Finn shook his head. “No. Luvic.”
Luvic huffed and then padded across the train car, as far from the figment and his smoke cloud as possible. Finn followed, and when Luvic sat, Finn perched on the edge of a shipping crate bending toward him.
I walked to the edge of the car, standing a foot from the open side. The wind tugged at me, buffeting me with warm, concrete-baked air as we chugged further into the Bronx, speeding north. The soft, mellow sounds of Finn’s voice blurred with the wind, creating a comforting sound that wrapped itself around me. I couldn’t hear his words, only his intimate, urging tone—the one he always used when he was passionate about something and wanted to convince Luvic to follow his lead.
Luvic was used to it. Finn had used the same tone when they’d argued about whether or not Finn should approach his father. Or whether Luvic should find the woman he’d glimpsed sitting on the edge of the Bethesda fountain. Or whether we should go to a street fair or to the movies. Or . . . any host of things.
Luvic didn’t always agree with Finn, and Finn never expected him to. But he always listened, and Finn returned the favor by always listening to him. They’d always been as different as two people could possibly be, but they’d always liked each other the better because of it.
Not liked. Loved.
All of us had always been willing to do anything for one another. It wasn’t ever a question.
Finn had crouched down, his right hand over Luvic’s bulging, muscled jackaltooth chest. He was speaking earnestly. Luvic’s ears were flattened, his orange eyes thoughtful. When Finn stopped speaking, Luvic didn’t move. Finn remained tense. Then, after a long moment, Luvic tilted his head in a single short nod.
Finn’s shoulders relaxed, and he let out a long, relieved breath.
The train shuddered, a slight rain-tinged night scent spilling into the car as it slowed. The wheels whined, shivering on the tracks, and then they whispered to a halt. The night was a dark, inky shadow of shifting leaves and foresty breeze.
“We’re here,” I said, turning as Luvic and Finn joined me.
Luvic growled low in his throat, his snarl ripping the paper-thin quiet.
The hair rose on the back of my neck, and I nodded. “Exactly.”
70
The train had stopped in front of the Van Cortlandt Mansion. The mansion was old. Built in 1748, it was the oldest standing home in the Bronx. It was built from irregularly textured and oddly shaped rubble in colors that swerved from sand-beige to slate-gray to russet-brown. Yet the rubblestone had been laid together to construct a stately and perfectly symmetrical Georgian mansion. It was elegant and orderly, and it had the satisfying feel of snapping the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place.
That was the Georgians. They loved bringing order from chaos, and symmetrical rubble was the perfect representation. The home had been used by both the British and the Continental Armies during the Revolutionary War. Years ago, when I was barely six years old, I’d needed an easy place to train as a pickpocket. A trio of slipshots had brought me here for an afternoon. They were tired of Central Park, Times Square, and Grand Central.
Anyway, all those years ago, I’d seen a few figment soldiers. They’d been sitting around a campfire on the green, grassy grounds in front of the mansion. Now, those figments were nowhere to be seen.
In fact, I misled you. Van Cortlandt Mansion wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. There was only the footprint of where it used to stand, with its misshapen rubblestone lining the edge of a shallow crater.
I hopped off the train, landing in the thick grass, and blinked as the air stung my eyes. It smelled like someone had set a tar pit on fire and then poured gallons of Furtig on top of the blaze. The bitumen scent burned my lungs.
Luvic crouched next to me, sniffing the air, snarling at the distant rumbling sounds.
“That isn’t thunder, is it?” I looked over at Finn.
He slowly surveyed the park, his lips turned down at the corners. “No.”
The trees surrounding the hole were ink-stain black, but the dark sky was red-smoked, the color of the Fourth of July when hundreds of fireworks were set aflame.
Luvic stepped closer to me, bumping his shoulder against my side.
“Do you want me to command you to become a man?” I whispered, pressing my hand into his coarse fur.
His upper lip curled as he let out a sharp huff, and then he loped away, heading toward the mansion’s ruins.
Guess not.
Finn’s eyes narrowed as he watched Luvic. He was picking his way around the scarred edge of the mansion, sniffing at the ground, and cocking his head as he listened for sounds that maybe only a jackaltooth could hear.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to kill another jackaltooth. Not if . . .” Finn trailed off, frowning. He shoved a hand through his hair, making it stand on end.
Maybe he was remembering the dozens he’d killed during the games, or maybe he was remembering how they’d ripped my intestines out and dismembered me when I was only a child.
