Chapter 97
The soft sound of broken glass tinkling whispered through the night. It sounded like a rainbow of notes sprinkling across a xylophone.
The wind rubbed a thin tendril of itself over the shattered glass and sniffed at the pixie-like one. She moved carefully over the glass, as graceful as a tree bowing in the wind. In the distance, the Smith fortress was still burning, although the inferno was now only a furnace.
Most of the wind was still curled on top of its boy. It clung to him, humanlike in its grieving. But the loud tremble of its wail didn’t reach the ears of the pixie-like one.
Instead, there was only the sound of sirens, and closer still, the rattled breath of the solemn one.
She crouched down and pressed her finger to his chest.
A slow but steady boom echoed through his rib cage.
The pixie-like one smiled. The cold November chill of her gaze sent an icy shiver over the wind. “Justice,” she whispered. Her voice was bare-branch cold. “Get up.”
The solemn one’s gray eyes flew open. He reached up, snake-strike fast, and grasped her thin wrist.
If the pixie-like one were human, her wrist would’ve shattered at the strength of his grip.
Her eyelashes fluttered, and she gazed down at him with a strange gentleness.
“Get up,” she said.
He coughed. “No. I’m dying. Leave me alone.”
She scoffed. “You are not. You’re lazy. Get up.”
“Lazy? My ribs are broken. My lung is . . .”—he coughed—“collapsed. I can’t see out of my right eye—”
The woman leaned closed and peered into his bruised face. Sure enough, the right eye was swollen shut.
“—and I can’t . . . breathe.”
She pulled her hand from his grip. “If you can talk, you can breathe. Get up.”
“I hate you.”
She jabbed her finger into his rib, and when he winced, she pushed harder. “Hate me or love me, I don’t care, as long as you get up.”
“Winnie, if I get up, I’ll kill you.”
She smirked and dug her finger deeper into his broken rib. “Do you promise?”
He flinched then gasped as he shoved himself off the ground. He tried to lunge at her, but he only fell over. He coughed and spat up blood.
The pixie-like woman frowned. She stood and took a step back.
“Let me die,” the solemn one whispered. His voice was ragged and broken.
“No.”
“Why? Why?”
She looked up at the dark clouds. The wind could hear the wailing of her branches, the rustle of her leaves, the mournful sob of her executioner’s tree. She’d cradled enough dying men in her boughs to understand what the solemn one was begging for.
The pixie-like one watched the solemn one shudder and struggle to sit up again. There was no pity in her gaze.
“You’re not done yet,” she said.
“I am.”
She gripped his arm and ruthlessly yanked him to his feet. He thrust a killing blow at her. She easily knocked it aside and then held him up when he would’ve fallen.
He was so much larger than her. A bear next to a rabbit.
“Fine,” she said, starting to walk with him. She placed a knife in his hand and smiled when he didn’t stab her. “You may be done with me, but I’m not done with you.”
“Where are we going?”
She flagged a taxi and shoved him into the back.
The driver kindly ignored the wheezing, bruised, solemn man.
The pixie-like one smiled at the driver and said, “City Hall, please.”