The boy looked up and then smiled at the vibrating string.
“You found it.”
The woman turned her head and smiled at the Bard’s lyre. “We found it. What are you going to do with it?”
“Play it. What else?”
The woman smiled. “Jacob?”
“Hmm?” His hand trailed down her back and rested on her hip.
“Will you ask another favor?”
The boy’s hand stilled. “Do you want me to?”
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman stared at the lyre. The wind ran along the silk-smooth strings. The instrument was a powerful object. It could make a being desire anything. Anyone. It could bring grown men to their knees. It could make armies throw themselves off a cliff chasing the object of their desire.
She had more than paid for the boy’s favor. Their debt was settled. They didn’t need to meet again.
She smiled up at the boy. “Yes. I’d like that.”
The boy’s smile stretched into the one that made him look as if he could fly. “Then I will.”
42
The boy held the citrus and pearl dust scented woman’s hand while they snuck to the rooftop. There, he would conjure one of his mechanical birds or a gust of wind to blow them across the river. Or they might jump from the rooftop and float like dandelion seeds on a puff of breath all the way back to Manhattan.
The wind didn’t know how they would leap from the roof into the night. When the boy opened the rooftop door, a heated breath, a wave of concrete, and a pinching, mournful memory blew over the wind. It hesitated at the threshold and then fluttered off the boy’s shoulder. It wouldn’t fly to the Smiths’ rooftop—not even with the boy.
Perhaps the boy needed to stand in the spot where his father was slain, holding the hand of the woman, leaping into the night, but the wind did not. It had already taken that leap.
It tapped the boy’s cheek twice, and he tilted his chin in understanding.
The rooftop door closed after the citrus and pearl dust scented woman and the boy. The wind was alone now. It rode on the tails of the closing door’s breeze and skated down the long hallway.
Earlier, on the stairs, the battle-hardened brother had raced past the invisible woman. He’d been clutching a defibrillator.
The wind had seen those devices when it had sailed on the antiseptic fumes of hospitals and raced on the wails of ambulance sirens. Sometimes, it even positioned itself so the burst of crackling electricity could zap it like a bolt of lightning.
Defibrillators were interesting things. They shot lightning into hearts and quickened being’s spirits.
The battle-hardened brother had smelled scared. The copper tinge of fear had soaked the stairwell even after he’d sprinted past.
Perhaps there was a secret there.
The wind searched, sniffing the hallways, seeking the sword-metal scent of the battle-hardened one.
Finally, it found him in the cool stone basement. It was a small bedroom, not far from where the final game had been played. It was spartan, like a monk’s cell.
There were two Smiths standing outside the closed door. The wind snuck past them, flowing underneath the door. The stone floor was cool on its belly, and so it stayed close to the ground as it rubbed itself along the room.
There were no windows. There was nothing but a bed, a nightstand, and a chair next to the bed. A single lamp cast a weak yellow light over the inhabitants.
The wind peeked at the man lying in the bed.
It was the solange-eyed one. His eyes were closed. His lips were reddish-purple. His skin was deathly pale. The wind skittered over his chest, feeling the beat of his heart. It was sluggish but steady. His skin smelled like the tinge of ozone after electricity strikes.
So. The battle-hardened brother had sent lightning through his heart.
