I was imagining what it would feel like to finally fly in that same sky, soaring over rooftops and treetops and into the stars, when I heard the scrape of a shoe on the pavement. “Aunt Ag, what does it feel like to—”
“Little swan girl all alone.”
I froze.
The man was rangy and red-haired and very, very drunk. I could smell the beer on him from several feet away. Renard.
Not just any Renard, but the only one so vicious and uncontrollable he’d been kicked out of his own family as part of the new treaty. He’d only been fourteen at the time, but he’d killed three swan girls. I swallowed, reaching for an arrow from my bag, but it was in the backseat.
“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kept the smile on my face, making it quizzical and polite. He was drunk enough he might just wander off.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Or not.
“I know a damn Vila girl when I see one.”
I tensed as he came closer, suddenly a lot less wobbly on his feet. Anger must have burned off some of the effects of the alcohol. There was a knife sticking out of his boot. I thought of dead swan girls. I eased around the side of the car, trying to put it between us, but he was faster than he looked. He grabbed my arm and I instinctively smashed the heel of my hand into his nose. He yelped, blood dripping onto his lip, but he didn’t let go. If anything his grip tightened when his head snapped back. I’d have bruises.
“I’m going to get myself a new pair of wings.” His breath made me recoil.
“You’re going to get yourself a hole in the kidney,” Aunt Agrippina corrected him. She had a miniature crossbow aimed at him.
He sneered. “You can’t guarantee you’ll hit me and not her.”
“Want to bet?”
The crossbow bolt barely made a sound as it sliced through the air. I heard it land in his hip and the hiss of pain. He let go of me and staggered back, clutching at the wound. “You shot me, you bitch!”
Aunt Agrippina looked more tired than anything. “There’s the hospital.” She gestured behind her. “Go on.”
He glared at me, muttering horrible threats. Aunt Agrippina sighed. “I will shoot you on the tongue next.”
He lurched away toward the emergency room entrance. I gaped at her. “You’re kinda scary awesome tonight.”
“I’m just not in the mood, sweetie.” She slid into the passenger seat. “A double shift, a slashed tire, and now this.” Aunt Agrippina rubbed her face wearily. “I need a bubble bath after the moon dances.”
“You could skip the dancing and go straight to the bubble bath,” I suggested, because the bags under her eyes were practically purple.
“Can’t,” she said through a yawn. “I just used up too much power on my shift. That’s why he got the crossbow bolt and not a magic arrow in the ass.” We weren’t supposed to use our healing magic in public, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She said it was her duty both as a nurse and as a Vila. “He was such a skinny little thing, Ana. His name is Simon. I couldn’t do much more than take some of the pain away, but I had to try. And it was at three in the morning with no one around, before you tell your aunt Aisha and get me grounded.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I won’t tell.”
She patted my leg. “I know.”
“You might shoot me.”
“Exactly.”
Just another night as a swan girl.
Pierce
Watching Ana flirt with Edward was physically painful.
On so many levels.
“How is she so bad at that?” I muttered to Mei Lin who was waiting for her cappuccino. Or her “Capuletccino” as they were called here. I worked at The Shakespeare Café most afternoons and weekends. It was so heavily fake-Tudor and Shakespearean, it would have given the real Shakespeare hives. Still, even Shakespearean actors and professors who knew better loved it. But it gave me extra cash to help with the bills, and at least the owner didn’t make us wear those ruffly shirts anymore. Not since we had all threatened to quit together.
Mei Lin rested her chin in her hands, looking mournful. It was quite a feat considering she had the most cheerful hair of any of the cousins. She usually wore flowers, but she’d once sewn an actual Princess Leia figurine onto her hairband. Today she was so dusted with glitter that her head looked like a disco ball.
We watched Ana smile uncomfortably. Edward smiled back, but he looked slightly confused, as if he was waiting for her to say something. She didn’t. I’d have to go rescue her in a minute. “Isn’t flirting in the Vila DNA?”
Mei Lin wrinkled her nose. “Maybe it skipped a generation. I’ll never get my…” She paused. Instead of saying the word “wings” out loud, she lifted her elbows out and flapped them like a chicken.
“Why not?” I slid her cup toward her and got started on another latte for Ana, extra cinnamon syrup. She’d need it after Edward finally looked away and she figured out how to blink and move her feet again.
“There are four lesbians in our entire school that I know of, including me.” Mei Lin swallowed half the foam on her latte in one gulp. “I’m related to one, the other is way young, and the third one is thoroughly unpleasant. I’d rather kiss a goat.”
“But we get like tens of thousands of tourists every summer,” I said consolingly, giving her one of the broken biscotti we kept in a jar under the counter. “So you never know.”
She perked up slightly. “That’s true.” I wasn’t sure if it was my pep talk or the caffeine.
Liv came up to the counter, smiling at me. She glanced at Mei Lin. “Is your cousin deranged or something? She’s scaring Edward.”
I shook my head. “Easy, Liv.” I’d known her as long as I’d known Ana and they’d hated each other for approximately 99 percent of that time. They’d been banned from being in the same part of the school yard or anywhere near each other in class since kindergarten.
Mei Lin made the sound a swan makes when you get too close. Liv’s lips lifted off her teeth. They looked sharper than usual.
“Don’t make me bounce you both out of here,” I said mildly. I’d learned that acting calm and unruffled tended to defuse Vila/Renard tempers. At least the Vila and Renards I knew. I was assured things had been very different years ago.
I used a stir stick to make leaf shapes on the foam of Ana’s latte because it always made her smile. I glanced over to see if I needed to save her from herself yet. She looked green. I was edging around the counter when she turned abruptly and practically ran to the stool next to Mei Lin. She lowered her head, banging her forehead lightly and repeatedly on the counter.
Liv snorted. “As if that will help.”
“Go away, Liv. I’ve already dealt with your drunken asshat of an uncle.” Ana’s voice was muffled. Liv paled. Ana didn’t notice, keeping her head buried in her arms. I wasn’t too thrilled at the mention of Henry, either, not after what Ana had told me he’d tried to pull outside the hospital. “Edward wants a double shot latte.”
“You don’t work here,” I reminded her. And we didn’t serve at the tables regardless.
“He doesn’t know that.” She made a weird sound, a cross between a stifled scream and a laugh. She peered up at me through her hair. “I had to get out of there before he asked if I was having some kind of fit. I could barely talk. One more second and I might have actually drooled.”
I shook my head. “He’s not even that cute.” Both Ana and Mei Lin stared at me. Even Liv looked at me disbelievingly. I shrugged. “What? I know cute.”
“He’s hot,” Mei Lin said, almost apologetically. “And I don’t even like guys.”
“Why couldn’t I just like you?” Ana asked me. We’d been asking each other that since I discovered the part about true love and the gift of the swan wings. The cousins only got their feather cloak when they fell in love. And sisterly love or friend-love didn’t count, which I thought was totally unfair. We’d even kissed once, but we were twe
lve and had no idea what we were doing. Not a swan feather in sight, so true love was out of the picture. At least on her side.
“It would be so much easier,” she continued. “You’re awesome. And you draw pictures in my latte.” She lifted her cup like it was both fine art and proof of my awesomeness.
“Plus, I’m cuter than Edward,” I added.
“Well, more deluded anyway.”
“You don’t even know him,” I reminded her. “You have like, what, one class together?”
“And you only ever croak at him,” Mei Lin added helpfully. “It’s not love.”
Ana shot her a baleful glare full of sharp and poisonous things. “Blasphemer.”
“It’s not.” She shrugged. “It’s lust.”
I pretended, very, very intensely, that I’d gone deaf. I heated more milk and poured it into the double espresso. I didn’t make any designs in the foam.
“Love takes time,” Ana pointed out. “Maybe this is just the first step.”
“And what’s the next step?” I asked, feeling the same dread in the pit of my stomach that I felt whenever she got that look on her face.
“He’s heading out to a field party right now,” Ana said.
We both stared at her. She hated field parties.
“Call an exorcist,” I muttered. “She’s possessed.”
The cupcakes weren’t working.
Even distracted by Edward, I could see that. Jackson sat by the window and stared at Rosalita who was at a little table crammed with her friends. She ignored him, but tomorrow she might kiss him. You never knew with her, which kept a certain kind of boy intrigued and infatuated. Fat lot of good it did her. She didn’t have her feather cloak yet, either. And she’d be so mad if she found out I was using magic to sever Jackson’s ties to her. Not because she liked him, but because she liked to practice her magic on all guys, all of the time. She wanted them to like her, even if she wasn’t interested in them.
Not that my magic was any good though, apparently. Pierce said Jackson had eaten three of the cupcakes on the spot when Pierce gave him the box with the excuse that Rosalita was grounded and couldn’t bring them herself.
But he was still here, watching her. And it was starting to be creepy. Pierce clearly agreed. He kicked Jackson’s chair. “Go away.”
“Give me a ride to Jamie’s party.”
“I don’t give stalky creepers lifts.”
Jackson finally swung his eyes away. “I’ll go wait in the truck.”
“You do that.” He glared at his brother’s new expensive running shoes. “Where’d you get those?”
Jackson just shrugged, which meant he was stealing again. Pierce sighed, annoyed. “Get a job, delinquent.”
“Just give me a lift, Dad.”
Which was how Pierce, Mei Lin and I found him a half an hour later listening to loud emo music. As usual, Pierce made him get out of the front seat so I could have it. Pierce always drove me home when he could; it meant I didn’t have to be trapped in the Vila house van. It stank of perfume and there were arrows jammed between the seats and under the mats, and no matter where you sat one of them poked you in the butt before you got home. Plus, my cousins seemed to have two moods when they were in a group: grumpy or giggly. I had one: no thank you.
Pierce turned off the music. Jackson leaned forward, a curious combination of eager-puppy and intense. “Ana, does Rosalita have a boyfriend?”
“Several,” I replied flatly.
“So, she might want one more?” he pressed.
“I doubt it.”
“But you don’t know? I mean, she made me cupcakes. That has to mean something. Doesn’t that mean something in girl-speak?”
“How the hell should I know?” I returned. Ask Edward—I clearly knew nothing about girl-speak. “Did you eat the cupcakes?” I demanded.
“Of course.”
I slid him an assessing glance out of the corner of my eye. “Are you sure?”
“I ate them all. But she still won’t look at me for some reason. Is she mad at me? What did I do wrong? Would you talk to her?” He grabbed my elbow. If Sonnet were here she’d have already stabbed him with an arrow. “Please?”
“Dude.” Pierce sighed. “Let it go, already. It’s embarrassing.”
“You don’t get it,” he sulked, slouching back. Mei Lin edged away, as if melodrama was contagious.
“I really don’t,” Pierce agreed as he pulled his truck in beside the others parked in the tall grass. Headlights glittered like fireflies. “Get out and try not to make an ass out of yourself.” He gave me the side eye. “That goes for you, too.”
The party was exactly like every other party we’d ever been to in the back field of someone’s farm. There were bonfires, the faint smell of horse manure, and a million stars overhead. That was the best part. But I had those same stars at home. What this field had that Cygnet House didn’t was simple: Edward.
I’d had a crush on him for over a year now. It wasn’t exactly true love, as the lack of swans following me around or wings of my own attested to, but maybe it was close. And at some point, I was going to have to have an actual conversation with him to find out. He was currently sitting by one of the fires. His dark hair looked like raven wings, or the kind of shadows that hid secrets.
“If you are singing some kind of old ballad in your head, I give up,” Pierce said. “You’re as bad as Jackson.”
“Take that back.” I pinched him really hard. “I am trying to think of what to say.” If only it was as easy as talking to Pierce. I always knew what he was thinking. He had the most expressive eyebrows.
“Try saying ‘hi.’”
I nudged him. “After that, Romeo.”
“Ana, you’re a Vila. You are genetically wired to make guys crazy.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t make you crazy.”
“You really do, actually,” he said fondly. “Now, go over there because I am not spending another year listening to you sigh over him.”
“I don’t sigh!”
“You sound like a hyperventilating goose when he’s around.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you would know what that sounds like.” I straightened my shoulders. There was magic inside me. And if it usually translated into healing powers, or the ability to sing the wind from the sky, it didn’t mean it couldn’t help me do this, too. Even if I was wearing cargo pants and a hoody with holes where I could poke my thumbs through the cuff.
“Give me that.” I plucked a beer bottle from someone’s hand as they walked by me.
Pierce immediately commandeered it. “I don’t think so,” he said. “You don’t even like beer.”
“Liquid courage,” I insisted. “Gimme.”
“No.” He passed the bottle off to someone else. “You’ll get drunk and punch a Renard. Or throw up on Edward’s shoes and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
He wasn’t wrong. “Damn it.”
He slung a companionable arm around my shoulder. “If you’re lucky, you can hear Jackson’s rendition of ‘Love Bites.’ He was working on an Air Supply song in the shower this morning.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going. No need to threaten me.” I headed toward Edward out of self-defense.
As usual, a good portion of my family was scattered around. Mei Lin was hanging out with her friends. Ansuya was making out with a girl whose boyfriend looked utterly bewildered. Sonnet was at home refusing to be social, no matter how many times Aunt Agrippina threatened her, or how many times Aunt Felicity fluttered at her that she’d end up alone and doomed and chained to the earth. She was a little morose, Aunt Felicity. But she was right, too, as we had daily proof.
Rosalita was flirting so forcefully I was surprised there weren’t bodies littered around her feet. Jackson appeared woeful but determined. I should have doubled the cupcake recipe.
I squeezed myself into the tiny space at the end of the bench next to Edward. I smiled at him, but I wasn’t even sure he was lo
oking in my direction. The fire popped and snapped, making better conversation than I could. I really was stupendously awful at this.
As I was trying to figure out how to get his attention, a girl I didn’t recognize plopped herself on his knee, giggling at him. His elbow nudged me when he shifted to hold her up. His hand slid down to her lower back. I nearly fell into the fire in my determination to be anywhere but there.
“That could have been me,” I said to Pierce when he came up beside me.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed, linking my arm through his. “You’re still my favorite anyway.”
“Well, that was a spectacular failure, as always,” I said as we wandered through the rest of the party. The smell of peppermint schnapps stung the air.
“You’re not going to get all mopey about it, are you?” Pierce asked.
“Please, who are you talking to? I’ve had experience at this, remember?”
Although I couldn’t help obsessing, just a little, on how I was never going to get my feather cloak. I’d end up eating fish heads in the woods with Morag. There was an itch between my shoulder blades, a physical ache for wings. And the guy I liked currently nuzzling some girl’s neck.
Now that Edward was off kissing some other girl, there was nothing to distract me from the drunken hooting of three guys trying to shotgun beer from the keg to impress girls who looked more concerned with having that same beer spat all over them. A girl was doing cartwheels for some inexplicable reason. She must be from town because doing cartwheels in a field at night was just asking to land in cow shit. Most of the others were lying on the roofs of their cars, watching the stars. The moon was fat and yellow, reflected in a small pond. I followed it, out of ingrained habit.
Pierce found a white feather stuck in the roots of a tree. He passed it to me for my collection. His knuckle oozed blood. He followed my glance.