Charity case. Well, I’m bound for hell now.
Ellie leaned against the counter, taking deep breaths flavored with the steaming of smoke-hot peanut oil. The jack running the food stall was broad-shouldered, wearing a flannel shirt despite the heat from the grill, and the pattern of green scales on her cheeks flushed red every time she glanced at Ellie. Her hair was aggressively short, and Ell kept a careful eye on the jack’s expression.
She was probably driving away custom, leaning here in her school uniform and nursing a cold-sweating bottle of limon.
Why, of all places, had she come down here? Southking was dangerous even during the day, and she had her blazer on, and . . .
Her brain froze. She shivered violently to get it working again.
Where do I go?
Going to Cami would mean getting mortgaged to the Family, and while Cami was a friend, there wasn’t anything good about the rest of them. Even non-charmers knew that. Family meant blood, and they kept what they took.
Ruby . . . well, her grandmother was kind, all right, but also scary as fuck with those white, white teeth and that unblinking gaze. You never wanted Edalie de Varre angry at you, that was for damn sure, and really, after Ellie had been all bitchy, Ruby might get in a snit and . . .
Well, that wasn’t really fair, was it. Ruby would go to the ends of the earth, for Cami. Last winter, both of them had. Ruby had even shown up outside the house on Perrault to pick Ellie up. Cami’s in trouble, it’s bad. And out the window of the blue bedroom Ellie had climbed, into the killing cold.
The bigger problem was what would happen if she ran to one of her friends and Laurissa came to fetch her. Laurissa had meant to do something final, something irrevocable, and neither Cami nor Ruby were capable of handling . . .
Her brain froze again. She couldn’t make a plan with all the noise in her head and the freezing between her synapses.
“How much longer you gonna stand around, girl?” The jack barely turned her head, addressing the words over her shoulder with edged disdain. “Scarin’ off my business.”
I doubt anyone finds me a threat. “Soon,” Ellie replied dully. “I’ll leave when I’ve finished.”
The fan of scales marching up the jack’s cheeks swelled a little more, each one rising individually and flushing, turning from gem-green to bright crimson. It was oddly fascinating, but staring wasn’t polite. Born Potential-mutated or developing latent feathers or fur when they hit puberty, jacks were always angry. A jack’s a powder keg, the saying went, and after seeing a few streetfights on Southking during the day between Cryboy’s crew and interlopers with other gang colors knotted at wrist or knee or forehead, she believed it.
“Mithrus Christ,” the jack at the grill hissed. “Stop crying, charmer bitch. You shouldn’t even be here. Go home.”
I don’t have a home, thanks. She took the quarter-bottle of limon and stepped away from the counter, uncertainly.
The night sighed around her, New Haven taking a breath before another squeeze of its hidden hearts propelled Potential through its tissues. Even the trashulks, gray and squat on their squares of charmgrass, were dozing as they digested the day’s rubbish. She looked down at the pavement, starred with bits of quartz and lumps of dirty beechgum and other refuse pounded flat, and the vision of each bit of concrete as a ribbon artery feeding into the inner Waste of the core where the sirens howled and minotaurs lurked in a cloud of uneasy chaos-driven Potential threatened to explode her skull and leave her a witless wandering jobber.
She forced herself to think, or at least try to. If she went to Cami or Ruby, the Strep would certainly follow. Mithrus Christ alone knew what would happen then. She couldn’t bring the Strep down on them.
Where? Juno? I can’t live at school.
That was another thing. She’d miss homework, and there was school in the morning. Mithrus, who cared? There were bigger problems. Like where she was going to sleep tonight. Her stomach cramped a little, but she wasn’t hungry.
Not yet.
Her schoolbag bumped against her hip. She should have tucked her credits in there, and carried them with her. Stupid, stupid Ellie, and she thought she was so smart. Her hands and knees throbbed, scabbed over and swelling with each beat of her hummingbird pulse. She swung the bottle of limon once, twice, the sweet carbonated liquid fizzing and sloshing.
Why am I doing this? Like it’s a weapon.
Then, miserably, she knew. Her chin lifted, her gaze swinging across the street . . . and there, lounging in the shadow near a knifemartin’s tent, Cryboy turned his head. Negligently, slowly, and in a moment he was going to see her.
Ellie’s breath slammed out so hard soft black flowers bloomed at the edges of her vision. The weeping fluid slicking the jack’s cheeks under the bone spurs sliding along his cheeks glistened in the shifting dusklight, and for a moment she saw how it might have been if he hadn’t been born a jack. He might have been handsome, in a cruel sort of way, with the soft shelf of dark hair over his eyes and his full lips.
Her fingers tightened on the bottle. If he saw her—
A hand clamped onto her arm. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She looked up, blinking away a strand of pale hair, and met Avery Fletcher’s green-gold gaze.
Oh, hell. And despite trying not to, Ellie Sinder burst into tears.
• • •
“I should have known.” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “All of a sudden I get this overpowering urge to wander after dark, it just won’t let me be, I go out for a drive and end up here. I should have known it was you.”
Do you think I charmed you or something? Ellie swiped at her wet cheeks with her free hand. Cryboy was still across the street, but maybe he hadn’t recognized her. Mithrus knew she’d never worn a Juno uniform here before. “G-g-g-go—” The words refused to come, as if she was Cami and her tongue kept tripping. Her heart was going to explode if this kept up.
“Stop telling me to fuck off, will you? It gets old.” He examined her from top to toe, as if he’d forgotten his hand was clamped around her aching arm. “Mithrus, did you even go home today? You’re a wild one.”
I went home. Almost got killed, too. The injustice of someone else’s assumptions, as usual, stuck in her throat, a dry rock stopping anything she might want to say. Instead, she glared at him through the scrim of tears and, amazingly, Avery Fletcher threw back his head and laughed.
It was a merry sound, and it caroled over the hushed bustle of Southking at night. Cryboy’s chin continued its circuit, and for a moment his gaze locked with Ellie’s. But he looked away a split second later, as if he didn’t recognize her—or didn’t care.
It was a goddamn miracle.
Avery didn’t quite shake her, but his grip tensed again, and she was suddenly aware of how his fingers met around her biceps, and how they rubbed against the bone through a thin screen of flesh. He watched her, the threads of gold in his hair muted now, wearing only a navy T-shirt and jeans against the chill, his trainers new Flotjes imported from overWaste. If he wasn’t careful he could get beaten up badly and robbed of them here so close to the core.
Strangely, though, she didn’t feel like warning him. His shoulders were way wider than hers, and his calm self-possession made it seem like he could even walk through the core unscathed. Maybe because he was older?
What would it be like, to just wander around unafraid? Calm and knowing you could handle anything that showed up? Was it something someone could teach like algebra or French, or did you have to have an innate capacity, like with charm?
“Here.” He subtracted the limon bottle from her unresisting fingers. “This is not where you want to be, Ell.”
Her lungs filled. If he kept looking at her like that, her heart was going to explode right inside her chest and save Laurissa the trouble of hunting her down. “Sh-shows what y-you know.”
A single shoulder lifting, dropping, he couldn’t quite be bothered enough to really shrug. He was looking a
t her, with that odd intent gaze that made it so hard to breathe. “I know a lot. Just not what I’d like to.”
“Fletcher.” She managed to make the words stop jittering and shaking on their way out. “Avery. Look. I’m trouble, okay? Bad trouble.”
She meant to say in trouble, but the preposition just vanished before it could get out. Because she wasn’t just in it up to her eyebrows. No, trouble was all through her, and it was seeping out, and any minute it was going to swallow the world whole. She broke all the records. Or did Rita toss them over the banister? One at a time, liking the sound they made when they broke? Not that she blamed the other girl; being on the receiving end of all the Strep’s rage would make anyone do whatever they had to, just to get a breath. Just to escape.
Pointless sadness filled her and swirled away. She was just too tired to keep it.
“I know.” Mithrus strike him down, but he actually sounded cheerful. “I knew it the minute you showed up at Havenvale. Fortunately, I like trouble.”
Not this kind. If Laurissa ever found out . . . Imagining her screaming at Avery threatened to dry Ellie’s mouth up completely. Her heart hammered again, hard enough to break through her ribs. “Go home. Leave me alone.”
“I thought I told you to quit telling me to fuck off.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Let’s go. Jacks all around, and it doesn’t feel good. What are you doing here, Ell? Or is that another question I’m not supposed to ask? Talking to you is like trying to get through InterProvince Customs with a bag of wasteweed.”
“How would you know?” She didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, actually. This was shaping up to be the most interesting conversation she’d had in weeks, and it just had to happen during a total disaster.
It has been weeks. A shiver ran through her. I’ve been dead on my feet for a while. Mithrus.
He actually wiggled his eyebrows at her, pulling her along the sidewalk. “I have a lot of hidden talents, Miss Sinder.”
“Hidden deep, no doubt.” She scrubbed at her cheek with her free hand again, tears stinging as they dried. Crying always chapped everything, salt water caustic and relentless. Her maryjanes felt awful thin, and every step jolted all through her.
“You keep sweet-talking like that, I’m going to start thinking you like me.”
How did he make her feel better? She was in trouble, and feeling better was something she couldn’t afford. She had to get somewhere safe, to sit and think and plan . . .
There was nowhere safe. Not for her, and not for anyone the Strep might suspect of harboring her. Laurissa was black charming, and she was Sigiled, powerful enough to burn down a house. Imagining Avery in the path of that tornado was just . . . too much.
It wasn’t fair. She did like him. Anyone else, even Cami, wouldn’t have understood anything about this. Maybe he didn’t either, but at least he was keeping up. “That’s your idea of sweet talk?”
“From you, I guess so.” His pace quickened; her skirt swung as she tried to keep up. God, did he have to drag her so fast—
“Cute little charmers, out all alone,” someone sneered behind them, and a sickening thump of fear echoed inside Ellie’s chest. Oddly, it wasn’t as crippling as she would have expected. Maybe her fear-maker was busted.
Avery almost skidded to a stop, dropped her arm, and turned on one heel. A prickle of painful stormfront pressure passed through her, like the sun on already-reddened skin. Of course, he was older, and his Potential had settled. He was going to step smoothly into his life, while hers was shattering.
She managed to turn around, her body straining against itself. God, please. No more tonight. I can’t take it.
“Well, hello there,” Avery Fletcher said politely, as if he was at a season event, charmers gathered around and the masked dance of manners, alliance, feud, and one-upmanship in full swing. “One, two, three little pixies. Oh wait, four, slinking in the shadows.” A half-delighted laugh. “Run along, boys. I’m the one taking the lady home tonight.”
Cryboy slunk forward. “She’s a firecracker, charmer boy. I don’t think you’re up to it.”
Her fingers found the crook of Avery’s elbow, warm and solid, the pulse leaping from his flesh to hers. A spark popped between them, and he cast her one golden, sideways glance, shaking her off as she pulled, gently.
“Leave it.” She tried to sound soothing. “Come on. Just leave it.”
“Oh, is the widdle charmer girl scared?” Cryboy’s cheeks gleamed. It was Ralfie and Hopscotch behind him, Hop with his dreaded-out feathery hair and skinny legs, his three-fingered hands opening and closing at the end of his too-long stick-thin arms. Ralfie was bulkier and moved with scary, oily fluidity, his joints cartilaginous and flexing in ways they shouldn’t. “Been waiting to talk to you all alone, Bluegirl.”
“Just leave—” Ellie began to repeat herself, but two things happened at once.
Avery stepped forward, right hand coming up, fingers flicking loosely. A brilliant blue-white flash cast sharp-ink shadows; goose bumps popped up on Ellie’s skin, tingling and prickling.
She had to blink several times before what she was seeing made sense.
Cryboy, his leather jacket smoking, sprawled on the pavement, rolling back and forth and making a small heeen noise. Ralfie crouched, shaking his head with weird boneless broken-neck twitches. A reek of burned hair and gunpowder; Hop lay crumpled and unmoving. There was another slumped shape in the shadows, near the mouth of an alley to their right; she found out she didn’t want to look at it.
Mithrus Christ, what did he—
“Warned you,” Avery said quietly, and took Ellie’s arm again. “Come on, Ell.”
She didn’t resist. He didn’t walk very quickly either, maybe because she was hobbling. Her feet were killing her, and everything else wasn’t too happy either. The entire damn day had just caught up with her.
He’d parked on Highclere, but down at the far end where Ruby never did, on the left side of the slender frost-cracked street. The houses here were narrow and frowning. Expensive shotgun shacks, Dad had called them.
The thought of her father was a pinch inside her chest, a hard twisting one. Had she really called Laurissa a whore?
I can’t go back. The knowledge jolted, a painful precise slice inside her chest. She’ll kill me. And not just figuratively.
So, what, then? Sleep on the street? Wait until school tomorrow and . . .
Her brain seized up yet again. Hard to think when you were tired and terrified, and she hadn’t slept since last night. It felt like a long time, though. It felt like she hadn’t slept in months.
His car was the same primer-painted heap, and maybe he kept it that way because it blended in here. There were empty spaces on the street, which never happened during the day. The cars belonging to the neighborhood people were older and heavier, battered and repaired, soft-glowing anti-theft charms visible as the breeze stirred spindly tree branches and mouthed the houses.
“What did you do to them?” It was a stupid question, but that looked like a really useful charm to have, and never pass up the opportunity to learn, right? If she could get something out of this, maybe the day wouldn’t be such a total, incredible pile of wasted everything. Broken discs, torn-up paper, what few clothes she had left probably shredded now too. She had nothing but her schoolbag, and her mother’s ring, and the uniform she stood up in. How could things get worse?
She had to wince, and her left hand tingled, wanting to make the avert sign. It could always, always get worse. Laurissa had taught her as much, hadn’t she.
“They don’t send you to Academy to learn knitting.” He unlocked the passenger door, letting go of her arm slowly, reluctantly. “Medic charms can hurt as well as heal. Besides, I wasn’t about to let them do anything to you.”
So he’d settled into his charm-clan’s specialties. Good for him. “Could you teach me?”
He actually looked shocked. “Mithrus, no. It’s not a charm you want, babe. Not one you should be throwing
, either. You’re not even—”
She could finish that sentence in her sleep. Good enough. One of us. Pretty enough. Worth it. Whichever one he meant, well, it wasn’t like it would hurt her, not after today. “I might need it,” she persisted. “I couldn’t see what you did.”
“Good. Get in the car, please?”
Why? “If I do, will you teach me?”
“No. I’ll drive you wherever you want to go, though.”
“How about New Avalon?”
An easy shrug. His irises reflected oddly, more gold than dark at the moment. Had he really come out just on intuition, looking for her? “If you want. Getting through customs might take some doing. But your dad was a diplomat, right? You still have a passport?”
Of course not. Laurissa took it. She’s probably burning it right now hoping to charm a rebounding sympathy onto me. “No. I don’t . . . no.”
“I’ll figure something out. I’m not kidding.”
She searched what she could see of his expression. Oddly enough, she believed him. “Why are you doing this?”
“You don’t know? Mithrus, you’re so smart, but . . . what’s a guy got to do, Sinder? Pretend we’re back at Havenvale and tease you again? Throw myself into the bay? Walk through the core singing a Hellward tune?”
Well, you could find me a place to spend the night. Caution warred with desperation. A crazy idea hit her, and she looked up at him, tall and absurdly comforting, his face shadowed as true night folded her soft wings over New Haven. The beech tree behind him rattled its leaves, reminding her of the flicking of his fingers as his charm laid waste to jacks. Medic charms looked awful handy, but her Affinity wouldn’t show until . . .
The thought refused to coalesce.
He might have thought she was looking at him for a completely different reason. Because he leaned down, his breath smelling of peppermint beechgum, and his lips touched hers.
TWENTY-ONE