His face shone like it was lit from within. The boy usually rode in shadows, but now, he was ablaze. The bird sped toward the horror, and the wind whipped around the boy, catching his clothes and his hair in its jubilant grasp.
The boy grinned, and his laugh echoed the trickster’s. He threw great gusts at the horror. They were an inferno, as hot as the sun. It were as if the boy had captured cosmic rays and was shooting them into the horror.
The horror shrieked and erupted when the cosmic wind hit it. The boy dove in, balancing precariously on the bird’s spinning back. He twisted his hands, thrusting another volley of bright wind at the monster.
The wind tried to shriek. It tried to shove the boy back.
The monster had only pretended to be injured. It had wanted to draw the boy in.
No!
The boy was too close.
The horror exploded upward. Its tentacles grabbed the fiery bird and swallowed the metal creature. The boy conjured at the last second. The horror’s writhing mass gripped his legs, but the boy twisted loose and leaped into the air. He was falling. He was rushing toward the concrete. A hundred-foot fall only took seconds. He twisted his hand and gripped a whirling maple-leaf machine and landed, running full force away from the horror.
“Don’t just stand there and let me do all the work!” the boy shouted, grinning at the trickster as he sprinted past. “Fight!”
“Did I say we’d be friends?” the trickster asked his lucky one.
The wind shrieked as the horror shot out a sledgehammer of darkness and hit the boy from behind. It flung him across the street like a feral cat tossing a mouse. The boy somersaulted, his limbs loose. His expression tightened, and he twisted his hand. It was too late. The boy slammed against the stone edge of a building. His skull hit the brick with a loud crunch.
His eyes rolled back in his head. His head lolled to the side, and his body crumpled. Blood burst free. It was coppery and hot, and the wind shied away from the taste of it. The boy slid to the ground. He didn’t move. Not when the wind moaned. Not when it nudged him. Not even when it pulled as much breath to itself as it could and tried to make him wake up.
The horror descended on the boy. It wanted to consume him. It wanted to eat all his light and all his darkness. It wanted him.
The wind flew in circles around the boy, lifting dirt into a tiny whirlwind. Not a defense. Nothing could defend against this assault.
The trickster sprinted across the concrete and leaped in front of the boy. He twisted his hands and shot a blast of pure, glistening, diamond-on-water light at the horror. The horror shrieked and shied away, but the trickster wasn’t strong like the boy or the solange-eyed one, or even like the musician. He was a thirdborn and part-jackaltooth. His defense only lasted two short breaths. Then it trickled away, and the horror roared.
The wind could feel the cold fear coating the trickster’s sweat-soaked skin.
“Sorry, Cora.” He put his shoulders back and held his hands out again, preparing to expend the last of his power. The wind shook the boy, murmuring, Wake up, wake up, wake up.
And finally, the boy’s eyelids slit open. He looked blearily at the world through his forest-glade green eyes. He blinked again. Focused on the horror descending on the trickster.
He winced and shakily lifted his hand. Instead of conjuring, he thrust a wall of darkness outward, covering himself and the trickster in an abyss of not illusion. He was the eclipse, the void, the abyss. The wind hadn’t known. It hadn’t suspected. But this was a place horror couldn’t exist.
The boy gritted his teeth. His skin was pale, and his pulse pounded too quickly. Every heartbeat pumped more blood from the crack in his skull. Head wounds always bled more than they should. The wind could see the call of unconsciousness in the boy’s eyes.
Stay awake, it urged.
Then the wind laughed, because outside of the boy’s reassuring darkness, it heard another sound. It was the slice of swords set free. It was the crackle of blue fire. It was the solange-eyed one attacking the horror.
“Finn’s here,” the trickster said, even though he couldn’t see outside the darkness.
The boy smiled. “He won’t defeat it. He can’t. He’s still a horror himself.”
The trickster lifted an eyebrow.
The boy shrugged. “It’s a fact. Me, you, Finn. Even if Lia and Ragnor helped?—”
The trickster stiffened, and the boy smiled. “Even if all of us worked together, I’m not sure . . .”
A roar and a flash penetrated the darkness. The trickster flinched.
“We need help,” the boy said. “We need . . .”
The trickster stilled and then said in a quiet voice, “I have an idea.”
