Jagger’s order held me in check. I couldn’t even let on that I had once or did now care about him. But I could choose to trust him. To play along.
We stared at each other, our noses an inch apart. Finally, I spoke. “We’re lighting your house on fire so the Bard thinks the Smiths attacked.”
Luvic blinked. Surprise flickered, then amusement.
“Really?” He thought it was funny. “And then what?”
I smiled my new cold smile. “And then you come to Hell Gate for a dinner party.”
He grinned. “You always have been fun. All right. Let it burn.”
Luvic stepped back, releasing me. I cast him a final warning look, and then I set his house on fire.
17
Finding one human in a city of millions was a difficult task even for the wind.
It gusted through the narrow canyon streets of the south, pinballing through alleyways and bouncing across the brick and concrete, until it landed at the Clark home. The trickster was meant to marry the cruel one’s sister. At least, that was what the father had decided.
The trickster always did what the father asked, so perhaps he was with the cruel one’s sister, wooing her with his sleek poet’s voice. It was hard for beings to resist the allure of a Bard bent on love.
The wind had seen the trickster lie with his penny scented lucky one, limbs tangled, mouths seeking, heart pleading, his every move filled with ferocious intensity. When the trickster was with his lucky one, nothing else existed—not even the wind whistling loudly at their joining.
Well. Perhaps the wind should’ve found the lucky one. The trickster could never stay away from her for long.
Besides, the Clark mansion was writhing with cinnamon and anise scented flames. The fire roared like a giant hell beast, spewing heat and black smoke. The wind swept over the grass. The blades curled in the heat, turning black.
The singed grass was the only sign of fire outside the home’s thick illusion. The wind slipped under the front door and coughed on smoke and anise. The blue fire burned hotter than a volcano’s belly. It devoured the furnishings and the wood beams. The bookshelves, the parchment, and the vellum records were already ash. The wind moaned, jumping from one grasping flame to the next. Fire was a demanding being. It always grabbed for the wind, a lurching, greedy thing that wanted the wind to feed it and push it higher.
The wind snapped at it, trying to snuff it out rather than make it grow.
The fire shrank back. The wind blew a threat and trailed across the charred floor. It found a small, dancing blue flame. A polite, restrained flame. The wind asked it a question.
Who?
The fire crackled and snapped. It popped and hissed. It swayed in a mesmerizing dance that reminded the wind of a deep red sunset flickering over hypnotic ocean waves.
Fires always had interesting things to say. Why wouldn’t they? Humans had been telling stories around fires for eons. Campfires on the eve of battle. Hearth fires in every home. Candlelight before every seduction. Torches before every mob. What was fire except a conduit of stories?
—Smith! Take note! You cannot wear a crown without?—
—He burned my mother’s picture. He burned my?—
—Warn the Bard. Now.—
—Mari, did it work?—
—Now the Wards. Does this fire burn marble?—
The wind shrieked, and its blast snuffed the small flame. It raced through the fire, batting aside the grasping fingers. The blue fire was hungry—it bit at the wind, trying to consume it. A window shattered, and the wind burst free, riding the wave of heat.
The boy. He would hate it if his home were eaten by this fire creature. It would gobble up the dog-eared paperbacks he kept stacked on his nightstand. It would swallow whole the crinkle-papered library books he thumbed through on rainy afternoons.
Why did he read library books? The wind had always wondered, and the boy had answered, “Because if I buy a book, it’s only me that holds it. But library books have had a hundred people hold them, and that makes us connected. That makes us almost friends. Just think, the person sitting next to me on the subway could’ve held the same library book as me, almost like we were holding hands. Doesn’t that make you feel less alone?”
The wind flicked his ear. It never felt alone. It was the wind.
But if the boy’s books burned, then he might feel alone.
