The girl’s mouth pressed tight, and the wind read all the things she wanted to say and wished she could do in the tremble of her fingers and the pained lurch of her heart. “You can’t make someone like you.”
The cruel one’s sister smiled. “I can. I made you like me.”
The girl pulled a small, cool metal tin from her purse and dropped a pinch of powder into a glass of champagne. “Give this to him.”
“And he’ll like me? Does it muddle his mind?”
“No.” The girl’s gaze turned as cold as frost splintering over stainless steel. For a moment, she looked just like the boy when something made him so angry that darkness seethed from his pores. “It will help him heal. You give it to him to be nice.”
“Clever,” the cruel one’s sister said. “Be nice to someone to get them to like you. Then . . . wham. Betrayed and dead. I’ve never tried that. You’re worse than me. Crueler.”
The wind didn’t wait for the girl’s response. It trailed down the hall and slipped under the bedroom door.
There was a soft puff of cool air, and then the wind slid over the glossy floor and made its way to the trickster.
He’d found the boy’s gift.
He was sitting on the floor, hunched over, his face ghostly-pale. It was the look men always had when they’d only just escaped death. He’d lost so much blood that the vitality and the pigment had rushed out, leaving his skin colorless and cold. Someone had pulled his tuxedo jacket and shirt off, leaving him bare-chested.
The wind trailed over the cold-marble feel of him, shivering at the brindled gray jackaltooth pattern that was consuming his human skin. There was a puckered gray scar on his chest where the spear had passed through it. The skin was already knitted together, and unlike the ravaged, angry scar on his arm where the father had planted the jackaltooth fur, this scar was healing cleanly.
He was weak, barely able to hold an illusion, but he kept himself upright. His spine was as straight as a beech sapling, his muscles corded around it. The trickster had never been as solid as a Smith—no Bard was—but he was powerful, with quick, fast reflexes and hard, lithe musculature. He reminded the wind of the marble statues lining his old home’s halls.
The wind tapped his cheek, asking if he liked the boy’s gift.
The trickster didn’t notice—he only stared at the mirror with an alert, searching gaze.
The boy had used a metal flying machine to carry the mirror. It was as heavy as a boulder and nearly as tall as a man. It was old. The wind didn’t know how old, but it smelled older than many of the cathedrals and palaces across the ocean. The glass was wavy and warped, stained with dark splotches and tiny cracks. The reflection was marred by the cracks and distorted by the waves. The trickster hadn’t turned on any lights, so the reflection was only lit by the ambient glow from the streetlamps.
All the same, the trickster didn’t move or take his eyes off the mirror.
There was a bow and a card taped to the glass. The card was unopened.
The wind hummed and fluffed the trickster’s hair. He bent forward and touched the glass.
“Cora?” he whispered.
The trickster sat cross-legged, his eyes glowing orangey-gold. Next to him—but only in the mirror’s reflection—stood the lucky one. Her long, auburn hair was loose and streaming down her back. Her eyes were luminous. Her skin was as bright as moonlight. She didn’t move. She didn’t answer. She only stared back at the trickster.
“Cora, are you there?”
The wind blew across the surface of the mirror and then glided to the floor, finding the cricket crouched next to the trickster. It fluttered the cricket’s wings, and the cricket chirped in response.
The trickster startled at the noise and looked behind him, searching the darkened shadows. His eyes glinted. Perhaps, like the boy, he could see in the dark. Then he sniffed, a jackaltooth testing the air, searching for the honey-sweet, new penny scent of his love.
Then his shoulders dropped, and he closed his eyes, blocking out the sight in the mirror.
The door squeaked and then flew open.
The cruel one’s sister was outlined by the hallway lights, her black dress a diaphanous curl of smoke, her skin glowing winter-white. She stalked into the room, her hips swaying sinuously. The trickster’s eyes flickered between orange and gold, and a rattle began low in his throat. At the noise, the cruel one’s sister smiled.
Once, the wind had rested in the sap of a pine tree for an entire moonlit night. It had watched a spider weave an intricate web, spinning the trap tirelessly. Then it had watched the spider as a grasshopper became entangled in its web. The spider had looked just as pleased, just as satisfied, just as anticipatory as the cruel one’s sister. The more the grasshopper had struggled, the happier the spider became. After it had tired, the spider had wrapped the grasshopper tightly, binding it so it would never escape.
The cruel one’s sister was a spider-minded one. The wind had always thought, someday, she would be someone other than a sister. It had thought maybe she would become the trickster’s wife. But no. She was the spider-minded one.
She closed the door behind her and drifted forward, her steps silent, her dress whispering eerily. “You were supposed to be in bed,” she said, her voice quiet like the moan of a closing door.
The trickster watched her wind toward him, his gaze flat. “I don’t want visitors tonight.”
