Lili St Crow - Nameless

“I-i-if you k-keep d-doing things, they’ll maybe get a-another S-s-seventh.” There’s plenty of youngbloods, even if they’re not Lineage.

“I won’t let that happen. Every boy’s Wild before he steps into the Seven, Cami. I’m just doing what they want, still.” He sighed. “I can’t get away from it.”

She squirmed until she could put her arms around him, and the sound of rain filled the silence with its deep silvery mutter.

“You’ve been having more bad dreams, too.” He was taller than her, but he still managed to curl up and rest his head on her shoulder. It was uncomfortable, but neither of them wanted to admit they were too big for the chair. “You always do before your birthday.”

She was hard-put to stifle a groan. We don’t know my birthday. But Papa had suggested Octovus, because it was Dead Harvest season, and because that way she would have presents twice in a year, not just near Mithrusmas. It was nice . . . but still, sometimes, she wondered when her birthday really was.

And if she would ever really know.

“Sweet sixteen, and a big party all planned,” Nico teased. “Wait until you see what I got you.” And he wouldn’t tell, no matter how Cami poked him. For the rest of the evening she forgot the world-tilting feeling, and everything was all right again.

THE SHOPS IN HAVEN SOUTH—THE OLD CITY—WERE mostly run by jacks. You could, if the wind was right, hear the sirens from the blighted urban core, and sometimes on the news there was footage of a stray minotaur stamping through smoke and dusk up the center of zigzagging Southking Street. It would shrug through canvas awnings, jacks and humans scattering, gaining what safety they could as the shifting bullheaded thing made of mutating Potential and pain ran itself into nothingness, away from the core-chaos that gave it birth.

Sometimes minotaurs happened in the suburbs too, but not often. It took a huge irruption of hate- or rage-fueled Potential before they were even viable, let alone heavy enough to coalesce onto a person and spin them past jack, past Twist even, into the shadow-realm of cannibal monster with hulking shoulders and wide-horned, bone-shielded head.

Following Ruby down Southking Street deserved its own athletic badge. Usually Ellie was there to steer Cami through the crowd and track Ruby down after she got excited and zoomed away to look at oh my God this cute little thing! But Ell was still in what Rube called Strep Durance Vile, and Cami glanced away from Ruby’s copperbright hair for just a moment, when a jack with warty gray skin held up a fistful of thin silver bangles and shook them, cawing her sellsong.

“ Pret- ty things for a pret- ty girl, come buy some sweetsilver miss?” The jack’s mouth split open, showing broad yellow teeth, and the edge of Potential between her and Cami flashed into visibility for a moment. It crackled with hexagram flashes, a shiver spilling down Cami’s spine as she backed away, almost tripping, and looked wildly around for Ruby.

No luck.

The lunchtime crowd was thick and she should have been in French class, bored out of her mind and droning along with Sister Mary Brefoil as verbs were conjugated and sleepy slants of thin autumn sunshine pierced Juno’s high narrow windows. But Ruby had cajoled, Ruby had wheedled, Ruby had said, You’re only young once and I need to shop . . . and Cami had given in.

Stay calm. You’ll find her. She might even go back to Ruby’s car—they had parked on Highclere, and Cami could go back and wait. If all else failed she could find a public shell and call the house. If Marya picked up, Nico would come get her. But it was Thursday—Market Day for most of New Haven—and Marya might be a-marketing in the Arbor to the north, where the servants for the upper crust and the powerful and Sigiled charmers did their shopping for organics and Twist-free produce from certified kolkhozes, and other essentials. So the phone might ring, Chauncey or Stevens might pick up, and she’d have to explain why she was skipping—and why on earth she was on Southking, of all places.

And that would not be pleasant. She’d never gotten in trouble before, but what if Papa’s patience snapped, so close to his transition? The unsteadiness was under Cami’s feet all the time now, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

She set off through the crowd, her schoolbag hitched high on her shoulder and her blazer welcome warmth, a chill wind, threading between jacks and humans, cold lipless breath touching her bare knees. She shivered, scanning for Ruby’s bright hair, and saw only backs and legs, jacks and humans hurrying in the frosty sunshine. Her breath came fast in a thin white cloud. False summer was long, long gone.

Smoking peanut oil from the foodcarts, signs proclaiming Real Meat , spices, the dusty scent of imported cloth, the hawkers crying their sellsongs. Cheap jewelry, more expensive jewelry, tailor stalls, a ringing clatter from a blacksmith shaping anti-Twist charms, the forge a blare of heat and a young jack working the bellows, his clawed hands oddly graceful. He blinked one cat-pupiled yellow eye, then the other as Cami stood and watched for a moment.

If she’d been born jack, with feathers or fur, or if her Potential had turned that way when the hormone-and-charm crisis of puberty first hit, would Papa have taken her in? Or kept her for this long? Or would she have been abandoned, maybe sent to a boarding school far away? There were jack-only schools in the cold North, past the Province border and overWaste, and the stories about them were terrible. Accidents happened around jacks.

Bad accidents.

Don’t think about things like that .

A stray dog barked as it ran between two canvas tents. She flinched, turning away. A bookseller—a normal, with an iron anti-Twist pendant at his neck on a leather thong—eyed her curiously. Cami blushed, looked around for Ruby again. Scarves fluttered, a fortuneteller’s tent stood tall, purple, and motheaten, spangled with tarnished gilt; a knifemartin stood behind his table of bright blades and watched the flow of foot traffic with narrowed eyes. Some of the darker tents were accorded plenty of space—one had the serpent-sign of a poisonmaker, and everyone hurried past that awning. People would wait for dusk and go in through the back.

New Haven was a hub, with both the port and the sealed over Waste trains bringing goods in and exporting charmwork and finished products. The de Varres took their percentages, and the Family took theirs, and everyone else crowded around the rest like grinmarches around a pile of husks and clippings, getting their fair share and making credits any way they could.

The trouble with wondering about where she’d be now if Papa hadn’t kept her was that it made the unsteadiness under her feet so much worse. Windchimes tinkled and good-luck bells chattered uneasily as the wind picked up, and her stomach turned over, hard.

Screw this . Cami spun on her heel and set off, her head down, with a purposeful step. If she went up two blocks she could cut over to Highclere, find Ruby’s Semprena, and sit on the hood until Rube noticed she wasn’t around and—

“It’s Camille, right?”

She almost ran into him. White shirt, tan leather jacket, faded jeans, a glitter of silver at his throat. She mumbled an apology, moved aside, but he stepped to the side too, as if they were dancing.

So she had to look up.

The garden boy, his messy black hair actually pushed back from his forehead, had an odd face. He was tanned—of course, he worked outside. Strong jaw, too-strong cheekbones, like he hadn’t quite grown into them yet. His eyes matched his hair, pupil and iris blending together to make a dark hole. Bad-luck eyes, but he couldn’t be Twist, not if Marya had given him the okay. Cami dropped her gaze, confused, and the silver at his throat was a small medallion, some kind of star engraved on it.