Chapter 60
When the wind raced to Brooklyn and told the boy the citrus and pearl dust scented woman had promised to make him pay, he’d grinned wildly and then laughed.
“But she liked the puppy?” he asked, still grinning.
The wind flicked his ear irritably. Hadn’t the boy heard? She wanted him to pay.
“Yes, yes, I heard. But she liked it? You’re sure?”
Of course it was sure. It didn’t say things it wasn’t sure of. The woman’s heart had thudded happily, her scent had softened, and her limbs had relaxed as the puppy had curled in her lap. She’d rubbed its velvet-soft ears and pressed a kiss to its wet nose. Yes. She’d liked it.
But she hadn’t forgiven the boy. In fact, knowing the boy, he’d probably fall into one of her traps.
Like when she’d pinned him to the rocks in the first game, or when she’d knocked him unconscious in the catacombs.
He didn’t protect himself well enough when it came to the woman.
Liking her made him hesitate, and hesitating made him vulnerable.
Worse, the musician was afraid of the boy, and that made him dangerous. Beings who were afraid were dangerous. Why had the boy shown him such horrors? Now he thought the boy was a monster. He’d do anything to shield his sister. Even kill the boy.
“I didn’t show him horrors,” the boy said, his grin fading like mist blown away. “He came up with those on his own. I only opened a door to show him what was already there.”
The wind huffed. Was that what he’d done? He shouldn’t have.
The musician was a Bard, not a Ward. He wasn’t used to making friends with his nightmares.
“I thought he’d thank me. It isn’t every day someone shows you your greatest fear.” He shrugged. “You know as well as I do that Ragnor Bard isn’t the devoted brother he pretends to be.”
The wind perked up, swirling around the boy’s ankles. No. It did not know that. How didn’t it know that?
The right side of the boy’s mouth curled up. His eyelids lowered, and he took on a satisfied, cat-caught-the-mouse look. “Oh. I know a secret you don’t?” The boy hummed happily, and the wind blew his hair irritably. Pride was not attractive. Neither was gloating.
Besides, the musician was loyal. Had always been loyal. The musician didn’t pretend.
The boy’s smile grew. He put his hands in his pocket and rocked back on his heels.
The floorboards of the boy’s apartment creaked.
It was quiet here, since the man had died and the boy’s mother had fled.
It was empty-feeling. Hollow. There were no more crumpets bathed in honey and afternoon-tea scents.
There were no more open windows or sunshine warmth.
There were no more murmured morning retellings about books over breakfast or the gurgle of water as the mother washed the dishes and the man dried them with a blast of air. There wasn’t anything anymore.
It reminded the wind of a robin’s nest raided by a weasel. All the eggs had been devoured, and the parents had fled to build a new nest far away. The boy was left behind in the decimated nest that had once held his life.
“So Lia’s going to the wedding?” It was a question but not.
The boy pushed aside the window blind to look over the street.
The shadows had shortened; the sun was high overhead.
The boy tracked a city bus. The side was pasted with a movie poster for the woman’s last film.
Her image stared up at the boy, her lips parted, a sword in her hand. The boy huffed a short laugh.
Would he go too?
The girl would be there.
“I’m going.”
He didn’t have to sound so pleased about it. The woman had said he’d pay.
“Will you do me a favor?”
The wind huffed, fluttering the curtain.
“Please?”
It had already done the boy a favor. It had stayed with the woman and watched her open his gift.
“I know. But Wind? If you do this, I’ll buy you a sausage and hot pepper pizza.”
The wind sniffed. What did it care? It couldn’t be bribed with spicy, fennel-flavored sausage and the delightful sting of hot peppers. What was a scent anyway? It could find a pizza on its own. It could blow through any of a thousand pizzerias.
“And a root beer. The kind you like, with extra carbonation. The one that tickles and pops. The one with icy froth.”
The wind scoffed.
The boy frowned. “And I’ll pull out Dad’s record player. I’ll play Beethoven’s Fifth for you.”
The boy’s voice wavered, and he looked to the side, hiding his expression.
When the boy was still young, small, and alone, the man would sometimes bring out his record player.
He would hold the boy in his lap, and the boy would laugh as the wind swirled around the room in time to the music.
The wind loved Handel’s Water Music, but the boy loved Beethoven’s Fifth, because the wind would crash around, blowing napkins in the air, knocking books off shelves, tossing curtains sky-high, and making paper into parachutes.
The wind would never tell the boy it liked Handel better, because Beethoven made him so happy.
It edged across the floor and nudged the boy’s ankle. He shook his head, clearing away whatever memory he was reliving, and smiled down at the wind.
“Will you?”
The wind fluttered against his cheek.
“Thank you. It’s a small favor. Just . . . I need to know more about the wedding.”
Was that all?
The boy nodded. “That’s all. Find out what you can. In the meantime, I’m going to see the Merchant. We’ll meet back here—say, at dusk? Don’t worry if I’m a little late.”
The wind huffed. It never worried.
The boy laughed and threw open the window. The wind sped out on a hot breeze and shot toward Manhattan.
* * *
It didn’t take long to find the trickster.
There were only so many places a conjurer would be on the day before his wedding.
Unlike humans and their weddings, or animals and their pairings, conjurers had very strict requirements for what happened on the day before a wedding.
Some of them thought the day before was even more important than the day of.
The wind had never bothered to pay attention to the intricacies and the rituals; it only knew a conjurer bride and groom would build their wedding hall together while the immediate family looked on. The illusion they made together supposedly portended the success of their marriage.
The trickster and his bride were at the Bard home.
The wind was surprised. It hadn’t seen how the trickster and his father had cleared and cleaned the site since it had burned.
The old mansion was gone, but it’d been replaced with a half-constructed building gaudier than the last. While previous generations had shown a hair of restraint, the current Bards had apparently decided restraint was for lesser mortals.
The wind wound around the travertine marble and glided on oceans of gold. It rolled on a sumptuous carpet and fluttered at the edge of the wedding hall. It was at the center of the unfinished mansion, hidden behind an illusion of cleared rubble and construction equipment.
The Bard and his wife sipped champagne with the cruel one and his father. The wind popped the fizz at the top of the Bard’s glass, spilling the liquid. It laughed as the Bard hissed in annoyance.
“Take note, sister,” the cruel one called. “Your husband-to-be shows a lack of enthusiasm. Do you need assistance motivating him?”
The cruel one’s father snorted, but the Bard and his wife—as cold and thin as an orchid’s stem—showed no reaction to the taunt.
The cruel one smiled when his sister’s shoulders tightened and the illusion she’d been conjuring wavered. She looked over at the trickster and scowled at the gray stone arch he was slowly constructing. It was the arch they’d be married under.
It was easy to see what the trickster had made and what the cruel one’s sister had conjured.
There was no harmony in this wedding hall.
Their designs clashed and receded. They repelled each other.
The trickster worked with Bard glamour and excessive flash.
He filled the hall with floral-carved sandstone, gold-trimmed benches, and a flower-strewn stream that moved idly toward the marriage arch.
The wind tapped on the trickster’s pulse as he conjured another heavy stone and fit it into the arch.
His pulse thudded slowly. His skin was clammy and covered in a light sheen of sweat.
Ah. It knew what this was. The trickster had nearly spent all his strength building this hall.
His hand had the slightest tremor as he twisted his fingers.
No one noticed but the wind.
The trickster turned to his bride and said, in a laughing voice that carried across the hall, “I tried enthusiasm once. It gave me a stomachache. Are you almost done?”
Her lip curled as she took in the trickster’s flushed face. “Nearly. I want to fix a few things.”
The trickster smiled blandly and waved his hand. “Feel free. Do what you like.”
The cruel one’s sister tilted her head, watching the trickster like a bird about to snatch a worm from the soil. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
The wind rode over the trickster’s neck as he slowly swallowed. His pulse beat quickly, but he spoke in a slow, amused voice. “Well. I aim to please.”
The cruel one’s sister turned away and twisted her hand. Her half of the hall had been built from polished bone and jagged rock. There were vines, but instead of flowering, they choked and suffocated.
The wind shrieked as her illusion covered the trickster’s half of the hall.
She split apart his stones, leaving cracks and fissures.
She melted his golden flowers. She turned his gurgling, clear stream muddy and dark.
She covered everything in a thick, poisonous vine, twisting it and holding it captive.
The trickster stared at her work. His face held no expression whatsoever.