I don’t know what that means—but it has to mean something.
Solana shakes her head at me as I shove the wind chimes in my pocket—which is pretty full now between the chimes and Socky the Duck and the handprint thing.
“You’d better hope there were no Stormers around to hear that,” she whispers.
“Yeah, I know. I should’ve picked something quieter. But imagine Raiden’s face when he plops down in bed and realizes we were here, messing with his stuff.”
“See, and I’d rather find a way to ensure he never rests again,” Solana mumbles.
Okay. Yeah. I guess that’s a better plan.
I head for the closet, which turns out to be more like a master bathroom. There’s a huge tub in one corner, and a dressing table covered in colorful bottles that look like cologne. I peek into the walk-in closet as we pass it, and it’s floor to ceiling clothes.
“Where does he get all of this stuff?” I ask.
“I’m sure most of it is spoils of war. Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just weird. This place is so normal—if normal people wore this much white fur and feathers.”
“What did you think his living quarters would be like?” Solana asks.
“I honestly had no idea.”
I always picture Raiden in a war room with a map of the world spread out on the table and giant knives stabbed into the countries he’s taking over.
Plus I’ve never seen a sylph house. That serial-killer place Arella lives in hardly counts. And Audra squatted in a burned-down shack on my parents’ property. The Gales sleep in holes in the ground so the Stormers can’t find them. Even my few childhood memories are all filled with the deserted human houses we crashed in during our days on the run.
“I guess it’s easy to forget there’s a person behind all of this,” Solana whispers, and somehow the idea makes it all worse.
The more I learn about Raiden, the more I can’t figure him out.
Does he stand in his closet asking himself which outfit would look the coolest for a long day of murdering children and then soak in a giant bubble bath afterward?
“I think your wind’s over there,” Solana says, and I follow her to a small cubby room with nothing but a toilet.
Side note—I guess it really is true: Everyone poops.
I kick down the seat and stand on the lid, feeling the section of the ceiling where the Westerly is circling. “Pretty sure there’s a door here.”
“Let’s hope it leads to a wind tunnel.”
I know I should be rooting for the same thing, but Aston made it sound like the wind tunnels are a whole other nightmare.
I give the command to open the hatch anyway.
“Need a boost?” I ask Solana, kneeling and cupping my hands.
She steps over them, hops up onto the toilet tank and stretches high enough to grab hold of the edge of the doorway, then pulls herself up like a pro.
“You coming?” she asks. “This isn’t the kind of place I want to linger.”
I can’t climb with my bad elbow, so I have to convince my Westerly to pull me—and it doesn’t go smoothly. When I finally flop into the tunnel, I totally get why Solana’s desperate to keep moving.
The air feels hot and sour, like we’re standing in Raiden’s armpit—and it smells just as disgusting.
The sticky drafts pull at me, chanting, Go! Move! Faster!
We start out at a walk, but it quickly turns to a run—then a flat-out sprint.
And still I want to go faster.
Faster!
FASTER!
My focus narrows to the next breath, the next step, the next burst of speed—which is probably why I don’t notice the giant, spinning fan until I’m seconds from charging through it.
“Whoa,” Solana says as I grab her arm and screech us both to a stop. “How did you see that?”
“My Westerly got my attention.” And I’m pretty sure its current song about watching where you walk is the wind’s way of calling me an idiot.
The song shifts again as I concentrate on the fan, repeating a single word in a very specific rhythm.
“How much do you trust me?” I ask Solana.
“Why—is it telling you to jump?”
“It is. And I’m pretty sure if we do it at the same time, we’ll end up as Windwalker smoothies. So since you can’t hear the Westerly telling you when to go . . .”
“You’re going to have to push me,” Solana finishes.
She blinks hard several times. Then steps in front of me. “I guess we should get it over with.”
Her hair blasts my face until she gathers all the blond waves at the base of her neck.
I seriously can’t believe we’re going to do this.
We can’t even see what’s on the other side. For all we know, it’s another fan—or an army of Stormers.
Now! my Westerly tells me.
Now!
Now!
“In case this doesn’t go well,” Solana whispers, “I just wanted to say . . . you were right about his power. I can feel the need corrupting me. But I don’t know how to stop it.”