Betrayals

by Lili St. Crow

  No, the voice of instinct whispered. They were there, but they’re not now. For whatever reason.

  I had a sudden, vivid mental image, playing itself inside my head the way a song will get stuck between the ear and the brain.

  Concrete-gray lion padding softly through forest-dappled sunlight, hard muscles under worn-smooth skin. The lion turned its heavy neck and lifted its head, blind stone eyes searching, and its mouth opened. Needle-sharp, slivered teeth packed close, and it exhaled, ruffling leaves on the forest floor. It senses eyes upon it, and confusion plucks inside its cold, massive head. The eyes are of a Ruler, but far away, and the stone mane curls upon its shoulders with a sound like wet clay sliding against itself….

  The image faded. I shook my head to clear it. I had to stay sharp, because the roof was steeply pitched all around me, and the slate was damp in places. I could slip and tumble for a long way before falling off the edge, and that wouldn’t be any fun for anyone.

  I clutched my bleeding hands to my chest and wished I’d thought of gloves. But then I’d lose out on traction. Sometimes you just have to suck up the damage.

  I was doing a lot of that lately.

  The wind whistled across peaks and valleys of slate tiling. Some tiles were missing, and some sagged, but all in all, the roof looked pretty solid. My hand twitched, and I kept my fingers away from the locket with an effort. I let out another sharp breath, this time in wonder. My heart banged once, twice, settled into a high, hard galloping run. It took a moment of thought before I realized I wasn’t scared.

  No, the feeling was actually happiness. It swelled behind my pulse and pushed my arms out, fingers spread as a huge disbelieving grin wrinkled up my face. I’m sure I looked like a moron, balancing on a ridgepole and holding my arms out like a circus performer. But here, with the wind keening past me and the trees choking up on the Schola’s gray bulk, I felt… well, I felt free. For the first time in a long time.

  Up here, there was nothing but me and the wind. And a tingling in my teeth, as a feeling I was sure was the aspect blurred through me. This time it was a warm, comforting glow, banishing the pain.

  My hands stopped bleeding, and when I looked down at them, the ladderlike cuts had scabbed over.

  The flat-copper smell of my own blood washed away on fresh rainy air, but I thought I caught a thread of warm perfume. When I fisted my hands, lightly, they didn’t hurt much and the scabs didn’t tear.

  Wow. I wondered why it didn’t work for the bruises and aches inside me. But they were muted now too. The aspect tingled through me, retreated with a sound like owl wings.

  Is this what blooming feels like? I wished I could ask someone. Gran had told me about The Facts of Life pretty early, and Dad had told me in his gruff way what he thought I should know, which boiled down to don’t be stupid and don’t buy cheap tampons; we’ve got money.

  This “blooming” thing was like having puberty questions all over again and having nowhere to go to do some, you know, research. Maybe the library had something for curious girl djamphir. I laughed, a short disbelieving sound, and felt more like myself than I had for weeks.

  After a little while standing there like an idiot, it occurred to me that I’d better start looking for a way down. I had a plan, after all, and it didn’t include hanging out up here all day. So I stopped staring at the woods and the sky and breathing in the odd cold rain-soaked happiness. It still stayed with me as I studied the lay of the rooftops, trying to see it like the hollers and ridges around Gran’s house. If you could get a vantage point, you could work out your way just about anywhere, with a compass and some common sense, that is. All I’d need up here was the sense.

  How much sense I had climbing around on a roof, I don’t know. But I took a good look, and the fist inside my head opened up a little, sending out little bits of questing awareness. I waited for the tingle that would tell me it was safe to go, and would also tell me which road to take.

  You can’t ever rush something like that. It’s the same reason why you can’t ask a pendulum anything you really, really want to know about. The wanting makes a screen in front of the real answer, which might be something you’d prefer not to hear. So you’ve got to go still and quiet, as unattached from the answer as possible. It’s different from really needing intuition in a pinch, when you have to just shut out the screaming all around you and listen for the still small voice of certainty.

  Gran always harped on it, actually, how the pendulum would sometimes tell you just what you wanted to hear, and hang the rest. Common sense, she’d say over and over again. Ha! Common as hen’s teeth, maybe. Got to apply that old meat twixt your ears, honey.

  A wave of homesickness crashed into me, so sharp and hot it almost rocked me back on my heels.

  I longed to be back in Gran’s narrow little house up in Appalachians, listening to the whirr and thump of her spinning wheel on a cold evening, smelling whatever she’d cooked for dinner and the floor and window washes she was always using. Yarrow, lavender, wild rose, constant scrubbing.

  But there was also that time in the evening when it was too dark to work outside, when Gran would spin and I would half-lay on the old love seat and stare at the iron stove. It was warm and safe and I never had to wait for Gran to come get me. She was always there.

  The tugging tingle in my solar plexus came. I studied the roof some more and saw the way down.

  It didn’t look like much; I’d have to zag over a couple of sharp slopes, and there was a bit of a drop onto a long, gallery-type roof. I could hop down from there in a protected angle, using a set of, were those dumpsters? Had to be, yeah, that would be right behind the kitchen. Maybe I could even peek in and see who was doing the cooking behind that screen of steam.

  What about getting back up? You’re so smart, what about getting back into the Schola?

  Getting in wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just bang on the front door for a while. They’d let me in, right?

  I thought of the missing stone lions and wasn’t too sure. But it was too late to back out now. I’d figure something out.

  I checked my scabbed hands one last time and got going.

  It wasn’t hard to get into the boathouse. A plain wooden door, a latch that had once probably held a padlock rusted wide open. I looked for any sign of habitation, didn’t find it. Pushed the door gingerly with my foot, wincing at the screech of rusted locks, and stepped in. The stiletto had eased itself out of my pocket, and I wished I had a gun instead, to sweep the place.

  The entire structure was completely dilapidated. One boat had sunk, rotting, under the glassine water lapping at the central well. Another hung overhead on rusting chains, looking like it hadn’t been touched in easily twenty years or so. Holes glared in its sides, and the chains didn’t seem too solid.

  Coils of rope moldered in the corners. The place smelled like rot and mildew, and the flat iron tang of snowmelt river water. The floor sagged underneath my feet with each cautious step.

  And on the other side of the bay where the rowboat wallowed at the sandy bottom under a blanket of clear heavy weight, he just appeared.

  Christophe stepped out of the shadows, his blue eyes alight. Not a blond-highlighted, expensively cut hair was out of place. His hands dropped down to his sides, as if he’d been holding them up.

  What had he been planning on doing? Did he think I was an enemy?

  Everything boiled up inside of me and I let out a high-pitched, girly sound. The switchblade clicked open at the same time.

  Great. Just great. All the practicing I’d done for this moment failed me utterly, and I stood there next to a pile of slumping, damp-eaten lumber and stared at him. “You lied to me!” I sounded like I’>d been punched, hard.

  “Hello is usually considered a more appropriate greeting.” He lifted one shoulder, dropped it. A breath of apples and cinnamon reached me, hit the back of my throat, and tickled the bloodhunger. “And what am I supposed to have lied to you about, Dru?”

 
Each time I saw him, it was like I’d forgotten how his face worked together, every line and plane proportionate. “A sixteenth, you said! You said you were called a half-breed, but you were technically a sixteenth!”

  “What? A lecture on genetics?” But his face clouded. He obviously guessed where this was going.

  For one long second I considered how satisfying it would be to hit him, to unleash the ball of rage behind my ribs and see if he could still smack me around so easily. “Sergej.” The name sent a glass spike of hatred through my head. “Your father.”

  Christophe went utterly still, his eyes burning. His thumbs were hooked in his jean pockets, but his hands were tense and his shoulders rigid under the usual black sweater. He stared at me for a little while, his head cocked like he’d just had a good idea and was running it through before he swung into motion.

  Finally, he spoke. “Who told you?”

  I swallowed hard, lowering the knife. Its blade winked once in the hard, thin light. Oh God. Did you help kill my mother? Tell me. I have to know. I have to know something, anything, for sure. “Who? Oh, nobody. Just Anna. Another svetocha like me. Was that something you forgot too? She said—”

  “Ah. Anna. Spreading her poison.” A silent snarl drifted over his face. “I didn’t ask to be born into my bloodline, Dru. Just like you didn’t ask to be born svetocha.” He showed his teeth, blond highlights sliding back through his hair as the aspect folded over him. “You should be grateful, though. My father’s strength passed on to me, and it’s the reason you’re still breathing enough to fling accusations.” He straightened. “What are you doing here? Someone should be watching you during the day.”

  Yeah, right. Like someone’s supposed to watch me when it’s Restriction. That’s really been working out well. “I got out of my room. Didn’t you leave this?” I dug the note out of my pocket, suddenly wishing I could fold up the knife again. “The night I was…attacked?”

  “Attacked? And… Anna.” The aspect kept his hair dark, and his teeth didn’t retract. “Tell me.”

  “I want to know—” My heart was in my throat again.

  I didn’t even see him move. One moment he was all the way across the boathouse. The next, the silvery screen of water over the sunken rowboat rippled, and he was right in front of me. I jerked back, my shoulders hitting the door, and his nose was inches from mine. His hands thudded onto the wood behind me, his wrists against my abused shoulders. Apple scent drifted around me.

  Jesus. He was so fast. And his eyes were burning. The aspect retreated, blond sliding in his hair as a stray band of sunlight caressed it. “What do you think you want to know? If I wanted to betray you, kochana, I could have. Easily. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already done it. I could have…” He paused. His fingers came down, wrapped around my wrist. The knife lifted, and he held it with the point just over the left side of his chest. “There. There’s the spot. Between those two ribs and twist, if you can. Don’t hesitate, Dru. If you honestly think I’m a danger to you, push the knife in. I’ll help.” His lips skinned back from his teeth, and his fingers tensed on mine. He jerked the knife forward, and I surprised myself by yanking back. I couldn’t let go, he was holding it too hard. My scraped fingers gave a flare of red pain, subsided.

  He tried again, pulling. The point touched his sweater. The same paper-thin black V-neck he always wore, whether it was hip-deep in snow in the Dakotas, or freezing here. “Go ahead.” His breath touched my face. “Every djamphir is technically a sixteenth. Any more than that and we’re nosferatu; any less and we’re malformed things, not even human. Something about the gene pairs; I don’t claim to be a scientist. It was a joke. But feel free to use your little knife, kochana.”

  I tried uncurling my fingers. He wouldn’t let me. We stood like that, him tugging forward and me pulling back, until he let go of my hand. Spread his palms against the wood behind my shoulders and leaned in. “Satisfied?”

  My mouth opened. The knife dropped and dangled in my nerveless hand. I couldn’t find a damn thing to say. He waited, and the sound of water whispering away under half the boathouse’s floor, touching its rotting pilings, was a cold silken whisper.

  I dropped my eyes. Looked at his throat. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. When he spoke, it was the same business-like, mocking tone he’d used when I first met him.

  “Now, let’s talk about something useful. Attacked? When? Tell me about that first. Then Anna.”

  He plucked the note from my nerveless fingers, held it to his nose, and inhaled. But he didn’t step back, and the note vanished into his back pocket. Just like that, it was gone. “Ah. Dylan. Sneaky old man. This was our meeting place, once.”

  “I — what? Jesus.” What was Dylan doing leaving notes on my pillow? But it solved one riddle.

  Christophe leaned back toward me, his hands on either side of my shoulders again. “He’s reassuring me of his loyalty. Touching. As well as giving you a reason to slip your leash during the daytime, which I’m not so sure I like. Now start talking. When?”

  I told him the whole thing, stealing little glances at his expression. It was a type of relief to spill it all out, like lancing an infection or popping a zit. It’s also kind of hard to talk with a djamphir staring you in the face. Especially when the aspect keeps flickering through him, and his canines are touching his lower lip, dimpling softly. His entire body tensed when I got to the part about Ash and the sucker. I was busy thinking of what I’d do if he got angry, could I dump him in the water and run for it?

  My voice faltered when I got to Ash sniffing me. Just… sniffing me. After he’d torn a couple of suckers apart, suckers who said the Master wanted something.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the “Master” was Sergej. Or to figure out what he wanted with “the little bitch.”

  “Master,” Christophe whispered. “You’re certain? Certain it was him?”

  I nodded. He was so close it was hard to breathe. It was exactly like being next to an oven baking a really spicy apple pie. “He bit Graves, I’d know him anywhere—”

  “Master,” he repeated, then grabbed my shoulders. I was confused, but then I found myself caught in a bear hug, his arms around me and his chin atop my head. He wasn’t as tall as Graves, but he was wiry-strong and very warm, burning through his clothes. “He must have killed them all, or Sergej would have sent more. It’s only a matter of time now.” It sounded like he was talking to himself, and I was frozen. I hadn’t been this close to anyone except Graves lately, and there was a weird feeling to it.

  A weird, warm feeling. Warm all over, like being dipped in oil. It was kind of like Dad’s infrequent hugs when I’d done something really well. But there was something else to it. Dad hadn’t smelled like apple pie and he hadn’t hugged me so hard my bones creaked, and breathed into my hair. Christophe’s breath was a warm spot on my head, he’d tucked his chin to the side now, and his hands spread against my back. The locket, caught between us on my breastbone, was a hard lump of warning.

  “Dear God.” His arms didn’t tighten, but he was still tense. I was trying to figure out what exactly the feeling was.

  Then it hit me. It was safety. Christophe wasn’t about to let anyone hurt me. I don’t know when I’d started believing that rather than being afraid of him, but there it was. It was like I felt when I heard Dad’s truck rumbling into the driveway in a strange new house, coming back to get me. Like someone was going to Deal With Things, and I could relax a little and just go with it.

  Like I knew my place in the world again.

  We stood like that for a little while, Christophe and me. I breathed in the smell of apple pies and everything else fell away. The boathouse creaked a little in the thin sunlight, and I couldn’t see anything because my face was buried where his neck met his shoulder, my nose in the slight hollow just above his collarbone.

  I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would.

  “Listen to me,” he finally said, as i
f I’d been arguing with him. “Are you listening, little bird?”

  My voice wouldn’t work right. I made a tiny little nod instead, because, how’s this for weird, I didn’t want him to let go of me. He’d pulled back a little, just with his lower half, and I was afraid the scorch in my cheeks would set fire to the rest of me, because I had an idea why.

  Wow. Oh wow.

  “I’ll take you to a safe entrance. Go back up to your room, don’t worry if someone sees you. At this point, it doesn’t matter. I have to ask you to wait, Dru. I’ll be gone for a day, perhaps as many as three or four; there are arrangements I must make for your escape. Will you trust me?”

  You know, if he’d asked me this way the first time, serious instead of mocking, his voice almost breaking, I would have handed over my car keys. Or maybe I was just thinking that now, because he was so close and because he was shaking. We both were. The trembling spilled through me like wind through aspen leaves.

  “Anna said you betrayed my mother. Told S-Sergej where to find—” The sentence died because he squeezed me, hard. I was almost afraid my bones would break. The breath huffed out of me, against his neck.

  “I would never,” he snarled, “have done that. Never. Do you understand me? God and Hell both damn it, Dru. I couldn’t save her, but I’m going to save you. I swear it.”

  And you know, I believed him.

  What girl wouldn’t?

  CHAPTER 15

  Two hours later, I eased down the hall. I didn’t see anyone outside my room, but I felt them there. I made it in and locked, barred, bolted the door. And that, apparently, was that. Christophe told me not to worry about someone seeing me come back, it was getting out without being caught that was the problem.

  It reminded me of Dad. Shaking a tail or pursuit was second nature, and it was better for someone to lose you on the way out to a meet so you didn’t compromise anyone else. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when someone told Dylan I’d been spotted coming back to my room. It was amusing, in a grim, ironic sort of way.