Chapter 108
The wind floated free from the crack in the pavement. It drifted past the streetlights flickering off and swirled in the soft stretches of sunrise.
The air was cool. The coolest it had been since the girl had woken up a mine. The heat had broken and given way to a fresh, open-air, sweeping breeze. It was the kind of breeze that ushered in cooler weather and, eventually, prickles of cold.
Perhaps in the north, the cold was already blanketing the nights and shaking chill fingers over the hills and the lakes. The wind might be able to skate through the misty exhales of deer in the forests or ride in the bushy tails of squirrels preparing for winter.
The wind sighed. It would go north. It had to tell the man’s wife her son was gone. She would need to know there was a new Ward.
If the boy’s body had survived the inferno, the wind would try its best to carry him to the northern woods. If there were only ashes, the wind would carry those.
It blew a gust of air and skated across the sunlight, drifting over the battle-hardened brother.
He was sleeping. There was a tattoo under his right eye. The wind tapped against it. The wind couldn’t read, but it knew what the marking meant. It had seen it before. This was what happened when a conjurer was cut off.
It was the physical evidence of the ripping-out of their illusion. The battle-hardened one was only human now. He would be blind to the world of conjurers. He would be blind to himself.
The wind moaned as the battle-hardened one shifted and murmured “No!” in his sleep. The scent of salt and cosmic tears coated his cheeks. He smelled like a sword that had broken and steel that had gone dull.
The wind wouldn’t pity him.
What did the wind care if he suffered? What did it care if he was in pain?
He had killed the man. He had killed the boy.
He had wanted revenge. He’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
This.
The solange-eyed one gripped the girl’s hand, and as he passed a Smith cousin, he said in a low voice, “Make sure he’s safe until he wakes. Don’t let him see you.”
The cousin nodded, and then the solange-eyed one pulled the girl close and held her hand. They walked toward the sunrise. The wind would follow. It would go to the fortress and find the boy—
It stopped.
It curled tight and flattened itself against the pavement.
There was a shadow there. Deep, dark, deathlike.
It knew this shadow. It was the cold chill of an old tree spreading its executioner’s shadow over a bare strip of lawn.
It trembled and then quietly snuck into the darkness.
The solemn one was there.
The pixie-like one was standing next to him.
He stared after the girl, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. He didn’t move, and if the wind didn’t know better, it would think he was dead.
But no. He was only watching, breath held, unmoving.
He stared after her as if he were on a sailing ship, watching the shore of his homeland fade away.
When the girl and the solange-eyed one finally rounded a corner, the solemn one let out a long breath. The wind nudged his hand, and he curled his fingers into a fist.
“Jagger is dead,” the pixie-like one said. She looked up at him. He was at least a forearm taller. When he didn’t respond, only continued to stare at the spot where the girl had been, the pixie-like one said, “You’re free.”
Finally, the solemn one tore his gaze from the distance and looked down. “I don’t feel free,” he said, touching his chest. “Why is that?”
The pixie-like one tilted her head and pressed her palm to his heart. The solemn one flinched, and she took her hand away.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “Maybe it’s because you’ve lost hope.”
The solemn one finally smiled, but it was a smile devoid of warmth or humor. “I thought you’d say it’s because I’ve lost my good.”
“No.”
He laughed, and the wind rode on the chill of it. “Are you done with me yet, Winnie?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Where’s Griff?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
The solemn one nodded. “I’m going to find him.”
“Don’t. You know who his father is. Griff’s probably in hell.”
The wind moaned, but the solemn one gave the same grin he’d given right before stabbing the rocklike one in the gut. “Who better to go after him then?”
The pixie-like one looked skyward and muttered something about passenger pigeons.
The solemn one stalked out of her shadows, and the pixie-like one hurried after him. One of his steps took two of hers.
“Wait!”
“Following me, Winnie?” He smiled, and the wind left them, rushing across the forest of metal spires.
It dove through shadows and raced over splashes of sunlight, veering east and then north, along the river. It caught the flash of gray fur and the hulking muscles of the trickster in jackaltooth form right before he leaped down into the sewers.
The wind brushed over his fur, tapping the tiny cricket perched on the trickster’s shoulder.
Then it raced free of the dark tunnels and swept over the river toward Wards Island.
It slowed outside Little Hell Gate, screeching in surprise at the creature standing outside the asylum.
It was the mine. The terrifying, nameless, old-as-granite mine who’d made the dream bargain with the solange-eyed one.
He stood next to the figment of the one-eyed woman who remained forever in the asylum’s shadow, staring at its missing edifice. The wind rushed by, and when it did, the mine turned and smiled chillingly at the figment.
Then the wind was past him. It was free of Wards Island. It swept over the glossy, sunlit waves, riding on their golden froth. It soared on an updraft and caught the underside of a cormorant’s wing.
It clung to the soft feathers and screamed as the cormorant dove toward the water.
It plunged into the cold, and the wind shrieked as air bubbles burst around it.
The water shot past, and the cormorant swam deeper.
Then, grasping the flashing silver arrow of a perch in its mouth, the cormorant streaked toward the surface.
It raced through the black water. It kicked wildly through the current. Up. Up. Up.
The wind rode the air bubbles, clinging to the cormorant’s water-slick feathers. It was closed in the river’s watery grave—the black lid of it had shut the wind inside. It was drowning in a coffin beneath the cormorant’s black wing.
But then—up—up—always up—the cormorant burst free. It shattered the water’s surface, and the wind screamed as the waves broke around them, and sunlight fell over it in a blinding, brilliant white.
The cormorant rocketed toward the sky, and the wind flew with it. The cool air ripped the dark water away and bathed it in morning light. The wind shouted, dizzy from the rushing air and the acrobatic spirals of the cormorant.
It launched free of the bird, crying as it flew across the city.
Oh, to be a bird.
To fly.
To laugh.
To live.
The wind sped eastward, racing back to find the boy.
It ran so quickly it dried its own tears.