Marjorie Liu - Within the Flames

“Okay,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound too strained. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground. I’ll be careful. I promise. If I hear anything, I’ll talk to your mom.”

Jimmy shrugged, like he didn’t care — but his eyes, half-hidden beneath his hair, lost some of their sullenness. His shoulders relaxed.

And then a smile touched his mouth. “Do I still have to go to school today?”

“Don’t even,” muttered Lyssa, and bent past him to blow out her candles, one by one. Careful to separate her mind from the silken heat of fire licking at the edges of her thoughts.

Before she put out the final candle, she glanced around her small, dark, nest: with its sleeping bag set on layers of cardboard and swept concrete; and the walls with their scorch marks; and the dirty air that smelled like smoke because of the mattress that had so recently burned beneath her while she slept.

Twenty minutes away, Lyssa had an apartment that she never lived in — and in this same city, an employer, and agent who didn’t know her real name or what she looked like — or that she lived beneath their noses. In all this world, she had only one friend who knew who she was — and what she was — and Lyssa hadn’t seen him in several years.

Because it wasn’t safe. Because she wasn’t human, and people had died because of that. Because she might die — or worse — if the wrong people found her.

Whatever it takes, you live , her father had said. Whatever you have to do, don’t let them catch you.

Lyssa grabbed her backpack off the concrete floor. “Better turn on your flashlight.”

Jimmy did. She blew out the little flame, and darkness swept in.

There were too many people around him.

Even here, out in the open. It was a problem. New York City was too crowded for fire. One blaze, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, would kill.

If the shape-shifter had had any sense — or cared about people at all — she would have gone elsewhere to live.

You went to Los Angeles, Eddie reminded himself, drinking coffee, watching crowds of people cross the intersection at Columbus Circle. You ran from home, but you stayed in a city. Because it felt safer to be anonymous.

Anonymous and lost. Thirteen and terrified. Thirteen and a murderer.

Eddie’s foot began to tap. He stilled it. When he realized that he was rubbing the back of his hand, fingering the old scars, he placed his palm against his thigh and kept it there. His leg felt hot through his jeans.

Eddie closed his eyes and took another sip of coffee.

You’re so nervous, teased his sister, in his memories. Take a chill pill, little bro.

Chill. Chill out. Chillax.

Stay cold. Don’t care so much. It’ll pass.

Eddie didn’t want to remember her voice. He didn’t want to think at all about her.

He didn’t want to think too hard about any part of his life.

Matthew Swint is getting out of prison. I have to do something.

Like what? Kill him?

Eddie closed his eyes, rubbing his brow with his knuckles. He’d managed to go years without thinking too hard about Daphne’s murderer. Once a day, as opposed to all the time. Maybe some people managed to move on, but it was hard for Eddie.

Every time he created fire, he thought about Matthew Swint.

Every time, he thought about Matthew Swint’s brother. Who had died in a blaze so hot the police hadn’t found much except his bones.

I killed the wrong man.

The sun was warm, but the wind was cold. It felt good. Eddie’s skin was hot, and so were his insides. He set down his coffee on the stone step he was sitting on and carefully pulled a battered, charred photograph from his jacket pocket. It was in a plastic Ziploc bag, and bits had broken off in large black flakes.

The photograph had burned long before coming into Eddie’s possession and looked as though it had been salvaged directly from hot ashes. Not much left except a fragment of a face: a girl with golden eyes, only eleven or twelve years old, thick auburn hair roped over her shoulder. She was grinning, pulling a fuzzy purple hat down around her ears. Eddie glimpsed snow behind her.

“Lyssa,” Eddie murmured to himself. “Lyssa Andreanos.”

She looked like a goofy kid. Sweet, and very human. Not a worry in the world. He would have even gone so far as to say that she appeared. . loved.

He was happy for her. But also envious. Of all his family pictures that had survived, only a couple showed him with a real smile.

“You’ve been on the run for ten years,” he murmured to the girl in the photo, wondering if she could still smile. Hoping she could.

The scant details Long Nu had given him hadn’t painted a clear picture of the girl. Her father had been a dragon shape-shifter. An old friend of Long Nu’s. He and his human wife had died in a fire. Their daughter, Lyssa, had never been found.

Eddie sipped his coffee. It had gone cold. He concentrated, and the paper cup warmed beneath his hand. A little too warm, maybe. When he tried his coffee again, it burned his tongue.

He returned the photo to his pocket and glanced around. Even with the cold breeze, the sun had brought out the crowds. He watched faces, pretending he was thirteen again, living on the street, looking for a mark.

He found three in seconds. Easy targets. Easy cash. New York City was full of people, crammed together, crowded. During those bad years, he would have lived more easily here than in Los Angeles.

Eddie wondered what the girl in the photograph had done to survive.

His gaze roved across the street to the Time Warner Center. The curved sidewalk was crowded. Kids perched on the stone guards, talking and listening to music, while cops sat in the cars parked alongside the cabs — watching the kids, and all the men and women coming and going, past the mall, from the mall, talking on cell phones, or not — gazes on the ground, or stubbornly straight ahead, focused on anything but everyone.

Cabs parked in front of the Time Warner Center. An enormous man got out of one, nearly crawling from the backseat.

His shoulders were broad, his legs long, chest thick with muscle beneath a button-up denim shirt. Like Eddie, he didn’t seem affected by the cold. His dark hair was tousled around his craggy face, and his demeanor, his height — his entire presence — was utterly imposing. Women gave him appreciative looks. Men got out of his way.

If only they realized Lannes isn’t human, thought Eddie, amused.

Not that anyone could tell. As Lannes crossed the street, Eddie marveled at the strength of the illusion: even up close, the man appeared completely human. No sign of wings. No silver skin. Not a glimpse of horns. The illusion perfectly hid the impossible truth: that the man walking in broad daylight was actually a gargoyle, from a race of winged creatures capable of magic.

And an expert on magic was exactly what Eddie needed.

He walked forward to meet him, extending his hand. Lannes engulfed him in an immense grip that felt different than it looked: Instead of human fingertips, Eddie felt claws scrape his skin — and the carefully restrained strength in that touch was more than human.

“I’m sorry for being late,” Lannes said, glancing at the people around them and lowering his voice. “I had to make certain Lethe was safe with her family.”

“Safe?”

Lannes grimaced. “We’re still not sure we can trust her parents. Lethe hasn’t even told them about me. ”

“You’re married.”

“They don’t know it. Every time she goes over there, they try to get her back together with an old boyfriend.” His grimace turned into a scowl. “He looks like a Ken doll.”