“Lia—”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
While Finn fought himself, while the horror bulged and writhed, while Luvic charged on his glowing horse and Ragnor threw water spears, Celia Bard pulled Jacob close and kissed him with her eyes closed.
Jacob dragged her against him, pulled her feet off the ground, and cloaked them in darkness. For five long seconds, they disappeared behind his dark curtain. Then it pulled back, and my brother was gone. Celia stood alone, her eyes dazed, her fingers to her mouth, a small smile on her face.
Then the tiny dog barked. Celia blinked. She dove out of the way as Last hurled a boulder at her.
94
The explosion rocketed the wind across the river. Its thin tendrils spiraled wildly, and it screamed as the inferno’s scalding breath shoved it beneath the black water.
The cold splash doused the hellfire heat. Figments reached for the wind, trying to capture it with their iron chains, but the wind rushed on air bubbles to the surface. It popped free and splashed over churning waves, struggling toward the red night sky.
The wind was so thin in Queens it had barely tracked the progress of the solemn one. What had he mattered when the boy was fighting the horror? But now, the boy was flying on one of his metal automatons, racing toward the orange blaze, and the wind was trying to gather itself to follow.
It needed more of itself here. It needed to gust and blow. It was through with watching. It was done with being everywhere.
It needed to be with the boy.
Oh, hurry.
The solemn one’s gray eyes glowed brightly in the orange hellfire. The blaze painted his scars red and caught the auburn sheen of his soft hair. The flames curled around the Smith fortress, sparking like the interior of a volcano.
The stench of bitumen and Furtig rolled off the marble mansion in waves of black smoke. Already, sirens were sounding in the distance.
The Smiths would be all right. The wind could hear them shouting inside the blaze. They were shielded by the battle-hardened one’s illusion. His crackling fire shield kept the talons of the omnibus’s fire from tearing the flesh from their bones.
The wind had always thought the Smith fortress could withstand anything. The marble walls held against the fire even as the windows exploded.
The flames roared, and the wind coughed, dragging itself closer.
Oh, hurry.
Hurry.
Hurry.
The solemn one had brought slipshots and growlings. They circled the fortress, waiting like vultures to swoop on injured Smiths as they poured from the inferno. They clasped knives in their hands and their teeth. Their claws were out. The leggerock had promised they would kill conjurers tonight.
The solemn one led them. Who could stand against the Knife? They weren’t afraid.
Choking smoke clogged the air. It burned beings’ eyes and made ash-soot tears fall down their cheeks. The heat licked against the solemn one and reddened his skin.
He stalked forward, refusing to bend to the roaring fire.
The Smiths weren’t coming out, so he would go in.
What had he promised the leggerock? To kill them all. To start a war.
For what?
What did he want in return?
The solemn one kicked at the burning front door. The all-seeing eye blinked. The solemn one kicked again. He would knock down the door and shove his way into the blaze.
The wind pulled itself together. Winding, winding, yanking, as quickly as it could. It was big enough to blow now. It was big enough to gasp.
