“Okay. I got it. We’ll go to Mari. If it’s illusion, she’ll unravel it, and . . . no—I know I said she was dangerous, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything for you. I’ll trade anything. I’ll offer any favor. It doesn’t matter. Ouch! Did you just bite me? Dang it, Cora.”
He frowned, and the lucky one hopped back into his hand.
He stared at her, and she stared back.
Behind him, in the mirror, the trickster and the lucky one were sitting on the floor, facing each other.
“You know,” he finally said, “when you said that if I became a beast, you’d become one too, I didn’t think you meant to turn into one before me.”
He smiled when she bit him again.
“I’m sorry. For last night. For not realizing you were you. For . . . Yeah, I know you hate it when I apologize. I love you.” He laughed a melodious, stunned Bard laugh. “I just realized, yesterday, when you saved me, that was you.” He lifted his hand to bring the cricket to eye level. “All right. We’ll get out of this. Like you said, as long as you’re alive, I’m staying a man, and you’re staying my love. As long as you’re alive, then luck’s on our side, and we’ll . . .” He smiled as the lucky one nudged her head against his cheek. The soft scent of new pennies and honey spun through the air.
The trickster pressed his fingers to his cheek, and slowly, a smile stretched across his lips. “I feel you,” he said. “I feel your luck, love.”
He nodded then and stood. He wasn’t weary anymore. There was a light in his eyes and a focused energy in his movement. He went to the dresser and rummaged through until he found a T-shirt with a pocket on the chest.
“Ready?” he asked.
The cricket hopped into the pocket, and the trickster grinned as the lucky one nestled over his heart.
“We’ll figure this out,” he promised. “Mari will know what to do. We’ll figure it out.”
The trickster smiled as the lucky one sang.
81
It was cold in the Smith fortress when you were only a thin, breathless sliver of yourself. It was a hard, gray place that smelled like sword edges and icy blue fire. Voices were like the thrust of a blade, direct and to the point. There were no soft conversations. No soft surfaces. No soft smells. Only battle-hardened ones and sharp-edged blades.
It was always gray at the Smiths’, but the dark clouds congregating over the city had turned the gray a flinty black.
The boy meandered down the sidewalk, kicking a pebble and tripping on his untied shoelace. He caught himself, then he smiled and kneeled down to tie it in a double knot. As he tied, his blond hair fell over his eyes. He glanced through the curtain of it, his gaze moving swiftly over the fortress.
There were three Smiths on the roof. Two circling the structure. Another keeping watch from across the street.
The boy wrinkled his nose and then sniffed. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose and hid his smile. Then he ducked his head and stood.
He rambled on, looking lost in thought—maybe he was—and smiling softly to himself.
Above him, the leaves of a pin oak tree drooped like India ink dripping from a calligraphy pen. The leaves sagged heavily under the black cloud’s pressure and the absence of sun and wind. But even without the sun, the sidewalk was still hot enough to burn a dog’s unprotected paws.
When the city was this hot, all the smells that had been baked into the concrete rose like trash roasting in an oven. The boy wrinkled his nose again and then meandered toward the Smiths’ front door.
He paused on the stoop, tilting his head. The Smith across the street spoke into a device. The men on the roof tensed and aimed weapons at the boy. The Smiths circling the house quickened their pace.
The boy pretended not to notice.
Overhead, the clouds rumbled. The thunder sounded like two mountains slowly scraping their sides together.
“Hmm.”
He looked up at the clouds, his green eyes darkening.
Then he smoothed a hand over his messy hair, straightened his wrinkled shirt—it didn’t help—and huffed when he noticed his shoe had come untied again.
He lifted his hand and knocked three times on the door. Then he took a step back, shoved his hands into his pockets, and casually glanced up, studying the flat, cold front of the Smith fortress.
The door opened, and a Smith in full body armor stepped onto the stoop. “Yes?”
