And for once, she was a necessary part of an expedition. She wanted to know, she had sought him out, and she had snuck out of the house on her own. This whole thing wouldn’t be happening without her, and that was a frightening—but kind of pleasant—change.
“Okay.” He pushed past her, swung a leg over the cycle’s padded seat, and leaned it, popping the kickstand free. Another quick motion, and the purr of an engine rasped under the snowy quiet. “Climb up, princess.”
I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It was probably useless to ask any questions, so she didn’t. She clambered carefully up, sliding her arms around his waist. At least she knew that much.
“Closer,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ve got to hold on tight.”
His jacket smelled of leather, but without the bay rum and Nico’s fiery pepper-temper it wasn’t a quite-safe aroma. The cold lay over them both, an almost physical weight. The purr of the engine ratcheted, and the cycle jerked forward. The snow was churned about, broken and dangerous; he half-walked the purring thing toward the road. The grabcharms flung themselves out in sticky lightning-snake tentacles, digging into the frozen surface and tossing up tiny bits of it.
The wind rose, tugging at her braided hair, wringing tears out of her eyes. She wondered how he could see to steer, and laid her head on his shoulder. He tensed, but then relaxed as the motorcycle reached the bottom of a shallow hill, whinnied, and hopped up onto the road as neat as you please.
Cami caught the trick of it—you did have to lean close. Pretty indecently close.
Ruby would love this. The thought made her grin, and she hugged Tor fiercely as the icy, dangerous road slid away underneath them. He gunned it, leaning forward as the grabcharms spat, and the chrome horse leapt to obey.
TWENTY-FOUR
HER CHEEKS STILL STUNG FROM THE COLD OUTSIDE, and she tried to look like she walked into a smoke-dimmed, charm-and-neon lit, bass-thumping inferno every day of the week. The club was on the edge of Simmerside, and Tor was known here—at least, the jack bouncer nodded him and Cami past. Thick with muscle, mirrored shades over eyes that glowed through the polarized lenses, the shaven-headed jack presided over a line of other jacks and Twists, inadequately dressed against the cold, none of them daring to step much out of line under his glare.
Inside, it was a crush of throbbing music, and the smoke drifting around was from burning tobacco and other substances. A few actual fausts were on the dancefloor, jerking as if possessed.
Well, technically, she supposed they were possessed. She had never been this close to real live fausts before, and was surprised to see they looked just like regular people, except for the constant smoke wreathing them. And the way their hair stood up, writhing madly. Even the lone female faust’s waist-length mop tried to rise on an invisible draft.
There were their eyes, too, glowing dull punky unnatural colors as the dæmon crouching inside its human host looked out.
There were Twists here too, most of them congregating along one wall of the club where iron bars ran from floor to ceiling, part of the Age of Iron chic the whole place had. Odd shapes lurked in the shadows as limbs corkscrewed by Potential moved restlessly; shoving and snapping, their eyes glitter-crackling with stray sharp unhealthy charms, the Twists were given careful space even by the fausts. The iron would scorch them, but every once in a while a Twist brushed against it deliberately, and the sick-sweet roasting smell that arose added a sharper note to the funk as the Twist exhaled luxuriously.
What would it be like, Cami wondered, to love pain that much?
The bar was a mess of tubing; the bartender wore goggles pushed up on his sweat-greased forehead; polished sprockets and gearwheels glittered from the circulating waitress’s skirts. The tables were covered with dingy linen, and the jacks on the dancefloor sported feathers, fur, lizard skin, a whole cavalcade of Potential-spurred anomalies that would keep them hidden or creeping in the shadows during daylight.
None of them elbowed Tor, though, and she followed in his wake to the bar. He leaned over and shouted something; the tender gave him a brief dark glance, looked over his shoulder at Cami. The bartender was a charmer, the edge of his Potential flaring with a faint green wreathing glow as it reacted with the charged atmosphere. His dark hair and wide dark eyes made him into an inquisitive river otter, and he yelled something over the noise at Tor, who shrugged. “She’s with me,” the garden boy yelled back, and picked up something shiny from the counter. Two glasses of something fuming with steam were handed over. Tor nodded, didn’t bother paying as he turned away and forced a fresh route through the crowd.
There was another Twist bouncer at the staircase, but this one just stood aside, holding the end of a frayed red velvet rope. The music—if you could call it that—was a migraine attack, but Cami thought she heard Shelley Wynter singing again. Or maybe it was Bronwinn and the Titons, floaty female vocals over a pounding beat and wailing charmesizers.
Nico really liked Shelley Wynter, had every tape she’d put out, even the limited-release demos from when she was a torch singer in New Bransford, a couple province-states south.
When Cami was thirteen, she’d wished for her hair to whiten just like Wynter’s. She’d nerved herself up to ask Marya about bleach and dye, but had never quite scraped together the last drop of courage necessary to actually do it. Ruby had said there would be no problem, but Cami didn’t want to trust her hair to Ruby’s enthusiasm at that point. Not after the Great Clippers Incident earlier that summer. Of course Rube had just looked gorgeous and ethereal, but still.
Behind the rope was an archway, and stairs going up. She climbed after Tor, blinking. Her eyes kept filling up—from the cold, and the smoke, and all the noise.
I’m out, at night, with a strange boy. Near the core, too. Her heart pounded so fast she thought she might have some sort of attack.
Was this what freedom felt like?
There was a close dim hall upstairs; Tor took a sharp right and set off down it. He shouldered open a door to his left, jerked his head at her, and she stepped inside.
It was, of all things, a sitting room. There was a fireplace, but it was cold and empty. Two overstuffed chairs that looked pre-Reeve crouched dispirited in front of it, and a small table sat between them. Peeling yellow-brocade wallpaper hung in strips from the walls, and the whole thing made Cami’s throat close up. If the Red Room was a comforting weight, this sad little room was a strangling crush of poverty and disrepair.
If Papa hadn’t found her, who might have? Or if Chauncey hadn’t bothered with the brakes, what would have happened? Or what if Nico decided, sooner or later, that she wasn’t Family enough, if she made him too angry? He was the Vultusino now, and if he decided she didn’t belong in the house on Haven Hill . . .
It didn’t bear thinking about. But sooner or later, Cami supposed, she would have to think about it.
“Sit down,” Tor said, sweeping the door shut. “I’m pretty sure we won’t be overheard here.”
I doubt anyone could hear through all that downstairs. The music and crowdroar from below was a giant beast’s dozing pulse, as if they were above a rumbling titon pit. “I d-d-d-don’t—” she began, but he just pushed past her, set the drinks down on the table, and stamped back to the door. There was a click, and she realized he had locked it.