Lili Crow - Wayfarer

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 at 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.