The solange-eyed one held still, his jaw grimly set. His tendons stretched as if his arms and his legs were being pulled in two opposite directions and were about to snap from the pressure.
Then the boy dropped his hand and leaned back in his chair.
The solange-eyed one’s eyes snapped open, and he shuddered, letting out a choked breath.
But after a single, quick inhale, he shook off and brushed away the effects of the boy’s intrusion. He stared at him with blazing, mismatched eyes.
“Well?” he asked.
The boy held still, as quiet as a shadow, slivered and silent under the noonday sun. He stared at the solange-eyed one with peculiar intensity.
“Finn?”
“What?”
“When you came back from the underworld, did you bring anyone with you?”
The solange-eyed one frowned. “No.”
The boy sighed but then nodded. “It’s you then.”
“What’s me?” He narrowed his eyes. The lines around his mouth were pale from the boy’s intrusion.
“The one who attacked me in the subway?—”
“What?”
“The one who killed the nine. The one who’s been shaking the earth and killing conjurers. The one who seeks out disasters so he can pile misery and cruelty on top of suffering?—”
“What are you talking about?”
The boy nodded. “It’s you. Not a doppelganger. Not a conjurer pretending to be you.” He pointed at the solange-eyed one. “You sacrificed revenge, didn’t you? Look what happened. You tried to kill it, and instead of dying . . .” He shrugged. “I have one more condition.”
The solange-eyed one rubbed his fingers against his temples. “Are you telling me the psychopath threatening Mari is me?”
“Not you,” the boy said. “You.”
“Me?” The solange-eyed one shook his head, not understanding.
“No. You. Not you.” The boy continued. “Confront yourself. Because if you don’t, I will.”
The solange-eyed one gazed shrewdly at the boy and then pushed back his chair and stood. The boy stood too.
“When you say confront, do you mean kill?” he asked, pressing his fingers and his thumb together.
The boy shook his head, raising an eyebrow at the conjurer’s pose. “Kill? No. Smiths always think the answer is killing. But if you try to kill an evil with force—especially if it’s in you—it just resurrects stronger than before. Try a different path.”
The solange-eyed one frowned, a wrinkle forming on his forehead. His hand relaxed, and his eyes unfocused. He stared into the faraway depths of his mind. For a moment, he looked just like the fawn-like one when she was viewing all the shattered fragments of an unknown future.
Then he nodded, and his face hardened into the expression his father, the wolflike one, often wore.
“All right,” he said, holding out his hand again. “Agreed. I’ll confront it. I’ll do whatever I can.”
With their handshake, the Wards and the Smiths would align again.
The boy smiled, and this time, he took the solange-eyed one’s hand without hesitating. “I know. I saw.”
They shook hands, and then the boy strode from the kitchen, leaving the solange-eyed man staring after him, contemplating how to confront an evil inside himself that he’d never known existed.
