But no—the boy had heard him. His eyes widened, and he said, horrified, “What happened to you? What did you do to your?—?”
The boy’s question was cut off as the train rushed from the station, firing hot air over them. Then, almost simultaneously, the solange-eyed man twisted his hand and shot a bolt of fire at the boy.
It charged over the people’s heads, scalding them with its heat. They screamed, and the noise joined the shriek of the wind and the roar of the train.
“Wind!” the boy cried, throwing out his hands.
It knew what to do. Blowing could birth a fire, it could grow a fire, but it could also kill a fire. The wind rushed at the flame and shoved up. The flame hit the fluorescent lights. They burst, shooting glass, gunshot-loud. The tunnel was dark, until, a second later, the solange-eyed one threw another wall of flame.
It was too strong for the wind, but the boy grabbed it and snuffed it out. If wind couldn’t stop fire, then you only had to suffocate it. The boy had stolen all its air.
The boy sprinted down the platform, running toward the solange-eyed man. The wind knew what he was doing. As long as he was separated from the man by a crowd of people, then the people were in danger.
It wasn’t polite to put people in danger when they had nothing to do with the fight.
The wind rushed the solange-eyed one, shoving at his cruel scent. He stumbled and then curled his lip, throwing a ball of blue fire at the boy.
The boy twisted his hand, and the fire was swallowed by nothingness. It snapped and growled.
People shoved through the station, running for the exit. Nearly all of them had made it free. The woman with the cane had been picked up by a large man. The mother had grabbed her boy and run. The people who had rushed from the train were gone.
The boy was a bus length from the solange-eyed man. He twisted his hand, covering them in illusion. The man snarled and flung a giant ball of flame, coating the tunnel in fire. It scorched the steel, burned the tiles, and roared as it chased the boy.
Then the boy jumped through the air, and the wind lifted him, flinging him forward. The solange-eyed man conjured a fire sword and swung, arching it toward the boy’s head.
The wind shrieked, dropping the boy so the sword swung over him. He hit the tile and ducked as the solange-eyed man recovered and spun the sword toward him. The boy conjured a wall of air and threw the solange-eyed one across the tunnel.
The man flew backward over the track and slammed into a metal column. The tunnel shook, dirt rained from the ceiling, and tiles cracked and smashed to the floor.
The solange-eyed man jumped across the track, pulled himself over the ledge, and landed catlike on the platform. The boy hadn’t waited around to see what the man would do next. He’d raced down the platform, burying himself in shadow and darkness.
The solange-eyed one would never find the boy. No one could find him when he’d eclipsed everything, even himself.
The solange-eyed man stalked the platform, his eyes scraping over every surface.
The wind shoved at him, and the man narrowed his eyes. Far off, the wind could hear the rush of sirens—so many it sounded like a vengeful chorus.
The solange-eyed man tilted his head at the noise.
“Ward,” he called, spinning in a circle, “are you afraid of me?” The wind traced the smile tilting his lips and sniffed the twisted, bitter scent on his skin. Then his smile grew, and he said, “You should be.”
The wind blew the scent of cranberries and allspice to the solange-eyed one. It blew the memory of violets and sunshine. It blew the scent of the golden shimmer of the afterlife.
The solange-eyed man’s jaw hardened. He stood still and clenched his hands.
“A ghost? A memory?” he asked, smiling. “It would work, if I were a different man.”
Then he lifted his hands and filled the tunnel with fire. He drenched it in flame, creating a tunnel to hell.
The wind screamed and rushed free, flying up the tunnel’s throat, fleeing the inferno. It was belched onto the sidewalk in a cloud of bitter, acrid smoke. It spun on the noise of sirens and the flash of lights as firemen spilled from their trucks.
Then, as quick as a snap, the boy jostled past, lifted the wind onto his shoulder, and hurried, head down, into the rumbling mass of people.
“Well, Wind,” the boy whispered as they disappeared into the crowd, “that was unexpected.”
He smiled, and the wind moaned, because it already knew what the boy was going to ask.
No.
