Lili Crow - Wayfarer

The swirling intensified. Electric chill prickled along Ellie’s skin. The higher your Potential, the more you had to fear from Twisting. Your bones could sprout through your skin, charm unraveling, each erg of your Potential scraping the inside of your flesh like jeweled bees, limbs corkscrewing and the rest of your short violent life spent creeping in the shadows, contaminating others if their Potential was high enough or they got too close, or even if you were both just unlucky.

Ruby’s hands were shaking, gripping the steering wheel with preternatural strength. The twisted hemp bracelets on her wrists were alive with uneasy charmlight.

So there is something she’s afraid of. Who knew? The minotaur’s bulk bunched up on itself, gleaming with a horrible, dusty, wet iridescence, like oily grit on a puddle’s filthy surface. The two mad gleams that were its low-burning eyes, nearly lost in massive folds and rivers of Twisting, bone-calcifying flesh, fastened on the little black car.

Do they smell Potential? Ellie’s heart thundered in her chest, tripping along so fast she could feel the vibration all through her. “Ruby.” I sound calm. “If you do not get us out of here, I will haunt you.”

Rube’s reply was unrepeatable. She spun the wheel and smashed the gas. The car slewed wildly, Ellie’s body loose with terror inside the cage of seat and seat belt, and Cami let out another strangled noise.

“ It’s f-f-f-following— ” Cami choked back another scream and Ellie felt a queer loose draining sensation, as if the strings of Potential married to her nerves had all twitched at once. The gravitational pull of wild, Twisting magic, maybe, and darkness crawled around the corners of Ellie’s vision. The car bucked, its tires squealing in protest, and Ellie heard herself praying in a soft wondrous tone. Holy Queen Magdala, spouse of Mithrus Christ, watch over us—

The world righted itself with a jolt, Ruby cursing cheerfully as she held the wheel steady and feathered the brake, then jammed the accelerator to the floor. “Can’t catch me!” she yelled, the words muffled under the cotton-fuzz of shock filling Ellie’s ears. “ I’m the goddamn gingerbread wolf! ”

That’s not the way the rhyme goes. The world came in bright shutterclicks, because her eyelids were fluttering. Every inch of charm and nerve inside her body lit up like a Mithrusmas tree, but by the time she drew in another long endless whooping breath the danger was past.

Of course Ruby didn’t slow down. The Semprena wove through traffic like thread through several needle-eyes, metal and rubber both making high stressed sounds as Ruby crowed again and again, wild long trilling whistles and snaptooth obscenities.

Afterward, Ellie was never quite sure of the route, because the city’s geography whirled and spun inside her head, refusing to make any sense. All she knew was that the car jolted to a stop near the Sandeckers’ place on Perrault, safely far enough away that the Strep wouldn’t see them, and it took Ruby a while to quit her snarl-cursing. Spring sunshine beat down, heat collecting under the windshield and sweat raised in great pearly drops all over Ellie’s body. Her hands jittered like windblown leaves.

“Mithrus,” Cami whispered. “Oh, M-Mithrus. It was one of them .”

“’Twas.” Ruby let out a long shaky sigh. “Wow. We’ve seen one up close now. Everyone check for Twisting.”

“ Ruby! ” The muffled, hysterical giggle from the backseat said that Cami was covering her mouth with one pale, narrow hand. She was safe, Ruby was safe, it should have all been okay.

Ellie’s lips were so dry they cracked when she could finally make her mouth work. “You could have killed us.”

“No way.” Rube shook her long fingers, flashing a dazzling, unsettled grin through the windshield. She patted the dash, a proprietary little smoothing of the charm-shaped fiberglass curve over the speedometer and charmflux meter. “The old girl has some moves. Don’t you, baby?”

“That. Was. A minotaur .” Ellie’s hands moved of their own accord, hitting the seat belt’s catch. A spark popped—bright blue, the ring’s stone speaking its opinion loud and clear. “You. Irresponsible. Bitch .” The lock button popped up, and Ellie had the dubious satisfaction of seeing Ruby’s jaw drop before she was out of the car, taking a deep breath of fresh sun-washed air and hitching up her bag onto her shoulder. The Semprena’s horn blatted, but Ellie ducked aside into the walk-through running between the Sandeckers’ and the old Claridge estate’s wall, laurel hedges growing wild up against the stone on the Sandecker side and brick, veined with red ivy, on the Claridge’s. She walked quickly, her head down, and heard the engine rev. The dusty little path, worn by who knew what since not a lot of people around here walked, was dark even under the sunshine, but the boundary and defensive charms laid into the walls on either side were comforting watchful pressures.

Her breath came in little hitching gasps. She held her hands out as she walked quickly, laurel branches fingering and scraping her hair, examining for signs of Twisting. If it happened to her, she’d lose every chance of ever escaping the Strep.

Her legs seemed fine, and she felt at her forehead. No tender spots except the ones from Laurissa’s bouncing her around, no thickening bone.

Maybe I’m safe.

She still didn’t believe it, not even when she ducked out of the walk-through, rounded the corner, and saw her own gate.

IT HAD ALL BEEN USELESS, ANYWAY. THE STREP HADN’T even noticed that Ruby hadn’t dropped her off. Dad would have been furious. What I pay them had better keep my baby girl safe , he would say. Mom would have gotten That Look, the one that promised she would politely but firmly take someone to task. The Strep would have just given some saccharine platitude, and then moved on to making it about her in some way.

Still, as soon as Ellie stepped through the heavy ironbound door, she knew something was afoot. She leaned against the door’s cold solidity, heart racing and legs limp as overcooked cabbage. Her skirt, its blue and green plaid wearing through near the hem, shivered along with her.

For a moment she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was just coming home from a normal day, that she would hear Antonia’s cheerful hello there, stranger! when she walked into the kitchen and the phone would ring—Dad, checking to see she was inside safe. And there would be her mother’s footsteps, light and quick, almost dancing, or the thump-whir of a loom as she wove.

Instead, she smelled charmscorch. Disturbed dust. Laurissa was working again today, and exhaustion threatened to drag Ellie right down into a puddle on the black and white squares of the foyer.

God. Not today. Please, not today.

The entire house was buzzing, too. A crackling in the air with the charmscorch and the smoky scent of Laurissa’s anger, the scraping and scurrying of motion behind all the silent walls.

There was a slight susurrus, and Ellie opened her eyes to find the new girl, in that same sloppy peach sweater, perched on the staircase like a plump little bird. Rita crouched, and peered through the lace-iron balustrade. Little gleams of eyes, and that lank hair. Scabs on her knees to match Ellie’s, and her skirt rucked up almost indecently.

“She’s in a mood,” Rita whispered, a breath of sound. “Be careful.”

Great. “I can tell,” Ellie whispered back. Poor kid, stuck with her all day. Is she gonna send you to school? Where, public? Mithrus. Public schools in New Haven were not fun. At least nobody got knifed in the hallways at Juno.