Lili Crow - Wayfarer

Ellie shook her head. There had been a curious skip, as if a phonograph needle had jumped from one groove to the next, and she swayed. Auntie held her wrist, solicitously, and the gray bedroom was full of a low rubescent glow.

Sunset already? She’d lost time. “What . . .” Slurred as if she was drunk, or just now sobering up. “Auntie?”

“Must hurry now, little one. Come.” Auntie stepped back, and her eyes were black from lid to lid. She blinked, gray eyelashes sweeping down, and they were human again, the whites as pearly as her teeth.

Ellie’s left hand ached, her throat was dry, and her chest throbbed. Her legs refused to hold her for a moment, knees buckling, but she righted herself with an effort. “I feel weird.” Why was her tongue suddenly so huge? Her throat was full of a metallic taste.

“She will recover, yes. Come, hurry. Sundown, little dove.”

The stairs unreeled underneath her, and Ellie floated into a dream. The front door opened like a flower, the good smells of Auntie’s house falling away and the heady spice of the garden a cool draft, taking away the metal tang choking her.

Under the rose-weighted trellis it was dark, but when she stepped outside Auntie’s garden for the first time in forever, there was a familiar elm-shaded street full of dusk’s whispering shadows. At the curb was a moonlight-colored limousine, its driver in a gray velvet suit, his pinched ratlike face sending a stab of fear through her before she thought, Well, Auntie must trust him . The car door slammed, enclosing her in a soft burnt-orange interior that smelled of spices.

I’m dreaming. This is a dream.

She settled back against the buttery leather upholstery and half-closed her eyes.

SHE’D ONLY BEEN TO THE FLETCHER CHARM-CLAN’S main house twice, and both times she’d avoided Avery like the plague. She had a hazy memory of him throwing dirt clods at her in one of the ornamental gardens, and of her throwing one in return, splatting against his tailored party garb. It had felt good to get a little revenge.

Now, though, the limousine halted and a valet stepped forward. He was in the Fletcher clan’s blue and gold, but he was party staff hired for the week—if it took a day for a girl to get ready for the Ball, it took a house a couple weeks, and the clan had to work on the whole thing for at least a month. Plus there were the bids, which meant the clan had to get a certain amount of support from all its subsidiaries and its allied clans, as well as outmaneuver rivals. No wonder they’d needed a whole bank of phones to keep up with arrangements.

The rat-faced driver said nothing the entire way, but his dark gaze had drifted over her more than once in the rearview mirror, the smoked-glass partition between the front and back of the limo lowered all the way. She didn’t even think of raising it, just stared back, willing the trembling all through her to die down.

By the time she stepped out, her numb fingers against the Fletcher valet’s crisp white glove, she was a little better. Her head still swam, and she had to take deep breaths. The valet, a weedy-looking kid with ghostly acne on his cheeks and slicked-down dark hair, gave her an encouraging smile, and Ellie smiled back. A blush rose up the boy’s throat, but she was already past him, climbing the granite stairs to the white colonnaded front of the Fletcher clan’s beating heart.

The Fletchers had been charmers since the beginning of the Reeve, and it showed. The house was a gracious, spacious white chateau, its lines beautifully restrained but the white dingy compared to the glow of Auntie’s fence. Everything about the outside world looked worn down and a little shabby now, and she supposed it was because she’d spent so long swimming in a sea of bright, active charming.

Shouldn’t it look the same here? She pushed the thought away and it went quietly. She was occupied in getting up the stairs anyway.

The doors were open, and she was fashionably late, perhaps, because the sky had darkened and there was no crowd waiting for entrance. She stepped into the front hall, and followed a pointing hand—was he a butler, this black-masked man in a black suit with strings of hair combed over his bald dome? Maybe. The Fletchers could certainly afford one.

The doors to the ballroom were flung open as well, and she floated toward them on a tide of silvery tinkling music. Her heels chimed, and the strings of silver beads on her dress each held a thread of indigo at their hearts. An active blanket of charming followed her, fluttering and swirling—she couldn’t remember half the ones Auntie had applied, and the rest were standard Ball fare. Light refraction, sweet smells, a subtle glow around her; the remaining radiance was the dress itself, perking up and singing louder, feeling the vibrant Potential rippling in the air.

She stepped through the doors and into a warm bath of Potential thrown off by a bunch of active charmers all in one place and in a heightened emotional state. The wall of dreamlike calm around her threatened to crack as a hush fell under the tinkling crystal chandeliers.

So bright. Laurissa would hate it . The smile on her face was a mask again, familiar and hateful. Is she here? Is she?

The crowd parted. They were staring. Charmers in fantastical dresses, like Amy Bolletta in a flaming-red handkerchief-hem skirt and a sweetheart bodice, Tintoretto shoes and a look of absolute thunderstruck awe on her nasty blonde face. The head of the Valseth charm-clan—they did protection work, mostly, and buffering for Babbage components—with her hennaed hair piled atop her head and a glittering-blue Auberme sheath that Laurissa would have killed to wear, stared as she clung to her husband’s arm. The men were all in black and white tails, since it was formal, so they had to charm more intensively to stand out amid bright female plumage.

The high-ceilinged ballroom, its wooden floor a mellow glow, was the throat of a whale. It was too bright, and the chandeliers tinkled madly. There would be no suppressors for this party—if you couldn’t handle charm being thrown, you shouldn’t be here, and the staff had all signed waivers and would be paid quadruple for the risk. You couldn’t stint when you threw a Midsummer Ball, that’s why it took a whole clan to do it.

Is he here? Is Laurissa? Ellie couldn’t look everywhere at once, and they were staring. All of them.

The terrible feeling that she might look ridiculous unhinged her stomach, and she suppressed a sour flood of bile at the back of her throat. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to—

“Ellie.” Very soft, at her elbow.

She turned, her entire body leaden with terror.

Avery’s smile was a warm bath dispelling the fear, sunshine through fog. His hair burned with golden highlights, and he seemed impossibly tall. He looked just as vivid as everything in Auntie’s house, and her sigh of relief made one of the sweet-smell charms fill everything around her with cinnamon.

“Hi,” she managed, weakly.

“You look . . .” His pause was the stuff of nightmares, but he was smiling . He wouldn’t look at her that way if she was hideous, right? His tux was impeccable, and he held out a hand—his skin was warm, and the instant his fingers closed around hers she felt like she could breathe again. “You look incredible , Sinder.”

What a relief. “Thanks. I was beginning to be afraid.”

“You? Never.”

Not now that you’re here, no. Just one dance and she would leave. But it was nice to feel . . . what? “They’re staring.”