The figure inside dove to the side. Was it him? He was the right height. The right width and shape. He moved the same. But it could be any Smith. It could be Darin.
My breathing was loud, my blood whooshing in my ears.
No one appeared in the window.
I tugged the omnibus free in one smooth motion.
The omnibus didn’t have a safety, and it didn’t fire like other weapons. You just aimed and pushed your pointer finger into a needle on the “trigger.” Once the needle tasted your blood, it activated the omnibus and sent the missiles in the direction you pointed.
I widened my stance, braced the omnibus, and held my finger above the needle.
Come on. Come on. Come out and see who’s knocking.
If I could, I’d shout out, but I didn’t want to fight Jagger’s will. I wouldn’t speak. I’d only . . .
Come on. Come out.
My hands shook. It was almost impossible to resist jamming my finger into the needle.
I stared intently at the Night Den while Jagger’s will washed through me. Burn it to the ground.
A man jumped out of the second-story window. He stepped out and smoothly dropped twenty feet as if it were only two.
My breath cut off. One second I had air; the next I didn’t.
He was alive.
He was alive.
I wanted to drop the omnibus. I wanted to shout and cry and laugh and scream. I wanted to run across the street and throw myself into his arms. I wanted to hold him and protect him, and I wanted to shake him and yell at him for putting himself in danger.
Jagger’s blood sensed the door to my locked room cracking open and its jaws snapped hungrily. I shoved the door closed and concentrated on the wild banging of my heart.
I devoured Finn’s appearance.
It was him, but it wasn’t.
He was the same but different.
Before, he’d reminded me of a calm mountain lake. He was the smooth surface, the steady current, the soothing, cool water. He was powerful in the way a clear blue lake is powerful, with untold depths, lifelong loyalty, and unwavering goodness.
There was nothing of that mountain lake left.
It turned out the mountain was actually a volcano. There was a violent eruption, half the mountain collapsed, the earth was scorched, magma chambers exploded, lava fountains shot everywhere, and a new land was formed—and, hey, the lava was still shooting. The supervolcano was still active.
He roared with power. It vibrated around him and hung in knots of illusion. They floated in golden threads above his outstretched hand, twisting in a fiery inferno.
I hadn’t seen much illusion since coming back as a mine. I’d been locked in Hell Gate, hadn’t I? So I wasn’t prepared for the ropes and knots gathering around Finn, licking at him like flames.
He created illusion like a Smith, using their no-nonsense, military-style knots: bowline, square knot, overhand knot, reef knot, rolling hitch, half-hitch, cleat hitch, figure eight. They were all there—a giant, complicated mass. What was he creating?
The spider-crawling feeling tickled the back of my neck. This time, though, it wasn’t from the thing watching me: I’d realized which illusion was hanging over Finn’s hand. It was a death trap.
Finn wanted to kill me?
I wrinkled my forehead.
The illusion paused, half-formed. Then it unraveled and fell to the pavement.
