Finn slowed, tilting his head as he stared at Luvic’s arm draped over my shoulder. Then he paused five feet away and slowly, cruelly, cast his gaze from my feet all the way to my face. His lip curled as he inspected me, until he finally paused, looking into my eyes. My skin flushed from ice-cold to hot-poker heat, and my cheeks stung.
He smirked at my red cheeks. “Hello, Mari. Luvic.” He ignored Last, and she sniffed. “You’re looking . . . friendly.”
Luvic stiffened, and I thought he might remove his arm from my shoulder, prepare to conjure, but instead, he forced himself to relax. He put on his slow, stage-worthy Bard smile. “Nice seeing you, Alterra.”
“Smith.”
Luvic tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Smith. Haven’t seen you since the night you came back?—”
“From the dead.” Finn smiled and then added, “And threatened to kill you all.”
He finally shifted his gaze to Last and then back to Luvic again.
There was a strange, twisted feel coming from him. It made me want to step back or look away. I searched for illusion again—this couldn’t be Finn—but no, it was. There was no conjuring here.
He looked the same as he had on top of the lighthouse. There, I’d been distracted by the tsunami and Jacob and Darin and Justice, but now, I wasn’t distracted.
My first instinct after waking up a mine—when I’d felt the earthquake—was that Finn had come back wrong. My instinct had been right.
“Did you get my message?” he asked, turning to me.
Around us, sirens still sounded intermittently, and police shouted, pushing people back from the sidewalks surrounding the subway. Pedestrians flowed around us, and I realized—with some surprise—Luvic had conjured an illusion over us, a barricade, so people would walk around us, not noticing the four of us in their midst.
A hot breeze blew past, ruffling Finn’s black hair and sending the ends over his forehead. I knew the silky feel of his hair. How to smooth the lines from his forehead when he worried about me or Luvic or the people he cared about. I knew the weight of him over and around me. I knew him.
I searched for any of that and couldn’t find it.
I tapped inside myself, searching for the golden rope wrapped to infinity around my heart. It, at least, was still there.
I shook my head. “What message?”
Finn lifted his eyebrows. “The one I sent with your friend after I stabbed him through the heart. Sound familiar? I’ll destroy everything and everyone?—”
Luvic stiffened.
Then it all happened at once.
Finn twisted his hand and shot a fireball at us. Last conjured a swarm of killer wasps. Luvic threw a wall of water. The wasps burned in the fire, and the fire was swallowed by water. The water turned to steam.
The whole time, I watched Finn’s eyes, searching for the man I loved. He wasn’t there. He wanted us dead.
Was this what he saw when he looked at me? Jagger’s creature? A woman with no feeling and no love?
He stepped forward, conjuring a sword of blue fire. It was the same as Wolfgang’s. The one he’d thrust through Finn’s guts, cutting him open when he was only fifteen.
He moved with the wild grace he’d always had. The killing grace.
Luvic pushed me aside. He held out his hand. “Finn?—”
Finn swung. Luvic jumped back.
The sword swept in a violent arc, the blue fire spitting like a welding torch. It hissed and singed the air. The blade shot past Luvic and then continued, barring down on me.
I stared at Finn. Saw he was . . . he wasn’t going to turn aside. He was going to let the fire slice through me.
I saw it then. What I’d missed before.
This was Finn. It was him. It had always been him.
