Lili St. Crow - Jealousy

I all but choked. So Dylan had been alive after the other Schola burned down. Relief warred with fresh worry, fought over me like two dogs with a bone. I was shaking and sweating, and suddenly aware that I couldn’t smell too good.

“I found the other stuff, and then . . . but I was being watched. Everyone I visited had a piece, but they got swarmed after I left. Nosferatu didn’t want us to know, and we were burned. Every one of us, burned bad .”

I held my breath. “Burned” isn’t good. It’s what you say when one of your own betrays you.

When you’re given to the enemy.

Don’t let the nosferatu bite. . . . Oh, that’s easy. I’ll take care of that. A prearranged signal, from the very location.

The shaking got worse. If August hadn’t been drugged to the gills he might have noticed me trembling. I heard feathered wings and tasted a ghost of wax oranges.

Anna had come to my house expecting to betray my mother and looking for Christophe. She’d made sure I was sent to the other Schola and visited it herself to see what I remembered.

To see if I’d told anyone about something I couldn’t remember without the help of the touch , something I’d had no idea I remembered. She’d betrayed a whole Schola full of kids to Sergej.

But why ? I was still no closer to understanding that. When you knew what the nosferatu did to djamphir , when you’d seen what they did to the bodies, how could you do that? That was the part I didn’t get.

August said something, slurred and full of consonants. And to my surprise, Christophe leaned in from behind me. He freed my limp sweating fingers and squeezed August’s hand himself. He also answered in the same language.

The wounded djamphir ’s eyes closed fully. He sighed and murmured something else. Then he was asleep.

“God.” My voice wouldn’t work right, but I was going to whisper anyway. You always want to do that when someone’s in the hospital. Whisper like a creeping mouse. I’d whispered to Gran as she lay dying, holding on as long as she could for me.

Don’t leave me, I’d begged in that same creeping-mouse voice because my throat wouldn’t work right. Gran, I love you, please don’t leave me.

But she couldn’t stay. I was always holding onto people, and they were always leaving.

I couldn’t help myself. I touched August’s limp fingers again. “Don’t leave me, Augie.” I knew he couldn’t hear me, but still. “Okay? Don’t go.”

“He’ll be fine.” Christophe put his arm over my shoulders. “I promise he will live, moj maly ptaszku .”

I almost broke down again right there. My arm stole around Christophe’s waist as I straightened. I leaned into him, and he didn’t move. It was like leaning against a statue. He held himself absolutely still, the creepy-still of an older djamphir . He barely even breathed.

My knees were pretty rubbery. “You mean it?” I tried not to sound like I was begging. Jeez, my tough-girl image was never going to recover from all this.

I wasn’t sure I cared at this point.

“I do.” Christophe pulled me away from the bedside. “He’s survived worse, and he’s bandaged and medicated. Now all he needs is rest.”

I went reluctantly, glad I was holding onto him. The all-right-but-shaky part of the feeling was going away, and I was beginning to crash big-time. My head felt like a pumpkin balanced on the too-thin stem of my neck, my arms and legs kept doing weird little shaking-away things, and dark little speckles started dancing around the edges of my vision.

“Christophe?”

He got me out through the door, closed it quietly. Braced me, and started heading across the infirmary, my feet dragging against the stone floor. “What?”

I wanted to tell him I needed to see Ash, too. I wanted to tell him I was going to start looking for Graves, since we had time now, right? I also wanted to ask him to sit down and explain Anna from the beginning. I wanted—no, I needed to know how she ended up like this.

But the warm spot in the middle of my stomach was shrinking steadily. The hurts had mostly gone away, but I was weak as a newborn kitten. I felt like one, too—blind and making little noises. I was still trying to ask him all the questions I so desperately needed answers to when he shushed me gently and half-carried me away.

White light, smellof lemon polish, dust, fresh air. And baking apple pie. Little slivers of sunlight peeked under my eyelids.

But I couldn’t just lie there. I had things to do. So when I turned over and groaned, opening my eyes slightly for the umpteenth time, I found myself staring at the plaster ceiling. Diamonds and roses stood out in sharp relief. My eyes were grainy, so I blinked and rubbed at them. My arms didn’t hurt, and neither did my face.

I felt muzzy-headed, sure, but still pretty good. I yawned and sat up, found out I was in Christophe’s sweater and my panties, and made a mental note to stop waking up minus some of my clothes. My jeans, crusted with blood and other stuff, lay on the floor next to the bed with my socks.

The room was still the same. Sunlight flooding in through skylights and the window, the vanity dresser glowing, every inch of it spic-and-span. The books on the stripped-pine shelves regarded me, their spines blank closed faces. Had my mother ever sat here, clutching the covers and rubbing at her eyes, and wondered what the hell to do next?

I could smell Christophe, but he was nowhere in sight. The sweater covered most everything, so I gingerly slid my bare legs out of bed. It was neither too warm nor too cold, the air just perfect for rolling out of bed on a lazy Saturday morning before you stumble down to the caf and get something to eat. Then it would be time to attend a couple of classes, but when you were free, you could meet the wulfen in the park and run with them. Like you belonged.

Good luck with that, though. Instead, I pushed myself upright, ready to drop back down on the bed if my legs got squidgy on me.

They didn’t. They held me up like they always did.

I bounced a little bit on my toes, testing them even more. I felt . . . strangely good.

Except for everything that was looming over me. Graves disappeared. Ash and Augustine lying in the infirmary. And Anna . . .

I shook my head, my hair slithering against Christophe’s sweater. I didn’t want to think about that.

I made it over to the dresser, found a fresh pair of jeans and underthings. Made it to the closet and picked a black T-shirt and a charcoal hoodie. Stood there for a few seconds. There was one red T-shirt I’d grabbed on clearance at Target, a splash of color against the dark fabrics I preferred.

I carried it into the bathroom, stuffed it into the trash basket. Eased myself under some hot water, the cast-iron bathtub a little slippery and the curtain on its hoop bolted to the wall rustling every time I moved under the water. Had my mother stood here? Soaped herself and marveled at vanished bruises? My skin was pretty perfect, only a ghostly shadow remaining where the worst had been, if you knew where to look.

Had she been raised djamphir , or had her dad kept it a secret? I touched the locket’s warm curve, rinsed myself off. She wanted a “normal” life. What would she have taught me to do if she hadn’t been murdered?

It kept ending up with Anna. How could you hate someone so much? It didn’t even seem human.

Yeah. I liked sucking blood. How human was that ?

I still felt okay when I got out of the shower and dried off, treating my body like it was a wild horse that might throw me at any moment. I felt morning-hungry, and I wanted coffee, but maybe not a banana latte. Most of all I wanted to make sure Ash and August were okay and get started on finding Graves. I didn’t know what I’d say to him because . . .