What problem?
Her fingertip rested on the glass. It wasn’t quite a star, she decided. Star-shaped, but not a star. And there were little things, like seeds. She traced it, rapt concentration taking over as her finger followed an invisible thread. The window-glass shivered.
Below, in the hedge maze, a dark head paused. Tor looked up, and black eyes flashed.
Cami snatched her hand back, guiltily. She ducked as if he could see her, three stories above in her eggshell bower. The vapor on the window vanished, leaving the pattern unfinished. What had she been thinking of?
The design on his necklace. A star. Only not a star.
Cami slid off the window seat. Her legs were trembling slightly. For some reason, the image of a round, juicy, ripe red apple had filled her head. Was Marya baking? It was silly, but this particular apple loosened her knees and made the rest of her cold all over, as if she was outside in the rain too.
Not rain. Snow. Lots of snow. Her wrists ached, the old scars twinging.
She shook her head. There was a soft respectful tap at the door. “Miss Cami?” It was a servant, a cheerful brunette girl who was often in the hallways dusting in a black uniform and a starched white cap. “Miss Cami, Sir is asking for you.”
Cami let out a long shaky breath. Papa was done with Nico and Stevens. It was time to go comb his hair and talk to him. She could talk to him about Ellie and Ruby, maybe. That was a safe subject.
Southking Street, Torin Beale, and apples were definitely not safe. Who could she tell? What did she have to talk about, other than a persistent feeling of cold sinking dread?
Her hand was on the colorless crystal doorknob. Something splatted against her window.
Cami jumped, but there was nothing. Not even a mark on the rain-soaked glass.
“Miss Cami?” Another soft tap.
“Y-yes.” Her throat was dry. Her head ached, suddenly, and her wrists gave another flare of pain, as if sharp metal was tightening around them. She managed to twist the knob and summoned up a pale smile for the worried-looking maid. “Th-thank y-you. Y-Y-Y-Yol-landa, right?”
The brunette beamed, her round face splitting with delight. “Yesmum. Thank you.” Blushing fiercely, she retreated, and Cami hurried in her wake, padding barefoot and trembling toward the Red Room and an old man’s labored breathing.
TEN
THE BIG, SOFT FINGERTIPS ARE AT MY THROAT. LONG broad hands, the fingers slightly swollen and manicured, and Her face is a white moon with golden hair fountaining over it. She traces my windpipe, the thin skin and ridges of cartilage underneath. The buzzing in my head is full of that funny smell—apples and heavy incense, a drugging smoke that makes my entire body a slow, lumbering mass. I am so small, and I am being spread out, too thin, butter scraped over too much bread. That cannot be right, for I am curled forward, my head on Her pillow, our hair mingling as She settles next to me. Dust rises, each speck of it glowing with Her presence, and under the drugging incense is a hint of sharpish rot.
But I do not care. It is soft here, but so cold. She is the only heat, and it is a chill that burns.
This one’s heart, She whispers, Her red lips shaping the words so slowly. You love Me, don’t you? My Nameless.
Oh, I do. I cannot help myself. We are wound together, Her palm against my tiny chest, everything in me rising to meet Her. She is gravity, She is dim light and life and love, and I make small piping sounds as She caresses me. This pleases Her, and Her nails scrape lightly, sliding through layers of pinhole-eaten velvet brought from Above. Only the big ones go Above, the littles are not allowed. The bigs bring back food and cloth, shinies to please Her and refuse for the littles to eat after the dogs are done.
Always after the dogs are done.
Sometimes, often enough, there is a new big one, to shave and to bring to Her for the oblivion She promises. A refugee from Above, where everything is too bright, too loud, too sharp, too deadly.
There is a steady persistent drip-drip-dripping, water on stone, and the badness is coming. Suddenly I am even smaller and a flood of chill ink is rising, its surface glittering with flecks of dusty phosphorescence, and as it creeps up my legs and reaches for my hips I hear the chanting. They worship Her, and She laughs, and the gleam is a glass knife, wicked and sharp. It flashes down, held in a muscled, tanned hand, a child’s scream is cut short, and Her laughter, Her laughter, it is bells and cruel beauty—
“Shhh.” Nico was on the bed, bare-shouldered, red sparks in his pupils. A wedge of golden electric light spilled in from the hall, and there was Marya, blue silk and her fey-woven shawl fluttering as she made helpless little movements with her hands. “Shh, Cami. It’s just a dream. You’re all right.”
“Nightmares again?” Trigger, a scarecrow with a mop of messy hair, an unusual shape because he wasn’t in a baggy, beaten sports jacket. His white T-shirt glowed, and he kept his right hand low, because there was a gun’s gleam clasped in it.
“S-s-s-s-so-sor-r—” The word wouldn’t come, it was a stone of panic in her throat, and the white bedroom shivered around her, trembling like oil on the surface of a puddle. Underneath that thin screen the bad blackness lived, it was rising, and as the dream shredded, Cami’s cheeks were slick and hot with tears.
“She’s okay,” Nico said over his shoulder. “You can go on back to bed.”
Marya was having none of it. “Little sidhe. Screaming so loud. Is it them? Are they here?”
Who? But Cami was shaking so hard, the question wouldn’t stay in her head.
“Shhh. Don’t.” Trigger had the feywoman’s arm. Marya’s eyes glowed with bluish foxfire over the smooth black from lid to lid—she must be upset, Cami thought, and another apology was caught and murdered by her stupid, treacherous, stuttering tongue.
Why can’t I TALK?
“Stop saying sorry.” Nico snapped his fingers sharply under her nose. “Book. Say book.”
It won’t work. This will be the time it stops working.
Marya resisted Trigger’s trying to hurry her out of the room. “If it’s them, little sidhe—they take the littles, and the hounds—”
Cami sobbed in a breath. Two.
“Get out,” Nico said quietly, but his tone rattled with menace. “Marya. Go on. Let Trigger take you back to the kitchen. All’s well here.”
“Cold iron,” Marya muttered. Her shawl moved on its own, the fringe slithering with cold sullen sounds. “Naughty little things.”
“Come on, Marya.” Trigger cast Nico a significant look over the feywoman’s drooping head, and there were other voices in the hallway. “She’s fine, it’s all right. Little girls have bad dreams sometimes.”
“Book.” Nico’s face was in front of hers, familiar in the darkness but strange with the red in his pupils, his canines touching his lower lip. “Come on, babygirl. Take a few breaths. No hurry.”
“S-s-sorry,” she managed, relieved that she could at least get that word out. Her hair was a sticky weight against her back; she had sweated and thrashed. Her arms hurt, a fierce dull ache centering on her wrists. Nico’s fingers were warm; he had her shoulders. Crouching on her bed as lightly as a cat, and his head made a small sideways sound, inquiring.