No.
It was too hot. It was too fire-breathing, boiling-water hot.
It wanted to go rock on the cold surf at the beach, or slip across the cool water of the Hudson, or even slide down the melting juice of a grape popsicle. It liked grape. But at this point, even strawberry would do.
“Please?” the boy asked, then he added thoughtfully, “I thought you were cunning, courageous, tireless, brave?—”
The wind flicked his ear.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Perhaps that was a different wind?—”
The wind flicked harder.
“Hmm. So it is you! You are cunning. Brave. You do like secrets.”
The wind hmphed. Stupid boy.
The boy grinned, his smile from earlier back in place. “Thank you.”
The wind tapped his cheek, and the boy nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
At that, the wind hopped down from his shoulder, jumped the curb, and caught the spinning tires of a taxi skidding over the hot pavement.
It would find answers for the boy, and then it would find a popsicle.
31
When everything goes wrong, the best thing to do is make wrong your right. It’s like Jagger always said: “They may know my plans, but that doesn’t mean they can stop me.”
Actually, that might not be the best example. Once, when I was grabbing a sandwich in Union Square, the shop’s TV was playing a Ragnor Bard interview. Usually, I’d ignore anything to do with the Bard siblings. Luvic was my friend, but I’d never met Ragnor. Luvic had warned me to stay away from his brother, as Ragnor wasn’t as forgiving or as understanding as him, and he’d probably kill me on sight just for being Jagger’s creature. But the volume was loud, the checkout line was long, and he said something that struck me as important.
The interviewer asked, “How do you write so many hits?”
Ragnor had looked up at the ceiling and then said in his slow, melodic Bard voice, “Most people are afraid of failure, but the edge of failure is where genius is found. My best work is when I think it’s a catastrophe and I keep going, pushing further. If you back away from failure, you lose.”
I don’t remember what he said after that. I paid, ate my sandwich, and then went off to finish a job. The next week, I died another death, and I forgot Ragnor’s words.
Until now.
We’d failed to retrieve the Silencer. I’d failed to save Justice. Finn had failed to save me from Jagger. I’d failed to save myself.
How much further did I have to go before I reached the edge of failure? Or had I already passed it, fallen off the cliff, and hit the bottom?
Do you remember when I said a spiritual truth was that evil might win the battle but good always won the war? Do you remember when I said I was afraid because I didn’t know if we would survive the battle, much less see the end of the war?
I’m even less certain now.
I was a mine. Luvic was a jackaltooth. Justice was lost in depravity. Finn was . . . killing my family, my friend. Jagger was aligned with the Clarks and the Bards, and I was bargaining for weapons that would kill Finn, Darin, and every Smith in the city.
And then what?
Finn would die. Primus would wear the crown (if it didn’t kill him). The conjurers would tear each other and the world apart. Justice would die. Luvic would die. Jacob would die. I would lose every bit of good inside myself and become exactly what Jagger had predicted, and then I would die. The world would burn.
It wasn’t looking good.
But don’t tell that to Luvic. He, unlike Last and I, was having a wonderful time. After another two hours of negotiating with the Merchant, we’d purchased a cache of weapons even an army of Smiths would blink at. Then we’d headed to Chinatown to buy Furtig. Luvic had smiled the entire time.
The distillery was located on the top floor of an old redbrick building overlooking Chatham Square. The Square was where eight streets met, and back in the nineteenth century, it was the center of the Five Points Neighborhood. Centuries ago, there were gangs, tattoo parlors, doss-houses, and saloons. Jagger claims Five Points was as similar to a Den of Depravity as you can get without being inside one. It was all cleaned up during the Great Depression, and now, the only thing that remained from that time was the Furtig distillery.
