Chapter 22
The trickster’s head jerked back, banging against the wooden door. It vibrated, and the wind catapulted off it. Then it swirled around to crouch on the trickster’s shoulder.
This was a surprise. The boy was right. It hadn’t known the musician and the citrus and pearl dust scented woman were alive.
For all his life, the trickster had done what his father asked, even when he didn’t want to.
The wind had seen the gun; it had sniffed the bullets; it had tasted the cooling, bitter skin of the musician and the citrus and pearl dust scented woman after the trickster had shot them.
The wind had known they were dead. Granted, it hadn’t wanted the roof to collapse on their bodies—it had even shielded them—but that was a momentary lapse into a strange, human-like emotion.
Regardless, here they were. Alive and furious.
“I’m going to kill you.” The musician’s voice was filled with terrible power. It was the depths of the ocean, a funeral pyre lit on fire and sunk beneath the waves. The wind gasped and rolled in the melodic timbre.
He swung, his fist crashing toward the trickster.
How many times could the trickster be struck between sundown and sunup?
Too many.
But then the trickster moved predator-fast. He caught the musician’s fist and held it an inch away from his face. The sharp, eerie rattle of a jackaltooth ripped from his throat. It tore through the tiny apartment and shook the wind with its violent force.
All the fury and wrath drained from the musician. His shoulders sagged, and his face went slack.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth as if she were trying to keep the sound inside.
The trickster blinked and released his brother’s hand. He stepped back and watched his siblings warily.
“Luvic,” the woman said, her voice quavering. “Roll up your sleeves.”
The trickster swallowed, his throat working painfully. “I’d rather not.”
“Roll them up!”
His brother grabbed him then and shoved up both his sleeves. The trickster didn’t fight. When the musician touched the scarred ridges and mottled gray of his left arm, he flinched and backed away.
“That monster,” the woman hissed. The wind slipped close and tapped the saltwater tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She blinked and held them back.
The musician pulled his hand down his face and shook his head. “We’re gone for two weeks, and you go and get yourself—”
He cut himself off when the woman grabbed the trickster and yanked him into her arms. He stood stiffly for a moment. Then, when the woman said, “Luvic,” his shoulders sagged, and he dropped his head.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She stroked her hand over his back, rubbing a soothing circle. This was what she had done when the trickster was young and still needed comfort.
“Have you turned yet?” the musician asked. His voice held the peculiar tautness of an instrument strung too tight.
The woman glared at the musician, but he only shrugged.
The trickster shuddered, and his sister patted his back. He pulled out of her arms and gave them a twinkling smile. It was illusion though—the wind could feel the prickling tingle of it.
“Actually,” the trickster said, “after dropping you two deadweights here and burying you both—”
The woman scoffed.
“—Dad and I went home. The next morning, I woke up . . . except, it wasn’t the next morning. It was six days later, and . . .” He shrugged. “I woke up a . . .”
“Jackaltooth,” the musician said coldly.
The trickster nodded. “It took me a while to figure out how to become a man again.”
“But . . . why?” the woman asked.
The wind traced the trickster’s smile. “I suppose once dear Dad realized I’d kill my siblings if he asked me to, there was nothing to stop me from killing him too.”
The musician and the citrus and pearl dust scented woman exchanged a look, then the woman gestured to the table. “I need coffee. Do you still like coffee, Luvic, or do you only eat raw meat now?”
“Ha. Ha-ha. Funny, Lia.”
She gave the trickster a tight-lipped smile. “Sit down.”
He did, and the wind joined them, riding on the soft gurgle of pitch-black coffee poured into ceramic mugs.
It swirled on the steam and rolled in the cream.
The coffee had the scent of high-mountain mist, afternoon rain showers, and loamy tropical forests.
The wind nudged the bowl of sugar and drew a circle in the crystals.
The trickster gripped his mug and took a long sip. He closed his eyes as he swallowed. When he opened them, both siblings were staring at him.
“What I don’t understand,” the musician said, “is why you didn’t tell us. We’d prepared for this. We had contingencies. We always said, if Dad goes after Lia, we’ll . . . Ah. You couldn’t.”
The trickster nodded. “Sometimes, the only way to keep a secret is to never speak it. To never even think it.”
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman tapped her spoon against the edge of her mug. It was a tinny, discordant sound. “We always knew Dad might discard me, but why Ragnor?”
The edge of the trickster’s mouth curled up. “Apparently, he was too loyal. I, on the other hand, showed great promise as someone with moral elasticity and undiluted ambition.”
The musician turned to his sister and gestured to the trickster. “It’s something about his face. If he’d gone into Hollywood, he’d be eternally typecast as the charming villain. It’s his nose, I think.”
The trickster frowned. “I have the same nose as you.”
“Or maybe it’s his mouth. He smiles like he’d sell his own sister for a dollar and a pat on the head.”
“We literally have the same mouth.”
“You’re right,” the woman said, surveying the trickster’s features. “Even as a toddler, he looked like a mischievous cherub ready to sell out for a lollipop.”
The trickster sighed and took a long sip of coffee.
“Or maybe it’s his eyes.”
“I think you should align with the Smiths,” the trickster said.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “By the way, what was in those bullets? It felt like my insides were scraped out, run through a blender, and then shoved back in me.”
The musician tapped his fingers against the table. “Worse than the worst hangover.”
“We slept for three days and only woke up in time to see your farce of a funeral. Got your cryptic note. ‘Stay put until I’m back. Don’t let anyone know you’re alive.’ It took a week for us to recover.”
The trickster shrugged. “It was a poison. Sleeping Beauty. It mimics death.”
The wind laughed. That was one of the girl’s poisons. The trickster must’ve taken it from the poison book he stole.
“Dad and the Clarks have aligned,” the trickster continued. “They’re going after the Smiths. They think the crown belongs to Primus. It’s . . . not going to be pretty.”
“You want us to align with the Smith?” the musician asked.
The woman tilted her head. “What about the Wards?”
The wind perked up. Did the citrus and pearl dust scented woman want to know about the boy?
The wind slipped across the table and rode over the soft line of her hand.
Her fingers were curled against her palm.
The pulse at her wrist beat in a steady thrum.
The skin on the underside of her wrist was smooth and pale.
“Neutral,” the trickster said. “Philoneas is dead. Jacob refused to take a side.”
The woman’s pulse gave a hard, rock-dropping-into-a-lake thud, then the ripples of it spread quickly as her heartbeat sped up. “You saw him?”
The trickster nodded. “Last night.” The wind waited for him to tell them about the boy walking through his mind, but the trickster stayed quiet.
“Jacob . . .” The musician scowled. “He’s the Ward now? He’s unhinged. Celia and I felt him calling a tsunami. The thing almost swallowed the city. If he sides with the Clarks . . .” The musician shuddered.
The wind hmphed. The boy was not unhinged. It was an accident. Beings should be more forgiving of others, especially when they made accidents too.
For example, the wind clearly remembered a time when the musician had sung in Boise and caused all the hot springs in the surrounding mountains to bubble and overflow, and the entire local deer population to mate spontaneously.
They’d mated on the roadsides, in parks, in humans’ back yards.
So if anyone were unhinged, it was the musician.
His music made deer populations explode.
Besides—and more importantly—the boy would never side with the Clarks.
“Why should we align with the Smith?” the woman asked. “The only thing I care about is . . .” She stared at the trickster, and her shoulders slumped.
“Pulling a Greek tragedy on Dad?” the musician asked. “Patricide. In vogue since 420 BC.”
“No. I mean yes.” The woman shook her head. “Dad wanted us dead. He’s given Luvic a death sentence. No one has ever stayed human for longer than three years after . . .” Her jaw clenched, and she looked to the side. “What was he thinking?”
The trickster lifted an eyebrow. “Well, as he and Herman have agreed Last Clark and I will marry soon, I imagine he’s thinking he has three years for me to make him another heir.”
The woman’s fist clenched. Her brown eyes bled to a sea-swirling midnight-black. The wind shivered as it rolled in the violent swirl of her wrath. It echoed around her like the ocean roaring in a rocky shoal, beating against the seabed. “Over my dead body.”
Her voice rolled the wind like a seashell battered by the tide.
The musician smiled. “That’s the idea, Lia. We’re supposed to be dead.”
“But we’re not.”
She smiled, and the wind nearly screeched at the bloodthirstiness of it. For a moment, the citrus and pearl dust scented woman had looked as hungry and dangerous as the sirens at the bottom of the ocean.
“So,”—she turned to the trickster—“the Bards are aligned with the Clarks?”
“And Hell Gate.”
The woman raised an eyebrow, and the trickster shrugged.
“And our father doesn’t know we’re still alive?”
“No.”