Chapter 79
“You’ll have to be everywhere today,” the boy said, hurrying down the cloud-shadowed sidewalk. He was out of breath, half-jogging, half-sprinting toward the subway. His messy blond hair stood up like a field of wheat in a windstorm, and the wind blew at the strands, messing it even more.
“I know you hate spreading thin,” the boy said, pushing his hair out of his eyes, “but . . . something’s coming. Something . . .”
He quickly glanced at the sky, and the wind moaned, pressing against his side.
The wind didn’t hate anything. Hate was a human emotion.
It hadn’t become quite human enough to take it on, but it would admit that when it stretched its tendrils from the crashing waves at the base of the island, all the way to the sheer, rocky cliffs at its north, it felt .
. . breathless. It felt as thin as a wispy, insubstantial, evaporating cloud in the upper atmosphere.
When it stretched itself that thin, it wasn’t able to blow or gust or shove or stroke. It was only able to listen, to float, to be barely anywhere and wholly everywhere at the same time.
Everywhere and nowhere.
It didn’t feel like the wind when it stretched itself thin. It felt like a ball of wool that had been spun into a thread that stretched for miles but was as insubstantial as a spider web.
If the wind stretched thin, it wouldn’t be able to help the boy. It would only be able to witness. To listen. It would be a watching thing.
“I know you’re worried,” the boy said, dodging a taxi as he jogged across the street. He ducked under the thin metal legs of sidewalk scaffolding and skipped past a hill of black trash bags. They kicked out a rancid, heat-fermented, sweet-sour garbage scent.
The wind shoved the odor back, swirling a newspaper and knocking a paper cup down the sidewalk as it rushed after the boy.
It was not worried. It never worried. It . . .
The boy tilted his chin toward the wind and flashed a laughing grin. His forest-green eyes lit with amusement, crinkling at the edges. The wind flicked his ear. Stupid boy. Why was he laughing?
The storm clouds churning over the city spires were aware.
They were a flinty, malevolent, boiling thing.
The wind had rushed high earlier, on its way to find the boy, and when it had touched the clouds, they’d touched it back.
The wind had shrieked at their cruel, eager, tumor feel.
That was what they were. A cancer of clouds, devouring healthy air and filling the sky with wrongness.
The wind had seen these clouds before. They came when something evil was on the horizon.
They churned and bred and boiled until they blotted the sun and left only dark.
They were drawn to horrible things, and the larger they grew, the worse the thing was that they were seeking.
Sometimes, they participated, releasing a windless storm, but other times, they only watched, with sadistic, black-clouded voyeurism.
The wind had sped away from them, rushing to find the boy.
His cheeks were bright red, sweat trailing down the back of his neck. The air was suffocating and soupy-thick. The wind felt as if it were riding on the hissing steam of a boiling soup pot. It slid over the heat waves rising from the sidewalk and bumped the boy’s hand.
It didn’t want to leave him. Not with the eager, heavy clouds throwing a black shroud over the city.
The boy stopped at the mouth of the subway and darted into the shadowed tunnel, letting the trickle of people stream past. He ducked his head, turning toward the grime-layered tiles.
“Please,” he whispered. “I know you don’t want to. But I’ll be careful. I promise. I’ll be safe. But she’s tapping, and I can’t go just yet . . . And Lia’s confronting . . .” He stopped and looked quickly around the subway, noting the people riding the escalator into its depths.
The wind fluttered across his cheek, and he nodded.
“And who knows what Ragnor will do? And the leggerock. And the Smiths . . . I have to . . .”
The wind shoved.
No.
He did not have to.
The boy nodded. “I do. It’s time.”
No.
What was time? Time was nothing.
The boy smiled again, but it was the quick flash he used to give. The smile that lasted only as long as it took to quickly flip a book’s page. There. Gone.
“He won’t attack me,” the boy said. Then, at the wind’s huff, he added, “Fine. I don’t think he’ll attack me.
But if he does . . . well, I’m not helpless.
You worry too much. I thought you were a fierce, courageous—aww, Wind, don’t do that.
Don’t . . . here . . .” The boy dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, crinkled metallic wrapper.
The wind gasped and rushed to his hand. Where had he found it?
It rolled in the wrapper. It scraped its back over the fine edges and chortled as the wrapper crackled like a metallic fire.
The soft, delicate puff of sugar, rosewater, orange bergamot, and almonds coated the wrapper, and the wind wrapped itself in it.
The aroma was almost gone, but the wind didn’t mind.
It enjoyed the faded perfume of a woman gone just as much as it enjoyed the splash of her company.
It loved the flavor of wine just as much as it enjoyed the taste of it on someone’s lips.
It liked the faded warmth of a sun-soaked rock after sunset just as much as it loved the sun’s first rays shining down.
“I found it in Dad’s sock drawer,” the boy said, touching the wrinkled wrapper. “It smells like him, doesn’t it? I remember the first time he shared . . .” The boy cleared his throat and looked away.
The wind rolled in the candy-coated scent.
“You can’t get these anymore. They stopped making them years ago.
Sometimes, I think about conjuring some.
No. Not sometimes. I think about it whenever I miss him, which is pretty much all the time.
But it wouldn’t be the same. And I think, if something dies—candy, a story, a person—you should let it go.
It wouldn’t be right to . . . oh, wind. I didn’t mean for you to cry.
I thought you’d like it. He’s . . . he’s happy. He’s happy. Don’t you think?”
The boy crushed his hand around the wrapper, closing the scent in his palm.
The wind nudged at his fingers, running over the heat of his knuckles and the small scars on his hands.
When had he gotten those? During the games?
In the ocean’s depths? The wind’s boy was changing.
The wind trembled and spread over his closed hand.
“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered. “I didn’t think about how it might hurt you to have a scent of him. I only thought about my grief, and not yours. Sometimes, I forget you’re more than just the wind. Forgive me?”
The wind nudged the boy’s cheek. Who was the wind to forgive? There was no offence, no harm, that could be done to the wind. It was not a human, collecting offenses and carrying them around on its back, clothing itself in bitterness and resentments. There was nothing to forgive.
“Thank you.” The boy smiled, and the wind stroked the soft edge of his mouth.
“While I’m at the Smiths’,” the boy began, and the wind shook, trembling.
“While I’m at the Smiths’,” the boy repeated, his voice as reassuring as the man’s had once been, “I’ll be careful.
But we both know something’s coming. We both know it’s time.
You can stay with me, but please, be everywhere at once.
I need you—” He smiled when the wind nudged him again.
“Of course I need you. I need you to be with Lia, and my sister, and the Clarks, and the Bards, and . . . yes, everyone. As soon as something happens, tell me, and I’ll come—” He shook his head.
“I’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ll be fine. Besides, if they attack me, you can pull back, and you can . . .”
The boy looked down at his shoes. The rubber soles were dirty.
There were holes in the fabric. One of the shoes was untied.
The boy’s clothing was generally frayed and wrinkled.
It was because he was more often in his head than in the physical world.
He didn’t think about clothing the way the Bards or even the Smiths did. He stared at the loose shoelace knot.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said finally.
“Even if you could’ve done something to save him, which you couldn’t have.
You know? After the Smith died, he didn’t .
. . there wasn’t . . . he loved him. Sometimes, when you love someone, you become a part of them, and they become a part of you, and it’s impossible to keep living once they’re gone.
You either fade away, or you die in a great gust of wind.
And that’s . . . that’s what he did. But it wasn’t your fault.
You couldn’t have saved him. I won’t do that to you, okay?
I have a lot to live for. I have a lot left to do.
If I’m in trouble, I expect you to come and . . .”
The wind wrapped itself around the boy, holding him in a tight hug.
The boy smiled. “And when everything’s right, you, me, and maybe Lia . . .” He lifted an eyebrow, checking the wind’s reaction. “Right. And Lia. We’ll go north together. It’ll be . . . it’ll be good. I promise. Okay?”
The wind touched the boy’s cheek, checking for tears. It pressed the boy’s neck, listening for his pulse. It beat steady and sure. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t worried. The wind sniffed, and all it could smell was honesty, steadfastness, truth.
The wind sighed.
It would do as the boy asked.
The boy smiled at the wind’s assent.
“You are,” he said, “the greatest, most courageous, most wonderful wind in the whole wide world. You know that, right?”
The wind knocked against the boy. What did he know? But still, it wasn’t a terrible thing to compliment something as wondrous as the wind. It hummed happily. Then, with a final tap goodbye, it spread itself thin.
It left the boy with only the tiniest, thinnest, weakest tendril of itself.
The boy jogged down into the bowels of the subway, hurrying to meet with his father’s killers.