Lili St Crow - Nameless

“Lottery numbers,” Ruby muttered darkly. “Minotaur races. Even something at the Avalon Casino.”

“Improper use of Potential.” Ellie began flipping. The conversation was so familiar, they could have had it in their sleep. Cami watched the new garden boy trimming, his shoulders broad-muscled under a white T-shirt. He moved a little oddly, but she couldn’t figure out just how. “The risk of Twist increases with each—”

“—use of unsanctioned or unsafe charm,” Ruby finished. “Being responsible is so boring .”

“Being responsible doesn’t bite you in the ass like being irresponsible does.” There it was, Ellie’s Words To Live By boiled down to a single sentence.

“What if you like your ass bitten?” Ruby arched her eyebrows, her oiled skin brushed with gold.

“Hey, what?” Hunter heaved himself up on the edge of the pool, water-jewels on his skin sparkling in bright sunshine. “I can help with that.”

Right on cue. Cami suppressed a sigh. Rube seemed genuinely oblivious to the way the two cousins kept showing off for her.

“Ha.” Ruby waved a languid crimson-tipped hand. “Ask Thorne. I hear he likes that sort of thing.”

“What are you getting me into?” Thorne rose from the pool, sleek and lean. Cami looked away. “You guys are in swimsuits . Why don’t you ever swim ?”

“Maybe because you’re all spazzy and scare them,” Hunter sniffed, and it was on. Thorne grabbed him and they thrashed in a roil of brown limbs and crystalline water. The garden boy moved to another shrub.

It didn’t look like they needed trimming, but what did she know about bushes? His hair was really black, with odd undertones. Blue glimmers, like hers. You didn’t see that color a lot.

“You’re staring,” Ruby mock-whispered, not opening her eyes. “Are you actually showing interest in something male? Other than you-know-who?”

Cami dropped her face into her skirt-covered knees. Her cheeks burned.

“You are . Wow.” Ruby sounded genuinely amazed. “Is he cute?”

“Can’t tell at this distance.” Ellie continued flipping through the charm-book. “Oh, look. Here’s one to save someone from drowning.”

Ruby’s aggravation was a long, drawn-out sigh, rippling the air with a ruffle of Potential. “Oh, Mithrus.”

“I’m just being cautious .”

“You are not going to die by drowning, Ell. Not while I still find you amusing.”

“Your arrogance is almost as large as your ass.”

“Come closer and say that, my dearest.” Ruby chuckled, a low throaty sound. “Cami, you can look , you know. It’s actually a good sign if you do. Remember Puberty Ed?”

Cami almost flinched. Now that had been uncomfortable. Sister Eunice Grace-Atoning was the oldest, dottiest teacher at Juno, and listening to her mumbling explanations of how to keep from getting pregnant or diseased—or worse—in a classroom full of blushing, giggling girls while outside spring sunshine drenched the world with gold . . . if there was anything more deadly boring and stupid, she hadn’t come across it yet.

Ruby had, quickly and frankly, told Cami everything she needed to know in sixth grade, during one of their many sleepovers. The blush had been hot enough to still feel— they do what ? Ewww, gross.

Shhh! Ruby had looked very serious. They say you can catch Twisting that way too, so you’ve got to be careful.

I’m never doing that.

Gran says , Ruby had nodded sharply, in unconscious imitation of Gran de Varre, some day you might change your mind, so it’s best to be prepared.

“Leave her alone .” Ellie sighed dramatically. “Thorne! Go see if you can talk Marya into getting us some beers!”

Cami peeked up from her knees. The garden boy had stopped, his handheld clippers paused. The scissor blades gleamed in the sun, and sweat darkened his white shirt. He had lifted his chin, and he stared back at her.

“He’s looking.” Ruby whispered for real this time. “I can tell he’s looking. Cami, are you looking?”

“N-n-no.” But she was. The heat was all through her, a rose stain like some of the windows in the long shaded hall near the library where all the paintings hung, and the scars would all turn white against that flush. It felt as if she was near Nico, charm-voltage all through her, and she shifted uncomfortably.

“You’re lying . How soon they grow up.” Archly amused, Ruby snuggled down on her lounger. It had to be her russet-golden length the garden boy was staring at. “ Thorne! Fetch us some booze, we’re thirsty!”

“I’ll get—” Hunter was half out of the pool already. Thorne tackled him. Par for the course. As if being the first to bring Ruby a beer would make her settle, once and for all, on one of them.

“Oh, Lord.” Ellie sighed again.

“I’ll g-g-get it.” Cami was up off her lounger in a heartbeat, and she retreated from the sunny poolside. Marya would scold, but she could be persuaded to part with some honeywine coolers—the fey had funny ideas about alcohol. Ruby would bitch, of course, but the list of things Ruby would bitch at was so long there was no point in letting it run your life.

Past the changing-house, down a leaf-shaded pathway, the slate pavers gritty and warm underfoot, she was almost clear when she heard a rustle.

It was the garden boy. He must have cut around the back of the changing-house, even though it was a tangle of thorny-wild rosebushes. Cami flinched, stared at the pavers, and hunched her shoulders.

“Hey.”

He was actually speaking to her . Mithrus, what was she supposed to do ? She pulled further into herself, hunching more, and he’d somehow stepped right in her path.

“Hey,” he repeated, very low. Confidentially. “Princess girl. Can I talk to you?”

Oh, God . She weighed her options. Walking through him was one, but he might try to touch her. Retreating was a better option, but then Ruby would ask her what the hell and Ellie would probably guess what had happened and sooner or later Nico would find out—

Caught between several unappetizing alternatives, she had a wild idea of diving into the rosebushes pressing against the side of the path and the changing-house. There was no good reason for him to be talking to her, and if someone found out there would be trouble. Not just trouble but Trouble, underlined and in neon.

“ Shit ,” he muttered, just as Thorne and Hunter bailed around the corner.

“Hey, Cami, take us with you!” Bursting with energy and a haze of warm water, they splattered up to her, Thorne halting and shaking his head. Cami flinched from the spray of droplets, and the garden boy had vanished.

It wasn’t until later, pleasantly buzzed on honeywine and watching as Ruby leveled herself effortlessly into a clean skimming dive, that she realized she was almost disappointed about that.

TWO DAYS LATER, NICO WAS FINALLY WILLING TO TALK about why he was home from Hannibal. “There was some trouble. Fighting.” He lounged on paint-splattered carpet, the cut-crystal ashtray balanced on his stomach. “It’s just a couple weeks, Cami. It’s already smoothed over. And Papa wanted me home anyway. Something about . . . well, he’s worried about something in the city.”

She might have asked him about that, except she knew Nico wouldn’t tell her about anything upsetting or dangerous. She knew things, of course, picked up around the edges, heard in corners. You would have to be blind, deaf, and terminally stupe-Twisted not to overhear . . . things . . . in a Family house.