Lili Crow - Wayfarer

Don’t think about that. You have other problems.

Rube and Cami would be home now, safe and warm. It would take too long to call them out again tonight. Something horrifying was going to happen soon, and the thrumming urgency underneath her laboring heartbeat just would not quit .

Ellie heaved a deep sigh and set to work.

The hall outside was dark and quiet; the toga-sheet wrapped around her brushed the soft carpet. It was way too big, and there was nothing she could do about her feet. Ellie crept in the direction she guessed a flight of stairs was most likely to be in—she barely even remembered being hauled up here. Getting outside would be a chore and a half, and sidewalks and roads were going to be a bitch, as well as filthy against her wounded feet—

A warm, strong hand closed gently but irresistibly around her left arm, and Ellie swallowed a scream.

“What are you doing? ” At least he kept his voice down.

Her heart tried to hammer its way out through her ribs, and Avery pulled her forward. He wasn’t in the battered tux anymore; instead, he wore a deep-green jumper and worn jeans, and a pair of battered trainers she would have been jealous of if she hadn’t been choking with panic.

“Shhh,” he murmured into her hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Shhh, it’s okay. Really, Ell, it’s okay.”

She balled up a fist, but she couldn’t hit him because his arms were too tight. “Let go !” she managed to whisper, but he didn’t.

“What are you going to do? And be quiet . Mithrus, if my mother finds me up here she’ll tear my ears off.”

“I have to . . .” Her pounding heart wouldn’t let her breathe. “Avery . . . I have to . . . there’s something I have to do.”

“You should be in bed.” He didn’t move. “Are you, um, are you wearing a sheet ?”

“Stop it.” She tried to twist free, but he didn’t let go. “Please. I have to go. Something’s going to—”

“We can go to my dad and—whoa, okay, no, I get it. Calm down.” He loosened up a little when she stopped struggling. “Okay. Come with me, all right? We’ll do whatever you need.”

Now she made herself heavy, resisting. “You’re just going to take me to your parents,” she accused. “You always tell. Let go .”

“Look, I was worried about you, okay? You don’t know what it was like, looking for you and not being able—”

“Why do you even care ?”

“Shh, keep it down. This way.” He could pick her up and carry her with not a lot of trouble, but he didn’t, and her worn-out heart was full of something weird and warm.

Still, she had to get him to let go. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Just tell me what we need to do, Ell. Don’t make me pick you up and carry you over my shoulder.”

Irritation gave her fresh strength. “You wouldn’t—”

“Try me. I just got read the Jack Act of ’39 for taking on an arachna , even if it did save your life. I think I’m going to have nightmares about that thing, and what it was going to do to you. And you were living with it, right in its lair while it softened you up. I should never have left you there. If I’d just figured it out sooner—”

Ellie suppressed the urge to scream and punch him at the same time. At least the irritation kept her going. She didn’t feel like collapsing now. “Listen to me.”

“I’m listening. Come on.” He loosened up even more on her and kept it slow, leading her the opposite direction down the hall. “Mithrus, what happened to your feet?”

“It’s not important,” she whispered. “I have to go to Perrault Street. Something’s going to happen.”

“We should so get my mom,” he muttered darkly and hauled on her arm when she tried to jerk away. “Settle down. I’m just saying. Why do you need to go back there?”

“I don’t know !” The heat in her throat felt like tears. “I just know something really fucking awful is going to happen, Avery, goddammit, can’t you just help me?”

“I am helping you, shush up!” He sounded just as exasperated as she felt. It was a wonderfully comforting thought. “We’ll get you something to wear, okay? And then we’ll drive out to Perrault so you can see there’s nothing you can do there. You have to promise to not get out of the car without me, okay? Seriously, you do realize my parents are going to kill us both if they find out?”

What, and they don’t mind about you going down to Southking at night? “As long as I stop whatever’s going to happen, I don’t care.”

“We.”

She halted, blinking at him. “What?”

“We, Ell. You and me. We’re going to stop whatever it is. If it even happens.” He commenced with dragging her on, but gently, and she didn’t resist.

“Avery?”

“Mithrus, what?” He sounded, she decided, downright aggrieved .

I don’t blame him . Everything she wanted to say to him balled up inside her again, so she settled for the bare minimum that might, possibly, conceivably cover a fraction of it. “Thank you.”

In the dimness, his smile was a balm. “Anytime, babe. Come on.”

NOW SHE WAS THE SCARECROW, SHIVERING IN CLOTHES far too big for her. A pair of Avery’s sweatpants, a T-shirt that hung comically loose and low, and the best they had been able to do for shoes was a pair of his mother’s old slippers. They had diamanté flowers, and looking at the sparkles made Ellie a little queasy. So she didn’t, just curled her toes inside the two pairs of socks Avery had insisted she put on as well. You’d better not have any foot disease , she’d said, and he had given her the sort of look usually reserved for people who pissed in your cereal bowl.

Which cheered her up immensely .

He cut the engine and the Del Toro coasted to a stop. He’d cut the lights too, and the stone wall rearing on Ellie’s side of the car was more sensed than seen.

The sky would start lightening in the east very soon, but now it was the long dark time of early morning, when the last partygoers have staggered home and the streets are hushed and secretive. The core never birthed minotaurs during the darkest hours; even Twists would be wherever passed for home, in whatever passed for their beds. The streetlamps buzzed or flickered, weak against the darkness, and even the glow from the core was just orange-ish gauze stretched over a bleak hush.

“It’s so quiet.” She licked her dry lips, nervously. Her stomach cramped, and she realized she was hollow-hungry.

“Always is, this time of night.” He glanced at her, set the parking brake. “Are you sure about this, Ell? I mean, we could just hit a drivethrough for a couple burgers and go home.”

“I don’t have a home.” She studied the dull-red, venomous tinge to the Sigil on the gate. The high-heeled shoes were melting, their heels corkscrewed and Laurissa’s trademark flourishes turned into jagged edges. The charmlight was wrong somehow, and she shuddered. “Why is it doing that?”

“If she’s on poppy . . .” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. “If I ask you how bad it was, are you going to get out of the car and vanish again?”

It was a valid question, given the circumstances. She looked down at her naked hands, and the bruises on her arms throbbed. “It was . . . pretty bad.”

“My mother’s furious, you know. She’s going to bring charges. Laurissa’ll get off lucky being sent to a kolkhoz. Black charming like that is a capital offense.”