listing, rusting hulk—and, with the last of his strength, he pulled himself into it.
He slid between wet, folded cardboard boxes, his weight carrying him toward the bottom. As he slid,
more trash slipped on top of him and the dumpster shifted, the lid falling shut with a crash. It was dark in here and not as cold as it was out in the wind and snow. Whether he wanted to get out or not, he was here to stay. He curled up in his new bed and tried to keep warm. He was so cold and tired and empty, a burnt-out
husk. There, in the dark, he fell asleep and the cold slowly leached away the little bit of life he’d managed to preserve.
Dane had just leapt off the top of the subway at the 207th train yard, on his usual rounds of the city,
when he smelled strange ozone. It had a different taste than the oil- and grime-saturated power of the
subway line, a different smell than the burnt Bakelite reek from the transformers upwind. This had the
touch of magic to it, nothing that came from the shifting of the sky or the machines of men. He crouched in the shadows and cast about for the source of the scent.
There was alcohol on the air, and unwashed flesh, a hint of rot. Dane grimaced as he located the mage
who smelled of a little power and a great deal of sorrow. He was a bent thing, dragged down by his filthy
overcoat and bags of cans. Dane paced the shadows, following him for a while, his long stride easily
keeping up with the other man’s shuffle.
They left the train yard and headed for the river, for the haven under the University Heights Bridge.
Dane crouched on the cracked concrete wall that shored up the riverbank and watched him go. If he weren’t
so accustomed to seeing his people reduced to that, he might have spared a thought or two for anger or pity.
Instead, he filed the scent and sight away under “harmless” and turned his face into the wind pulling at his long, dark hair.
“I’m listening,” he whispered, a bit impatient. There weren’t many places he could go that the wind
wouldn’t find him in time. He wondered what it wanted this time.
“I need you,” said the wind, tangling in his wild hair and tickling at his ears. “Come.”
Dane was already moving at the word need, his four-limbed feral gait carrying him faster than any
human could run. He swung up to the rooftops to race across the top of the city, under the heavy clouds,
and dropped down to lope through narrow alleys, staying to the shadows. At last, he swung over an iron
fence and into the empty yard of an old hostel in a row of brownstones. The French doors of a third-floor
room were standing open and the light poured out from within, but Dane could see no one on the balcony.
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Tatterdemalion
“Up,” the wind urged, pulling at him. Dane went up the trellis, over the balcony, and up farther still to
the roof, graceful and silent.
The old man was waiting for him, face turned into the wind, a thin black silhouette against the milky
winter sky. The snow parted around him like a curtain pulled back, leaving his silver hair and black robe
unmarked.
Now that Dane had arrived, the urgency faded, to be replaced by his usual temper. His voice scraped
the silence like a rusty saw. “What is it, Cyrus?”
“Go to Washington.” When Dane drew near enough to see him clearly, Cyrus’s face was whiter than
the New York snow. “The laboratories. You know the ones.”
Dane’s nose wrinkled, but he nodded slowly. “I know them.” He wished he didn’t. The one time he’d
gone to scout them out, the smell had lingered in the back of his throat for more than a day. Vivian, the
third member of their little cabal, had said it was psychosomatic. Dane disagreed. There was something
about suffering and the fear it brought that didn’t easily wash away.
“Take the car,” Cyrus said, as Dane turned away. That was enough to make Dane stop. The wind
swirled snow around them both, dragging Dane’s long hair about, pulling tendrils to catch in his beard.
“You will find a boy there, outside, if he lives.” Cyrus’s eyes were black stars in his pale face. He swayed from the effort of his magic working, drawing the winds whistling through the streets of Washington to
whisper to him on the rooftops of New York City.
“I will,” Dane promised, his voice dropping to a gentle rasp. He held out one huge hand to Cyrus,
careful of his own claws. “After you come inside.”
“The wind…” Cyrus began to protest faintly.
“Is about to knock you on your skinny old ass,” Dane said bluntly. The argument was familiar and
Cyrus’s thin hand was already drifting into Dane’s, fluttering like a snowflake. Dane closed his hand over it and guided Cyrus to the door on the roof that led into the house.
In Cyrus’s room, which had once been an upstairs dining room complete with huge glass doors and
beautiful balcony overlooking the old garden, Dane helped Cyrus out of his damp coat and settled him into
a chair by the fireplace. The hearth was dark and full of ash, so Dane stacked wood to light it again,
ignoring Cyrus for the moment.
“Time is of the essence.” The old man sounded too tired for the words to have much effect.
“No use me getting the kid if I’m bringing him here to meet your frozen corpse,” Dane said stolidly,
working on lighting the fire. He was grinning behind the thick, wet curtain of his hair. His priorities and Cyrus’s clashed more often than not, as Dane didn’t feel the same urgency about following arcane visions
that the aeromancer did. He enjoyed the conflict more than a little. The fire caught on twisted newspaper
and dry twigs, and gnawed the wood.
“Dane.” Cyrus’s brittle voice cracked on his name.
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Anah Crow and Dianne Fox
“Cyrus.” Dane rose and crossed the room to shut the balcony doors. The snow had already come in
and streaked the wool rug with white. It was as cold as the rooftop in here.
“Stop enjoying yourself.”
“Yes, Cyrus,” Dane said insincerely.
“This is important.” Cyrus thumped his fist on the arm of his chair, a small noise in the large room.
“So are you.” Dane brought a wool blanket from the bed and tucked it over Cyrus’s lap with careful
movements. The scene was more than a little incongruous: the wild-haired, hulking feral caring for the
slender, aging prophet. There was no one there to point it out, though. No one had been there for years. No one but Cyrus and Dane and sometimes Vivian, who was as alien as they were and just as inured to it.
The window by the bed was still open a crack. The wind whined and lapped at the crack before
slipping in to find its master, rippling Cyrus’s hair and tugging at his sleeves.
“Find him.” Cyrus put one cold hand on Dane’s wrist, gripping like a bird’s talons. Tension flowed
from him in slow waves, seeping under Dane’s skin.
“Have I failed you yet?” Dane gently detached Cyrus’s hand from his wrist and turned to go.
“Not yet,” Cyrus admitted. When Dane looked back, he was huddled and small in the chair, cast into
odd patterns of light and dark as the fire struggled to breathe. A twitch of Cyrus’s hand and the air swirled around the flames, coaxing them higher.
“And I won’t.” Dane closed the door behind him. He was heading down the back stairs when he heard
Cyrus’s voice once more. It was soft and far behind him, inaudible to anyone but the wind and the fire in
Cyrus’s room, inaudible to anyone but a beast with ears that could catch the flutter of fear in a heartbeat at a hundred paces.