The thing was still chasing her. It moved through water. It raced through steam.
The wind could see it in the shattered fragments of her blood-soaked mirror.
The shelves opened, and the woman dove down another aisle. She lifted her mirror, sprinting, tripping, gasping.
The wind propped her up. Don’t die. Don’t die, citrus and pearl dust scented one. Don’t die.
At a vicious rumble, the woman spun around again, holding her mirror high. Her hands shook. Her throat trembled as she swallowed.
Don’t die.
She turned in a slow circle. The shelves had closed around her. There was no opening.
The wind shoved at the wooden structures, but they didn’t move.
A hot rush of air blew over the woman, scraping her shoulders. She tensed and tilted the mirror.
A shadow-cloaked man was staring back at her.
She spun, breaking the mirror into a shard. She held it as a blade in her hand. Then she lifted her arm and screamed as she drove it toward his throat.
The boy grabbed her bloody wrist and smiled.
41
“Hi, Lia.” The boy’s voice was loud, bouncing off the shelves, and the wind wanted to shush him, but . . . the boy! The boy was here! He’d come into the Smiths’ after all.
He shouldn’t have.
He really shouldn’t have.
The wind shoved against his knees, flipping and turning and running a figure eight through his legs. It didn’t know if it was angry the boy was recklessly here or relieved. Could it have more than one emotion at a time? Relieved, angry, frightened—no, the wind was never frightened—worried, comforted, and oh so happy the boy was here.
It circled around the boy’s ankles, and his lips lifted into a delighted smile.
“You’re happy to see me,” he said, and the wind laughed.
Yes! Yes, it was!
“Shh,” the citrus and pearl dust scented woman hissed. “Be quiet! It can hear you.”
The boy lifted his eyebrows and then lowered the woman’s arm, turning her hand over to stare at the bloody mirror shard.
“It?”
The woman looked around, searching the shadows for the thing. The wind could smell it still. It was near, but more cautious. The boy’s intrusion had scared it away.
“It’s stalking me. It can be felt. It can be heard. It can kill. But it can’t be seen.” She held up the mirror shard. “Except in a mirror.”
The boy smiled, and the wind wondered if he was thinking of his own mirror.
“Why are you smiling?”
The wind huffed. The woman wasn’t as grateful as the wind thought she should be. After all, the boy was here at very great risk to himself.
He shrugged. “I like smiling.”
The wind laughed. No, he didn’t. The boy rarely smiled. He only smiled like this for the wind.
