Lili Crow - Wayfarer

Business picked up after that. A steady stream of memorycharms to kids her age, two credits a pop. System flushes inscribed on cheap brass discs to get feyhemp or milqueweed out of their bodies before the public schools did another round of quick-release blister testing, five credits. One skinny, rumple-haired, middle-aged woman who handed over a fistful of crumpled paper credits and walked away with a small colorless glass vial of charged sylph-ether Ellie had taken the risk of stealing. The woman’s hurrying became an almost-drunken stagger as she vanished, probably running back to her doss where a lamp and a few lumps of tarry poppy extract waited.

Charged sylph-ether gave an extra kick to the poppy tar’s high; the woman wasn’t far enough along the curve of addiction to start burning it with whatever taper was to hand.

Ellie almost left after that one. Ice and vagrant’s tears were hardcore addictions, but they left Potential alone. Feyhemp could burn you for a little while, and milqueleaf made you stupid. Charmweed could addict you if you didn’t have Potential; if you did it would just give you a lethargic hangover. But poppy tar fucked you right up , and burned any Potential you might have out of you.

As much as she hated High Charm Calc, there was no way Ellie would do anything to irrevocably damage her ability to work with Potential. It was, after all, her only ticket out of Perrault Street. She ran it over and over in her head and came up with the same thing each time. Good luck getting an apprenticeship if a Sigiled charmer dropped a hint that you were unstable or lazy, and good luck getting into a charm-clan when your stepmother was a stranger in town who had made no friends with her avid social climbing.

Most high-powered charmers liked a bit of friendly rivalry, but there were those that took it too far. Funny how nobody seemed to think that maybe Laurissa wasn’t a nice person at home, considering how she jostled and elbowed for clients so hard.

That was adults for you. They didn’t think about you until you turned old enough, unless they wanted something. Even Dad hadn’t thought very hard about Laurissa, or maybe she charmed him right into forgetting everything but her. Who knew?

Even Mother Hel seemed to think everything was just peachy now. Or she was too busy to keep an eye out for Strep-related bruises.

In any case, the only escape possible was saving up, getting into Ebermerle College, and keeping her head attached in the process.

An afternoon’s steady work got her a ringing-empty head and a pocket full of crumpled credits, as well as a gnawing belly. It took physical energy to control and contain Potential, especially when you had to be extra careful of it slopping over the sides of the charm and sparking into chaos.

Still, nobody’d had any complaints about her work so far. Stealing the sylph-ether had been an inspired choice, and she was already planning how to grab more. Today had been a good day; being careful until she learned enough to plan for everything had paid off. She’d almost doubled her stash, and all it had taken was a little forethought.

Her gaze flicked through the crowds, and she calculated her exit stroll. She’d learned, after having been chased by Cryboy and his gang of low-level jacks one afternoon, not to shout that she was going anywhere in particular. And especially not to relax.

It was just like being at home, really.

She was halfway to Highclere and the beginning of her circuitous route toward the bus station that would let her catch the 151 to Perrault when someone shouted behind her.

“Hey!”

Every inch of Ellie’s skin tingled. She didn’t stop to wonder if the shout was for her—when your Potential sparked like that, it was best to move first and ask questions later. She didn’t know if it was Cryboy pounding the pavement after her, except it wasn’t like him to yell unless he was pushing his prey toward his fellow bottom-feeders.

So she took off in the last direction a pursuer would expect—a three-quarter turn to her left, darting across Southking’s four lanes. Brakes screeched, someone laid on the horn, but on a Saturday afternoon everything was crowded enough around here to mean she wouldn’t get squashed under someone’s imported hunk of gas-burning junk or a straining pedicab.

“ Wait! ” whoever it was yelled, but Ellie had no intention of making it any easier on him. She jagged down an alley she’d scoped out a long time ago, scrambling for a fire escape hanging on rust-eaten screws. It shuddered and yawed alarmingly, but it held her all the way to the top, and she streaked across the roof of the warehouse that was now Beaman’s Emporium—shampoo only half a credit per bottle, if you didn’t mind the risk of your hair turning into seaweed, and smokes two per packet if you didn’t mind them being cut with whatever some jack in some Eastron factory had to hand that day—and clattered down the stairs on the opposite side.

A stitch grabbed her side with sharpclaw fingers, and her entire midriff seized up. She found herself on hands and knees in the Emporium parking lot, staring at pointed glitters of broken glass and a few foil-bright candy wrappers. To her right loomed a huge junker, a rust-colored Porsline truck that had to be almost as ancient as the Reeve itself. To her left was a plain of weed-cracked, open pavement, but there wasn’t a single thing moving on its broad, bumpy back.

The Emporium closed at four on Saturdays. Why, nobody knew. Some said it was run by fey, but then everyone who had ever known a flighty-ass Child of Danu laughed themselves sick. Fey weren’t supposed to be good at business. They had weird ideas about profit and loss, too.

Still, it would explain a hell of a lot. Ow. Oh, God, ouch.

When she could breathe again, she blinked back tears and carefully heaved herself up into a crouch. Nothing was stirring in front of the Emporium, and she hadn’t scraped her hands too badly. Her jeans would need more patching, and bright drops of blood welled on her knees and palms.

At least she still had her credits.

It was there, her back to a ginormous ugly-stupid orange truck, that Ellie was startled into laughter again. Ruby wouldn’t have run with her—she would have turned around to fight whatever was chasing them. Cami would have tried her best to drag Ruby along, being more of the live to fight another day persuasion. While they were arguing, it would be up to Ellie to make a plan and solve the damn problem.

It was ridiculous to think of her friends here, but Cami at least would have understood the sudden burst of dark hilarity.

After all, Ellie had lost her stupid hat. It had flown away during the scramble, and good luck finding it now.

GETTING BACK TO PERRAULT WAS ANTICLIMACTIC.

“She’s been gone all day.” Rita was as colorless as ever, hunched on a wooden stool at the breakfast bar. Her scabbed knees peeped out from under the brown plaid skirt, and she’d laced her hands protectively over her middle.

The kitchen for once wasn’t a trap. Instead, it was warm and bright, full of Antonia’s humming, the cook lowering her hefty self down to peer into a cupboard.

“Saturday. Spa day.” Ellie dropped onto her usual slightly unsteady three-legged stool. Rocked back and forth a little, just to feel the familiar movement. “She goes to Bianca’s downtown.” Gets her claws painted and her skin oiled. Just like a machine.

“ There you are.” Antonia cast a dark-eyed glance over one broad shoulder. Today her big shapeless dress was pale much-washed blue, with huge splotches of yellow flowers like cancerous growths. She still wore a black band around her left arm in mourning for Mom, part of her wardrobe for years now. She probably didn’t dare to wear one for Dad. “Shame on you, Miss Sinder, running around in that getup. Little hoyden.”