The wind chuffed against him. His cheeks were still pink, his green eyes bright. He was clearly enjoying himself.
The woman had been a number of different people today. First she was the rude man, two heads taller than the boy and three times as wide. Then she was a hunched, shuffling old man, too stooped to lift her head. Then she was a bald, bearded man with arms like drums and fists like rocks. Then she was a willowy thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and a nose that twitched like a rat’s. And now, nearing her apartment, she was the rude man again.
The boy had enjoyed every costume change. That was what the woman was doing, wasn’t it? She was a Bard, and she changed appearances as easily as an actress switching her wardrobe. She wasn’t quite as good as the trickster at becoming someone else, but she was a Bard, which meant she was better than most.
She was better than the boy, who always gave himself away by tapping his right hand against his thigh—a tell he’d never learned to shed.
The woman looked over her shoulder, searched the crowded intersection, and then ducked down a side street. The boy waited a moment, pausing at a table of dried squid and dried anchovies that crackled when the wind shuffled them. Then, after a short pause, the boy followed the woman.
She neared the end of the street, walking quickly. It was a short, abrupt street, like many of the narrow roads in this section of the city. Many of the vendors were folding their tables, the bok choy and greens wilted and shriveled from the heat, the fruit soured and covered with fruit flies. Only the vendors at tables covered in plastic windup toys, polyester scarfs, and things that didn’t wilt in the heat stubbornly remained, enticing humans with the promised cry, “Only one dollar! Two for one dollar!”
The boy ducked past the tables, weaving through the late-afternoon crowd and rounding the corner. Bells tinkled, ringing as the wind sluggishly blew past an open door. Mealtime scents of pork and garlic and the sweet, pungent scent of fermented fish congregated at the entry. The wind swirled a moment, enjoying the rush of cold air-conditioning.
But then the boy slipped down an alleyway between two buildings. The wind shrieked and rushed after him. It was exactly like the narrow, dead-end, darkened hole the innocent one had died in.
The wind shoved against the boy’s legs, and he stumbled, catching himself on the brick wall. He looked behind him and gave the wind a small grin.
“Shh,” he whispered.
Shh? Shh? The boy was telling the wind to be quiet?
The wind huffed.
The boy crept forward. The alley wasn’t a dead end like the wind had thought. It was narrow, barely wide enough for the woman to fit through since she was disguised as the rude man. It extended the length of the brick buildings and then turned sharply like a river blocked by a canyon wall, veering to the right.
There was trash. There was always trash in these alleys. It was piled in black bags next to a large, wheeled dumpster. Some of the bags were torn open—by pigeons, cats, or rats—and bread and noodles leaked onto the concrete. The boy’s lips pinched, and his nose wrinkled.
The smell was not pleasant. It was the heat—it made the stench worse.
The boy’s shoes scuffed on the concrete, and the wind blew through the narrow alley, covering the noise. The boisterous city sounds were muffled by the brick walls and the narrow tunnel, as if the alley were too constricted to allow noise to pass through.
The wind shivered at the muted silence. The boy crept forward, keeping to the shadow along the alley’s wall. The wind moaned, and the boy’s mouth curled at the corners.
“It’s all right, Wi?—”
The wind shrieked. The boy was thrown across the alley. He flew through the air and slammed into the brick. The wind rushed after him, cushioning his fall. His knees slammed into the concrete, his palms skidding over the rough stone.
He leaped to his feet. The woman—the rude man—charged him. She grabbed the boy and threw him against the wall, wrapping his arms in water chains and pinning his hands so the boy couldn’t conjure.
The wind screamed and furiously blew at the water imprisoning the boy’s hands.
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman towered over the boy, a hulking, violent beast. She dragged in an enraged breath and said, in a deep male voice, “It looks like I’ve caught a Ward.”
The boy smiled. It was the smile he never let anyone see except for the wind. It was his private, happy, joyful smile—the one he wore when the wind made him laugh or when a book ended just the way he wanted it to.
“Have you?” he asked, laughter coating his words.
The wind huffed and stopped trying to blow aside the water chains. Clearly, the boy was having fun and didn’t want any help. Stupid boy.
The woman blinked, her brow furrowing. The rude man’s head was shaped like a bull’s: wide, massive, and meant for ramming. The wind couldn’t always read the woman’s expressions, and it especially couldn’t read her expression when she was disguised as the rude man. But perhaps . . . perhaps she was confused. Or maybe she was thinking how only an unhinged being would smile joyfully at being caught in a trap.
The boy’s smile widened at her expression. “Now you’ve caught me, what are you going to do with me?”
The wind sighed and trailed down to spin a figure eight around the woman’s tree-trunk-sized legs.
“You’re unhinged,” she said.
The wind snorted. See? What had it told the boy?
