But the boy was gone. His body was just a shell thing. It was the wind who’d wanted it to be with him in the north. To sing him wind songs under the hemlocks.
The boy had wanted him to protect the woman.
The wind realized it had been wrong before. When the fawn-like one had told the wind it couldn’t follow the one it loved, she’d meant it couldn’t follow the boy into death. And now, the fawn-like one meant the wind couldn’t follow him by mourning over him when it was needed by someone else.
The boy didn’t need the wind anymore.
The woman needed the wind.
It screamed, its wind noise a breaking, broken, grieving cry. It swept over the boy’s cheeks, swirling on his cold, familiar skin. It tapped his nose, and then, one last time, it flicked his ear. Then, hugging the boy, it screamed goodbye and tore itself free.
It gathered itself and yanked like a lightning bolt across the river to the woman.
She needed the wind.
Her eyes were closed. Her small hand gripped the crystal necklace the boy had given her. The crystal was shattered, and the shards cut her palm. The heat was so unbearable that her hot blood felt cool. The wind tapped the coppery scent and pressed against the boy’s broken crystal drop.
What was wrong with the woman?
It flowed over her shaking form.
She smelled of citrus and pearl dust. She smelled like the sea. Like gentle waves crashing over a shell-strewn beach. Like saltwater lapping over golden sand.
But then the wind gasped and rushed against her skin. There was more. She didn’t just smell like the sea.
She smelled like something else. It was a summer meadow, full of tall grass and wildflowers. There was sunlight and shadow, and the sweet green grass was shaded by birch trees. It was the wind in the meadow, rustling the grass, keeping it company. She smelled like the sea and the wind.
What was this?
What was this?
She smelled like the boy, but not boy. The meadow had moved from its forest in the north to a plain next to the sea.
The wind’s broken heart ached, and it gasped as it pressed close—close—closer still.
And there—there!—it felt the raging, wild, shadow and light current of the boy’s power. Not just the boy’s. But the man’s. And his father’s before him. It was the Ward’s illusion, and it was inside the woman.
No.
The wind stilled. Listened.
Not inside the woman.
Inside the Ward.
The wind struggled to yank itself faster, faster, faster!
When the boy and the citrus and pearl dust scented woman had lain together, they’d made a child. The wind could sense its spirit now. It was grappling with the river of power, fighting to contain the flow that threatened to rip its mother apart.
It rushed to the baby. It was as tiny as the wind’s thin particle. Both of them were more spirit than not.
The wind pressed a tendril against it.
I’m here! the wind cried. I’m here!
The boy’s child was frightened. It could feel its mother’s terror. The wind soothed it. I’m here! It sang it a wind song. It told the child’s spirit to be brave. To hold on. To have faith. To have hope. To hold on to love. The wind told the boy’s child that it wasn’t alone.
Then, at a frightening convulsion, the wind was ripped away. It landed next to the woman, panting on the concrete. The sting of fire surrounded them. Outside the blaze, the creatures of Hell Gate descended into the horror. The girl screamed. What was wrong with the girl?
