“Lots to be distracted by here. You want to look for her? Or you want me to take you home? Because really, you shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”
The jack behind the counter found this suddenly interesting, turning away from the grill. The scales on her cheeks flushed and popped with Potential, just like the grill behind her popped with heat. They crawled over her skin, and the red tint between them swelled, destroying the beauty of the pattern. “What, like you’re some sort of knight in shining, orphan boy? Please.”
“Did I ask you?” His black eyes sparked, and Cami didn’t even think about it. Her hand shot out, closed around his wrist. The strawberry juice in its wax-paper cup splashed, and she pulled a little, just as if he was Nico and ready to go ballistic.
The jack laughed, a nasty bitter little sound of jacktemper. “Oh, cute. Yeah, you hold him back, Juno bitch.”
“Come on.” Tor slid off his stool. “Danna’s in a mood today. She’s all jealous.”
The jack paled, and licked her thin lips. It was funny—she had such a small mouth and the rest of her was so hard, corded with muscle. It looked like she could knock the cart over without half trying, and the scales on her cheeks actually lifted a little, tiny muscles underneath swelling with anger. Cami slid off her seat, schoolbag awkward under her arm and the limon almost fizzing free of the bottle. Tor steadied her, and his hand was oddly gentle. “Fucking jacks,” he said, just loud enough to be heard. “We don’t want to stay around. It might be catching.”
Why did boys always have to be so nasty? Cami pulled him away. “D-d-don’t. P-p-please.”
He shrugged, his jaw set sullen. It was amazing how eyes so dark could be so scorching. “Fine. But just ’cause you say so.”
Well, great. I’m a hero. “She c-c-can’t h-h-help it. J-j-jacks—” Jacks usually had temper problems—not enough Potential to really charm, and they most probably wouldn’t end up Twisting, but still. They weren’t awfully employable, and had to live on the edges of the core. Almost-Twisted, just like they were almost-charmers. In-between and always angry. Or maybe they were scared of becoming Twists and being pushed even further down the chain.
Sometimes, angry just meant scared.
Ellie would be a strong charmer, maybe even Sigiled. So would Ruby, it was obvious. Cami wasn’t so sure. Her Potential tested high, sure, but you could never tell until it quit being invisible and started settling. Ruby always told her not to worry.
Where was Ruby now?
Tor’s grin lost some of its hurtfulness. He stripped his hair back from his face with stiff fingers, and for a moment he looked almost . . . vulnerable. “Yeah, a jack’s a powder keg. I know. So, you want to look for your friend? Or should I take you home?”
Well, wasn’t he just taking charge of everything. Cami shrugged, dropped his wrist and took another pull off the limon. “I d-d-don’t want t-t-trouble.”
“That’s a shame.” He cocked his head, tossing the leftover strawberry juice at a chained, dozing trashulk, hunched pluglike on a patch of verdant charmgrass in the midst of concrete and metal. The hunched gray green lichen-starred bulk snapped, catching the cup out of the air and munching, the collar at its throat flushing dull-red with pleasure. Its almost-snarl, vibrating just below the surface of the audible, sent a shiver up Cami’s spine.
Or maybe it was the way Tor was looking at her. Serious and intent, his eyebrows coming together and his mouth relaxed. “Seems to me you could use a little trouble. The right kind, I mean.”
Did he really just say that? Heat rose up her neck, as if she was the jack’s sizzling grill. “R-r-right k-kind?” As in, is there a right kind of trouble?
Oh, my God, I’m actually flirting. Ruby would be thrilled.
The thought of Ruby jolted her, and she looked around again. The crowd had thickened for lunchtime. The sun was high enough to pierce the lowering gray that was autumn sky in New Haven, but it looked like rain soon.
“Yeah.” Tor’s smile was like sunrise, all the anger gone. His teeth were very white. “Maybe not today. And I can understand, if you don’t want to be seen with me. You’re Family, right?”
Not really. She contented herself with a shrug. He kept changing on her, she couldn’t keep up. “I th-think I sh-should—”
“There you are!” Ruby chirped, her lacquered nails digging into Cami’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
When Cami turned back, he had vanished into the crowd. Just evaporated, and good luck getting Rube to slow down enough for Cami to explain. So she just held the sweating-cold bottle of limon to her hot-throbbing forehead while Ruby, glowing with excitement, scolded her and dragged her along, telling her all about this fabulous shop where they could get earrings and hair ribbons nobody else had, and Ellie was just going to expire of joy.
NINE
THAT FRIDAY NIGHT SHE TYPED OUT THE STORY, hesitated, and punched the send key.
There was a long pause, and Cami was seriously considering chewing her nails as she watched the Babbage’s flat glowing screen. Rain fingered the window, heavier than a mist but not heavy enough to be a downpour. The Dead Harvest was probably going to be cold and wet this year. All the costumed revelers would be buying turnaside charms to keep dry, and even the lure of free candy and tiny cheap flash-loud charmpoppers dropped into bags like party favors wouldn’t bring so many of them to the door to scream their traditional Trick’s-treating!
On the other hand, the house parties would be spectacular this year. If Nico was home still, he might even drive her to a few. She would go as the Moon, of course, just like every year. The costume was simple, it covered everything, and even had a veil. Maybe Nico would go as Hellequin again, prodding sinners and Twists toward the underworld as fausts leapt to obey his every bidding. Last year he’d been Gaston Wolfhunter, complete with ax and staff, and it had been a job keeping Ruby distracted enough not to snap at him. He hadn’t made it easier by poking at her while driving between parties, and Rube had announced flatly that she would never be in a car with Nico Vultusino again.
Cami heaved a sigh. The white room sighed around her too, smelling of beeswax and lemon polish.
Finally the cursor blinked, and the BlueEllen is typing message showed up, faint and sparkling. They were supposed to be babchatting about Calc homework, but Cami had hijacked the conversation, for once.
At least Ellie let her get it all out, and fingers on keyboards didn’t stutter. One of these days someone was going to figure out how to shrink a Babbage so Cami could stick it in her pocket and have it talk for her.
Wouldn’t that be a dream. Of course, they’d have to discover how to ground it so a stray burst of Potential didn’t fry everything. Once they did that, electronics were going to get a lot better. If the Great Tesla hadn’t Twisted in 1919 when the Reeve hit, maybe he would have figured it out. There were legends of him heading into the Waste instead of waiting to be hunted down as a Twist, and the blue Potential-lightning out in the dangerous wilderness was called Tesla’s Folly.
Ellie finished typing.
BlueEllen: So you’re going to see him again, right?
CV528491: I dunno. Should I?