A dark, secret thrill poured through her. The heat outside her skin wasn’t so bad, compared to the glow that lit itself inside her chest and belly and legs. “Of course I do. Just . . . don’t do that again, okay?”
He nodded, half-seen in the dusk. A glimmer of those golden eyes. Whatever reply he would have made was lost in the sound of running feet.
Thorne bolted through the gate, wild-haired and wide-eyed. “Ruby!” He skidded to a stop, and didn’t hit Conrad by a sheer miracle. The Grimtree was on his feet, facing down Thorne, who leapt aside and almost knocked over a terracotta pot full of strawberry plants. “The Clanmother. We need her.”
She found herself on her feet too. Conrad, tense and a little sheepish, slowly lowered his hands. Did he think Thorne was going to jump them? “What happened?”
“It’s . . . the Park.” His sides flickered with deep starving breaths, and the words came out in hard heaves. “There’s been . . . another murder.”
• • •
“Oncle just said to come get you.” Thorne, still breathless, braced a hand against the hallway wall and hunched his shoulders. “There’s cops.”
Gran’s pale eyebrow raised as she settled her purse on her shoulder. “Police?”
“It’s not kin.” Thorne glanced at Ruby, who stood, hugging herself, charmcooled air brushing her bare legs. “Mere-human. Girl.”
“You should go upstairs.” Conrad, right next to her, was a tall warm bulk. He probably didn’t mean to loom like that, but she had to admit it was sort of comforting.
“How bad is it?” Gran was already halfway across the living room, heading for the massive mahogany charmer’s hutch. The tapestry made little skritching sounds as the threads shifted, and Conrad looked at it like he expected it to start speaking. The charmer’s sun-and-moon were veiled, the Moon’s smile sad and worried, the stars around them tarnished.
Thorne glanced at Ruby, straightened. High, wild color stood out in his cheeks, and the sweat on him glistened. His T-shirt was stuck to his back, and muscle flickered under its thin screen. “Pretty bad. Clanmother . . . it’s like him.”
“Him?” Gran paused.
“Like . . .” He glanced at Ruby, plunged ahead. “Like Hunt.”
Ruby swayed. Her shoulder hit Conrad’s. Oh, God. “No,” she whispered.
A heavy arm around her shoulders. Conrad pulled a little, and she let him steer her. The roaring in her head tried to come back; she pushed it away.
“I see.” Gran shook her head, her mouth turning down. She stepped into a pair of flats, and she was apparently planning on leaving the cottage in her housedress. “How many police?”
“Six. They came to Oncle Efraim’s door, said they don’t want an incident. There’s a detective—Haelan. He asked for you personally, Oncle told me to run.”
“Haelan.” Gran’s teeth, sharp and white, showed in a swift grimace. No kin liked the police. “You’ve done well, Thorne. Conrad, my apologies, I must attend to this. Ruby, is your homework done?”
There’s a dead body and you’re asking about my homework? “Can I come with you?” Don’t leave me here alone.
Well, technically not alone, but . . . the roaring kept wanting to come back. It was hard to think through it.
A single shake of her pale head; Gran checked her purse, frowning slightly. “Of course not. It’s a school night. Go to bed and don’t worry. Thorne, please wait in the hall. I shall be out directly.”
“She’s old enough,” he said, instead of hopping to obey. “And she’ll be Clanmother one day.”
Gran halted. She turned slowly to face Thorne, who had drawn himself up. Under the wild thatch of wheat-colored hair, dark eyes glinting, his chin up in that same defiant tilt . . . Ruby let out a soft sipping breath.
He looked sharply handsome, almost Wild. And incredibly, painfully rebellious.
The old woman simply examined him from top to toe. “Indeed she will,” she finally agreed, “but for right now, she is still a child, and so are you. Your elders will deal with this, whatever it is, so that you may have your childhood a little while longer. Go into the hall, young one.”
Ruby closed her eyes. Conrad’s arm tightened. “Don’t worry.” He probably meant to say it softly. “It’ll be all right.” He drew her up the stairs, away from all of it, and she let him.
Thorne didn’t wait in the hall. Instead, the front door slammed, and he was gone as quickly as he’d shown up, out into the gathering storm.
EIGHTEEN
IMPOSSIBLE TO SLEEP, EVEN THOUGH THE COOLING charms in each room were refreshed and actively humming. Thunder muttered in the Waste, a dozing creature wrapped around the city walls.
Ruby finally rolled out of bed and wandered to the bathroom, then downstairs. The sky-grumbles only added to the silence of past midnight, underscoring the quiet. The light in the kitchen was on, a warm golden glow of buffered glass incandescents.
Gran was at the table, again, dark smudges under her eyes. She did not glance at Ruby, staring at the playing cards as she shuffled them again. Her hair was tangled into its nightly braid and spilled down her back as a pale rope. Her fingers flicked, laying out the cards in a wheel-pattern instead of her usual five up-and-down.
Sometimes at night they didn’t talk to each other, Ruby just got a drink or a snack and went back upstairs. Tonight, though, Ruby sat down in her usual spot, brushing curls out of her face.
The cards blurred as she blinked and rubbed at grainy sleepsand.
Tesla’s Folly kept sparking. It was enough to make you wish for rain, for screaming, for broken glass. Anything to break the tension.
“You’re worried,” she said, finally, folding her arms on the table, laying her head down on them as if she was in primary school and bored. Her deportment grades had never been above passable, ever.
Maybe she should have tried harder from the beginning.
Gran didn’t reply for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Yes.”
“Is someone hunting us?” Or just killing in the Park? Trying to make us seem like . . . like what? “Or trying to frighten us? Or . . .”
“Je ne sais pas, ma belle.” Gran turned over a jack, another, both red. Blots of color from Ruby’s perspective, the table-edge a distant infinity. “This is a troubled time, indeed.”
I’ve been trying to make it less troubled. “I’m sorry.”
A ghost of a smile touched Gran’s thin lips. “You are a relief instead of a burden, little one.”
She hasn’t called me that in ages. She watched Gran’s hands, familiar and bone-pale, unpainted nails short but nicely buffed and trimmed. No age spots; there were charms for that. My vanity, Gran would remark occasionally, will overwhelm me one day, no doubt.
“I’m trying.” Now that she could hear Gran’s breathing, smell the comforting musk and whiff of Levarin perfume that meant safety, her eyelids were heavy. The kitchen was restored to order after gumbo, except for a water glass set by the toaster—Conrad’s. Cheerful tomato-red fridge, the red counters wiped and the floor swept clean with a mopcharm, and except for that one lone glass Ruby could pretend it was just them again.
And except for her wrist, tucked out of sight. It still ached a little.
“You try so hard, Ruby.” Now Gran glanced at her, a penetrating look. Her irises were steel-colored again, and any of the cousins might have quailed under that gaze. But Gran was just thoughtful, not severe, though if you didn’t live with her you might mistake one for the other. “Sometimes I think you try too hard.”
The thump below Ruby’s breastbone must have shown on her face, because Gran shook her head, slightly. “No, I don’t mean it that way. I meant only that I fear you may do yourself some harm, seeking to fill . . .” She halted, as if groping for words. “You are not alone. The clan confines, but it also protects.”
Like a straitener’s ja
cket, right? So I can’t hurt myself or anyone else.
Like a collar. “Gran . . .”
It was maybe Gran’s turn to wonder what Ruby might say. Don’t collar me? Or even, I’m scared. Keeping everything whirling was a full-time job, and now it felt like it was going to speed up even further. All the fast driving in the world couldn’t outrun this.
A girl was dead in the Park. Just like Hunter. Who would do something like that?
“I made many . . . mistakes, with your mother.” Gran’s hands now lay against the cards, their white and red and black quivering uneasily. “I . . . do not ever want to repeat them, with you. I am trying too.” A slight smile, again. “In all senses of the word, I expect.”
There was a prickling behind her eyes. Hot and heavy, and she denied it. “I love you,” Ruby whispered. “You’re not bad at all, Gran.”
Well, that was damning with faint praise. But Gran’s smile widened a trifle, and just for a moment everything between them eased. Thunder rumbled again, but farther away. Some storms were like that. They flirted, they teased, until you just wanted to explode.
Was this what a boytoy felt like when Ruby did the same? That was an uncomfortable thought, and she was having a lot of them lately. Was that what adulthood did to you, fill your head with everything you’d rather not think about?
How could you not think about the whispers in the corners, the half-heard words? She’d heard them as she lay upstairs, stiff as a poker in her bed. The girl had been found splayed out in a glade within sight of the road, torn open.
Savaged. Torn. Blood. The marks. Hushed voices as Oncles and Tantes consulted the Clanmother, Gran’s replies quiet and pointed. She was so calm.
“I love you, too, child. You are very far from bad.” Gran gathered the cards. “Do you want some warm milk? It will help you sleep.”
“Nah. I’d have to brush my teeth again.” Ruby hunched, stretching her back, then extended her bare toes under the table, pointing them as if she were back at Madame Vole’s Dance Academy. Ballet was finicky, there was no space in it for exuberance, but it was the dance you were supposed to learn if you were part of New Haven’s upper crust. Of course Cami floated right through it, and Ellie was as precise and gliding as always. Ruby was always putting her limbs in the wrong place, too much expression, too much fidgeting, slow down. “It’s really bad, isn’t it. The . . . in the Park.”
Gran rose, slowly, pushing her chair back. “You have enough to worry about. That is mine to solve.”
But if I’m going to be Clanmother . . . well, it wasn’t certain that she would be, was it, now? “Okay.” She tried not to sound dubious.
“I am not so fragile yet that I need children to shoulder my responsibilities. You have much of your youth left; I wish for you to . . . to have it.”
Which was an awfully nice idea, but there were all sorts of things in the way. One of them was sleeping upstairs, and her wrist twinged just a little. “It’s okay, Gran.”
Edalie nodded and shuffled for the fridge. Her embroidered slippers made their peculiar sound, light and deliberate, as unique as Gran herself.
The words crowding in Ruby’s throat wouldn’t help anything. Sending Conrad back and handling negotiations for another prospect to visit would be just another drain on Gran’s time and energy, and the last thing she needed was Ruby whining at her.
Especially with murders in Woodsdowne Park. Ruby hid the shudder by stretching and yawning. “I’m going to bed. School tomorrow.”
“Dream well, child.”
“I’ll try.” Though I don’t think it’s very likely.
The stairs creaked in their old familiar voices, and she halted halfway up, cocking her head. Had she heard a quiet snick, the guest room door closing so, so softly? Or a brush of feet against the hall carpet?
Nothing else, and of course the hall was starting to hold threads of Conrad’s smoke and musk under the blankets of other familiar scents that were her-and-Gran. Maybe he’d wanted to come downstairs, or she was just hearing the cottage creak even though the nights weren’t cooling off. New Haven was under a dome of nasty expectant weather, and it would only get thicker until a storm could come in.
It was there, standing stock-still, that she realized the cards hadn’t been quivering because of Potential. No, Gran’s hands had been shaking, just a little. Which gave Ruby such a weird, unsettled feeling in her stomach she ran softly up the remaining stairs and into her room, as if a childhood monster was right behind her.
NINETEEN
LOCKERS SLAMMING, CATCALLS BRIGHT PIERCING notes over conversation surf-noise, high-pitched laughter echoing against the high ceilings. Ruby stared into the depths of her locker, neatly arranged this early in the year, and blinked several times, trying to think of what she should grab. What came next?
“There you are.” Ellie reached past her, slid the French book out, and flipped open Ruby’s bag. “You need this. And this. Got a notebook?”
“I think so.” Ruby blinked. Ellie was already digging in her red canvas schoolbag, almost yanking it off Ruby’s shoulder. “Ell, relax. I’ve got a notebook.”
Ellie shook her pale hair back, blowing irritably at a single, slightly waving strand. “You’re dead on your feet. Come on, we’re going to be late. Cami’s holding our pew.”
“Can’t we just skip it?” She knew the answer before she even said it, and for once, was too damn tired to care. “It’s just a bunch of singing and listening to homilies.”
“Now there’s the Ruby I know. We missed you at Babchat last night.”
“Trouble.”
“We figured. Cami heard from Nico.”
“Of course he’d hear. Why would he bother her with it, though?” Ruby slammed her locker shut with a vengeance. “He’s a piece of work.”
Ellie paused for a moment, eyeing her as a wave of Year 10s flooded the hall. They had chapel earlier than everyone else. Maybe some of them even took it seriously. Bright-eyed, dew-cheeked, and smooth-haired in the blue wool blazer and ubiquitous plaid skirt, they all looked the same. It took getting a whiff to tell them apart.
Either that or a closer look than Ruby cared to give. It was all the same, anyway. This year thin headbands were out and hair ribbons were in, the luckcharms on their polished mary-janes were bugle-shaped silver beads instead of the flat sharp-edged dangles they’d been last year, and jangling feyweight bracelets were making a comeback.
I haven’t worn a feyweight since Year Eight. The little clip-on figures were the hottest thing going for three years running, hard to find and spawning thousands of cheap knockoffs. Even a ban by the City Council hadn’t stopped kids from wearing them, though it had driven import profits up into the stratosphere. Gran had even given her a few handfuls of the little things, smiling a peculiar little grimace.
Ruby’s old pair of feyweight bracelets—one for each wrist, because of course that was the thing to aim for—was probably in a jumble in the bottom of the rosewood box atop her dresser. She’d scored clip-on jangles for Ellie and Cami too, the three of them walking in a sphere of laughter and chiming through Havenvale Middle School.
Everything used to be so simple.
“She’s worried about you.” Gray eyes paler than Gran’s, Ellie’s expression was a watered-down version of the concern sometimes drawing down Gran’s face whenever Ruby had done or said something too careless. “You don’t Babchat, you don’t come over, you don’t talk about anything, you know, real. We miss you.”
Maybe Cami might, but you probably don’t. I’m a selfish bitch, remember? “Just been busy, you know, with everything going on.” Ruby spun her locker’s dial, the identicharm on it flushing red briefly as it sealed itself. “Let’s get to chapel.”
“Ruby.” Ellie didn’t give up easily, gliding next to her as Ruby set off for chapel at a good clip, swimming against the hallway-current. “Look, ever sinc
e Hunter—”
Oh, hell no. “I don’t want to talk about it. Is that okay with you?” A little too aggressive, but if she had to start unpacking the details right here she might as well just run away screaming.
Come to think of it, the idea had its merits. Just run and run, get to the Semprena—hooray for Conrad letting her drive her own car again. . . .
Dammit. She didn’t want to think about him. Conrad had eaten dinner while she cleaned up the kitchen last night. Maybe he was hungry; he put away two bowls of gumbo, complimenting Gran’s cooking. He could have been trying to keep her mind off things, or just nervously talking.
Her wrist twinged a bit, only when she torqued it the wrong way. She could still feel his breath on her ear, warm and dangerous. And see his boots next to her bare toes, while he told her something he probably hadn’t told a single other person.
Something to hold, just between the two of them. Shiny and fragile like spun charmglass. Just like Gran, later at the table.
Ellie caught her arm. “I was just asking. You know, if you want to talk. We’re good for that, you know. Both of us.”
So good at talking you never told me what the hell was going on with either of you. So it was Ruby’s turn to keep a secret or two from them, stuff it into that little place inside her where other confidences glowed.
Luckily, Ruby’s secrets weren’t dangerous. Just stupid stuff about growing up, that was all. It was selfish of her to even act like she had a problem.
All harmless things, except for one. Had Hunter been hoping she’d go out on one of her nightly prowls?
Gran was going to be home late and headed into the office early too. Even if she wasn’t, there wasn’t a whole lot she’d tell Ruby. The radio news this morning, while she sat alone in the Semprena because Cami had taken to picking Ellie up on her way to school, didn’t have much either. The murdered girl was from Hollow Hills, a scholarship student, law enforcement had no comment and asked for the family’s privacy to be considered.