Lili St Crow - Defiance

Another sound, a soft exhalation, and a shadow in the window. I was up and waiting, sitting on the wide white-satin window seat. I jammed the switchblade with its silver-loaded flat into my back pocket and pulled the stamped-iron shutters aside. Late-spring sunshine flooded me, and I glanced back at the barred door. Benjamin was on guard duty out in the hall; it was his day.

I felt bad about it for a half-second. At most.

Nat’s blue eyes sparkled, her sleek hair glistening in the sunlight, her blue Converse sneakers balanced on the ledge outside my window. She didn’t wait, just fell backward out into space. She twisted, lithely, and landed in a pool of dappled shade, the gravel walk in the gardens silent under her feet. This postage-size garden was full of roses, and the apartments facing it were meant for svetocha . There were a couple baseball diamonds, a track and a polo field, and some other gardens inside the Schola’s protective wall; it was a microcosm that almost blocked out the hum of the city day-drowsing outside.

I was out the window in a flash, leaving it partly open as I fell, too. A moment’s worth of wind whipping my hair and a sudden nausea; the aspect boiled up and snapped over my skin like a rubber band. And I landed lightly as a cat too, braced and ready, my hands out just a little as if I expected a punch or needed to balance myself.

Christophe taught me that.

Nat was suddenly beside me, crowding me back against the wall. There were shrubs here, spiny and thorny things. “You’re too loud when you hit,” she whispered.

“Must be my fat ass,” I whispered back, peering up at my window. It looked just the same, only half open. Like I needed some daylight air or something.

She grinned, tugging on her cropped, faded denim jacket to straighten it, and I had to stop the laugh boiling up in my throat. Daytime Nat was a pretty humorous creature. It was at night that her serious side came out.

Because night was more dangerous, I guess. What with all the suckers around.

We slid soft and easy along the strip of shaded shrubbery, and Nat held up one slim pale hand when we reached the corner. The blue Lucite bangle on her wrist slid down her forearm, and I wondered again how she could look so impossibly finished all the time. Sometimes I even thought I should learn some of the girl stuff that looked so effortless when she did it.

Yeah. Then I woke up.

It wasn’t exactly dangerous to be out during the day . . . but the Council, every one of them, up to and including August, would have kittens and penguins and little baby narwhals, too, probably, if they knew what I was up to. Still, I figured I was safe enough with all the sunshine. And with wulfen.

Pretty much the only people who hadn’t tried to kill me were wulfen. I mean, unless you count Ash, and he’d been doing a pretty good job of not killing me since I shot him in the face with silver-grain bullets. Maybe that shot broke . . . Sergej’s . . . hold over him.

Maybe not.

I winced inwardly. Every time I thought about things I just found a new way to mess myself up. Sometimes you just can’t clap a lid on a thought fast enough. It gets there before you can tense up and sucker punches all the air out of you.

“Dru?” Nat, questioning. She glanced over her shoulder, her hand dropping. A brief flare of yellow slid through her irises, clearing instantly as she cocked her head. “It’s clear enough. Let’s go.”

Getting off the Schola grounds during the day is a weird game of move-and-freeze, creep-and-duck. Some older students and some of the teachers, not to mention groups of wulfen, patrol during the day. Nighttime, the patrols are timed down to the second and every inch is watched.

At least, theoretically. There had been nosferat attacks before. The last one had been about a week ago just after dusk, but it hadn’t gotten anywhere near me, for once. I’d just heard about it afterward, from Benjamin. Who Christophe had promptly shut up with a mild blue-eyed stare. Like I wasn’t supposed to know there’d been a hell of a tussle with two teams of suckers bouncing around the Prima’s halls.

I wondered what Christophe was doing right now. Sleeping? Maybe. If he found out I was out and around, we were likely to have another argument. I heaved an internal sigh at the thought.

There’s only so much of being locked up a girl can take, even if there are suckers looking to separate her from her liver.

During the day, if you know the patterns and have a wulfen’s sharp ears, you can slip around quite a bit on the Schola’s green, hushed grounds. And you can work close to the high ivy-veined wall on the east side, and with ten strong fingers interlaced you can toss a not-quite-bloomed svetocha to the top of said wall. As soon as I was up and precariously balanced, Nat sprang up lightly, and we both went over. She landed gracefully, I almost overbalanced, and her hand flashed out to catch my upper arm.

“Your fat ass,” she whispered, and this time I did laugh, catching it behind a cupped hand. I mimed mock-punching her, and she made a mock-terrified face, bugging her eyes. Then she pulled me down the slope. When we stepped out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk, I had to pick a couple leaves out of my braid and brush my shoulders off.

“Where we headed today?” I stuffed my hands in my hoodie pockets and looked down at my boots. She was always on me to wear something nice, but jeans, hoodie, and a black T-shirt were it today. I wasn’t looking forward to tonight, when I’d be exhausted and the tutors would be on me . . . but getting out and breathing some free air was worth it. “I mean, anyplace is nice. I liked FAO Schwarz, although we probably shouldn’t go back there until they’ve cleaned up. But please tell me we ain’t clothes shopping.”

“Surprise.” She grinned again, a wide white smile. Model-perfect, but it didn’t scare me the way Anna’s polished flawlessness had. Nat and I had gotten along almost immediately from the moment she’d waltzed into my bedroom behind Christophe, set down her big slouchy leather purse, and stuck out her hand, not waiting to be introduced. Nathalie Williams, Skyrunner clan. Don’t send me home, it’s boring as fuck-all there.

I’d burst out laughing, Christophe had looked mystified, and from that instant we were pretty much friends.

Nat’s usual speed was a brisk stride with her head up, avoiding eye contact like everyone in this city did, but with her jaw set and every line of her body proclaiming that you did not want to mess with her. My legs are longer, but I still had to hurry to keep up. It was kind of like trailing after Dad.

Another painful thought. Jesus.

“You’re quiet.” She produced a pair of big tortoiseshell movie-star sunglasses and slipped them on. No purse today, which meant we weren’t going shopping.

Thank God.

“Just . . . thinking.” It sounded unhelpful, even to me. I decided it was maybe safer to say a little more. Nothing I told her ended up coming out Christophe’s mouth. Or Shanks’s. “About my dad.”

“Yeah?” She sped up a little, and I could tell she was aiming for a subway entrance. For a moment my skin chilled. “Good or bad?”

“Both. You know how when you’re reminded of things, and you can’t shut it off quick enough?” Like, before it slips the knife in and twists? Like that.

“Like a bad breakup?” But she sobered, her mouth turning down. “Yeah. I know.”

“He was all I had.” I stared at the sidewalk, glancing up every once in a while to check out the street. Nat took care of steering us both.

“Bound to be rough, with your mom gone and all.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I just didn’t think about it, though. There was Gran, and then there was Dad. I didn’t miss her. At least, not like he did. He missed her all the time. And now . . .”