Lili Crow - Wayfarer

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 buffered 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.

Didn’t she deserve some? Maybe not, since she ruined everything she came near.

Down Severson Hill, a left onto Colsonal Avenue. The estates were no more; instead it was narrow middle-class homes with fenced backyards, some with charm-burning globes over narrow, cracking driveways that had been laid in the big boom of the seventies. A decent neighborhood, a nice one, away from the core.

What if Dad had been something other than a lawyer, and Mom something other than a high-powered textile charmer? The kids around here would go to Hollow Hills, not as highcrust as Juno but certainly not public . The public schools were for kids who were both poor and didn’t have enough Potential to snuff a candle.

Would things have been better, maybe, if she’d been at Hollow Hills? No Ruby, of course, no Cami. No Avery throwing sand at her or being so . . . whatever he was.

Maybe no Laurissa, either. Did it balance out?

The houses got larger and larger. These weren’t the charm-clan estates, but they began to have walls in unconscious (or very conscious) imitation. Right after the Reeve, any place that could afford a wall built one, and now it was tradition. If you suddenly gained the money, you went for walls. Nouveau riche , Mom had said once, her mouth twitching, and her father had frowned a little. Nouveau murs , he had replied, and they had laughed together, and oh how she missed that sound. She had laughed as well, too young to understand the joke but loving the sound their voices made together.

The walls rose, and Ellie began to shiver. A sullen flash of lightning, probably over the bay; she held her breath and counted.

Before she finished counting, though, the limousine slowed to a crawl. How was it possible? She hadn’t even noticed the four turns and the long stretch through Heathline to get to Perrault.

Nothing’s moving like it should.

The thought sent ice cubes trailing down her back. When the rat-driver brought the car to a soundless stop in front of the iron gates with the Sigil of high-heel shoes warped and glowing dull red, she wasn’t even surprised when a patch of darkness on his neck took on a sheen like fur. He lifted one wrist and tapped it with a point-nailed finger.

Close to midnight? It can’t be. But then, dusk is late in summer.

“I know,” she murmured, and slid toward the door. He didn’t move to open it for her, and she wasn’t really surprised either when she shut it behind her—quiet, or as quietly as she could—and the car roused itself, creeping away down the street. Maybe he’d wait under a tree, but she doubted it.

THE BACKYARD WAS A JUNGLE NOW, AND LAURISSA HAD evidently fired the landscapers for the front too. There was a breath of something rotting, foul and rank and wet, probably the pool behind the tangle of black-spotted rosebushes, their leaves dropping early. Withered but strangely juicy, their long thorny arms stretched and shivered as she glanced nervously at them.

The kitchen door was locked, but she stretched to reach overhead, standing on tiptoes, wishing the beads on the dress didn’t clash and shiver. The key was there, another of her little secrets, and she had a moment’s brief burst of hope before the knob squeaked.

She stepped back, almost catching her heel on the edge of the stair, and the door ghosted itself open. A pallid, haggard face under a mop of dirty hair stared out, and for one heartstopping second Ellie teetered on the precipice, because it was Laurissa’s face, the dull rage-hot gaze and the sharp nose, the high cheekbones and the long elegant fingers as she reached out.

Intuition coalesced, and she finally understood what she had always seen in Laurissa’s “sister.” Oh, wow.

Rita’s hand closed around Ellie’s upper arm. “What are you doing here?” the girl whisper-hissed, and Ellie’s heart attack turned into an acid burp.