Chapter 59
I carefully poked my head out from under the king-size bed. A white sheet drooped off the mattress and hid me from view, but I’d learned my lesson. I moved slowly, leveraging my forearms on the stone floor.
The late-morning sun speared through a narrow window and lit the dust motes I’d stirred up. I sniffed, holding back a sneeze. My eyes watered as I waited, listening for breathing, the shifting of the mattress, or any noise that meant someone else was in the room with me.
There was nothing under the bed but dust. The floors were cold and bare, the walls plaster. No molding. No curtains. No decoration, except for a sword hanging on the wall opposite the bed.
I smiled. I’d found the Smiths.
It’d been more difficult than I’d thought.
The tunnels under the beds didn’t follow normal laws of physics. Distance was shortened, as if aboveground, distance was a long string pulled tight, and underground, the string was all bunched together in tight waves. I’d spanned miles in minutes.
It was confusing and disorienting. After the Bards’, I’d taken a wrong turn and ended up on Rikers Island.
Luckily, no one had seen me when I popped up in a jail cell.
Then, somehow, I’d ended up in the Bronx and frightened a kid while he was playing with his action figures.
He’d grabbed a squirt gun and shot me with a blast of water.
Finally, though, I’d found my way to Queens and the bare floors, weapon stashes, and functionally utilitarian beds of the Smiths.
I crawled out from under the bed, as quiet as night, and looked around. No one was here.
I was on the second floor, where the floors were wood instead of stone and the rooms were larger. The bedroom was meticulously neat and surprisingly clean, except for the layer of dust under the bed.
A surprised hiccup of emotion lodged in my chest. I recognized this room. It was where Finn and I had last spoken before he’d dueled Primus. While I’d patched him up, I’d promised him I’d do everything I could to make sure he got out of the games alive. He’d promised me we’d never be enemies.
I stared at the unmade bed. The blankets were kicked to the foot, and the sheets draped off the edges.
Finn and I had sat on that bed, and he’d asked me for a favor. If everything flipped and nothing made sense, he wanted me to ignore what I thought I saw and instead trust my feelings.
It’s funny. Everything was flipped now. I wondered if he’d ask me to trust my feelings again, or if he’d learned that feelings lied.
For example, this was Darin’s room, and remembering how he’d held my hand at the closing ceremony and fought to protect Finn, I felt like he was a good man. But then he’d recently tried to kill me, so feelings can mislead and deceive.
But why else was I here, except for a feeling that the Finn who’d promised to kill me wasn’t the real Finn? That I’d find the real one here, and he’d promise me a ride on the ghost train?
I tiptoed through the room, passed the en-suite bathroom—heavy with the scent of Darin’s soap—and then slipped into the hallway.
The Smith compound was busier than I anticipated. The Clarks and the Bards reserved their homes for the immediate family only, but apparently, the Smiths—or Finn—were different.
As soon as I moved down the hallway, I heard a loud group of at least a dozen Smiths laughing and arguing. At the sound of heavy footsteps, I ducked into a bedroom with the lights off.
When the footsteps faded, I peered out the door.
The Smith fortress was large. Not as big as the Bards’ home, but it was still the size of a large government building.
It took up an entire block and multiple stories.
The good thing was, it was a rectangle, and the hallways were laid out in a grid pattern.
There wasn’t any way to get lost—not like at Hell Gate or the Bards’.
Besides, if Finn were here, I knew exactly where he’d be. The clock on the wall said it was ten in the morning, and nearly every day of his life, Finn had spent the hours between five and ten making himself into a weapon through unrelenting physical conditioning, swordplay, and hand-to-hand combat.
If he wasn’t finishing up his session, then he was on his way to the kitchen to eat a giant meal.
At least, if he were still himself, that’s what he was doing.
There were two stairwells from the second floor to the first. I snuck down the stairs near the back of the house and ducked into an office when two Smiths passed, chatting about Istanbul.
I followed my nose, sneaking toward the smell of melted butter, cheddar, and yeasty bread. I stopped at the kitchen’s entry, pressing my hand against the cool plaster wall.
My heart thudded painfully, stumbling in my chest. Would it do that every time I saw him?
He was at the stove, his back to me. His head was down, and the ends of his black hair curled against his T-shirt collar. My fingers itched to run through the strands and push the messy ends off his forehead.
Three grilled-cheese sandwiches sizzled on a cast iron, and he absently twirled a metal spatula. He did that whenever he was lost in thought. He’d twirl and balance anything in his hands–pencils, spatulas, knives, swords.
A pot of soup—tomato, by the smell—simmered next to the sandwiches. It’s funny—he was the Smith now, but he was still making himself sandwiches for lunch. If I’d been here, I would’ve made him . . .
His shoulder’s stiffened, and the spatula wobbled. He steadied it and then slowly set it down on the counter.
I held my breath.
He turned.
He was pale—paler than in my dreams—and his five-o’clock shadow was days past five. He looked tired, like a heavy weight had been set on his shoulders and he knew he’d have to carry it, without rest, for the remainder of his life.
The power was still there. It hummed in the air around him like a super volcano right before an eruption. Most conjurers’ illusions made me tingle, but Finn’s illusion felt like grabbing an electric fence and having eight thousand volts jolt through me.
There was illusion circling him now, and I had the strongest urge to unravel it.
I didn’t though.
At his sharp exhale, I lifted my hand.
“Mari . . .”
He took a powerful step across the kitchen, then he stopped. He’d never been wary. He’d always gone after whatever he wanted. He especially had never been wary with me. But he paused, his expression shuttering.
Suddenly, I wished for the callback ring so I could know what he was feeling. It’d lied—he’d shielded his emotions, but at least I’d had an idea.
Right now, except for that initial shocked exhale, I had no idea at all.
I took a small step forward, lowering my hand. The grilled cheeses had begun to burn, but Finn ignored them. Instead, he watched me warily, his gaze flicking from the dried blood on my throat back to my eyes.
A cosmic storm of nebula and lightning sparked in his navy eye. What did he see when he looked through it? Was the world still solange-soaked, or had he shed that with death?
The room pulsed with an unreadable emotion, and the golden rope between us throbbed and vibrated like a tuning fork struck. Finn clenched his fist and took another deep breath.
He took up so much space that the large kitchen felt unbearably small.
He was taller than he’d been and even more muscular.
Perhaps that was what the crown did: it took what you were and made you even more.
His size didn’t frighten me. He’d always been big, and I’d almost always been small.
But he’d only ever used his size to protect me, or to wrap me in his arms. I’d only ever felt safe with him.
Now?
There wasn’t anything safe about the way he was looking at me.
His face hardened, and that electric charge snapped and sparked around him, lighting his eyes and zapping me like a live wire.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, and I flinched at the power coiled beneath his words.
If Finn fought like I knew he could, if he used all his power, would I be able to stand up against him? Would I survive?
I doubted it.
It had been a mistake to come here, but I still had to ask.
“Do you have something you want to say to me?” My voice came out barely a whisper. “Anything? Finn?”
He blinked, and the lightning in his eye glowed neon-blue. He closed his green eye and peered at me with his solange eye. I held still, my heart pounding, a trickle of sweat trailing down my forehead.
Then he took a slow, careful step forward. Then another. He reached out, and I held my breath as he brushed his fingers over my cheek. His gaze dipped lower, and he touched the dried blood on my throat. It flaked off under his fingers.
“Who did this to you?” He asked it casually, as if the answer wasn’t important.
I didn’t answer. I was still waiting for him to tell me we’d go and ride the ghost train. I was still waiting for him to acknowledge that he was coming to me at night.
At my silence, Finn’s expression tightened.
“What does it matter?” I finally asked, and Finn dropped his fingers from my neck, leaving a cold, icy tingle behind.
“I don’t want to see you hurt.”
I smiled—not because of what he said, but because he’d once said something similar before.
Still, he hadn’t mentioned the ghost train or the dreams.
My blood was scalding me, burning through my veins at the nearness of him and the desire to fold myself against him.
“I always hurt,” I admitted. “Your love hurts. Your love is excruciating. Every time I’m near you, every time I think of you, all I feel is pain.”
His face went even paler. It leached of all color.
“When you kill me, like you promised, make it quick,” I said, ducking away from his outstretched hand.
When I turned, I slammed into a solid chest.
“Whoa, whoa, hey.” Darin gripped my arms, looking over my head, and said laughingly, “Finn, your lunch is burning. What’re you trying to do—burn the place down?” He set me aside and then finally looked down at me.