Chapter 96
I dove across the pavement, ducking under a barrage of boulders.
Last stood on top of a concrete hill, blindly throwing giant rocks into the horror.
She laughed when one hit the legs of Luvic’s horse and it stumbled, falling to its knees.
The horror swarmed, its larvae nipping at the horse’s white light.
The horse screamed, and Luvic leaped from its back, joining Celia and Ragnor to block the horror’s advance. They stood shoulder to shoulder, weaving water and song. Every wave of illusion they conjured was swallowed by the darkness.
It was expanding so quickly it would soon stretch an entire city block. The terror of it nipped at me and dug into my chest, trying to crush the flickering light in my heart. It joined Jagger’s blood and tried to suffocate me from the inside out.
There is no good, it said.
There is no light.
There is no love.
The agony and the anguish smothered the city in darkness.
“Keep them vulnerable,” Primus shouted, thrusting me behind him.
I yanked at Finn’s illusion. Every time either one of them conjured, I pulled their knots free before they had a chance to form.
The air was so hot it felt like breathing in flame. It burned with an acrid, greasy, horrifying smell. My eyes stung, and my body ached. I’d never untied so many knots in my life. Millions to free the horror, and a million more to leave Finn vulnerable.
The horror reared and launched at me. Finn dove across a chasm Primus had opened and sliced at the horror’s black claw. He grinned as he flew past. The corrupt Finn launched after him.
They were the same man with the same skills. It looked like Finn was fighting himself in the mirror. Each move was anticipated before it even began.
Primus twisted his hand. A giant metal plate formed over them. He slammed it down, and both Finns dove out of the way.
The one with the swords rolled and leaped to his feet next to me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“I sacrificed my revenge to come back,” he said, giving me his half-smile. “Unfortunately, it came back with me. As him.”
“That’s your revenge?”
“Mm-hmm. Mari?”
“Yeah?”
He ducked one of Last’s boulders and then grinned at me. His solange-blue eye sparked with lightning. “When this is over, you and I are going to take a ride on the ghost train.”
I sucked in a breath. His smile grew, and then he dove away, dodging the flaming missiles Primus was throwing.
It had been real.
The dreams were real.
Which meant Finn had taken me into those dreams to free me. And he believed he’d succeeded.
But he hadn’t.
I wasn’t free.
Jagger’s blood still ripped at my will. The pressure of him still smothered my being. I was still a mine.
“Enough,” Primus shouted. “Take note, abomination. Today, you die!”
He charged at the good Finn. As he roared, he conjured spiked rock armor and a mace dripping with poison. His eyes glowed an eerie yellow as he swung his mace in a vicious arc.
Finn held preternaturally still. Across the street, Luvic and his siblings fought the encroaching horror. The glowing horse reared and bucked, screaming at the devouring larvae.
Primus swung the mace. It descended with deadly velocity. At the last second, Finn tilted to the side. The poisoned mace whistled past his head. He grabbed Primus’s wrist and twisted. Primus slammed to his knees. The stone armor cracked.
Finn flipped Primus onto his back. The weight of the stone armor was so heavy he couldn’t stand. He looked like a beetle on its back, his legs waving uselessly.
Last screamed and threw a boulder at Finn.
“Leggerock,” she shouted, “join the fight!”
A slow, poisonous curl slid up my spine. The pressure of Jagger’s will slammed into me.
“Gladly,” he said, his rocklike rumble feeding the horror.
I swung around. Jagger and his army of creatures stood in the Silencer’s confines. Slipshots, growlings, lures, shills, spirits, and more crowded into the darkness. They held enough ammunition—blood, Furtig, and fire—to create a fiery hell.
Jagger’s gray, wrinkled skin soaked up the darkness. The black clouds sought him out, and the horror veered toward him. His flat gray eyes smoldered with vicious glee.
He smiled at me, his sharp teeth glistening.
“Creatures,” he said, sweeping his clawed hand toward the Bard siblings and their white stone horse. “Kill them.”
With his command, a spray of Furtig-fueled fire streaked across the night.
* * *
Celia, Ragnor, and Luvic stood in a triangle formation, back-to-back. They twisted their hands, covering themselves in an ocean of water. It evaporated in great gasps of steam. Just as quickly as the fire consumed the water, they created more.
The water doused the fire.
The fire evaporated the water.
The air was thick with steam. It was so hot that pink blisters started to form on their skin.
Celia gasped and changed her water to sheets of ice.
“Jacob,” she gasped. She grabbed her crystal necklace. “Jacob!” Then she conjured a glacier, holding Jagger’s Furtig and blood fire back.
This fire burned hotter than any fire on earth. It was more potent than the magma that swirled beneath the ocean’s surface. It was hungrier than the lava that clawed free of erupting volcanos. It was—Jagger claimed—an unquenchable, unbearable flame.
The Bards encased themselves in sheets of ice. The horror swarmed the glacier-blue shield.
Jagger laughed, enjoying their terror.
Last, seeing her brother on his back, jumped down from her hill and sprinted across the darkness. The horror’s larvae were inching across the pavement toward his still form.
She slammed to her knees next to him.
I spun at the whistle of a blade and ducked. The edge of it sliced off the end of my braid.
The cruel Finn had found a sword.
He laughed. “Hello, Mari. Having fun?”
He lunged, and my Finn knocked him aside. They rolled across the ground, the horror chasing after them.
It was the most vicious fight I’d ever seen. I’d thought Darin and Finn fighting was a terrifying thing, but this? It was two warriors with the same strengths and no weaknesses.
No one could fight like Finn.
Except . . . Finn.
The flame of Jagger’s creatures grew into a hell-like heat.
The bitumen stung my eyes. The acrid smoke clawed at my throat.
Inside the melted ice, Celia screamed.
It was more than pain.
It was more than horror.
It was—
I dropped to my knees. I cried out and curled inward, grabbing my chest.
The thread that had tied me to Jacob snapped free. It ripped out of me with so much force I could’ve sworn I was bleeding.
I screamed, clutching at the empty hole where the shining thread had been.
The tie to my brother yanked out of me. The rope severed. The connection snapped.
I fell to the ground, my cheek hitting the sidewalk. I rolled into myself, hugging my knees to my chest.
He was gone. He was dead. Someone had killed him. Someone had ripped his life away, and they’d done it violently.
I grasped for the thread, trying to find the glow of it. The tighter I grabbed, the more quickly the memory of it slipped through my fingers.
A door in my mind slammed open. It’d been hidden and locked by my brother. The night he’d pulled me out of Rockefeller plaza opened up before me. I remembered how we’d laughed. How we’d shared. How it had felt to have a brother. He’d loved me. I’d loved him.
Anguish tore through me, filling the hole where our thread had been.
I sobbed, choking on a breath, and tried to shove myself upright.
He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. I’d not received any influx of power. There was no river. There was no raging storm. There was only the absence of him.
Nothing more.
I clung to the hope.
He wasn’t dead.
Something was wrong, but he wasn’t gone.
In the barrage of ice and fire, Celia shuddered and convulsed on the ground. Luvic and Ragnor stood over her, shielding her with a violent, wrathful song.
Jagger’s attention focused on me. His blood snapped at Jacob’s memories, devouring the love and the joy. Jagger sprang across the rubble. He grabbed my shirt and yanked me to my feet. He looked me in my eyes, his own flat gray slits widening.
“What is this?” he asked, shaking me. “What is this?”
I glanced over his shoulder at Finn.
The good Finn was pinned beneath the cruel one. He’d been distracted by my cries. I’d been wrong. I’d said both Finns had only strengths, and no weaknesses. But my Finn had a weakness. His weakness was that he was mine.
“Mari,” he said.
I held his gaze, and Jagger laughed. “Do it,” he said. “Do what you promised to do.”
His gray lips curled, and he called to Finn, “Smith. Did you think you would win her freedom? She is mine. The second you stole her into your dreams, she told me. The moment you told her you were setting her free, she let me know. Did you think she has any secrets from me? I know everything. You haven’t freed her.
She doesn’t want to be free. She wants you to die. ”
Jagger dropped me to the ground. I landed lightly on my feet.
“Do it,” he said.
Finn’s expression turned to surprise. Then acceptance. Then, a million hurried calculations rushed through his eyes.
He was still trying to figure out how to save me, even though Jagger had just told him I’d betrayed him.
That every time he’d pulled me into a dream, I’d told Jagger every little detail.
I hadn’t held anything back. I hadn’t known if it was real or not, but that hadn’t stopped me from telling Jagger everything.
I’d told Finn not to trust me.
I told you.
You can never trust a mine.
Jagger flicked his hand—the gesture he gave when prompting an execution.
“Finn,” I said, looking the corrupt one in the eyes. “Didn’t you say you wanted to kill me? Look around. The world’s burning. What are you waiting for?”
The corrupt Finn shoved off my Finn and twisted toward me. He flicked his hand. I didn’t untie his knots.
A stream of fire raced toward Jagger and me.
“No!” my Finn cried. He tackled himself, twisting his own hand. I pulled his knots free.
The cruel Finn conjured a fire sword, and I let him.
The fire raged around Jagger and me.
Finn stabbed himself in the heart.