Chapter 41
“Hi, Lia.” The boy’s voice was loud, bouncing off the shelves, and the wind wanted to shush him, but . . . the boy! The boy was here! He’d come into the Smiths’ after all.
He shouldn’t have.
He really shouldn’t have.
The wind shoved against his knees, flipping and turning and running a figure eight through his legs.
It didn’t know if it was angry the boy was recklessly here or relieved.
Could it have more than one emotion at a time?
Relieved, angry, frightened—no, the wind was never frightened—worried, comforted, and oh so happy the boy was here.
It circled around the boy’s ankles, and his lips lifted into a delighted smile.
“You’re happy to see me,” he said, and the wind laughed.
Yes! Yes, it was!
“Shh,” the citrus and pearl dust scented woman hissed. “Be quiet! It can hear you.”
The boy lifted his eyebrows and then lowered the woman’s arm, turning her hand over to stare at the bloody mirror shard.
“It?”
The woman looked around, searching the shadows for the thing. The wind could smell it still. It was near, but more cautious. The boy’s intrusion had scared it away.
“It’s stalking me. It can be felt. It can be heard. It can kill. But it can’t be seen.” She held up the mirror shard. “Except in a mirror.”
The boy smiled, and the wind wondered if he was thinking of his own mirror.
“Why are you smiling?”
The wind huffed. The woman wasn’t as grateful as the wind thought she should be. After all, the boy was here at very great risk to himself.
He shrugged. “I like smiling.”
The wind laughed. No, he didn’t. The boy rarely smiled. He only smiled like this for the wind.
And . . . for the woman.
She narrowed her eyes and then looked around. The shelves had opened again, showing another path forward.
The boy frowned and pulled the glass shard from the woman’s fingers, twisting his hand so it shattered into a million fragments.
“Hey!”
He conjured a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood free from her fingers. The woman watched, her hands shaking, her heartbeat slowing from a frantic thud to a heady throb.
“All right?” he asked.
The woman nodded, staring at the line of the boy’s jaw and the golden stubble there. She frowned at the early beard growth and the blue bruises under his eyes. His lips turned up into his smaller, secret smile. He knew she was studying him.
But instead of saying anything, he burst the used handkerchief into flame and then blew it away on a cloud of ash.
Then he conjured a new mirror for her—a small round compact inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She glanced at him from below her eyelashes and then took it. The wind rode on the careful place where their fingers met and felt the shiver run through both of them.
The woman pulled away and cleared her throat.
Looking away, the boy conjured himself a more spartan mirror.
“Shall we?” He gestured to the aisle.
She nodded, and they started forward together. They walked slowly, sweeping the aisle with their gazes and the reach of their mirrors.
The shelves shifted, and as they moved, the woman’s breathing relaxed. The boy, though, his pulse was still that lub dub lub dub the woman inspired.
“Why did you come?” she finally whispered, glancing at the boy out of the corner of her eyes.
His heartbeat stuttered and then kicked forward. He shook his head. “I heard you calling.”
“I didn’t—”
The woman cut herself off when the boy glanced at her head-on.
“Fine. I did. But I don’t know how you heard me. All I said was ‘Jacob’—”
“You called for help.” He nodded to the necklace.
She looked down and then back to him. “And so you came?”
The shelves opened again, and pausing at an intersection, the boy moved to the right. “Yes. I came.”
He shouldn’t have.
He truly shouldn’t have.
“But if you help me with the lyre, then I won’t have done you a favor. It won’t be anything you couldn’t have done without me . . .”
She trailed off at the boy’s smile. “You want another, don’t you?”
“Maybe . . .”
The woman gasped. “And would that favor involve . . .?”
The boy laughed. It was rich and loud, and it echoed through the attic. The wind startled, and a cloud of dust flew up around them.
“Why do you always think I want—?”
The woman grabbed the boy’s shirt and yanked him toward her. He stumbled, and then she grabbed his face and pulled him to her.
“Because. Jacob . . .”
The wind trailed over the gasp of his name.
It fluttered on the plea of a shuddering breath as the woman pressed her soft lips to his.
She threaded her fingers through his silky hair and pulled him as close as another person could be.
She gasped and spread her mouth over his, tasting him, taking him, telling him a million things she hadn’t ever admitted to herself.
The taste of salt and yearning and fragile trust played over their mouths. She swept her lips over his and let the warmth of him seep into her. She traced her fingers over the soft stubble on his cheeks and the lines of his cheekbones.
His fingers fluttered to her cheeks and cupped her gently as his mouth explored hers. He made a soft noise, a thankful noise, and the woman opened her eyes and looked up into the cool green forest of his gaze.
He watched her as he rubbed his lips over hers. Her mouth curved into a smile, and he kissed the edges of it, tracing the upward angle.
“Lia,” he said, pressing another kiss against her mouth.
She tilted her chin and looked at him from under her eyelashes. It was her Bard, movie-star, paparazzi look. The smoldering goddess.
The wind chuffed and nudged her.
That look wouldn’t work on the boy.
He was a man, not an infatuated child.
“I always think that’s what you want, because . . .”
He watched her, his thumbs tracing a circle over the smooth skin of her cheeks. “Because . . .?”
She turned her face away, and he let her go. She stepped away, and he sighed. The wind circled them, searching for any traces of the thing. It was still out there, and the wind was wary and watchful.
The woman straightened her clothes. She patted her hair and tucked the loose strands behind her ears. Then, set to rights, as if the kiss had never happened, she walked down the open aisle.
The right side of the boy’s mouth lifted, and he shook his head. Then, with a nudge from the wind, he followed her.
They walked on, taking the open aisles, choosing the paths the boy pointed toward. It was a maze. He was a Ward. If anyone would find the way out, it was him.
Every now and then, there was a scraping, a tap, a moan.
The boy would pause, tilt his head, and wait, but the thing never ventured close.
The wind climbed up his pant leg, grappled with his shirt, and then curled up on his shoulder. It was tired of treading over the dusty floor.
“That first time we met,” the woman said, and the boy startled, looking at her in surprise. It had been so long since either had spoken that the wind was surprised too. The woman didn’t notice. She stared straight ahead and then back to her mirror. “When I conjured a toad in your fruit juice—”
“Punch.”
The woman smiled. “Punch. I liked you too. I didn’t tell you that. I knew . . . I thought . . . someday, one of us might have to kill the other. But . . . do you know dolphins?”
The boy looked over at the woman and lifted an eyebrow. “Yes. I know of dolphins.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What I mean to say is . . . there are dolphins in the ocean. They’re free.
They’re where they’re meant to be. Then there are dolphins born in captivity.
They’ve never seen the ocean. They’ll never see the ocean.
They’ll die in their watery cage never having been free.
But even dolphins in captivity . . . they know the sea.
It’s in their heart. It’s in their soul.
They feel it. They dream of it. They yearn for the sea.
It’s stupid, because they’ll never reach it.
They’re in a cage. It’s an impossibility.
An impossible dream. But still. They’re dolphins, so they dream of the sea, even knowing they’ll never have it.
You, Jacob.” She glanced over at him and then back to the dark. “You are my sea.”
The boy stopped walking. Two steps later, the woman paused. She stood still, her shoulders slumping. Then, slowly, she turned back to him.
The slow, steady thump of his pulse filled the space between them. The air filled with a hot summer breeze. It was a wind that spoke of long summer days, sheets flapping in the wind, and kisses under the August sun.
When the citrus and pearl dust scented woman turned, the boy let out his held breath.
He opened his palm and held it out to her.
She stared at his outstretched hand. “What?”
“We can break out of the cage together if you want.”
She frowned, her brow wrinkling. “And what would that look like? I’m supposedly dead. If my sociopathic father knows I’m alive, he’ll do everything he can to kill me. I have one brother left who can . . . If he dies, I die. And you . . .”
“Me?” The boy gave the smile that pretended he didn’t care what someone was going to say when he really did.
The woman shrugged. “You frighten people.”
“And I frighten you.”
“Not anymore.”
The boy stared at the woman. Into her. Then he smiled.
Her cheeks turned the color of a pink-tinged sunrise. “And . . . y-y-you . . .”
The boy’s eyes widened. The woman had never stuttered. Not once in her life.
“You’re the Ward now.”
“And someday, you’ll be the Bard.”
She nodded. “If I live that long.”
The wind sighed. That settled it. Principals never married each other. It confused the line of power.
The boy watched her for a moment longer, then he said, “The offer remains. Whenever you need me.” He gestured to the necklace.
“You’ll take me to the sea?”
He nodded. “Or help you. Or find you. Or . . . anything.”
She stepped closer, the scent of her wrapping itself around the boy. She placed her hands on his shoulders and stood on her tiptoes.
The wind shrieked.
The thing was back.