He did, and the wind joined them, riding on the soft gurgle of pitch-black coffee poured into ceramic mugs. It swirled on the steam and rolled in the cream. The coffee had the scent of high-mountain mist, afternoon rain showers, and loamy tropical forests. The wind nudged the bowl of sugar and drew a circle in the crystals.
The trickster gripped his mug and took a long sip. He closed his eyes as he swallowed. When he opened them, both siblings were staring at him.
“What I don’t understand,” the musician said, “is why you didn’t tell us. We’d prepared for this. We had contingencies. We always said, if Dad goes after Lia, we’ll . . . Ah. You couldn’t.”
The trickster nodded. “Sometimes, the only way to keep a secret is to never speak it. To never even think it.”
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman tapped her spoon against the edge of her mug. It was a tinny, discordant sound. “We always knew Dad might discard me, but why Ragnor?”
The edge of the trickster’s mouth curled up. “Apparently, he was too loyal. I, on the other hand, showed great promise as someone with moral elasticity and undiluted ambition.”
The musician turned to his sister and gestured to the trickster. “It’s something about his face. If he’d gone into Hollywood, he’d be eternally typecast as the charming villain. It’s his nose, I think.”
The trickster frowned. “I have the same nose as you.”
“Or maybe it’s his mouth. He smiles like he’d sell his own sister for a dollar and a pat on the head.”
“We literally have the same mouth.”
“You’re right,” the woman said, surveying the trickster’s features. “Even as a toddler, he looked like a mischievous cherub ready to sell out for a lollipop.”
The trickster sighed and took a long sip of coffee.
“Or maybe it’s his eyes.”
“I think you should align with the Smiths,” the trickster said.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “By the way, what was in those bullets? It felt like my insides were scraped out, run through a blender, and then shoved back in me.”
The musician tapped his fingers against the table. “Worse than the worst hangover.”
“We slept for three days and only woke up in time to see your farce of a funeral. Got your cryptic note. ‘Stay put until I’m back. Don’t let anyone know you’re alive.’ It took a week for us to recover.”
The trickster shrugged. “It was a poison. Sleeping Beauty. It mimics death.”
The wind laughed. That was one of the girl’s poisons. The trickster must’ve taken it from the poison book he stole.
“Dad and the Clarks have aligned,” the trickster continued. “They’re going after the Smiths. They think the crown belongs to Primus. It’s . . . not going to be pretty.”
“You want us to align with the Smith?” the musician asked.
The woman tilted her head. “What about the Wards?”
The wind perked up. Did the citrus and pearl dust scented woman want to know about the boy? The wind slipped across the table and rode over the soft line of her hand. Her fingers were curled against her palm. The pulse at her wrist beat in a steady thrum. The skin on the underside of her wrist was smooth and pale.
“Neutral,” the trickster said. “Philoneas is dead. Jacob refused to take a side.”
The woman’s pulse gave a hard, rock-dropping-into-a-lake thud, then the ripples of it spread quickly as her heartbeat sped up. “You saw him?”
The trickster nodded. “Last night.” The wind waited for him to tell them about the boy walking through his mind, but the trickster stayed quiet.
“Jacob . . .” The musician scowled. “He’s the Ward now? He’s unhinged. Celia and I felt him calling a tsunami. The thing almost swallowed the city. If he sides with the Clarks . . .” The musician shuddered.
The wind hmphed. The boy was not unhinged. It was an accident. Beings should be more forgiving of others, especially when they made accidents too.
For example, the wind clearly remembered a time when the musician had sung in Boise and caused all the hot springs in the surrounding mountains to bubble and overflow, and the entire local deer population to mate spontaneously. They’d mated on the roadsides, in parks, in humans’ back yards. So if anyone were unhinged, it was the musician. His music made deer populations explode.
Besides—and more importantly—the boy would never side with the Clarks.
