Wayfarer

by Lili St. Crow

  Wow. She’s really slipping if that’s not working right. The repair would be easy, just a tweak of a few threads of throbbing Potential to get them to settle into the leather right.

  There was no reason the charm should have been misbehaving at all. It was a ridiculously simple set: surefoot, lookgrabbing, rain proofing. A Sigiled charmer should have been able to do that in her sleep, especially if she produced a symbol when her Potential settled, and could reliably produce that same symbol in all her work. A pair of spike-heeled shoes, Laurissa’s personal trademark, along with florid overdone curlicues, worked their way into every piece she charmed.

  Also, they could be added to every piece Ellie charmed for her, since Ell’s own Potential hadn’t settled yet.

  Not all high-powered charmers could Sigil. It took an Affinity for physical objects, a specialization inside the elemental Affinities—water, air, earth, fire, metal, wood, stone—and a healthy dose of luck. Clan sigils were different; as living symbols for a group of charmers tied together by blood, Affinity, or loyalty, they evolved and could die out.

  Sometimes a charmer only Sigiled once, when their Potential settled. Charmers who could reliably do it could charge a bundle, since Sigiled pieces didn’t unravel, ever. The charm was wedded permanently to the physical base, and the only way to undo it was to destroy the item itself. If anyone could figure out how to Sigil cars, they’d make a bundle.

  Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones affecting the Strep’s concentration. She hadn’t been charming right for months now. Usually getting knocked up made a settled charmer’s work more powerful in certain ways, but it varied according to age and Affinity.

  Too much to think about. Ellie just concentrated on watching.

  Laurissa let out another sharp sound of frustration. Shelves of dark wood bolted to the walls jittered a little—bottles and trays of dried or distilled herbs; pieces of feather, bone and fur; canisters of charmahol and colorless volatile sylph-ether spirit; metal or wooden discs in various sizes for temporarily attaching Potential to before it spooled off into complex patterns; all the various supplies a working charmer needed.

  You could work with just pure Potential, sure. But it was easier to anchor it to a physical base, and way easier to use sensitized materials that had been sitting in a workroom for a while. You did have to periodically clean things out, because otherwise they’d get . . . well, things would soak up a lot of Potential.

  They would start to act almost alive.

  Ellie had cleaned the workroom herself not three months ago, as winter crouched over New Haven. She’d even waxed the ancient shelves, but the white-glove treatment Laurissa subjected every corner to had found the faintest smudge of dust. The punishment for that had been awful.

  A shudder went down Ellie’s back. She ignored it, flattening herself against the wall by the locked door; the special oiled belt moved slightly from its hook, its buckle tapping once. It was supple and broad, that belt, and if you didn’t move fast enough, it would catch you where it didn’t show.

  Most of the time the Strep didn’t use the buckle. There was that to be grateful for, at least.

  On the other side of the door, colorless Rita was doing the same wallflower act, shivering at the stony chill. It was looking like she didn’t feel safe from the Strep, either.

  That would have been really interesting, but Ellie didn’t have any attention to spare.

  “Son of a bitch,” Laurissa breathed. “It’s going wrong. Why is it going wrong?”

  Ellie kept her breathing to short soft sips. The important thing right now was not to be noticed. Rita looked like she had it down to an art form, and Ellie’s chest hurt for a moment, a swift lancing pain.

  Screw it. I’ve got all I can handle over here. Her heart pounded, paying no attention to the fact that she was going to pass out if it kept this up. Spilling to the carefully swept floor in a heap was only a temporary measure, though. It would set the Strep off like nothing else, and today that might even mean the buckle. She was just angry enough not to worry if it made a mark somewhere Ellie couldn’t hide.

  At least she’d been able to change out of her school uniform. Sprawling on the floor with a skirt was indecorous, as Ruby would say, rolling her eyes and twisting her glossed lips in imitation of her redoubtable Gran.

  She is going to be sooo pissed at me for calling her a bitch.

  Laurissa’s shoulders sagged. For a few moments she seemed to shrink inside her clothes, and Ellie’s throat was desert-dry again. The posture reminded her of the minotaur’s slumping shamble and its fuming blur as drops of angry maroon ectoplasmic fluid rose in shuddering scarves.

  The jolt of copper terror kept her upright, and she blinked as Laurissa snapped her fingers, a vicious dry click. “Ellen, sweetheart? Come and take a look at this.” Dulcet false honey, one of the worst tones she could use. The soon I’m going to hurt someone voice that other adults would always mistake for kindness. “It’s a little thing, but difficult. Good practice for you.”

  I’ll just bet. Ellie edged forward. Her old trainers were a little too small, pinching her toes, but there was no way of getting new ones. Her jeans were also a little too short, but she’d stolen them a bit oversized and could just undo the hem with a threadcharm. “Yes ma’am. What should I do?” As if I don’t know. At least if I was charm-whoring down on Southking I’d get a credit or two for this.

  “Oh, maybe you can see what needs to be done.” She waved her long fingers, the Chinin Red lacquer flashing dangerously under ceiling-moored, insulated electric bulbs. The light in here wasn’t the usual gold of incandescents; it was a pale drench passing through buffers wedded to glass so a stray bit of Potential wouldn’t explode things and rain danger on anyone below.

  For a second Ellie had a mad thought of shattering the bulbs while the Strep was working. It might even be worth it, if she could find a chink in the buffers.

  “I don’t know.” Hedging was probably safest. “It looks pretty complex to me. . . .”

  “Oh, come now.” Impatient, a toe tapping. “Top of your class, aren’t you? My little Margie could learn plenty from you. Couldn’t you, darling? Don’t slouch. Come here and let Ellie show you how to charm.” The vengeful glee under the words was vicious even for Laurissa, but she probably had all sorts of ways to make her sister feel insignificant.

  It was one of her talents.

  Margie. What a hideous nickname. It was old and dowdy, and it probably stung Rita like hell. So much for her knowing some way to defuse the Strep.

  The girl crept up, mouselike, hanging back almost as much as Ellie did.

  Ell let herself take another long look at the boots, even though the charmset Laurissa was attempting was stupid-simple. There was, as Mom always said, no reason not to do even the smallest things right.

  It was a pinch in a numb place she couldn’t afford, thinking of Mom.

  The leather was already sensitized by Laurissa’s attempts. The charm wanted to go on right, there was already a space for it behind Ellie’s eyes, in that funny place where she could almost-not-quite physically see the pattern Potential wanted to take. It was pretty absurd—Potential ached to obey, longed to be used. Why other people didn’t just let it coalesce was beyond her. She would have thought the ring made it easier, except she’d always been able to sort-of-see that unspace. Maybe it was what they called charmsight, though it couldn’t be so straightforward.

  Could it?

  Her fingers tingled, bitten-down nails fluorescing with golden threads. The threads flowed together in complex knots that were also symbols, leaping off her flesh as Ellie smoothed down the air a half-inch away from the leather—quick graceful movements. She had to stand on her toes to go around the plinth, moving lightly as if she was back at the Vole Academy. Cami had attended in the evenings, but Ellie and Ruby had been in class together during long, syrup-slow afterschool afternoons.

  For such an athletic girl, Ruby was astonishingly klutzy at the ballet barre.
Just one of those things.

  Charming really was like dancing. You found the rhythm, the place where the music wanted you to go, and you went with it. One-two-three, one-two-three, this one was just like a waltz.

  What the boots wanted was surefoot charm with water resistance and refraction built in. The lookgrabbing charm was an afterthought, but it wouldn’t mind tagging along.

  Nice and easy, Ell.

  Carefully scattered pebbles of colorless glass under the boots twitched. Gold-glowing symbols, hair-fine and delicate, crawled through the leather, inside and out—Ellie dipped a finger inside the well of each boot to make sure it would take. They spread out, a puddle on the plinth’s surface, and the broken glass became tiny jewels.

  There was a flash, a soundless thunder, and the music halted. Ellie took her hands away, flicking her fingers as stray golden sparks crackled. The ring was dark, only a shimmer in its depths as the stone hummed a low note of satisfaction.

  The boots were taller now, an elegant sweet curve that would mold to the calf, cut away sharply behind the knee. The toes were squarer, and even the heels were subtly altered, lower and also curved, balancing them beautifully. The broken glass, glinting, had smoothed itself up the charm lines as if heated and spun out in delicate fibers. The threads formed symbols and tiny scenes—a spiderweb spinning itself, a filigree horse leaping, a Mithraic sunburst, flowing and melding as the charm caught the interest of its viewers.

  Her heart was a rabbit, frantic inside a cage of ribs. Oh, no.

  It was a beautiful piece of work. Her shoulders came up defensively, waiting for a scream of rage and a stunning blow—probably to the back of her head, but maybe a kick, who knew? The Strep was good at striking where you least expected. A goddamn genius.

  There was a tinkling crash.

  Marguerite, whey-faced, stood next to a wooden rack full of sylph-ether bottles. One lay broken on the floor, curls of silvery vapor rising, seeking eddy and flow in the sea of Potential around them. Tiny silver flames winked into being, whispering their chiming little cries.

  “Idiot!” Laurissa flared, and Rita shrank back, her big dark eyes filling with tears. The tiny flames cast an odd white directionless light, and they strengthened, scenting anger.

  No. Not anger. Pure rage.

  The moment stretched out, and Ellie was suddenly dead certain the sylphire would latch onto Laurissa and start working in, feeding on the sudden shock of finding your own flesh alive with crunching, nipping flame. Smoke rising as if Laurissa was a faust, a dæmon’s inhabitation filling her with burning.

  How did she die? Well, Officer, there was sylph-ether, and she got careless, and—

  The Sigiled charmer snapped a spike-edged catchword and the flames winked out, crying like tiny crystalline children. She spent the next fifteen minutes ranting—stupid little bitch, clumsy brat, I should have left you on the street to starve—at poor Rita, who huddled colorless and shaking, her round cheeks wet and her chubby fingers rubbing at her arm where Laurissa’s talons had dug in. The Strep forgot all about Ellie, who crept back to the wall near the door and forced herself to watch every moment, silently willing Rita to look at her instead of at the Strep’s crimson, contorted face.

  The new girl never did, but not taking her gaze away was the least Ellie could do. Because there was no way that bottle, charmed into the rack, could have fallen out by itself.

  Maybe, just maybe, Rita might turn out to be okay.

  SEVEN

  IT USED TO BE THAT ELLIE COULD CREEP AROUND AT night far more regularly, especially when Dad wasn’t home. The Strep’s boyfriends used to keep her occupied, and sometimes she was even relatively calm after one of them had spent the night. Judging by the sounds filtering out of whatever bedroom she used—never the master suite, Dad was absent and love-blind, but not stupid—no wonder she was worn out on those occasions.

  Now, though, the boyfriends didn’t come by nearly as often. Good for them. But it also made it harder to slip out and around.

  Ellie slid through the house in an old pair of threadbare ballet flats, her hair scraped back into a small ponytail—it used to be a lot longer, but the Strep hated looking at it. So hacked short was how it was, getting in her face and being stupidly unmanageable.

  Just like the rest of her. Ugly, clumsy, shabby, cringing.

  She flattened herself against the wall—here the servants’ hallway made a T, the walls probably about as old as New Haven itself and made of cold stone, not dressed with wainscoting past the angle that someone coming out of the bedrooms would see. This place was a heap, and honestly, if she survived the Strep and ever owned the house free and clear, Ellie had a plan for dynamiting it into hell.

  Like all plans, the first step was the most difficult.

  Stop. Listen.

  Little creaks as the whole pile settled, timbers breathing as a chill spring night dropped fine misty rain over the city. The invisible sound of the draft down the bedroom hallway, as familiar as her own breath. Her pulse, a steady metronome inside her ears and wrists. The scrape of her jeans against the wall as her body kept itself upright, making the hundreds of tiny little adjustments necessary to stay stuck to a whirling earth.

  The first time she’d fully understood that the planet was round and hurtling through space, she’d been terrified. Now she was just unsurprised. Of course nothing could be steady. Of course it all had to spin. It just made sense.

  A soft scrape. A padding. Not the Strep—when Laurissa was ghosting around at night, you could smell the Noixame on her, trailing scarves of sicksweet perfume waving like kelp beds, just looking to wrap around and pull an unwary swimmer down.

  No, this was a heavier tread, a sloppy shuffling.

  Ellie peeked around the corner. The same peach sweater—did she ever take it off, even to wash it? The same frayed brown plaid skirt, as well. Ruby would be rolling her eyes so hard right now.

  I didn’t even Babchat. Homework is going to be dire.

  Floating ghostly down the hall, the blur of peach and lank dishwater hair hesitated at the door to the room where Ellie was supposed to sleep. One soft round hand lifted as if to knock, Ellie slid around the corner silent as a suppressive charm, and by the time Rita had decided not to knock and slid the door open with a noiselessness that implied some practice with such a maneuver Ellie had already halved the distance between them.

  She slid through the door just before it closed and put her finger to her lips as Rita stumbled toward the bed, a squeak of surprise loud in the hush.

  Both girls froze, staring at each other. Rita’s mouth was a loose wet O of surprise. Ellie popped the silencer charm off her fingers, and the immediate deadening of the air around them—not that it needed much help, nobody breathed in this frosty pink room with ribbons on the untouched comforter—was a little gratifying.

  “We can talk,” Ellie whispered. “But not too loud.”

  “You’re a charmer,” Rita whispered back, kind of like she would whisper you’re a cannibal or you’re a minotaur.

  “Born that way.” She couldn’t help herself. It was a Ruby sort of crack, the sort of thing she’d just flip into the air and it would sound great. But immediately, she felt a sharp bite of guilt. “Look, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to distract her. Thanks.”

  “You . . .” Rita’s soft hands fluttered. Now that Ellie was closer, she could see the shapes under the skin, the high cheekbones and pointed jaw. She could have been pretty, if she wasn’t so blurred. Her hair wasn’t greasy, it was just really fine, and the cut did nothing for her. It wasn’t even really a cut at all, just hacked off at a weird angle, as if she’d done it herself a while ago.

  Her eyes were really extraordinary too. Big, and dark, and pretty, thickly lashed. She would really be something when she lost the baby fat.

  That’s not baby fat, a deep voice whispered, and gooseflesh broke out over her entire body. Rita looked so . . . the only word Ellie could come up with was insubstantial. Like all that pudg
e wasn’t really weight that could hold her down.

  She shoved the thought away, and it went quietly. No need to borrow trouble, right? They stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Ellie held out her hand, tentatively. “Look,” she whispered. “I’m your friend. If you want.”

  Rita shrank back. She said nothing, her mouth working like a fish’s for a loose, wet moment. Those gorgeous dark eyes rolled, and Ellie’s hand dropped back to her side.

  You should know better, Ell. There’s no such thing as friends in this house.

  Still, she tried again. The girl had dumped the bottle out of the rack, and got bit pretty hard for it. “Look . . . you didn’t have to do that. I’m grateful. If we’re together . . . look, she can’t hurt us. . . .”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Of course the Strep could hurt them, she could hurt them plenty, and thinking Rita didn’t know it was stupid. She could see the walls going up just by the change in the other girl’s expression, and there was nothing to say to fix her stupid mistake because Rita was already moving.

  She brushed past Ellie like a burning wind, and Ell had time to think that’s weird, she doesn’t even smell right before the door opened—

  —and Rita slammed it, hard, a sharp biting sound that broke the silencer and was sure to wake Laurissa up. Which meant Ellie had to move, and now. She did, just barely making it into the servants’ hall before the Strep’s bedroom door cracked, a dangerous golden slice of light falling out, cutting off the rest of the house. Ellie peeked around the corner, unable to look away, unable to breathe until the slice narrowed and the master suite’s door closed with a soft deadly snick.