Lili Crow - Wayfarer

A funny little misshapen trapdoor with a bar securely snugged in its brackets, yes. A sloping floor, covered with dust and the marks of her footsteps and dragged things, yes. The chair she’d filched from the smaller dining room, a sleeping bag, a faint gleam from the high, narrow, crooked window. Yes, yes, by God and Mithrus, yes.

There was even a small pile of things that didn’t go bad—crackers, wax-sealed cheese, apples that would be mealy but fine enough to eat as long as they were left under a sealcharm, and another charm laid to discourage mice from finding her little trove.

It was bad enough being up here without rodents , for chrissake.

There was even a neat pile of paper credits inside an openwork silver box that used to stand on Dad’s desk in the library. A stack of old heavy-sleeved records, too, all she’d been able to save. The two prized Hellward vinyl discs were given pride of place, and Screamin’ Jack’s familiar face glared at her from the cover of The Devil Don’t Need None .

Dad had sometimes played those, scratchy and warm, while Ellie did homework and her mother worked thread-fine charmfiber into her tapestries. Mom had been a charmweaver, and her eye for color had come down to Ellie, or so Dad always told her.

Maybe the ring was responsible for the sudden ease with which Ellie was charming everything nowadays. It wasn’t unheard of, Mom used to say it was an heirloom. From where, though, Ellie had never thought to ask.

Now it was too late.

Her fingers and toes were all pins and needles, and her teeth threatened to chatter. The warming-charm had worn off the sleeping bag. She was looking at waking up every few hours to refresh it against the damp chill from the stone walls burrowing past the bag’s thin screen. Or maybe she had to run the risk of stealing a blanket or two.

The room that used to be hers was blue. A sea room, a sky room; Dad had let her pick every shade and tone.

Mom’s favorite color. Just like the pool in the back used to be, beyond the rose garden. It was dead-dark and still now, and traceries of algae had begun at its edges. The landscapers who came out were only supposed to bother with the front of the house, what people would see when they peered through the scrollwork of the iron gate. The rose garden was shaggy and ill-kempt now; it was amazing how things could start to look ragged in so short a time.

Ellie put her head down on her scabbed knees. The ring was dark and dead again, and it was awful dark in here despite the reflected cityshine through the high crooked window. She would have to figure out some other light source unless she wanted to charm something to hold a glow, and anything that produced light would be a snap for the Strep to find.

There was a silver lining. The velvet darkness meant nothing and nobody could see her, and the ring’s stone was dark. Danger past. And finally, resting her aching head, her arms locked around her knees so tight the bruises—old yellowgreen, blue and deep, or blackreddish new—wept in tiny little groan-voices of their own, she could cry.

FRENCH CLASS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME. AND NOT from a braincramp either. Just from sheer fucking boredom.

Even the dust hung motionless in the air, shafts of liquid gold sunshine braving Juno’s charm-latticed windows to fall in orderly diamonds on the mellow-glowing wooden floor scuffed by who knew how many feet. Sister Mary Brefoil droned on about participles and turned the mellifluousness of French into murdered poetry, robbed of all its breath and fire by her flat delivery.

Ruby was openly nodding, keeping conscious in fits and starts. Cami kept giving Ellie little sideways looks, maybe because Ell had been quieter than usual.

Quiet as Cami herself used to be before the stutter broke. At least Ellie had been useful during that little escapade, using a High Adelton location-charm to track Cami into the darkness under New Haven.

Afterward, Nico Vultusino had put the fear of Mithrus into the Strep for a little while. It faded, of course, and then there was double hell to pay. Still, that little bit of breathing room had been just fine by Ell.

She’d earned it, too. The High Adelton was almost a fey charm, and it was also one you weren’t supposed to attempt until years after your Potential settled. The risk of Twisting was there, of course, but the bigger risk was your ability to charm getting eaten by uncontrolled loops in the charm’s structure, especially if the thing or person you wanted to find was hedged around with safeguards.

It was powerful, though, and it was one of the few that worked through stone, water, and air. The risk, to Ellie, had been ultimately acceptable.

Nobody knew what charm she’d used, but Nico had given her one of his long considering looks, moss-green eyes narrowed. Not much got past him, even if he was brain-soft when Cami was around. It was a good thing he had one little weak point, actually, because otherwise he’d be scarier than even Family had any right to be.

The memory sent an internal shiver through her. You sure you can find her, Sinder? As if she was one of his Family boys, fanged and bright-eyed, with their uncanny stillness and their taste for blood.

I can , she’d said, firmly enough that nobody had argued. It hadn’t even been difficult.

That was scary in its own way, wasn’t it? How easy some things were. Just like slipping underwater.

Now Cami scrawled on a piece of notebook paper, slid it over to her with a practiced motion when Sister Mary turned to the board. Chalk squeaked, and Ellie looked down.

You haven’t been sleeping.

Ellie tried not to wince. Trust Cami to notice. Ruby would keep going on blithely assuming everything was grand until disaster loomed, but Cami actually thought about things. That was good, because otherwise Ruby would have been even more of a holy terror. Cami probably didn’t know how much she moderated their shared redhead.

Ellie waited until Sister Mary took a breath and launched into another droning spiel, then drew a smiley face with two decided slashes for eyes and a shaky arc for a mouth. Copacetic , she scrawled, and next to Cami’s careful almost-calligraphic letters her own looked shabby.

Run-down. Second-hand. Rubbed through. Just like everything else about her these days. Except the ring, but at Juno its stone was merely blue, pretty and quiescent. If it had charm on it, the school’s defenses would have reacted, right? She shouldn’t be worrying about whether or not it was helping her keep up with Laurissa’s demands.

Of course, every well-done charm was met with a scream and a Stupid little whore! As well as a slap or a vicious pinch. It never ended. Stand up, don’t slouch. Look at you, can’t you even clean a floor right? You’re so useless. Never worked a day in your miserable little life . . .

Thinking about the constant venom made her dizzy, and she gripped the edge of their shared desk. Cami’s fingers drummed once, silently, on the scarred wooden surface. Fine , that little movement said, but I’m still worried .

There were things Ellie could have written, but none of them could possibly be construed as helpful. Instead, she took a deep breath and settled inside her skin, the subconscious thump as centering clicked into place familiar and comforting.

You couldn’t charm unbalanced. Well, you could , but it wouldn’t take as well.

Sister Mary’s desk was a towering achievement of organization. She had a cubby or a clip for everything, and the stacked papers were rigidly arranged according to a rule almost as iron as the Mithraic Order’s hedge of restrictions around its members.