Page 57 of The Wicker King

He picked it up and put it in the water cooler, ignoring the blazing heat as the flames burned through his gloves, blistering his skin. Then he peeled them from his hands and dropped them to the floor.

August looked around him at the red and the orange and the yellow and the black and the Rapturous Blue that shone so bright, finally pulsing with purpose.

The serum from his raw, blistered palms sizzled as it dripped from his hands; he knew that it was worth it.

WELL

August kicked out the glass and came tumbling through the window. Jack caught him before he hit the ground and pulled him to his feet.

“You did it! You did it!” Jack was delirious in his happiness. He grasped August’s wrists, beaming in the light of the flames.

The Wicker King was beautiful—brilliant, mad, sick, free. He kissed the blisters on the palms of August’s hands. “Thank you. Thank you…”

August buried his face in Jack’s chest, curling in against him to hide from the heat of the flames. Jack held him just as tight, fingers digging into his shoulders, his arms wrapping around August’s waist, clutching at his hair. August didn’t realize he was crying until his sobs began to choke him. “Is it over? Is it over? Is it over?” He wasn’t talking about the fire.

“Hush,” Jack murmured. “You did well.” He rocked August gently back and forth. “You did well.”

IRON AND ASH

The police wrenched them apart an hour later as the firefighters put out the flames.

Being snatched from Jack’s grasp damaged his clarity. In the gray, there was the sound of shouting, men in masks and gloves, police officers with their rough hands and calm, stern voices. They took him and put him in the back of an ambulance, and Jack was taken aside for questioning. The paramedics kept repeating something to August, and he nodded blearily as they loosely bandaged his hands.

Someone was yelling at Jack and Jack was yelling back.

People were pushing August, pulling him, moving him, cuffing him, and locking him in the back of a squad car. He couldn’t remember the drive at all. The haze remained until they slammed the door of the holding cell shut. Then everything became crisp all at once, and there was nothing left to filter out except the sounds of the other men in the cell with him.

HOLE

They sat an inch from each other. August scratched his bandaged fingers against the floor. “The kingdom?”

“Rejoicing,” Jack said, staring sightlessly toward the wall.

“The throne?”

“Claimed.”

“The people? The wraiths?”

“Safe, gone, denied.”

August scratched again, the concrete scraping against his nails. “You still see it all, don’t you?”

“As clear as I see you.” Jack’s head lolled against the cinder block, eyes unblinking. They sat like old marionettes with the strings cut at the root. Thrown carelessly to the ground to rot in the sun and dust. “Are you proud, Eagle of the North? The Champion with Sparks in his Veins. They will sing songs of your victory and word of your sacrifice will drip from the tongues of young and old until … the end of time. Are you proud?”

“Shut up,” August said, curling in on himself on the cell floor. “Just shut up.”

CELL BLOCK 3

The next night the cell was crowded. When they’d arrived, there were maybe five or six other people, but tonight there were at least fifteen. He and Jack had slowly migrated to the corner so they were out of sight behind a large, old drunk man who was slumped over and drooling on his leg in his sleep.

Jack had stayed away from August since the moment they arrived at the station, like he was afraid that touching him would break some sort of spell. It had bothered August at the time.

But now August was just angry at himself and numb. He knew his mom wouldn’t come for him. And Jack’s parents were probably out of state.

He gazed over at Jack, who was shivering and trying not to bring attention to himself. A man across the cell was leering at him.

“Jack,” he whispered. “Come here.”