Finn took half a step forward. “Mari?”
His voice hit me—the deep, summer-storm rumble of it. It gripped me and shook me. The locks inside me rattled and raged.
What do you do when you want so badly to speak but you don’t have a voice?
What do you do when you love someone and you can’t let them know?
It hurt, and suddenly, I understood what Jagger meant, because as soon as the pain blossomed, it was greedily devoured.
“You’re here,” Finn said, taking a slow step toward me. “It’s all right. Put down the omnibus. Mari. What took you so long?”
He knew me. Even without me having to speak. Even when I looked so different. He always knew me.
Maybe it was the little wrinkle that formed between my eyebrows—the one Luvic said I wore when I was up to no good. Maybe it was the knot that connected my soul to his—the one we tied years ago and promised to never unbind.
I wanted to cry, but my eyes stayed dry.
The wind and the rain wept for me.
The rusted metal door of the Night Den burst open, and Darin sprinted out. He conjured a blue bow and pulled back an arrow, still running.
“No! It’s Mari!” Finn held out his hand.
“That creature? I don’t think so,” Darin snarled.
He was probably more right than Finn. I wasn’t myself.
They were both here. Both Smiths who could conjure blue fire shields. It would be okay.
Please let it be okay.
They’d save the Night Den. Or at least the people inside.
I stared into Finn’s eyes. One was the cosmic navy and silver nebula of solange; the other was the deep green-gold of a forest at sunset. The hazel I’d always loved.
What had happened to his eyes?
What had happened in death?
He didn’t look like the evil conjurer Jagger claimed he was. Instead, he was a volcano of power. He moved differently, like an eruption. His hair was darker, coal blue-black. He was bulkier than before, taller, as if death had carved away all the softness and excess and made him something more.
He was terrifying.
Looking into his eyes felt like stepping over the volcano’s edge and dropping into the lava. I knew I’d been charred to ash even before I’d hit the fire, because the heat was so intense. I burned from his heat.
He smiled, and even though everything else had changed, his smile was the same. “Mari.”
I wanted him to burn me to ash. I wanted his touch.
I savored the pain of him looking at me with love. As soon as I felt it, the pain was gobbled up by sharp, greedy teeth.
Finn started toward me, hurrying through the fog. Had the wind found him? Had it told him what had happened and why? Had it shared all my secrets? Did he know I remembered him, or did he think I was still lost to him, the nine who’d killed him and become a mine?
At the longing in Finn’s eyes, I knew he wanted to yank me into his arms. Whisper my name. Kiss me.
But then what?
I’d still burn down the Night Den. I’d still shoot the omnibus, kiss or not.
