“Speak some more French, and you’ll get there quicker, too.” He hadn’t let go of her hand. The flitters made thin crystalline singing noises. It was a nice trick. “You want a drink? Or . . . I mean, there’s food, or . . .”
“I promised you a dance.” I have to go back to Auntie. This isn’t what I wanted.
Wasn’t it? Why go to all this trouble, run the risk of the Strep seeing her, if she hadn’t wanted to be right here, looking up at Avery Fletcher and feeling every atom of her body completely awake, for once? Suddenly feeling a little less ugly and threadbare? “Is Laurissa here?”
“I haven’t seen her.” He looked uneasy now, a faint line between his eyebrows. “You’re pretty pale. Is it a charm?”
“Nope. Just me.” I’ve been working in the garden, I should be brown as Ruby in the summer. A pinch under her collarbone—when Dad was alive, she’d always brought Ruby and Cami to the Ball. The three of them would sneak honeywine coolers and find a corner, giggling and mocking the glittering whirl of fashion sotto voce.
Was there another girl taking her place in Juno’s halls? And Rita, had she been taking Ellie’s place on Perrault Street?
Well, that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? That was what everyone wanted once Dad was gone. Stick me in a corner, rub me out like a stain, make me behave. Or just make me vanish. Same thing. “I’ve just been . . . well, you know. Learning a lot. Working in the garden. It’s nice. You?”
“Job offers. Some good ones since I’m settled. Deciding what I want to do once I finish summer vacation. Mom’s still hoping I’ll Sigil.” A shrug, disturbing the line of his suit, and the buzz of conversation had started around them again. Maybe he had some sort of charm to make people stop looking at her so funny. “Hope springs eternal, you know. Are you going to go for your boards?”
“I can’t just yet.” Let’s just leave it at that. “You want to dance, or—”
“Actually . . . I want to apologize.”
“For what?” What could he have to apologize for?
He glanced up over her shoulder. “Well, I did want you here. That was the biggest thing.”
A soft hand touched her bare arm, fingernails scraping slightly. Ellie froze. But it was only Cami, the Vultusino girl’s ivory silk slip-dress fluttering a little around her knees. She wore a crown of silvery charmed tinsel-flowers, her hair was a blue-tinted waterfall of ink, and the transparent relief and naked hope on her pretty face was a knife to the heart.
“There you are.” Ruby was on Ellie’s other side, vivid as usual in a deep crimson del Paco dress, halter-backed and subtly sequined with tiny sparkling crystals. “Mithrus, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. What have you done to your hair? And my God, that dress is killer. You could have called, you know.”
Ellie stared. She could find nothing to say.
“I’m sorry.” Avery’s hand tightened on hers. Was she trying to pull away?
“Mother H-heloise is w-w-worried.” Cami’s blue eyes had filled with tears. The stutter had returned, just like a bad habit. “She called the p-police. The Strep s-said you’d r-run away. N-n-nico has a r-r-reward out f-for information about you. I th-thought—”
“Auntie doesn’t have a phone.” I sound dazed. “You invited me so everyone could see I was still alive, right?” He must have invited Ruby and Cami, because they couldn’t attend otherwise.
Not because he wanted to see her. The nausea was back, filling her throat with hot sourness.
Avery actually had the grace to look ashamed. “No. I mean, yes, but no. I wanted to—”
“Just what did you want?” The constriction in her throat didn’t let the shout out. Instead, she sounded like she’d been punched. If she talked any louder she was going to spray whatever she’d had to eat today—probably the morning’s bread and honey, since she’d been too nervous for lunch—all over his tux.
He wouldn’t let go of her hand, even though she tried to pull back. “Look, Ellie, I worry about you, okay? You just vanished, and when I found you—”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that.” Ruby, as usual, wasn’t going to sit around and let everyone be in suspense about how she felt. “You ran right off school grounds and disappeared. Mithrus, Ellie, why didn’t you at least call? I went to Gran and the cousins scraped the city; we couldn’t find you. Where have you been hiding? Are you okay? You look . . .”
Ridiculous? Stupid? Afraid? “What do I look like, huh? Tell me.” Her throat still wouldn’t work right. She tried to jerk her hand back out of Avery’s, but he wasn’t giving up.
“Ellie—” He almost pulled her off balance. “Please. Please just listen.”
“I think I’ve heard enough.” She tried to pull away again. “Stop it. Just stop.”
“You disappeared for m-months.” Cami didn’t let go of her arm, either, and the humming preternatural strength of Family just under that soft grasp made Ellie freeze. “He’s been trying locator charms. So have the p-p-police. The S-s-strep’s h-holed up in that h-house, and there’s been a m-magistrate inquiry—”
“An inquiry?” Because I was gone, but they didn’t have a body or any evidence. Oh, God. She’ll be furious. Especially if they searched the house. How did she cover up the black charming? Oh, you know she’s got her ways.
The dreamlike feeling was back. The beads on her dress shivered, chiming musically. Oh, God. I’ll never get a license. I can just stay with Auntie, though, right? She’ll teach me everything and then . . . and then . . .
Then what? Spend her entire life tending Auntie’s garden? It didn’t sound too bad, but still.
“There wasn’t enough proof—of anything—to indict.” Avery glanced over Ellie’s shoulder. “Oh, boy. Incoming.”
Oh, God, what now? She tried to take her hand away, but he wasn’t having any of it.
The crowd of brightly colored charmers parted, and a slim dark-eyed woman appeared. She had Avery’s cheekbones and a fantastic leaf-green Armaio gown, veined with glittering charmlight. Avery had obviously learned the charmflitter trick from her, because she was attended by a swarm of bright green dazzles moving around her head much as bees or fireflies did around Auntie’s. It was odd, but something else about the woman reminded her of Auntie, too—a tilt to her head, maybe? Or the shape of her jawline?
“The mystery girl!” she said brightly. “Ellen, right? Avery can’t say enough about you.”
“Mom.” He still wouldn’t let go of her hand. “This is Ellen Sinder. I told you about—”
“About that terrible woman passing off another charmer’s work as her own. Yes. Which reminds me, the Council has her under review. If you could charm a piece in front of us for comparison, Miss Sinder, it would be proof of a very grave offense indeed.” Avery’s mother paused, and it struck Ellie that she was moving cautiously forward, as if she thought Ell was going to bolt.
Which was a distinct possibility.
“There’s also the matter of your Sigil, clearly visible in the charmed pieces now that we know Ms. Choquefort-Sinder did not perform them.” Mrs. Fletcher folded her arms, sternly. “I can’t understand why Juno didn’t have you registered, really. And your work is so exquisite, well, we’d offer you a place in the clan. If you want it.”
“Mom!” Avery’s cheeks had reddened. Did he look . . . yes, he did. Sheepish. And embarrassed.
“What?” She almost rolled her eyes, a startlingly young movement in a parental adult. “She’s a better charmer than you, Ave, if those pieces are any indication. You’ll be lucky if she teaches you a few things.” Her smile stretched, and she actually looked mischievous. “He’s had the maddest crush on you for the longest time. You can’t imagine.”
“Mother!”
“This is really weird,” Ruby muttered. “Does anyone else see how weird this is?”
Ellie struggled to think. The world had taken a screeching left turn, and maybe it was being at Auntie’s that had robbed her of the ability to keep her balance.
Once y
ou relaxed, the world just threw something else at you. There wasn’t any way to win, ever.
Laurissa. He told his mother Laurissa was passing off my work as hers. “You told her?” The nightmare just kept getting worse. “She’s going to kill me.”
“Ellen . . .” Mrs. Fletcher’s smile faltered. She glanced at her son, at Cami’s set, pained face, and at Ruby. “Tonight we’ll take you to the police station. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your stepmother . . . well, let’s put it this way: Her business practices are not really what they should be.” She took another step closer, and Ellie twitched nervously. “There’s been disturbing rumors about her for quite some time. But your father . . . well, he had diplomatic immunity, so—”
“My father?” Oh, sure, let’s blame him. “What about him?”
“Olivia?” Avery’s father appeared from the side. Absolutely nobody was now paying any attention to Ellie, because a tinkling flood of music had begun to thread through the air. The best part of the Midsummer Ball was about to start. “You’re not going to believe this.” He leaned down, murmuring in her ear, and the sight of them together—a mother, a father, the way he stooped a little as if being close to her was the best and easiest thing in the world—spilled terrible heat into Ellie’s stomach.
She finally succeeded in getting her fingers free of Avery’s. Cami’s hand fell away from her arm as well. “S-s-see?” the Vultusino girl whispered. “His m-mother’s on the Council. You can show them the Strep’s been using your work. And we can go to the p-p-police, or to N-n-nico if you—”
Ellie darted a venomous glance at Avery. Was there anyone he hadn’t told about the Strep using her for a workhorse?
Next he’d say something about Auntie, and if there was trouble, there would go Ellie’s apprenticeship to the best charmer she’d ever known. The old woman hadn’t done anything other than help her, and Ellie, just by breathing, was going to drag her into Laurissa’s sights.
I’m poison. The sudden burst of knowledge was copper-edged, sickening. “Mithrus Christ,” she hissed, “stop it. Don’t you see?” Of course they don’t. Nobody does.
“You don’t have to be afraid.” Avery kept trying to grab her hand again. “Ell, my mom, she knows about Laurissa—”
“Nobody knows about Laurissa,” she snapped. “She’s gotten this far by making people do what she wants, she’s just going to run right over anyone who gets in her way. Even the Council, for God’s sake. Even an inquiry, since I’m obviously alive.” And now your mother is right in front of her, and so is Auntie. If something happens it will be my fault, as usual. “I am not a charity case. I do not need help.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Ruby tossed her head. “Of course you need help. I mean, you’re practically homeless, and you’re not even in school. You missed finals, and Mother Hel gave Cami and me talking-tos for weeks as if we knew where you were. You ran off in front of everyone, Cami’s been crying her eyes out thinking you might be dead in a ditch somewhere—”
“I get it, Ruby. I’m a huge problem, and someone needs to solve me, right? And you—” She rounded on Avery. “You think you’re the charmer who’s going to break the Unspeakable Riddle, right? Just ride in with your mother and your nice little charm-clan and save me, right? The real world doesn’t work like that, Fletcher.”
There was a spark in his gold-green eyes now, and it flared. “Yeah, well, you’re a whole, what, sixteen? You don’t have that hot a grasp of the real world either. What are you going to do, go charm on Southking to make ends meet, and let Laurissa get away with all this?”
“Southking?” Cami was having a little trouble keeping up. It wouldn’t last. “Ellie—”
“Just stop!” she screamed, and the chandeliers swung, chiming. The sound was a nightmare echo. For a moment the lights dimmed, and she expected to see the stairs again, Laurissa’s body tumbling down—and that was really all the Strep had to do, right? Accuse Ellie of trying to kill her, and use Rita to back it up. That girl would swear to anything to get the Strep off her back or keep the peace, because she had to live in that stone-towered house on Perrault Street, too.
Goodbye Auntie, goodbye apprenticeship, goodbye to everything. She’d be lucky if she was sent out to a kolkhoz and worked to death if she was convicted of trying to kill another charmer. All because she’d stupidly, foolishly believed she had a chance.
The beads on Ellie’s dress clashed and slithered. She skipped back nervously, avoiding Avery’s hand. He was still trying to hold onto her, the idiot. “I don’t need charity,” she informed them all. “From anyone. Thanks, but no thanks. I was stupid to come here. You can all go to hell.”
She turned, staggering a little as the low heel caught a bit on uneven flooring. They could all dance right over it, but of course she would trip. It was the same old story. The music swelled again, and Avery’s father said something that rhymed with Ellie’s name, but she was already moving.
“Ellie . . .” Cami, as if she’d lost all her air.
“Let her go,” Ruby answered, pitilessly. “At least we know she’s alive. If she’s going to be a bitch about it, let her go.”
Exactly, Ellie thought. Thanks, Ruby. Thanks a bundle.
She walked quickly, with her head held high.
Nobody stopped her.
TWENTY-NINE
THE RAT-FACED DRIVER DIDN’T SAY A WORD, JUST closed her into the eggshell limousine and walked steadily around the front to the driver’s door. When he dropped down into his seat, his gray-gloved hands closing around the wheel, Ellie summoned up her courage.
“Perrault Street,” she said. “The 1800 block. Do you know where that is?”
A single nod. His hat brim had begun to droop a little, and there was a shadow on his cheeks. Stubble, maybe.
It didn’t matter. “Take me there. Please.”
Another single nod. Ellie sagged against the pumpkin-colored leather, and the shaking weakness was all through her. I should have known better. I know I should have known better.
Streets slipped away underneath the limo’s tires; the pale car threaded a needle’s eye between the charm-clan estates, their gates closed and secretive. New Haven twinkled with lights, the diseased glow of the core rising like a beacon and staining the cloud ceiling. The moon was hiding, and everything had turned sticky-sultry. Thunder muttered restlessly, a giant sleep-talking animal in the sky.
What are you going to do, Ellie? You need a plan.
The trouble was, her plans never worked out. She did better when she just ran blindly, didn’t she? Right now it was Rita she was thinking about. Pale, pudgy Rita. Who was just about Ellie’s age. Who threw her arms around the Strep and hugged her. Who slammed doors and crept around and sneaked and spied, but who also dropped a bottle of sylph-ether when she didn’t have to.
I know what you’re doing . . . acting friendly . . .
There was a black suspicion in the very back of Ellie’s head, not quite formed and, she supposed, more terrifying than it would be if she just let herself think it out. Instead, she tuned her brain to a blank, formless hum, and her mother’s ring glowed a little as she stared at it.
It was restful in here, the soft upholstery and the shushing tires and the world going past outside. It wasn’t as nice as driving with Avery—
Don’t think about that.
It was useless, because he was creeping in, filling up the formless buzz inside her head.
I hate him. He broke his word.
He’d kept reaching for her hand. With his mother standing right there, practically inviting Ellie into the clan. Wouldn’t that be something? With a charm-clan behind her, she could get a decent job; she would be assured of an apprenticeship and a license. . . .
But there was Laurissa. Spreading like a stain between Ellie and everything that might have given her a break. She could make Avery’s mother sorry, plenty sorry, and that would make Avery sorry too. Auntie was old, how much damage would the Strep do to her? Laurissa wasn’t in a bu
ffered jail cell, so they hadn’t found any evidence of black charming at the house if they’d searched it. She was free to walk around and be just as soft and dulcet and treacherous as she could until she struck, and there would be no evidence afterward, either.
It was all so ridiculously clear now that she’d thought about it. The Strep could accuse Ell of attempted murder, Rita would back her up, and then what? A kolkhoz somewhere, if she survived transport through the Waste.
Would that be so bad? Yeah, there would be the Waste pressing against the sinkstone and electric-wire fences, and backbreaking work, and the weather, and probably jacks like Cryboy and his gang. They’d send her to a Twist-free kolkhoz, at least, and she’d die before she was forty, worn out by the work and the weather.
So why was she thinking about Rita, then? Was it just self-insurance? Did it matter if she got the girl away from the Strep?
Yeah, you’re going to ride in and save her, just like you helped save Cami. Remember how good that felt? Like you’d finally done something right. Something nobody could argue with, and you’d earned all that charity they’ve been handing out ever since the Strep got nasty.
A long frustrated sigh, and the feather scraped against the side of her face. She carefully worked the headband free, and her hair wasn’t drooping, at least. The dress was just as gorgeous, even if the beads were a little uncomfortable to sit on.
It’s not mine, though. Even Auntie’s charitable.
At Auntie’s, Ellie earned her keep, didn’t she? She weeded, she cleaned, she cooked, she learned everything the old charmer could teach her. Surely she wouldn’t have let Ellie stay so long otherwise? She was Auntie’s apprentice.
And what? You bring Rita there and all of a sudden there’s someone else to help Auntie.
Rita wasn’t a charmer. Even thinking about her in the tiny little charmer’s cottage, feeling the stab of worry and bleak black almost-jealousy, made Ellie’s stomach flip. It wasn’t right to feel that way about someone caught in the same trap you’d just escaped. She was going to save Rita and earn a little peace.