The solange-eyed one stood at the stony edge of the rooftop. He was dressed in wrath, his expression a thundercloud. He smelled of Furtig, smoke, and fire. The wind screamed.
“Welcome,” the solange-eyed one said, his voice full of thunder. “Thank you for coming. I believe we have a lot to discuss.”
The man had stepped too close to the solange-eyed one. He’d moved too quickly for the wind to warn him.
“Thank you for the invitation. But I didn’t come for a truce. I came to warn you about my dau?—”
The wind screamed. It shoved at the battle-hardened brother. But punching the battle-hardened man was just like ramming into the flat-faced fortress. What could the wind do against a solid stone wall?
The man turned, lifting his hand, a rope of illusion ready. But the fire sword was already made.
The man was surprised. Why? Hadn’t the wind warned him? Hadn’t he acknowledged it was a trap?
The surprise was what killed him.
The wind shoved at the fire sword, but the cold blue fire only sliced through it. It couldn’t slow the vengeful arch.
It shrieked as the sword cut through the man’s neck. It pushed at the gaping wound and tried to hold the man up. But what could the wind do? It had no hands to stop the leak of blood from a body. It had no form to save a human from violent death.
The wind caught the man—tried to rock him gently as he fell.
He was thinking of his friend, the wolflike, steel-sharp Smith. As he took his last wind-like breath, the man’s eyes filled with the look he had whenever he thought of all the days they’d had together. He’d strung them together in a book in his mind and took them out and thumbed through them whenever he felt lonely. He’d once told the wolflike one he loved him better than he loved anyone else in the world. He’d loved him his whole life. The wind, knowing love, recognized the deep well of it in the man’s eyes.
Then the man’s heart shuddered.
His spirit fled his body as quickly as a bird taking flight after the startled violence of a gunshot. The wind screamed as the man’s shell fell to the concrete ground.
The man was gone. He was a cloud, brushed out of the sky, leaving an empty expanse.
The man was gone. The wolflike one was gone. The fawn-like girl was gone. The wind was the only one left with all their secrets.
By now, the man was in death’s tunnel, his spirit flying toward the wolflike one. Then, together, they would go.
The wind roared. It howled and shoved at the battle-hardened brother. It tried to rip the fire sword from his hands.
The brother stared grimly at the man. “By your heart’s blood, my father is avenged.”
“Darin—”
“It’s done,” the battle-hardened brother said. “The son is dead. The father is dead. The wife is lost in her own mind. Our father is avenged.”
He shoved past the solange-eyed one and lifted the man’s shell. The wind pushed at him. What did he want? What was he doing?
The battle-hardened one twisted his hand and conjured a flying machine. He hid it in illusion and closed its grip around the man. Then he pushed it into the air, blowing it westward, toward the river.
The two Smiths stood on the roof like two soldiers atop the castle ramparts. They stared after the wind as it rushed next to the flying machine. It was a whirring helicopter with a clawed grip, holding the man aloft.
The wind spun with the blades, frantically shoving and rocking the machine.
The man.
The man.
The boy?
The—
The machine stopped and hovered outside an old stone mansion in southern Manhattan. There was a churchyard nearby, a centuries-old cemetery, and a ghost tree. There were parchment scented catacombs beneath it and conjurers waiting for the man’s answer.
