Chapter 57
The first mistake I made was forgetting Ragnor Bard wasn’t anything like his brother.
It was an easy mistake to make. They looked so much alike they could be twins.
Same thick black hair. Same dark brown eyes framed by long eyelashes.
Same full mouth that tilted up at the corners.
And same perfectly symmetrical features that mesmerized millions.
That was where the resemblance ended, because while Luvic tended toward pretty (at least before he’d become part-jackaltooth), Ragnor leaned toward ruggedly handsome.
It was in his expression. Luvic tended to look like he’d just played a practical joke and was waiting for everyone to catch on. Ragnor looked like he’d been marooned on a deserted island for years with only a guitar to keep him company. He was rough-edged, melancholy, and magnetically beautiful.
Still, for a millisecond, I hesitated. My gut saw a face that looked like Luvic’s, and I unconsciously reacted in the same way I’d react if Luvic held a knife to my throat.
That was my second mistake. I didn’t react. I’d always give Luvic the benefit of the doubt.
But Ragnor was not Luvic. In fact, Luvic had told me on more than one occasion to be careful of his brother, because he didn’t fight fair. Ragnor Bard was a sneaky, tricky, dirty fighter.
He used his image as a golden-voiced, love-song-crooning, world-touring, sex-idol musician to disarm enemies and make them forget he was actually the third most powerful Bard alive.
Hence my third mistake. I’d forgotten the Bard siblings would do anything to protect each other.
I’d seen the lengths to which Luvic would go to protect his siblings.
And I’d witnessed Celia’s wrath when anyone tried to harm Luvic.
But somehow, I’d forgotten that (melancholy, quiet, rugged musician) Ragnor was a Bard too. And he saw me as a threat.
As soon as he said “little monster under my bed,” he conjured a knife and slid it across my throat.
I hesitated. Stupidly. But the sting had me yanking the blood knots free. The knife disappeared, but it’d cut my skin, and the bloom of warm blood circled my neck.
Ragnor’s hand hung suspended over my neck. He was gripping thin air where the knife should’ve been. For one second, he looked at his empty hand with shock.
I didn’t hesitate a second time. He’d crouched over me, his knee on my chest, his hand on my throat. I reared up and slammed my forehead into his nose. There was a sharp crack as his nose broke. Blood splattered over me. His head snapped back, and I kneed him in the groin and flipped him off me.
He swore as his back hit the floor, and a stack of magazines fell on top of him. I dove toward the bed. The floor beneath it was solidifying. The tunnel was closing. I could make it if—
Ragnor grabbed my ankle and dragged me back toward him. “What are you?”
I kicked him, connecting with his forearm. What was I? “A friend.” Okay, not a friend. Not at all. “A friend of a friend.”
I kicked him again.
He grunted, then he twisted his hand, throwing water chains over me.
“Nice try. Dead men don’t have friends. Who sent you? Who else knows?”
The chains wrapped around me and tugged me toward the ceiling. He was going to hang me upside down. Wrap me in a water prison Houdini-style.
I sliced his knots, and the water disappeared. I hit the floor, soaking-wet, and scrambled toward the bed.
He swore and dove after me. I kicked back, and my boot hit his shoulder.
He flinched and conjured a shrieking noise.
I’d never seen anyone do this before. It sounded like amp feedback turned up so high it made my brain feel like it was exploding.
My ears popped, and I felt a warm liquid—blood? —dripping from them.
I couldn’t think. It hurt. I pressed my hands over my ears and yanked at the notes vibrating in the air. Ragnor lunged at me. The shrieking stopped as he slammed me to ground.
A sharp ringing echoed in my ears. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear anything.
His hands circled my throat, and he spoke again. I could almost make out the muffled hum of his words.
“—monster . . . Bard sent . . . last words—”
He thought I was an assassin sent to kill him and his sister. It was a reasonable assumption. Completely inaccurate, but reasonable. He didn’t waste time or effort conjuring; instead, he reached to the side and grabbed a knife that’d been underneath the second mattress.
“Luvic’s getting married tomorrow,” I said, my words strangely distorted in my ears.
Ragnor stilled, his muscles tensing, the knife gripped in his hand.
“He’s marrying Last Clark. He doesn’t want to. She’s going to kill him after the wedding. Don’t you think you should do something about it? He needs you. He needs your help.”
Ragnor stared at me as if he couldn’t decide whether or not I was real. His hand loosened on the knife. “What did you say—?”
He broke off when the door burst open.
A violent wind screamed through the apartment. The magazines flew through the air, launching like mad birds in a tornado. The wind ripped at my clothes and swirled around me in a frenzy.
The door slammed against the wall, and Jacob stalked into the apartment. An old man rushed in after him.
My heart kicked against my ribs.
The wind died. The magazines fell to the floor, and the television teetered then smashed against the ground. The front door slammed shut and locked.
Jacob took in the scene in one glance: Ragnor on top of me, knife in hand; a line of blood circling my throat; Ragnor’s nose bloody and bruised.
Jacob changed in an instant. When he arrived, he’d been calm, ready to fight or to confront, but emotionally disengaged.
The moment he saw the blood, the knife, and tapped my chest and felt an echo of fear, he flipped.
He became a nightmare. The face that haunted conjurers’ dreams. He was terrifying to look at, but no one was looking at him but me.
“Raggie!” the old man shouted.
Celia? It had to be Celia.
Ragnor looked at the old man, then at Jacob, and shouted, “Wait—”
Celia twisted her hand, and a venomous snake launched at me, its fangs driving toward my exposed throat.
I pulled the lark’s head knots, untying the snake, just as Ragnor dropped to the ground, screaming. He clutched his head in his hands, covering his ears.
Celia twisted her hands and sprayed a line of scalding steam toward me.
A strange look flickered over Jacob’s face. Tenderness, maybe. Regret, definitely.
I untied Celia’s illusion, tugging the knots loose. She was already conjuring another attack, but then Jacob sent a blast of wind, knocking her daggered whirlpool aside.
“Jacob?” she asked, shock making her voice crack.
My hearing was back, loud and clear.
My brother’s eyes darkened.
Celia didn’t stay shocked long. She twisted her hand, and a giant, snapping electric eel flashed into existence. It raced toward Jacob. Its twisting body filled the air with deadly voltage.
Jacob conjured a wall of air and crushed the eel.
Celia created a wave that was as tall as the ceiling. She shoved it at Jacob. “You were my sea. And you sent a creature to kill—”
I pulled Celia’s net of overhand and bowline knots loose, and the crashing wave disappeared.
“I’m sorry, Lia,” Jacob said.
Then Celia crumpled to her knees, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Jacob conjured a bed of wind and gently lowered her to the wood floor.
Ragnor had stopped screaming. He was whimpering now. The old man—Celia—was curled in a tight ball, unconscious, a frown marring her wrinkled face.
I unknotted the illusion surrounding her, and there she was. Celia Bard. Alive.
She was different than she’d been during the games.
Her hair was a little longer and not as sleek. She had flyaways and needed a trim. Her nose was sunburned and her lips chapped. She was paler too, and thinner, like maybe she’d been ill and still hadn’t recovered. Even so, she was even more beautiful than she’d ever been.
Jacob stared at Celia for a moment, his expression the same one he’d worn at the gala when he’d thought no one was watching. Longing. Tenderness, maybe. Protectiveness.
He let out a long sigh, then he held out a hand and helped me stand. “So . . . what are you doing here?”
I smiled. “Sorry I ruined your morning. Looked like you were having a nice time.”
His eyes crinkled, and he mentally tapped against my heart. Just one quick tap, as if he were checking to make sure my doors were still locked tight. “You’re really good at destroying illusion. A lot better than you used to be.”
I nodded. “Are you and Celia . . .?”
Jacob’s mouth twisted into a self-mocking smile, and his hair fluttered in a quick gust of wind. He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he looked at my neck and asked, “Are you all right?”
I lifted my hand to the blood on my throat. The slice had stopped bleeding. It was only a little sticky. Mostly dried. “I’m okay. I shouldn’t have come. I only wanted them to know Luvic’s getting married tomorrow.”
Jacob tilted his head. “Is he?”
I nodded. “To Last.”
Jacob’s eyebrows rose. “Huh. And I didn’t get an invitation?”
“Maybe you should come.”
“Maybe I should. As the Ward, it’s practically an obligation.” He almost smiled. He nodded at Celia and Ragnor. “Does anyone else know they’re alive?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Ragnor moaned, and Jacob flicked his gaze to him, his expression darkening again. “We should go.”
I stared at him. There was something strange here. Something odd. I felt like I was missing something. Jacob was speaking to me almost like we knew each other better than we did. He was acting as if we were more than siblings connected by blood. He was acting as if we were friends.
I pressed my fingers to my forehead. Was Jacob like Finn? Could he erase memories?
Jacob smiled at where my fingers rested on my forehead. Then he slowly nodded.
I widened my eyes.
“What—?”
Before I could finish my question, he disappeared. There was no illusion. No knots. He was there, and then he was gone.
He’d done something like this before, in the north.
Jacob didn’t always use illusion. Sometimes, he used .
. . it was hard to describe, but it felt like anti-illusion.
I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. Or, more accurately, I could feel the absence of it.
It was like matter and antimatter—you didn’t know what it was, but you knew it was there.
The wind had left with him. The apartment was a disaster.
It looked like a tornado had blown through it.
Magazines littered the ground. The kitchen table was overturned.
Even the mattresses had flipped over in the fight.
A coffee pot had slipped off the kitchen counter, shattered, and spilled coffee across the floor.
It was a disaster, and like a disaster, there was quiet after the storm. The only sounds were Ragnor’s pained groans and Celia’s quiet, peaceful, sleep-tinged breaths.
I found a pen beside the overturned table, grabbed a magazine, and wrote a note on the cover. It was a gossip magazine, and the cover was an image of Luvic, with the headline, “Downward Spiral? Luvic Bard’s Devastating Grief.”
I wrote a note: “Wedding tomorrow. You’re invited.”
Then Ragnor and Celia began to stir, so I dashed to the bed, knocked on the floor, and dove into the monster’s highway.