“I am not even gonna ask why you have a bikini in my size,” Ellie said darkly, settling on the lounge chair next to Cami’s shade.
Because I know what the Strep does to all your clothes, and then she tells your dad you did it. And you get it from both sides, so this is just easier, right? “G-good.” Cami snagged the cocoanut-oil sunscreen. She passed it over, pulling her hand back quickly.
“White girl thinks she’ll explode if she catches a ray or two.” Ruby’s eyeroll was so pronounced you could hear its mutter in the mountains.
“She just wants to avoid skin cancer.” Ellie began the process of slathering on sunscreen. “As do we all. What time is it?”
Red sighed again. “Not even eleven, worrywart. Chill. The Strep won’t find out.”
“She knows things,” Ellie muttered darkly. Of course, the Strep was a charmer strong enough to have a Sigil of her own—the two high-heeled shoes, a symbol of her work and talent. She was the best couturier in New Haven, and her work was sent overWaste, too. No doubt Ellie’s dad, reeling from the loss of his first wife, had thought the Strep quite a catch.
Even Ellie had been cautiously happy to have a mom again. Until the Strep showed her true colors, that was. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t Twisted yet, she was so full of spiteful rage directed right at Ellie.
Rube snorted. “What, like how to be the biggest bitch in Haven County? Gran could eat her for lunch.”
Ruby’s Gran lived in a tiny cottage in the Woodsdowne area, full of the smell of baking good things, the scorch of an active charmer at work, and pretty small for a woman who controlled a good chunk of the import traffic through the Waste or the port. The de Varres were an old clan, almost as old as the Family and allied to the Seven in New Haven.
In some other provinces, though, Ruby and Nico wouldn’t just snarl at each other. There might have been actual blood. But here in New Haven, a treaty held, and Gran’s house was the closest to absolute safety you could find outside a Family home.
At least, if she liked you.
Ellie’s laugh was laced with hard bright bitterness. “I wish she would. But that would poison your dear sweet Grannie.”
“Good luck.” Ruby critically examined her pinkie, drew another stripe of polish down it. “Hel-lo. What’s that?”
Cami glanced up. Across the pool, something moved in the greenery. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears for a moment, and she hugged her knees even tighter. “N-new g-garden b-b-boy.” The head groundskeeper had just hired four more since some of the old ones were off to college; Trig and the security team had cleared the applicants and Marya had given her approval. They were like all the rest—silent plain-normal humans, young men without any Twist to them, low Potential and low prospects too, probably from the fringes of New Haven’s crumbling inner core where the minotaurs walked, the dead-eyed hapsters hawked their drugs and gave the Family a percentage, and the gunfire echoed. Working for the Families was one way to get out and away from the coreblight—and Papa Vultusino gave college scholarships in return for loyalty and discretion.
Some of the other Seven weren’t so kind. But the boys from the fringes kept coming. They didn’t have many other chances.
This particular garden boy was tall and lanky, with messy coal-black hair. He kept it shaken down over his eyes, and something about him made Cami uneasy. If she said anything, he’d be sent back to the core; once, there had been an under-groundskeeper who had told her she was such a pretty girl while he tried to touch her scarred left arm. She’d flinched just as Nico came around the corner to call her for lunch.
That had been awful.
“Nice shoulders.” Ruby capped the polish, deftly. “Cami, dearie, I could get accustomed to this summer stuff.”
Cami silently agreed. Even if she hated the naked way her scars flushed in this kind of weather.
“Too bad tomorrow’s going to rain.” Ellie finished her anointing and wiggled her toes, luxuriously. The garden boy started trimming something on the far side of the pool, while Thorne and Hunter did their best to duck each other. They must have been hoping Ruby was watching.
Cami relaxed a little. It was just the right temperature under the umbrella, a breeze redolent of mown grass and autumn spice moving over her. Her one-piece cream swimsuit and the matching sari-skirt covered up just about everything. There were the dimpled burn scars on her arms, and there were her wrists. But if she stayed out of the sun they wouldn’t show much, and the long thin white marks from cuts didn’t show too badly anyway.
Nobody ever said anything about it. Nobody but Nico did, anyway. And he only wanted to know if they hurt anymore. Or if she remembered anything before being found in the snow.
He didn’t like things he couldn’t fix.
“God damn it.” Ruby sighed. “Can’t you ever be wrong about the goddamn weather?”
Ellie shrugged, picking up a thick battered copy of Sigmindson’s Charms. She’d tested ultra-high on Potential. It was a good thing—it kept the Strep from being too awful, because of the risk of Twisting Ellie with hate and rage. But still. “Wish I could, Rube. It would be nice.”
“Lottery numbers,” Ruby muttered darkly. “Minotaur races. Even something at the Avalon Casino.”
“Improper use of Potential.” Ellie began flipping. The conversation was so familiar, they could have had it in their sleep. Cami watched the new garden boy trimming, his shoulders broad-muscled under a white T-shirt. He moved a little oddly, but she couldn’t figure out just how. “The risk of Twist increases with each—”
“—use of unsanctioned or unsafe charm,” Ruby finished. “Being responsible is so boring.”
“Being responsible doesn’t bite you in the ass like being irresponsible does.” There it was, Ellie’s Words To Live By boiled down to a single sentence.
“What if you like your ass bitten?” Ruby arched her eyebrows, her oiled skin brushed with gold.
“Hey, what?” Hunter heaved himself up on the edge of the pool, water-jewels on his skin sparkling in bright sunshine. “I can help with that.”
Right on cue. Cami suppressed a sigh. Rube seemed genuinely oblivious to the way the two cousins kept showing off for her.
“Ha.” Ruby waved a languid crimson-tipped hand. “Ask Thorne. I hear he likes that sort of thing.”
“What are you getting me into?” Thorne rose from the pool, sleek and lean. Cami looked away. “You guys are in swimsuits. Why don’t you ever swim?”
“Maybe because you’re all spazzy and scare them,” Hunter sniffed, and it was on. Thorne grabbed him and they thrashed in a roil of brown limbs and crystalline water. The garden boy moved to another shrub.
It didn’t look like they needed trimming, but what did she know about bushes? His hair was really black, with odd undertones. Blue glimmers, like hers. You didn’t see that color a lot.
“You’re staring,” Ruby mock-whispered, not opening her eyes. “Are you actually showing interest in something male? Other than you-know-who?”
Cami dropped her face into her skirt-covered knees. Her cheeks burned.
“You are. Wow.” Ruby sounded genuinely amazed. “Is he cute?”
“Can’t tell at this distance.” Ellie continued flipping through the charm-book. “Oh, look. Here’s one to save someone from drowning.”
Ruby’s aggravation was a long, drawn-out sigh, rippling the air with a ruffle of Potential. “Oh, Mithrus.”
“I’m just being cautious.”
“You are not going to die by drowning, Ell. Not while I still find you amusing.”
“Your arrogance is almost as large as your ass.”
“Come closer and say that, my dearest.” Ruby chuckled, a low throaty sound. “Cami, you can look, you know. It’s actually a good sign if you do. Remember Puberty Ed?”
Cami almost flinched. Now that had been uncomfortable. Sister Eunice Grace-Atoning was the oldest, dottiest teacher at Juno, and listening to her mumbling explanations of how to keep from getting pregnan
t or diseased—or worse—in a classroom full of blushing, giggling girls while outside spring sunshine drenched the world with gold . . . if there was anything more deadly boring and stupid, she hadn’t come across it yet.
Ruby had, quickly and frankly, told Cami everything she needed to know in sixth grade, during one of their many sleepovers. The blush had been hot enough to still feel—they do what? Ewww, gross.
Shhh! Ruby had looked very serious. They say you can catch Twisting that way too, so you’ve got to be careful.
I’m never doing that.
Gran says, Ruby had nodded sharply, in unconscious imitation of Gran de Varre, some day you might change your mind, so it’s best to be prepared.
“Leave her alone.” Ellie sighed dramatically. “Thorne! Go see if you can talk Marya into getting us some beers!”
Cami peeked up from her knees. The garden boy had stopped, his handheld clippers paused. The scissor blades gleamed in the sun, and sweat darkened his white shirt. He had lifted his chin, and he stared back at her.
“He’s looking.” Ruby whispered for real this time. “I can tell he’s looking. Cami, are you looking?”
“N-n-no.” But she was. The heat was all through her, a rose stain like some of the windows in the long shaded hall near the library where all the paintings hung, and the scars would all turn white against that flush. It felt as if she was near Nico, charm-voltage all through her, and she shifted uncomfortably.
“You’re lying. How soon they grow up.” Archly amused, Ruby snuggled down on her lounger. It had to be her russet-golden length the garden boy was staring at. “Thorne! Fetch us some booze, we’re thirsty!”
“I’ll get—” Hunter was half out of the pool already. Thorne tackled him. Par for the course. As if being the first to bring Ruby a beer would make her settle, once and for all, on one of them.
“Oh, Lord.” Ellie sighed again.
“I’ll g-g-get it.” Cami was up off her lounger in a heartbeat, and she retreated from the sunny poolside. Marya would scold, but she could be persuaded to part with some honeywine coolers—the fey had funny ideas about alcohol. Ruby would bitch, of course, but the list of things Ruby would bitch at was so long there was no point in letting it run your life.
Past the changing-house, down a leaf-shaded pathway, the slate pavers gritty and warm underfoot, she was almost clear when she heard a rustle.
It was the garden boy. He must have cut around the back of the changing-house, even though it was a tangle of thorny-wild rosebushes. Cami flinched, stared at the pavers, and hunched her shoulders.
“Hey.”
He was actually speaking to her. Mithrus, what was she supposed to do? She pulled further into herself, hunching more, and he’d somehow stepped right in her path.
“Hey,” he repeated, very low. Confidentially. “Princess girl. Can I talk to you?”
Oh, God. She weighed her options. Walking through him was one, but he might try to touch her. Retreating was a better option, but then Ruby would ask her what the hell and Ellie would probably guess what had happened and sooner or later Nico would find out—
Caught between several unappetizing alternatives, she had a wild idea of diving into the rosebushes pressing against the side of the path and the changing-house. There was no good reason for him to be talking to her, and if someone found out there would be trouble. Not just trouble but Trouble, underlined and in neon.
“Shit,” he muttered, just as Thorne and Hunter bailed around the corner.
“Hey, Cami, take us with you!” Bursting with energy and a haze of warm water, they splattered up to her, Thorne halting and shaking his head. Cami flinched from the spray of droplets, and the garden boy had vanished.
It wasn’t until later, pleasantly buzzed on honeywine and watching as Ruby leveled herself effortlessly into a clean skimming dive, that she realized she was almost disappointed about that.
SEVEN
TWO DAYS LATER, NICO WAS FINALLY WILLING TO TALK about why he was home from Hannibal. “There was some trouble. Fighting.” He lounged on paint-splattered carpet, the cut-crystal ashtray balanced on his stomach. “It’s just a couple weeks, Cami. It’s already smoothed over. And Papa wanted me home anyway. Something about . . . well, he’s worried about something in the city.”
She might have asked him about that, except she knew Nico wouldn’t tell her about anything upsetting or dangerous. She knew things, of course, picked up around the edges, heard in corners. You would have to be blind, deaf, and terminally stupe-Twisted not to overhear . . . things . . . in a Family house.
Right now, though, that wasn’t her problem. You keep picking fights and the Family might do something big to you. “I w-wish you’d b-be c-careful.” Rain swept the window, restlessly, false summer fled as if it had never been. Ellie was grounded again, the Strep using some bullshit something-or-another; Ruby’s grandmother had caught her sneaking out of her window at midnight so she was grounded too, and Nico was . . . Nico.
“Your tang’s all tungled again.” Nico propped his head up on a pillow dragged from his hacked-up bed and waggled his eyebrows. His suite had been in dark green, a Family Heir’s traditional color. Nico, however, had taken black spray paint and an edge to pretty much everything, and after a while Papa had told Marya not to repair or redecorate.
Marya obeyed, of course. But she also tried sneaking pillows and pretty things up to make Nico happy. Cami could have told her it was useless. When he was determined to be an ass, there was just nothing to be done about it.
“You’re mean.” At least she didn’t stutter over that. It was all she could say.
He ground out the Gitanelle and curled up to sit cross-legged, his eyes dark. “I’m sorry.”
It was the same conversation, started so many years ago. You’ll never be a pureblood! I hate you!
You’re m-mean, she’d yelled back, shocked at her own daring but on fire with the injustice. They were the first words she’d spoken since coming to live in the house on Haven Hill, and Nico had balled up his small fists. Coming home from yet another expensive boarding school for the winter holidays and finding everything suddenly arranged around another child hadn’t been high on his list of favorite things, and he’d even shown his baby fangs.
But Cami had flinched, her eyes widening, and Nico had immediately dropped his hands. He had stared, horrified, as she shrank back, his mouth falling open and his fangs retracting. Don’t . . . hey. Oh, hey. Don’t cry. Drawing himself up, little-boy proud. You don’t have to cry. I don’t hate you.
Marya had found them an hour and a half later, curled up together in a faded-rose, velvet-curtained window seat in the dim whisper-haunted library, Nico stroking Cami’s long black hair soothingly, both of them sleepy-eyed. Cami had blinked, slowly, and said M-m-Marya, pointing like a toddler.
That’s right, Nico had replied. Marya. Book. Candle. Nico.
M-Marya. B-book. C-c-c-candle. Nico.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Mithrus. I don’t mean to be. Not to you.”
Everyone else, but not me? “I kn-know.” She was curled in the one leather chair he hadn’t taken a straight razor to, her special chair in his room. Big and wide, and deep enough for both of them as children, it was a smaller ship to sail rougher seas now.
Thunder muttered in the distance. The storm was sweeping in. Nico sighed, hauled himself up, and turned out the electric lights. He moved around, lighting candles and sticking them anyhow in a collection of holders or just in built-up wax charm-softened with a muttered curse.
Family didn’t Twist, like fey. There were other dangers—the sickness of too much Borrowing, the Kiss finding one of them unworthy, a faust’s terrible fire-breath doing what the sun couldn’t to daywalkers and Unbreathing alike. Also like fey, their Potential was a part of what made them . . . different, and they swam in it without worrying about anything toxic.
Except the Waste. They were human enough to have to worry about that, at least.
He knoc
ked a chunk of wax down from his scarred wooden dresser, kicked it skittering across the room. Why shouldn’t I ruin things? he’d said, bitterly, once. None of it matters. It’s just stuff.
It m-matters, she’d replied. It’s b-b-beautiful.
Not to me. And there they had left it.
When he had enough candles lit to suit him, he crouched in front of the chair, watching her, mossy eyes dark. They played the game, holding eye contact for as long as possible, until their breathing melted together. When he shifted his weight she shifted too, and in a little bit he let out a long sigh and settled down on his knees. He leaned into the chair, and Cami stroked his hair, pushing her fingers through the dark waves. The candleflames danced like charmer’s foxfire, and when she shivered he did too.
“Book.” His tone was soft, thoughtful.
“B-book.”
“Candle.”
“C-c-candle.”
“Nico.”
“Nico.”
“See? All better.”
Even if it wasn’t a real charm, it worked. “You’re so angry.”
“Born that way.”
Maybe you were. “We l-love you.”
“You do. Them? I’m just another piece to shove into the Seven.”
“They may not. If you . . . ” Her throat refused to fill with the words. She couldn’t imagine what they would do to him, but it would be dire. The “punishments” administered when he incurred Papa’s displeasure were bad enough.
“So what? They fire me from the Seven. From being the Heir. We go to the Island.”
Another childhood game. So he wanted to be kids again tonight. She gave him the next line, gently. “And h-how will w-we eat?”
“You’ll pick fruit. I’ll hunt. At night we’ll share, and you’ll be Family.”
I can’t be Family. I wasn’t born in. But she still smiled. “How?”
“I’ll find a Waste-witch to make you. Or we’ll get my heartstone and make you into a leman; I’ll hunt for you, and you can Borrow from me. Then we’ll live until the Kiss comes, and we’ll be Elders together on our very own island. Move it.” He clambered up, and they squeezed together in the chair. Rain poured down the windows. His breath was hot on her neck, and she closed her eyes. This was part of the game too, relaxing until they were one heartbeat, and the flutter inside her skull was the silent brush of his strange dark fiery thoughts. He shifted so she wasn’t hitting anything sensitive in his lap, and she fought back a hot blush.