She slammed the door, maybe a little harder than she had to. Scuffed her still-damp boots across the pavement, the whiskaway charms on the stairs waking in brief flurries to push the snow aside before it could ice the stone and make it dangerous.
Is that why I don’t like stairs? That memory wouldn’t come. Instead, the smell of fresh-cut apples and thick cloying incense spilled through the cold, and a dark curtain filled her head.
The wind cut off as she stepped inside the house. The foyer was hushed and dark. Maybe she could get up to her room before he—
“Cami.” Nico sat on the stairs, a shadow in the dimness. His hands dangled loosely, his forearms braced on his knees. Only the gleams of his eyes and the paleness of his throat showed. No—there was the gleam of the signet, too. Just as bloody as when Papa had worn it. The Heir’s ring was in the ancient strongbox in the library, behind the painting of Vidario Vultusino, the Eldest of the Seven of New Haven.
Waiting for an Heir. And la Vultusina’s ring was right next to it, probably waiting for a Family girl to wear it. Once Cami was . . .
. . . what?
What am I thinking? Immobile, frozen, she waited for the explosion. Her coat was sliced, her leggings torn to ribbons, her boots sodden with melted snow and alley ick, her skirt ripped too. Strings of black hair fell in her face, reeking of the smoke in the nightclub, and she probably smelled like the holding cell too.
“Say something,” he persisted, soft and coaxing. She couldn’t see him well enough to find the anger in him; the sense of the world sliding away underneath her returned, her knees loosening and her breath coming short and hard. “Mithrus Christ, Camille, I’m not mad at you.”
Was he actually lying to her? The whirling inside her intensified. “Y-yes y-you are.”
“Nah.” Now he moved, but very slowly. He straightened, touching the banister, and her heart thundered as he stepped down, paused, stepped again. “I never thought of what it’s like, for you. Watching Papa go. You were in there every day with him, weren’t you?”
You think this is about that? Her teeth found her lower lip, sank in. The pain was a bright star, a silver nail to stop the whirling. It didn’t make it go away, but at least it gave her something to hold onto.
Nico kept talking. The very softest of his voices, the one he kept just for her. “I was gone. And when I was here, you were holding me together too. Being brave.” He reached the bottom of the stairs. Stepped cautiously toward her. “Hell of a job, babygirl.”
If you knew what I was, would you be saying this to me? “N-nico . . . ”
“I’m listening.” Another step. Edging up to her. What did he think she was going to do, run? That would be like dropping a burning lucifer into gasoline.
“I w-w-went w-w-with T-t-tor.” Her heart was going to explode.
He went very still. Red sparks firing in his gaze, deep in the back of his pupils where the Kiss would eventually burn through after years of service to the Family. He would belong to them even after his breathing stopped.
Where would she belong?
“I f-found out. I’m B-b-b-biel’y.” She couldn’t get the word right. But it was close enough. “I esc-c-c-caped. I-in the s-s-snow. N-Nico—”
“Was it Stevens? Did the ghoul open his mouth?” His hands were curling into fists, she could see that. The dimness was hiding less as her eyes adapted. There was a moment’s worth of comfort—if he was angry, she knew how to deal with him.
Or do I? “T-t-t-tor—” How could she even begin to explain?
“I’ll kill him.” Very quietly.
Oh, no. “N-n-nico—”
“Shhh.” The bloodring glimmered as his hand came up, as if he wanted to put a finger to his lips. Stopped. “I will kill him.”
Why won’t you listen? “I’m B-b-b-biel—”
“You’re not. They can’t have you.” Still very quiet, the words drained and pale but still smoking. Like a faust, something inside them too furious to be corralled. “You’re not one of theirs.”
“N-n-n-nico—” I remember. I remember being chained after I tried to escape. I remember the handcuffs and the beatings, then there’s something horrible, and I can’t remember, but then I was in the snow and there was Papa. The enormity of it stuck in her throat, her traitorous tongue strangling the words as she tried to force them out past a snarling maze of blackness, the ground tilting and a Tesla-thunderstorm direct from the Waste, one nobody else could hear, drowning her out.
“It’s arranged, babygirl.” Still so quiet, she had to strain to hear him over the rushing in her head. “I’ve promised. I’m going to kill him.”
Then he was gone with the inhuman speed of a Family member, leaving only a trail of unsteady charm-sparks in his wake. She was left alone in the darkened foyer, the cuts and bruises all over her throbbing viciously, her head full of noise, and her cheeks—again—hot and wet, the tears dropping onto her ruined coat as she swayed.
TWENTY-SIX
THE LOCK ON THE WHITE ROOM’S DOOR WAS ANCIENT and flimsy, but she threw it anyway. Hot water in the bath stung the cuts on her arms and legs—the shimmersilk’s claws had been sharp.
Found it in a pawnshop . . . it belonged to you.
She sat shivering in the steaming cast-iron tub for a long time, hugging herself as the bathwater rippled with her trembling. Her hair flooded over her shoulders, dampness sticking it in tiny curls and streaks to her abused skin, and when she slid under the surface it floated around her just like a mermaid’s.
She stayed under a long time, everything above the water blurring as the heaviness in her lungs mounted. Burning crept into her nose. She surfaced in a rush, splashing, and the sound of her gasping echoed against white tile, charm-scrubbed white grout, the ecru towels and the blind eye of the misted mirror, the sink like an opening flower, and the gleaming toilet.
None of this is mine.
Even the hot water wasn’t hers. It drained away with a gurgle.
Still dripping, naked because the nightgowns and pajamas weren’t hers either, she crawled into the bed like a thief. Some other girl belonged here, a girl with clear unmarked skin and a carefree ringing voice, one of the Family girls with their bright eyes and disdainful smiles. A girl who could make Nico less angry, a girl who could have kept Papa on the breathing side of transition, a girl the house could close around like the well-oiled machine it was.
She curled up and stared into the darkness. There was a faint edge of gray under the curtains—sunrise approaching, a late winter’s dawn. The gauze over the mirror, a stolen thing like everything else in this bloodless room, fluttered teasingly.
What will you see if you take the gauze off and look? Dare you to do it, Cami.
Except that wasn’t really her name, was it? She didn’t even have a name.
My Nameless. A slow, easy hissing whisper, a familiar stranger’s voice, in the very center of her brain.
Another steady whisper rose from the cuts and bruises, becoming audible in fits and starts. The gauze rippled, rippled, and behind it the mirror was a water-clear gleam. The muttering from the mirror mixed with low atonal chanting, blended with the throb and ache of contusions, scrapes, and thin slices, and now, at last, she knew what it was saying.