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The last days of summer bled out slowly, heatwave after heatwave turning the busy city of San Dimas into a barely-moving sludge. The cars speeding down empty streets, bolstered by internal air conditioning, offered more relief in their wake than the weak, unsteady breeze that occasionally lifted its head, and the citizens unfortunate enough to be outside were left dried out and panting as they worked towards their destinations.
Lark sat in the summer blood, utterly still on his front porch, and stared at the sky. Blue, almost unnaturally so, in a city so full of smog and pollution. Even after the months in Faerun, a blue sky nearly untouched by civilized waste, this sort of cloudless, perfect blue set his skin crawling with wrongness. Or maybe that was because of the other realm—but he hadn’t wanted to leave, really. He’d wanted to be there forever, conquering cities and deities with Sparrow.
Henry Oak is the unsung hero.
The words had been playing on repeat for four months in his head. He had no reason to trust them, these words from a man who had kidnapped him and Sparrow and three other children, who had tried to kill them and their fathers, who had killed Glenn. He hated Willy for that almost more than the attempts on his own life, sometimes; Glenn had been the closest to understanding Lark in a long time, at the end. More than Sparrow, until they came back and were able to readjust without their father’s presence. He hated Willy for cooping them up in a crumbling castle, for forcing them to submit, for dragging them into Faerun in the first place.
But they wouldn’t have been taken if his father hadn’t been who he was, hadn’t been as awful as he was, hadn’t raised them as he did. He and Sparrow wouldn’t—they—
It was his father’s fault as much as it was Willy’s. Maybe more. If he’d killed Barry, or taken them out of school like they wanted after the arson attempt, or not turned Sparrow against Lark, or a hundred other things. If he hadn’t taken the gauntlets. Hadn’t tried to be a father at the worst possible time. Hadn’t been a coward, hadn’t changed, hadn’t been afraid of his own fucking son.
You can’t be cruel. Well, it wasn’t cruel if it was true. His father was at fault.
He deserved to pay for that. And Lark—Lark deserved to be repaid, for what he’d gone through. He deserved for things to be the way they were. Summoning the Doodler would change many things, but it would reestablish him and Sparrow above their father, as it had been before .
Yes. He could take Willy’s final message and reclaim what both him and his father had taken.
Lark stood up fast enough to feel the air drag against his skin, a plan forming in his mind. It would, unfortunately, require deceiving his brother, but Sparrow needed the reminder as well. He’d fallen for their father’s words once; Lark would make sure that never happened again with this. He went inside, and then to his and Sparrow’s bedroom, and pried up a loose bit of baseboard to reveal the knife that had taken Glenn’s life. He’d palmed it while everyone was distracted with the funeral, intending to use it on someone before the battle was through. The battle had ended, but now Lark could win the war.
He spoke to his brother while everyone arrived for movie night. Waited outside, in the oppressive heat, the unrelieving air, and stared as the sky started to turn. Summer was ending; Lark and Sparrow and the others would be going to eighth grade. It was time to grow up.
When Sparrow came for him, he looked delighted, beaming at his brother as he took Lark’s hand and towed him inside. Lark’s ears were ringing as Sparrow explained to their father about the apology (a lie), the remorse (a lie), and he only barely made out Henry’s claim that he had nothing to apologize for.
“I do,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around his father. At least he wouldn’t make Sparrow a complete liar, with this. “I do need to apologize for this.”
The knife sunk into his father’s back, and then there was only pain, and static, and Sparrow’s screams. The cool floor beneath him turning warm and sticky, copper in his mouth where he’d bit his tongue as the Doodler crashed through him in bewildered agony. Somewhere underneath it all, in what he hoped was his imagination, Willy laughed.
Summer bled out into a red sky, and Lark seized on the floor in a pool of his father’s blood and stared up at the coils of darkness spiraling out from above him.