There was a lie here somewhere.
If I stayed, someone was going to get hurt. Him or me.
I didn’t want to hurt him.
I turned and sprinted down the tunnel. Finn rushed after me.
In a race, Finn was faster. He had longer legs and more power. But this wasn’t a race; it was a ducking, dodging, jumping scramble through an old train tunnel.
“Mari, wait!”
I didn’t. I jumped, sprinted, and ran toward the light.
I passed the interchange and kept running, ducking down the used track. I heard Finn behind me, jumping over the tracks, his footsteps pounding on the concrete.
Then, suddenly, all sound from him stopped.
Was it a trick?
“Mari!”
I kept running and looked over my shoulder.
Finn was caught in an illusion. It was a simple trap. A Bard trap. A blood knot, a simple overhand, and a bowline.
I gasped and stopped running.
He was sinking into the concrete. While I watched, he sank from his calves to his waist. The track was illusion, and the trap beneath it was illusion. It was like a mudflat, swallowing him whole. He struggled, sinking faster. Then he pressed at the ground, trying to boost himself free, and the concrete swallowed his hands.
He looked at me, his forehead wrinkling. He wasn’t exactly worried. Finn didn’t get worried. He thought of a solution, and then he pursued it with all his will.
“Conjure,” I called, inching away.
His jaw clenched. “I can’t.”
Oh. His hands were trapped. They’d already sunk to his elbows.
“Mari. Help me. Please?”
I frowned, taking another step back. Then I paused, searching Jagger’s will. It remained silent. I could free Finn or leave him. It was up to me.
I smiled. I’d free him.
“Okay.”
He smiled back, nearly glowing with happiness at my acquiescence. It was as if he were silently saying, “I knew you were still in there.”
I was moving to untie the knots when I heard the wind tunnel whooshing with an approaching train. Its light flooded the tunnel. I looked up in shock. I’d forgotten we’d merged onto an active track. The train would hit Finn in seconds. Its speed was so fast there wasn’t even time for it to sound its horn.
The roar of it crashed over me.
Finn’s eyes widened, and he called, “Mari!”
He jerked, trying to tug his hands free. He sank deeper, the concrete swallowing his abdomen. The train was feet away. He thought I could untie the knots. He thought he could leap free.
But I saw what he didn’t. If I untied the illusion, then the track would also untie. Fifteen feet of track, a swath of concrete—an entire substructure—would disappear. If I untied the trap to save Finn, the train would crash.
How many people were in it?
