“So what? They fire me from the Seven. From being the Heir. We go to the Island.”
Another childhood game. So he wanted to be kids again tonight. She gave him the next line, gently. “And h-how will w-we eat?”
“You’ll pick fruit. I’ll hunt. At night we’ll share, and you’ll be Family.”
I can’t be Family. I wasn’t born in. But she still smiled. “How?”
“I’ll find a Waste-witch to make you. Or we’ll get my heartstone and make you into a leman; I’ll hunt for you, and you can Borrow from me. Then we’ll live until the Kiss comes, and we’ll be Elders together on our very own island. Move it.” He clambered up, and they squeezed together in the chair. Rain poured down the windows. His breath was hot on her neck, and she closed her eyes. This was part of the game too, relaxing until they were one heartbeat, and the flutter inside her skull was the silent brush of his strange dark fiery thoughts. He shifted so she wasn’t hitting anything sensitive in his lap, and she fought back a hot blush.
“Where will we l-live?” she whispered.
“We’ll build a hut from palm stuff. Like in Crusoe the Man-eater. We won’t need it, though. It’s warm on the Island.”
She could almost pretend to be nine again, small and safe. “Trop-pical r-rains.”
“The jungle’s thick. We’ll be okay.” He paused. “You really are upset.”
Now she could tell him. He wasn’t likely to go flying out to find the wooden man and do something awful. “The w-wooden m-man. At L-l-lou’s.”
“Wooden . . . oh, that? He was probably just a drunk jack. I was there, right?”
Do you think I would go there alone? “His eyes. B-blue.”
“Lots of people have blue eyes, babygirl.”
“R-r-really b-blue. L-l-like m-m-m-m—”
“You’re not a jack. Or a Twist. You’d be one by now, if you were going to.”
That’s not what I mean. He recognized me from somewhere. She made a helpless movement.
But he just forged on ahead, as usual. “I don’t care where you came from. You’re with me. That’s all.”
“S-something’s h-happening.” It’s not just the wooden man. It was his eyes. And something else. Everything’s wrong. She’d felt this when Papa first took to bed in the Red Room months ago, a strange shifting sensation like the ground crumbling beneath her.
And it was getting worse.
“It’s Papa.” For once, he didn’t sound bitter. “He’s really close. And you think without him . . . Christ, Cami. Don’t worry so much. Family doesn’t give up what’s theirs.”
“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.
EIGHT
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.