Chapter 29
The boy was busy. This wasn’t surprising, because the boy was almost always busy. Sometimes, humans forgot there was virtue in taking your time, moving slowly, or even sitting quietly, doing nothing at all.
For instance, the wind had once flown west and spent long seasons perched on a needle at the top of a saguaro cactus.
It hadn’t moved once. Instead, it had cataloged the sundial movement of the cactus’s shadow shifting across the sand.
It had laughed at bark scorpions and collared lizards scrambling beneath the ticking shade clock.
At night, when spring rushed through the desert, the wind had delighted in the slow unfurling of the cactus’s white flowers and the velvety-soft wings of bats as they swooped in to sip the yellow nectar.
When summer rained down, the wind had smiled at the ruby fruit splitting open and the cactus wren feasting on the sweet, pulpy flesh.
Through the summer monsoon season to the mild winter spent in the company of a woodpecker, the wind had kept still and quiet.
Humans had complained, “Why is it so hot? Where’s the cooling breeze?
Why hasn’t the wind brought any rain?” But didn’t they see?
Sometimes, a being had to be still. Sometimes, a being had to be quiet.
But humans didn’t see this. They liked to be busy. They liked to go fast. They liked to be loud.
Even the boy—who was moderately wise, very polite, and (when he listened to the wind) cunning and intelligent—had not learned the lesson of going slow.
Mistakes happened when you swirled around in a tornado rush. Especially when you should be perching quietly, watching and waiting, rather than running all over the sweltering city stalking phantoms and ghosts.
But the boy, of course, hadn’t listened to the wind. Not after the wind had told him where the citrus and pearl dust scented woman and the musician were hiding.
As soon as the wind had whispered the news, the boy’s cheeks had flushed sunset-pink, he’d gotten a strange smile, and then he’d said in a laughing voice, “It was Lia in the boat? Really? She conjured that water beast?”
Mosasaur, the wind had whispered, irritated for the forgotten being, since the wind had raced mosasaurs across the ocean eons ago.
“She’s alive.” The boy laughed. “She’s incredible.”
The wind flicked his ear. It wasn’t as if the woman had come to help him. The opposite, actually. Besides, the Bards thought he was unhinged.
The boy had shrugged. “You didn’t ask what she thought of me—you asked what I thought of her.”
Actually, the wind hadn’t asked anything at all, but the boy wasn’t listening.
He hadn’t listened for the rest of the sweltering, humid, heavy-aired day.
He’d just scrambled around the city, dashing from one borough to the next, running up and down subway tunnels, pushing through the pea-soup-thick air, chasing the woman.
The wind felt like a wet rag that had soaked up a pot full of boiling water—almost too heavy to move and definitely too weighed down to breathe. It dripped and struggled, wishing the boy would find a patch of shade to be still in.
But no.
Instead the boy galloped across town trailing the woman and the musician, first to the Merchant’s shop (the wind did not enjoy the Merchant or his jokes), then to the charred skeleton of the Bard mansion and the horrid tunnels below, then to a noodle shop for lunch (the lemongrass scent was nice; the steam was not), then the boy lost them for a short time when they changed forms again, then he found them outside the Clarks’ stalking away from the ruins, and now, finally, the boy was trailing the woman, back in the boisterous neighborhood near her tiny, cave-like, one-room apartment.
The musician was gone. In Bowling Green, he and the woman had split paths like a stalk of grass torn in two. The boy had chosen to stay with the woman, and the wind had chosen to stay with the boy.
A trail of sweat dripped down his face, pooling on the tip of his nose and then sliding off. The wind huffed and blew at the lines of sweat. Even the boy’s hair was damp, the light gold color turning a darker shade, like wheat in the last days of autumn.
He hadn’t changed his appearance with illusion. He was himself. Slight, unassuming, an unnoteworthy human in jeans and a T-shirt, just wandering the city on a too-hot day when he should be inside. No one noticed him—not even the woman. This was a Ward trick, this unnoticing thing.
The wind chuffed against him. His cheeks were still pink, his green eyes bright. He was clearly enjoying himself.
The woman had been a number of different people today.
First she was the rude man, two heads taller than the boy and three times as wide.
Then she was a hunched, shuffling old man, too stooped to lift her head.
Then she was a bald, bearded man with arms like drums and fists like rocks.
Then she was a willowy thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and a nose that twitched like a rat’s.
And now, nearing her apartment, she was the rude man again.
The boy had enjoyed every costume change.
That was what the woman was doing, wasn’t it?
She was a Bard, and she changed appearances as easily as an actress switching her wardrobe.
She wasn’t quite as good as the trickster at becoming someone else, but she was a Bard, which meant she was better than most.
She was better than the boy, who always gave himself away by tapping his right hand against his thigh—a tell he’d never learned to shed.
The woman looked over her shoulder, searched the crowded intersection, and then ducked down a side street. The boy waited a moment, pausing at a table of dried squid and dried anchovies that crackled when the wind shuffled them. Then, after a short pause, the boy followed the woman.
She neared the end of the street, walking quickly.
It was a short, abrupt street, like many of the narrow roads in this section of the city.
Many of the vendors were folding their tables, the bok choy and greens wilted and shriveled from the heat, the fruit soured and covered with fruit flies.
Only the vendors at tables covered in plastic windup toys, polyester scarfs, and things that didn’t wilt in the heat stubbornly remained, enticing humans with the promised cry, “Only one dollar! Two for one dollar!”
The boy ducked past the tables, weaving through the late-afternoon crowd and rounding the corner.
Bells tinkled, ringing as the wind sluggishly blew past an open door.
Mealtime scents of pork and garlic and the sweet, pungent scent of fermented fish congregated at the entry.
The wind swirled a moment, enjoying the rush of cold air-conditioning.
But then the boy slipped down an alleyway between two buildings. The wind shrieked and rushed after him. It was exactly like the narrow, dead-end, darkened hole the innocent one had died in.
The wind shoved against the boy’s legs, and he stumbled, catching himself on the brick wall. He looked behind him and gave the wind a small grin.
“Shh,” he whispered.
Shh? Shh? The boy was telling the wind to be quiet?
The wind huffed.
The boy crept forward. The alley wasn’t a dead end like the wind had thought.
It was narrow, barely wide enough for the woman to fit through since she was disguised as the rude man.
It extended the length of the brick buildings and then turned sharply like a river blocked by a canyon wall, veering to the right.
There was trash. There was always trash in these alleys. It was piled in black bags next to a large, wheeled dumpster. Some of the bags were torn open—by pigeons, cats, or rats—and bread and noodles leaked onto the concrete. The boy’s lips pinched, and his nose wrinkled.
The smell was not pleasant. It was the heat—it made the stench worse.
The boy’s shoes scuffed on the concrete, and the wind blew through the narrow alley, covering the noise. The boisterous city sounds were muffled by the brick walls and the narrow tunnel, as if the alley were too constricted to allow noise to pass through.
The wind shivered at the muted silence. The boy crept forward, keeping to the shadow along the alley’s wall. The wind moaned, and the boy’s mouth curled at the corners.
“It’s all right, Wi—”
The wind shrieked. The boy was thrown across the alley. He flew through the air and slammed into the brick. The wind rushed after him, cushioning his fall. His knees slammed into the concrete, his palms skidding over the rough stone.
He leaped to his feet. The woman—the rude man—charged him. She grabbed the boy and threw him against the wall, wrapping his arms in water chains and pinning his hands so the boy couldn’t conjure.
The wind screamed and furiously blew at the water imprisoning the boy’s hands.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman towered over the boy, a hulking, violent beast. She dragged in an enraged breath and said, in a deep male voice, “It looks like I’ve caught a Ward.”
The boy smiled. It was the smile he never let anyone see except for the wind. It was his private, happy, joyful smile—the one he wore when the wind made him laugh or when a book ended just the way he wanted it to.
“Have you?” he asked, laughter coating his words.
The wind huffed and stopped trying to blow aside the water chains. Clearly, the boy was having fun and didn’t want any help. Stupid boy.
The woman blinked, her brow furrowing. The rude man’s head was shaped like a bull’s: wide, massive, and meant for ramming.
The wind couldn’t always read the woman’s expressions, and it especially couldn’t read her expression when she was disguised as the rude man.
But perhaps . . . perhaps she was confused.
Or maybe she was thinking how only an unhinged being would smile joyfully at being caught in a trap.
The boy’s smile widened at her expression. “Now you’ve caught me, what are you going to do with me?”