“I can get him from beneath,” Jacks whispered in Astrid’s ear. “Get down under the hole in the floor, stick the knife in him from below.”
She nodded. It made sense. But the basement was flooded….
She dragged more vitagua up and through herself. She sent it around and upward, covering everything in the house in a thin layer of blue fluid.
One by one she isolated items, beginning with the chisel lying at her feet. It would draw the dust and grime from the ruptured fireplace into itself, she decided, clean up the scene. The more normal things looked in here when the police came, the better.
She chanted the wailing smoke detectors, drowning their electric cries in vitagua and making them into chantments that would encourage anyone who stepped inside the house to believe that everything was normal here, that there was nothing extraordinary going on.
She chanted an old marionette of Jacks’s. It would dig tunnels, she decided, in case there’s no other way out.
The house was beginning to cool. Now to deal with the flood. Astrid kept chanting things, one after another: Henna’s stuffed spider would spin them a repaired floor, the kitchen chair would make anyone who sat in it feel relaxed and calm, the tweezers in the bathroom could shut down all those news trucks, the yellow rug in the laundry room could fly….
Her eye fell on Mrs. Skye, her bracelets. Everyone in the house is going to be notorious, she thought. Pat might need to hide from the press. The left bracelet would let Pat disguise herself.
She imagined the old lady getting shot by police as she came out of the house. No, they don’t hurt her, she remembered—the other bracelet makes her misty. The soldiers out there were getting trigger happy, but the bracelet will make bullets pass right through her….
Toothbrushes, art supplies, pens, a box of paper clips, the broken clock in the pantry. Astrid chanted the silver in the kitchen drawers, spoons, forks, chanted the pots and pans, the ceramic teapot and plastic sugar bowl. The clothes hanging in the closets, the coats and shirts, the dress she was wearing, all the shoes under Sahara’s bed, everything that wasn’t made of glass or circuitry…
“Hurry,” Jacks said. “Patterflam’s getting loose.”
“I’m done—the basement should be clear.” Astrid peered through the broken floor into the basement. Patterflam was nearly free; she could see a torso and leg hanging in the basement. The leg was swinging wild; it had kicked the freezer door shut.
The house hummed with mystic energy.
A small pool of vitagua lay on the basement floor—she had run out of things to chant. Astrid dragged the liquid to the back wall and froze it there in stalagmites.
“Good,” Jacks said.
“Burn, witch!” The shout came from far away, from another world. Water boiled off Patterflam’s arm as Sahara doused him.
Something was about to go terribly wrong.
“Maybe I should do this…,” Astrid said through a rising sense of dread. The fiery legs scissored in midair, swimming.
“This guy is my problem,” Jacks said.
“Pat can fight the blaze,” Sahara said, handing the cup to Mrs. Skye.
Jacks started downstairs.
“Wait,” Astrid said. But there was more cracking, the chimney breaking apart as Patterflam demolished his prison.
No time.
She tried to force out the knowledge of what came next, but the grumbles had told her all they were going to.
Jacks was already downstairs. She hurtled down the basement steps after him.
Every object in the basement had been chanted—Jacks’s paintings, his clothes, the laundry baskets. The blue glow of magic settling into solid matter was already fading.
Patterflam’s foot swung purposefully, groping for something, anything, to support his weight. Flames dribbled off his toes, melting the plastic lid of the freezer.
“Jacks, let me.”
“You can’t touch him, remember?” His eyes were locked on the blazing, swinging leg.
“He’s right,” Sahara said, plucking at her sleeve. “He’ll poach you from the inside out—”
Patterflam roared. His head broke through the wall of crumbling bricks. With a snap, the Fyreman pulled himself fully into the real.
He dropped lightly onto the freezer, leaving footprint-shaped burns in its lid before springing down to the concrete floor.
His gaze found Astrid; he started toward her and looked amazed when Jacks stepped between them.
“Stand aside, brother,” Patterflam boomed.
Jacks slugged him, lunging with the knife. Patterflam caught his wrist, tossing him aside effortlessly.
A line of flame ran through Jacks’s hair as he struck the concrete basement wall. He batted at it and leapt up to tackle Patterflam, only to get caught in a spray of water from above—Mrs. Skye, fighting the fire. He darted sideways, swinging the pocketknife.
“Don’t run with that,” Astrid heard herself murmuring. It was a mistake. Alerted by her words, Patterflam dodged the blow, catching Jacks by the scruff of the neck and hurling him forward. Hands outstretched, Jacks ran into the wall, the knife, point-first preceding him, puncturing the plaster before he crumpled to the floor.
The house groaned like a tree about to fall.
Patterflam rounded on Astrid again, but now Sahara had the mermaid on. “Patterflam,” she said, voice abuzz. “Stop.”
The man of flame paused, just for a second. Frost spread up and down the steps, melting as quickly as it formed.
“You’re not going to hurt anybody.” Sweat was rolling down Sahara’s face. “Just stand still.”
Patterflam boomed laughter. “Befouled thing, you think to challenge me?”
“Listen—,” Sahara said. Her voice broke and she swooned.
Jacks groaned. Patterflam glanced his way.
“Hey!” Astrid said. “I’m the chanter!”
It worked: he advanced on her. She backed down the hall, leading him away from the others.
“Think your day’s come, witch?” Astrid didn’t answer, just kept retreating into Jacks’s studio. Maybe the others could escape—
Fresh air ruffled her hair as she retreated, and she remembered the studio window was still open, that she had knocked out a pane when she climbed through earlier today.
That fact seemed important somehow, important and frightening. She stopped where she was, steps from the window, lost in time again, trying to think….
Then Patterflam was on her. Smoke dried her face. Her hair crisped and the torn cartilage of her ear burned. The thin cotton dress steamed.
But none of that mattered. Through the wall of black smoke, Astrid could see Jacks coming down the hall.
Terror seized her. She opened her mouth, but Jacks put a finger to his lips. If she spoke, Patterflam would turn around, nail him again, maybe kill him.
A crackling of amusement from the man of fire. He put his hands around her waist, burning and squeezing. Waves of heat curled the air around her.
“Stop…” Reaching back, Astrid grabbed the only thing she could reach—a plastic apple sitting on Jacks’s worktable. It was already chanted, of course, everything was, and all it did was help a person learn to read music. There was nothing left that she could turn into a weapon.
“Pathetic little well wizard.” Patterflam immolated the chantment with a glance. He continued to crush her midsection, molten fingers singeing her skin, so painful, she gave in and screamed, remembering poor Dad and the sounds he made as he died. “No witch will ever finish me—that was written long ago.”
Jacks was behind him now. “How about me…brother?”
Now, too late, Astrid knew what would happen, just in time to watch it unfold. Jacks drove the chanted pocketknife into Patterflam—through him, almost, driving the blade deep into the flames.
Patterflam bellowed in surprise, gouting smoke from the wound. Thunder cracked outside and sizzles of electricity danced over Jacks’s skin. Dropping Astrid, Patterflam turned
, his body of golden flame blackening at the heart.
Astrid launched herself at Jacks, thinking just tackle him, don’t grab, that’s how it all goes wrong…
…but Jacks turned, reached out with one hand even as Patterflam, dying, yanked his other arm. The force of his pull brought Jacks upright in front of the open studio window and he had to, had to be knocked back down—what else could Astrid do?
Her reflexes were too slow; she couldn’t pull back.
Jacks reached out to catch her, as he always did. His fingers wrapped around hers.
“Let go!” she howled, horrified, as Patterflam lifted Jacks by one arm and her own weight dragged him down. But Jacks hung on, and as Astrid hit the floor she bore him down with her, stretching him between her arm and Patterflam’s rising fist like laundry on a line, like a kid dangling between Mom and Dad. Jacks was spread out in front of the wide-open studio window and the dying man of flame stomped her, making her screech as he ground her underfoot. Oh, Astrid thought, there’s Sahara kneeling on the floor, gathering the pocketknife along with all the chantments she can carry. Looting while Rome burns, I knew she’d do that. And there’s the pop of the sniper’s rifle.
I thought it would be louder.
Here’s Jacks letting go, falling, even as Patterflam flames out, as he finally dies and the unreal rejoices.
Jacks landed heavily atop Astrid, crushing the breath out of her. Between their bellies she could feel a spreading warmth.
“Don’t die,” she wheezed, and his eyes widened.
“Don’t die?” Sahara said, uncomprehending. “He’s toast, baby, gone and good riddance.”
“Get the saltshaker from my room. Pat, Pat, do you hear? There’s a saltshaker….” Her shout was faint, almost a gasp. Jacks’s weight made it hard to draw breath.
“You said that last night in your sleep,” Jacks said. His tone was normal, strong. “‘Don’t die, Jacks, don’t—’”
“Wait,” Sahara said, getting it. “Stop, wait.”
He sucked on his lips, hard. His forehead was resting on hers. “Then he bleeds out, you said.”
“Then he bleeds out?” Astrid repeated. He was already chalk-white. Rolling him off her, she pressed her hands against his stomach. “Jacks, I won’t let you.”
“Look,” he said. “All this mess, but that painting I did of Dad is untouched.”
“Jacks,” she said. “Don’t die.”
“He’s going into shock,” Sahara said. “If we surrender—”
“It’s too late,” Astrid said. Her belly and legs were drenched with blood.
“I can’t find any damn shell,” Mrs. Skye called from one floor up.
“She said a saltshaker!” Sahara bellowed.
Jacks blinked a couple times, seeming to shrivel, and she pressed her lips against his. “Hold on, Jacks.”
“It was their wedding,” he said. “Albert and Olive’s. You were dancing with your dad and neither of you…”
“…we didn’t know how to dance,” she finished. “Jacks, what about it?”
“Clumsy thing,” he said. The pain washed out of his face, leaving him smiling. His muscles relaxed, all at once, and he died.
“No,” Sahara said.
Astrid tried to close his eyes and then pulled back, horrified, as she streaked blood over his face.
“Astrid, we have to get out of here.”
“Jacks,” she said, trying to shake him awake. Stupid skinny runner, she’d thought, when Albert first introduced them. He’d been on the track team. He’d been quiet and polite, hard to hate.
Jacks had taught her to ride and raft. He’d taken her out caving for her birthday last year. He’d driven her to Ev’s house from the hospital the night Albert died. He’d helped her move into and then out of Jemmy’s place.
“Albert keeps trying to get you to leave town,” she murmured, brushing his forehead with the back of her hand. She felt like she was falling into a well of ice water. “He gives you the watch. He tries to save you.”
She sobbed. “You were right about Elizabeth. It was important, Jacks, I just didn’t see…”
“Astrid.” Sahara shook her shoulder. “Snap out of it.”
She jerked away, furious. “He loved me. He always—”
“Astrid, baby…”
“Don’t call me that.” Wiping her nose, she hunched over him, pressing her face to his, kissing his limp mouth. “I’m sorry, Jacks, don’t go, please don’t…” Her eyes snapped open.
“What is it?” Sahara said.
“Now’s when I remembered the dead birds at Albert’s feet,” Astrid said.
“What?”
She got up hurriedly. “He’s not quite gone.”
“What? He is, honey, he’s dead,” Sahara said.
“Help me pick him up.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that!”
“There’s no time,” Sahara said. “The house is falling apart. We have to make a run for it.”
“Pick him up!” Astrid shouted. She lifted Jacks under his shoulders, struggling to stand.
Dropping the pillowcase full of chantments, Sahara took his feet. “What’re we supposed to do?”
“Remember Elizabeth?” They bore Jacks’s body down the hall, back to the vitagua frozen in the corner of the laundry room. Laying him out on the floor, Astrid blew on the ice and it melted again. With a small come-hither twitch of her fingers she drew the vitagua under Jacks.
“Elizabeth Walks-in-Shadow? What about her?”
“She was enclosed in vitagua by her apprentice. She was dead, but she hadn’t quite died.”
“Astrid.”
“I’ll do anything,” she begged.
“What are you doing?” Sahara said.
“I practiced on animals when I was a kid,” she told Jacks. “The grumbles knew this would happen….”
They wanted him to die…. They knew I’d do anything.
Yes…this was right. Jacks’s arms flopped outward, and for a second he looked like a kid learning to float on his back. He sank into the liquid as Astrid brought the temperature of the magic down.
His eyes opened.
“It’s going to be okay,” she promised, and kissed him.
Jacks sighed, once, a long rattling exhalation, just as his face went under. Astrid froze the vitagua around him in an inch-thick layer. “Ice sculpture. Mixed media, vitagua and artist,” she said, and giggled.
“Don’t you go hysterical on me,” Sahara warned.
Astrid pulled the paintbrush out of her hair. Laying her hand against the ice of his blue-cased fingers, she chanted it. “Something to connect us. Jacks, please, let me keep something of you.”
Jacks did not react. As the vitagua surrounding him hardened from slush to ice it sparkled, diamond hard.
“Then I slide him into the unreal,” Astrid murmured to the floes. She pushed, hard, and the statue of Jacks slid to the crack in the wall, where all the frozen vitagua lay waiting to break through to the real. Ice stuck to ice as he made contact.
Astrid leaned a cheek against the ice. “If you stay exposed, they’ll come and burn you. You waited so long to get loose; do you want to throw it away?”
Murmurs came back to her from the ice. Reluctance, anger. Jacks was a fyrechild, the enemy.
“I’ll do anything,” she begged. “Please, keep him safe. I’ll bring the thaw. I’ll melt it all.”
After a second, the vein of ice vanished, taking Jacks with it. Broken bricks and cement were all that remained.
“Astrid?” Sahara’s alchemized fingers fell on her shoulder.
Astrid worked her mouth open and shut. “Then I say what do you think Jacks was trying to tell me? About Albert’s wedding? And you say—”
“It’s when he fell in love with you, dope,” Sahara said. Tears sparkled in her eyes but did not fall. “I guess it’s just you and me now, huh?”
Squeezing her paintbrush chantment, Astrid sobbed.
&n
bsp; • Chapter Thirty-Two •
There was no time to mourn.
She had dropped her head onto Sahara’s shoulder to weep, but within seconds Sahara pulled away. “Listen, we have to escape before they shoot someone else.”
“Escape? But Jacks—”
“Honey, I know. But the house is falling. It’s time to go.”
It was true. Mildew bloomed across the walls as the pipes rusted and ruptured. Underfoot, chunks of concrete cracked through the linoleum.
“We need chantments,” Sahara said.
Astrid gulped. Could she have foreseen Jacks being shot? If she could work out why Sahara was supposed to leave, she could do better, prevent it….
I know we fight, she thought. All I have to do is not fight her. Go along with whatever she says, siphon her next time she’s sleeping.
The grumbles howled with laughter.
“No fight, no breakup,” she said. “No fight—”
“You say something?” Sahara was grabbing up random items, stuffing them in the pillowcase as she towed Astrid toward the stairs. They shuffled along, Sahara looting, Astrid in tears, and as they got to the foot of the steps a blast of water hammered them.
Mrs. Skye had coaxed Mark out of hiding. Eyes bulbous, his damp skin patterned in red and black, he played the firehose cup over the dying fires.
“I’ve got the saltshaker,” said Mrs. Skye.
Astrid turned her face to the wall, shivering.
“It’s okay, Pat—it’s too late,” Sahara said.
“Too late?” Mrs. Skye took in the bloodstains on them both. “Stupid kids. Is he dead?”
“It’s not Astrid’s fault,” Sahara said.
“Whose is it, then—yours?”
“Can we focus on getting away? Come on, Astrid, you made things, right, for our escape?”
No fight, no breakup. Head lowered, Astrid pointed at a yellow throw rug. “It’s a flying carpet.”
“That’s you and me, then.” Sahara stepped on the carpet, pulling Astrid with her. “Pat, take Mark out the front door.”
“Part of gang,” Mark gurgled.
“Not on your life,” Sahara said. The carpet rose off the floor—one inch, then two…
“There’s vitagua here.” Astrid stepped off. She could sense it nearby, calling. She pulled, and the freezer door flew open as if punched. Vitagua rose from within. Patterflam kicked it shut, she thought.
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