Defiance

by Lili St. Crow

  Benjamin dropped down in the chair next to me. “I guess when you let us in on your habit of sneaking out during the day instead of having us tag along all invisible-like.” But he was looking down at his plate. “Or when something happened we couldn’t hide. Like today. How did you fight that thing off, anyway? I didn’t hear a thing—that was what clued me in. It was too silent. I couldn’t even hear the water running.”

  I shivered. Great. And I thought we were so clever, getting out for a breath of fresh air. All of a sudden the cellophane-wrapped sandwich on my tray didn’t look so appetizing, so I cracked open the blueberry yogurt smoothie and took a long drink. It went down in a slimy rush, and I thanked God it wasn’t strawberry. That would have been Too Much. “I found the spot where it was anchored to the world and hexed it right out. My grandmother . . .” I couldn’t even begin to explain. Djamphir combat sorceries are different than what Gran taught me, and you don’t even start dealing with them until your fourth year of schooling.

  Great. One more thing to feel happy about. Not.

  “You’re lucky. Drbarnak—those things—are nasty.” He arranged his knife and fork with prissy exactitude, picked up his fork, and spun some spaghetti around the tines. The pasta writhed against itself as if alive, drenched in marinara.

  I didn’t want to think about it. And if he wasn’t going to say anything else about the daylight runs, I wasn’t going to, either. I know a peace offering when I see one. “Lucky.” I tried not to laugh, half-burped, and made a weird strangled noise. “Yeah. Listen, Benjamin . . .”

  “Huh?” He forked up a cartload of pasta, slurped it down. His gaze kept moving, roving over every surface in the cafeteria. He’d chosen a spot where he could see the entrances, a wall behind us, and locked doors on either side.

  Knowing why he’d done that didn’t make it better. It was exactly where Dad would have chosen to sit, too. Civilians don’t think like that.

  I want to get out. I want to get away. “Nothing.”

  For a boy with such a prissy way of laying out his fork, he certainly ate like a bandit. He swallowed a load of spaghetti large enough to be floating the Hudson on its own barge. “Christophe won’t get mad at you, you know. You can do pretty much whatever you want. He’s, uh. You know. He’s just like that. He’s old-fashioned.”

  “Old-fashioned.” I picked at the cellophane. What kind of sandwich was this? I didn’t even remember.

  “Yeah. He thinks we should protect . . . You know, you shouldn’t be bothered with stuff while you’re training.”

  “Stuff like people trying to kill me?” I’d put a banana on my tray, too. That, at least, didn’t remind me of anything trying to kill me. Could you kill someone with a banana? It didn’t seem possible. Maybe a possessed banana. I’d seen possessed pets before, but not possessed fruit. But I’ll bet it’s out there somewhere. “Or other stuff?”

  He coughed a little, twirled more spaghetti. “Come on, Dru. Once Reynard decides about someone, he’s loyal. I never believed all those rumors about him working for his father.”

  “Yeah. He’s some angel, all right.” I set the banana back down. My stomach had closed up. Now not only was I hungry and unable to eat, but I also felt like an idiot for screaming at the one person I should’ve been able to trust. Hadn’t he proved as much, over and over again?

  He’d always arrived just in the nick of time. And there were the times he did things like . . .

  Like holding the knifepoint against his own chest and telling me not to hesitate. Like forcing me to drink his blood after Anna shot me and I lay dying.

  Like kissing me so hard I felt it in my toes.

  So that’s it, huh? He swaps spit with you and all of a sudden you’re not into Goth Boy anymore? How do you know how you feel now? Graves is somewhere out there, he’s probably being tortured, and he’s betting on you finding him. Here you are playing footsies with Christophe. You told him you didn’t even like Christophe that way!

  Oh, God. Now I was going to start thinking about that, too, and getting even more tangled up. I pushed my chair back with a long linoleum-scrape sound. “I’m going to my room. No, stay here and eat your spaghetti.”

  Benjamin was already halfway to his feet. “I’m supposed to—”

  “Leon’s right over there.” I pointed at the hall where I could feel a djamphir lurking. The touch told me who it was, too, like picking out where in America you were from the quality of the radio static. “I’m getting better at spotting you guys.”

  Benjamin relaxed a little. Lowered himself back down slowly, with one quick longing glance at his plate. He was pretty much always hungry. The other djamphir on his crew were the same way, almost wulflike in their urge to chow down at every possible opportunity. “You sure you don’t want me to—”

  “I’m sure. I just want to go up and lock my door.” And cry. Or try to cry. Funny how I don’t seem to have any tears left. Just this lump in my throat and a serious case of water blindness.

  He didn’t look convinced, but he did take another mouthful of spaghetti. I felt his eyes on me all the way across the cafeteria’s empty expanse, each table sitting neatly with chairs around it, like a hen brooding over chicks.

  The hall I’d pointed at looked empty, sure. Heavy hunter-green velvet drapes, marble busts, dark wood wainscoting—and a little patch of wall a few doors down that shouted don’t look at me.

  “I can see you, Leon. So cut it out.” I didn’t even bother to glance at him as I swept past.

  He caught up with me easily, swiping his lank mousy hair back from his forehead. Of all Benjamin’s crew, he was the only one who wasn’t classically handsome. He would’ve been cute, if he hadn’t fought it so hard. “Getting better, fräulein. Soon I might have to start trying.”

  “Blow me.” I was really feeling savage. It’s hard to get a satisfying snit on when you’re barefoot.

  “No way. Christophe would have a fit.” He gave his sarcastic little laugh, and I lengthened my stride a little. Heat rose in my cheeks. “Oh, I see. Trouble in paradise?”

  He was so not going to analyze me. “Didn’t I just tell you to blow me?”

  “What’s gotten into you?” He sighed. “Other than getting attacked by tentacles during your shower, that is. Or is it something else? Something missing? Something perhaps tall, and not so hairy, with green eyes?”

  I rounded on him, my fists itching and my teeth tingling. Leon stepped back, his hands raised.

  There was no sardonic smile. He looked deadly serious, and if you’ve ever seen a lank-haired, average-looking djamphir look serious, you know it’s not comforting. Especially if you’ve seen him in action. Christophe treated him almost like an equal, which was thought-provoking in its own way. “Easy, svetocha. I’m not blind or stupid. I am, however, a very good guesser.”

  “They can’t find him.” The words burst out of me. “They can’t find him, and I don’t even know if they’re really looking. They can’t even find Anna, and she’s not likely to keep a low profile. They have to know where Sergej is, or at least have a good guess. But Christophe says it’ll take months to get me ready. Months. The same thing he said a month ago.”

  Leon nodded, his hands dropping. Said nothing, just waited for me to finish.

  I appreciated it. But he wasn’t who I wanted to be talking to.

  I wanted Graves. I wanted my Goth Boy in his long black coat, with his goddamn cigarettes and his sarcastic little asides and his green eyes and the way he made me feel like I could handle this shit. I wanted to hear him breathing in the middle of the night, from his sleeping bag. I wanted to see him in the morning while he teased me about always being late. Girl can’t ever get out the door on time, don’t worry Dru, first one’s free, and all the little things he did. Like pecking me on the cheek before walking off to class.

  What’s that saying? You don’t know what you got until it’s gone? Yeah. Sure. I hadn’t even known what we had while he was around.

  I swallowe
d, hard. “He could be Broken. Or dead.” I stared at Leon’s narrow chest. And it’s my fault.

  “Then we need to be sure you won’t join him.” Leon didn’t shrug, but his tone was dismissive.

  “Sure, he’s just a loup-garou, right? One step up from a wulfen, but still a second-class citizen.” I pushed back my damp hair, twisting it up. It would come unraveled as soon as I took two steps, but I twisted it into a bun. Tighter and tighter, slippery against my fingers. The more I twisted it, the better I liked the almost-pain. “I know the score, Leontus. I’m getting some shoes and I’m going to visit Ash.”

  He shrugged. “Visiting the Broken won’t make you feel better. And don’t you have an appointment with Taft for Aspect Mastery?”

  “What’s the point? I’m not fricking bloomed yet, Christophe’s going to come looking for me and we’re going to have another fight, he’s not even going to let me out of my room without a guard, I’ll bet they’re not even looking for Graves, and all of this is fucking useless!”

  Yelling. Again. Like it would solve anything.

  He cocked his head, going still in that way older djamphir have. That’s sometimes how you can tell the old ones—the way they go immobile, like a cat with one paw in the air, considering something. It’s like they forget their bodies are there while their attention turns inward. When he was still like this, you could see where he’d be handsome if he would get a different haircut and stop with the wallflower act. Even Benjamin seemed to sometimes forget Leon was around, until he opened his mouth and delivered a sarcastic little bite.

  I liked that about him.

  When he finished thinking, his chin dropped a millimeter and he looked at me. “There’s a simple enough way to find out if they’re truly looking for him, Dru.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I looked over my shoulder, nervously. Checking to make sure nobody else was in the hall. Benjamin couldn’t hear us on the other side of the caf, and he would be more interested in his spaghetti anyway.

  Leon gave a little half-snort of almost-laughter. “Don’t worry, I’m one of the few Reynard trusts on my own around you. Well, are you interested?”

  I let go of my hair, wet curls slithering through my fingers. My stomach settled, like a fish giving up the fight and drowning on dry land. “I’m all ears.”

  “Formally charge me, as a member of your Guard, with finding out.” A humorless smile—his lips never relaxed; they stayed bloodless-thin all the time. It kind of looked like he was constantly sucking on something astringent. “A private commission, from a svetocha to a Kouroi who has sworn obedience. If you trust me that far.”

  My mouth snapped shut. I thought it over hard, eyeing him. “Great. Perfect. How do I do that?”

  His mouth twitched. He rolled his shoulders back in their sockets, once, precisely. His jeans looked battered and his sneakers weren’t much better—it was a wonder Benjamin didn’t fuss over him about his clothes. Or Nathalie. “Consider it done. Give me a week to find out. Can you wait that long?”

  Normally, I’d’ve jumped on it. But I stood there for a few more seconds, considering him.

  “Very good,” he said finally. “You’re beginning to weigh people instead of judging them solely on instinct. That’s a relief.”

  Wonders never ceased. “You’re not just going to turn around and tell Christophe all about this, are you?” Because he seems to know everything I do anyway.

  He actually looked amused. At least, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly. “I’d be in more trouble than you could imagine if he knew I’d even suggested it. I’ll consider it a formal commission, then. Come on, let’s get you some princess slippers so you can go consort with your faithful dog.”

  I fell into step beside him. Was it relief I was feeling? That lightness under my heart, right next to the empty hole that had opened up when I figured out Dad wasn’t coming back? “Every time I think I like you, Leon, you say something like that.”

  “It wouldn’t do to get too fond of me, Milady.” He shook his hair back down over his face. “Those you get too fond of seem to have a dreadful time of it.”

  “Fuck you too,” I muttered, and that shut him up. It was funny, though.

  I was still feeling relieved.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The heavy, barred iron door was pitted with rust, but still solid. Down here the halls were stone, no paneling to soften them up. No velvet draperies, no marble busts, no bookcases or lockers. Every school has industrial places, where they don’t bother even slapping on a coat of paint. Usually that’s the best place to slip around if you don’t want to be seen.

  But I was down here for another reason.

  The door was locked, the key hanging on a nail. I had to go on tiptoes to grab it. It was high enough that a wulfen in changeform could reach it easily. Which was thought-provoking, really.

  Leon stepped back. A low, throbbing growl rattled the entire huge iron thing, but I was in no mood for it. “Stop that,” I snapped, and the growl petered out. “You know it’s me. Jeez.”

  “He’s reacting to me.” Leon retreated further and leaned against the wall a good fifteen feet away. He closed his eyes and, to all appearances, settled into a light doze.

  I wasn’t fooled, but I did appreciate the privacy.

  I pushed the door open. It groaned, despite me oiling the hinges the first night we’d brought him down here. It was way too heavy to do anything else.

  At least he’d stopped throwing himself against the walls every night. And he’d recovered from taking on three vampires at once. It had been touch and go there for a while, but he’d made it.

  I could feel good about that, even though I hadn’t had anything to do with it, right? It had been all Dibs, patching him up and fighting for his life.

  Ash greeted me with a low whine, his narrow head dropping. The pale streak running along his left temple glowed in the light coming in from the hall’s fluorescents. The crusted seepage along his jaw, where I’d shot him with one of Dad’s silver-grain bullets, was slowly healing. Nobody was sure if the silver still buried in his flesh and bone was interfering with Sergej’s control of him—his master’s call, Christophe would say, grimly. If his body expelled the silver and I was in the room with him . . .

  . . . well, they called him the Broken for a reason. Broken to the will of the king of the vampires. I was looking at something Graves might become, only he wouldn’t get all hairy, unable to change back into a boy.

  Nobody could tell me quite what would happen. Not even Nat, and she was probably the only person I could bring myself to say anything about this to. I hadn’t yet, though. I was working up to it.

  I even had the note in my bedroom, locked away in a vanity drawer, Sergej’s spidery handwriting in scratchy, rusty-red ink. Since you have taken my Broken, I will break another.

  The room was actually a cell. There was a long narrow metal shelf that served as a bed, and he hadn’t shredded the last blanket I’d brought down. The bowl his nightly meal had come in was licked clean and shoved in a corner, and that was an improvement too. There was a toilet bowl, but I didn’t look at that. Instead, I stamped across the cell to the shelf bed, picked up the plaid blanket, and shook it out. Folded it in quick swipes. “You’ve stopped tearing them up. That’s great.”

  Ash settled back on his haunches. Almost eight feet of pretty-unstoppable werwulf regarded me with his head cocked to one side. He looked for all the world like a golden retriever wanting to play but afraid to ask.

  “All sorts of fun. First I get beat up, then I get attacked by the Spaghetti Monster. Only not so nice, and it’s not so much fun to fight off loads of spaghetti when you’re naked in the shower. You ever had that happen to you? Probably not.” I dropped down on the bed, holding the heavy blanket awkwardly. I’d done a sloppy job folding it; the edges were all messy. Gran wouldn’t approve.

  Maybe I could even introduce a mattress now. Big fun down here, between the Broken and me. Both of us useless. At
least, he was useless to Sergej. Or so we hoped.

  Ash was pretty useful when it came to saving my bacon, though.

  The Broken werwulf settled down further. If he’d had stand-up ears, they would have drooped.

  “We’re a good team, you know.” I didn’t look directly at him. I know enough about stray dogs not to do that. He inched closer, moving with slow supple grace. “We kicked a sucker’s ass last night, didn’t we?”

  He made a low whining noise. Cocked his head. He was really good at telling when I was upset. Funny, he was about the only boy who reliably could. Or who knew to keep his yap shut when I was.

  Of course, the fact that his jaw wasn’t made for talking in changeform probably had something to do with it.

  It was about between midnight and one, almost lunchtime for the rest of the Schola. If I was where I was supposed to be, I’d be sitting on a stool in an empty classroom, trying to make the aspect show up on command while the tutor lectured me. Christophe would show up, too, and add his two cents.

  Abruptly, my skin itched. It was night out there. The Schola had a lot of green space. I couldn’t wait for another daylight run, even if the djamphir did tag along all invisible. Now I could see if I could catch them doing it, and figuring out how to be invisible . . . well, that would be a skill worth having, wouldn’t it.

  When I bloomed, Shanks had promised me that I could be the rabbit one day. I was looking forward to it. It’s an honor to be chosen to run. Dibs had been plied with pizza and beer, the hero of the day.

  Ash had moved forward. His ruined cheek rubbed against my knee. He whined again, and rubbed some more.

  I put my hand down, blindly. My fingers met the curve of his skull. The hair rasped, amazingly vital, against my skin. I petted him, scratched behind his ears—set low, the curves of cartilage hidden in fur.

  The trembling in him relaxed. His fur rippled, waves passing through it like wind through high corn.