Lili Crow - Wayfarer

Well, isn’t that embarrassing. “Rita?” A croak, she tasted the bile in the back of her throat.

“If she wakes up she’ll kill you.” The other girl’s fingers dug in. “Leave her alone . She’s been doing poppy to keep charming, and I dosed her double tonight so she’d stay away from the Ball.”

Poppy? It’ll eat her up. “Mithrus Christ.” Ellie blinked. Another flash of lightning, somewhere overhead. “You look old .” A torpid mutter as the sky overhead twitched its cloudy skin again.

“You look like a skank, so we’re even,” Rita whispered fiercely in reply. “You have got to get out of here. If she wakes up—”

“I came to get you.” Her lips were numb. “Look, Rita . . . I’ve found a place. A safe place. You and me, we can—”

“Dressed like that?” A low, contemptuous laugh. “Did they throw you out of the Ball? They would, you know. They’re all like that. Charmers .”

What do you have against them? Then again, the Strep was plenty to have against anyone . You could hold her against the whole human species. Ellie tried again. “I came to get you, Rita. She . . . you don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to . . . to get hurt.”

“What do you know?” Another bitter little laugh, and another flash of lightning showed the kitchen behind Rita’s slim shoulders. She was just as thin as Ellie now, but still wearing that goddamn peach sweater. It hung on her now like—

. . . a scarecrow . . .

—like a stretched, borrowed skin. Was she molting? Turning into a smaller version of Laurissa, talons, scrawny angry neck, and all? Was it even worth trying to save someone like that?

It has to be.

“I know she’s not your sister.” Quietly, but that numbness in her mouth was an enemy. She had to fight it, probably like Cami fought her stutter. “She’s a black charmer, she’s been one for years , and she’s been hiding it. She used up all your charm too, didn’t she? She took your Potential.”

The blackest charming of all, one the hedge of restrictions and protections around Juno was built to avoid. Before Potential settled, you could do a lot of things—like take it, especially from a blood relation.

Rita’s head snapped aside, teeth bared, as if she’d been slapped. She let go of Ellie’s arm, and it was Ellie’s turn to lean forward, grabbing blindly. She got a handful of the peach sweater, and found the material was surprisingly soft. It crumpled in her fist, and Rita’s immediate flinch was terrifying.

Because Ellie didn’t mind if the girl cowered, as long as she listened , and who did that remind her of? Did it soothe some broken thing inside the Strep when she made someone smaller cringe? Maybe.

Now all the charmweed benders made sense, and all her boyfriends sent home drained. Feeding off other people’s Potential to stave off Twisting for a while, scrabbling to get as much money as she could—another intuition blurred under Ellie’s skin.

Hadn’t Ellie herself been looking for credits any way possible, too? Was there something the Strep had wanted to escape . . . and had Dad been her way out, just like Avery might have been Ellie’s?

What did that make Ellie, then? Not a physical copy the way Rita was, but similar all the same. Her skin crawled, and the itchy nasty sensation was all over her.

I’m not like her. I’m not . But the sneaking suspicion just wouldn’t go away.

“Listen.” She forgot to whisper. “There’s a safe place, where she can’t find us. I’ll take you, and however much you hate me is fine, I don’t care. If she’s on poppy it’s not going to end well, and you’ll catch the worst of it. Let’s just go . You can escape her. You really can.” She groped for words, found them. “You don’t have to put up with this. And . . . I owe you.”

Even if you are a bitch. Was Rita really that bad? Hadn’t Ellie been secretly relieved someone else would get the short end of the stick? Relieved that Rita was getting the random slaps and hissed insults—after all, there was plenty to go around, wasn’t there.

She realized, miserably, that she could scrub and scrub, but she was never going to feel clean again.

“You? Owe me ?” Rita slapped at her hand. “Get off . You don’t owe me anything . Leave me alone.”

“I’m trying to help you, you idiot—”

Rita shrank back, her dark eyes suddenly swimming. She cocked her head, and Ellie froze. She heard nothing but the rumble of thunder. Even the faint tinge of color drained from Rita’s gaunt face, leaving her chalk-cheesy in the dimness. A hot breeze touched Ellie’s bare calves, and there was a tinkle as some silver bugle-beads, shaken free, hit the back step.

“Sssssweethearrt?” A long, low, slurred word, breathed from the kitchen behind Rita. “What’s haaaaappening out heeere?”

It was the Strep, but the shape was . . .

Mithrus. What’s happened to her?

Hunching, its belly thickly distended, and Potential rising in corkscrew-invisible scarves of charmlight, subtly wrong . Ellie blinked, inhaling sharply, and the fear was a sharp silver icicle nailed all the way through her, crown to soles.

She looks like a—

Fabric tore. Rita shoved her, hard , and Ellie’s left shoe flew off as she pinwheeled her arms, trying to keep her balance. The door slammed and she hit the pavers, a starry jolt of pain as she lost consciousness for a bare second. Beads scattered, rolling, and when she surfaced again she had scrambled to her feet and was limp-running, halting only to peel off her right shoe and hold it like a weapon as she fled.

The windows were suddenly full of golden electric light, and the entire stone pile of the house resonated like a plucked string. The kitchen door was wrenched open again, and there was a long, cheated howl.

The beads dropped, one after another, like the warm rain splattering dry gardens and dusty pavements in half-credit-coin drops. Thunder wallowed, splashing in the sky again, and New Haven took a breath before it plunged into the storm. Through that endless inhale ran a shivering girl, her dress steam-melting like soaked tissue paper. Her hair fell in wet strings, and behind her the thump-dragging footsteps of a nightmare beast with heavy shoulders and a terribly swollen belly grew louder and louder.

There was the limousine, its paint pitted and scarred by the rain, its taillights a dull glare. Ellie fumbled at the back door, managed to tear it open though the hinges gave a scream of protest, and threw herself inside.

The engine knocked, and the pale car leapt forward as if it never intended to stay still. Lurching and squealing, the driver’s thin shoulders under a motheaten jacket and his hands shrinking and turning clawlike at the wheel, the limousine ran as limpingly as she had. The rain drummed the roof, and soon it would eat its way through.

Oh Mithrus. Mithrus Christ, please. Great shudders gripped Ellie’s body in waves. She stared at the car’s roof, wondering if the entire thing was going to melt around her like Harvest Festival cotton candy. She lay curled on the floor, and the pumpkin-colored leather spread with rotten mildewed staining. The patches were growing, slowly but surely, and the seat sagged.

Charmwork, it’s all charm. Fey, maybe. The trembling wouldn’t let her think straight. Worn down, hollowed out, emptied by terror, she lay and felt the beads trickle slowly away, her rain-damp warmth eating at the fabric.

At least it was pretty when it mattered . Her throat stung, and her heart hurt, pounding in her head. She couldn’t get her lungs to fill up, and her mother’s ring was dead and dark, weighing down her entire leaden arm.