you would care to inform us why we were invited to this delightful gathering.” Then he looked toward the man, the smile still in place, and added, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The man nodded, and the wind moaned. The trickster was being polite, but for once, the wind didn’t like it. Was it polite to remind a being that they’d lost someone?
“Likewise,” the man said, “I’m sorry to hear about the untimely death of your siblings. But . . . every person’s curse is someone else’s blessing. Yes?”
At first, neither the Bard nor the trickster acknowledged the man’s response. The Bard only sniffed and tugged on the sleeves of his suit jacket.
But finally, after staring at the man for a long moment, the trickster’s half-smile became a full smile. “Indeed. What is an untimely death but a timely blessing?”
“Luvic,” the cruel one’s sister said, her voice a high whine, similar to the noise the wind made when it screeched through empty attics. “I seem to remember you fighting next to the null at the closing ceremony. You even seemed friendly. Perhaps you might explain your actions?”
The Bard cut his hand through the air, a threatening gesture. “Careful, child. You are unnecessary.”
“I wondered too,” the Clark mused, his voice a breathy, hissing sound. “Your son is now heir, but there are many branches on the Bard tree. Is he loyal, Dagrid? Or is he a serpent in your garden, working with the Smiths?”
The Bard narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth like a cornered jackaltooth. Then he snapped his fingers. “Show them.”
The trickster kept his smile in place. He unbuttoned the cuff of his left suit jacket. He pushed it up, then he unbuttoned the cuff of his white shirt. As he slowly rolled up his shirtsleeve, the conjurers leaned forward.
The whisper of the fabric was the loudest noise in the catacomb room. The wind hesitantly moved closer and brushed over the trickster’s lean forearm.
Before, the trickster’s skin had been smooth and perfect, like a drop of dew, golden and luminescent under the rising sun. Now, the skin on his forearm was mottled, gray, tortured, and broken. The wind rushed over the scarred tissue, riding the ridges and tasting the pain.
The Bards loved objects of power. They had entire rooms full of them.
Of all the conjurer families, they held the most. Not even the wind knew the full inventory.
But the wind had seen this object before.
It was a bristle of fur from the first jackaltooth.
When sewn into a being’s skin, it tortured for a full rising and setting of the sun.
The torture was the secondary effect. The first was making the being unquestionably loyal.
What were jackaltooth made of? No one knew for sure. Hyenas. Wolves. Jackals. Wild dogs. Creatures. Humans. The wind didn’t know. But it did know jackaltooth were loyal to the Bards, and only the Bards.
The wind skimmed over the bristle stitched into the trickster’s skin. The bristle pulsed, and the wind shied away from the red-hot pain of it.