The Good Luck Girls

by Charlotte Nicole Davis

  The time it took to cross the bridge felt endless. Sweat poured down Aster’s neck despite the chill in the air. She froze when the wagon stopped. She could hear the lawmen’s voices asking the driver for his name and permit. Lantern light swept over the back of the wagon, seeping in through the fibers of the blanket that covered Aster. Once, twice. After an interminable silence, the lawmen waved them through.

  Aster exhaled. She counted to a thousand, wanting to make sure they were well clear of the lawmen, then jumped out of the cart.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. But Aster pushed her way past the people on the street and ducked into the first alley she came across, running as fast as she could go. The damp and dark reminded her of walking down the mine shaft, but instead of rocks and rotten wood, here there were trash cans and broken bottles to dodge. Aster glanced behind her, making sure she wasn’t being followed, then slowed to a walk, smoothed her shirt, and returned to the main streets.

  So this is Northrock, she thought, taking a moment to scout out her surroundings. The buildings here were as tall as the trees in the Scab and left the brick streets below cloaked in shadows. Even now, long after sundown, the streets were clogged with people—double-decker horse-drawn buses, vendors hawking their wares, lawmen on foot and mounted, men in bespoke suits stumbling out of a gambling hall, men in rags begging by the doors. The blue-purple glow of the voltric streetlamps bathed the whole city in otherworldly light. They hummed just at the edge of her hearing.

  Aster struggled not to let herself become overwhelmed—by the light, by the noise, by the heavy smells both sweet and foul. As hard as she tried to blend into the crowd, she could tell she stood out in her muddy rangeman’s outfit. She lowered the brim of her hat, letting herself be carried by the tide of people. She had no idea how to get where she was going, but if she didn’t hurry, her favor would give her away to all these people.

  Panic began to press in on Aster from all sides. There were too many bodies brushing up against hers, too many eyes raking over her face. Her head swam. Sweat coated her palms. She pushed against the people crowding her. Struggled to stay focused. She didn’t have time to lose herself, not tonight. She had to find the gilded mansion on the highest hill—

  Somebody grabbed her by the wrist. Aster bit back a scream.

  “The law’s on to you. Follow me,” the stranger whispered in her ear, then they released her wrist and pushed past her. The voice belonged to someone wearing a patched black coat worn gray at the elbows, collar turned up against the night air. Aster only had enough time to see there was no shadow at the stranger’s feet before they disappeared into the crowd.

  Aster’s heart had leapt into her throat. She swallowed it back. She had no reason to trust this person, but it only took one glance behind her to see that two lawmen were watching her, and one of them had already dropped his hand to the nightstick at his belt. She cursed and ran to catch up with the stranger.

  “Who the hell are you?” Aster growled. She could see now that her companion was a young dustblood woman about her age, with eyes black as the night and a short, sharp nose.

  “Points for effort. You were at least trying to be discreet. But you’ll find sneaking around the city’s a hell of a lot different than sneaking around the Scab.”

  “How’d you know—”

  “That dustkerchief is the first giveaway. There’s no dust up here. Plus you’re dressed like you stepped off the cover of a penny novel about the mountains. But most damning is that wide-eyed wonder you’re looking around with. Everyone gets it their first time in the city,” the girl listed off, continuing to lead them expertly through the crowd. “I’ve been tailing you since you jumped out of the delivery cart. There’s a few of us that sleep rough in the old mill down the street, and the law will look for any reason to arrest us and send us to the Scab. So I can’t have you starting trouble around here.”

  Aster bristled. “I’m not here to start trouble. I’m looking for someone, and I don’t have time—”

  “Do you even know where you’re going?”

  Aster hesitated.

  “Let me help you. One dustblood to another.”

  “I don’t have anything to pay you with.”

  “Sure you do.” The girl held up Aster’s pocket watch—the one that had been in her back pocket only moments before. Aster swore and reached for it, but the girl snatched it away and offered her free hand instead. “My name’s Cora.”

  Aster supposed she couldn’t complain too much when she herself had stolen the watch from a brag. But still …

  “… Pleasure,” she muttered, shaking Cora’s hand, though she wasn’t about to reveal her name back. “I need to get to Tom Wells’s manor. Tonight. He’s a steel magnate. Do you know him?”

  Cora raised her eyebrow. “Sure, he lives uptown with all those other wellborn bastards. He has men guarding the place day and night. I can get you close, but then you’re on your own.”

  Aster nodded, trying to ignore the fear gnawing at her gut and the pain eating away at her favor. She followed Cora down an alley like the one she had come through earlier. She kept her fist curled at her side, wary. For all she knew, this girl was leading her into some kind of trap. But Aster was desperate. She had no choice.

  “What do you want with Wells, anyway?” Cora asked as they moved through the bowels of Northrock.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No need to be touchy.”

  But Aster wasn’t in the mood for conversation. She rubbed at the side of her neck with her shoulder, trying to ignore her favor. “We need to hurry.”

  Cora nodded and picked up the pace. The further uptown they went, the cleaner and quieter the streets became. There were no rats in these alleys, no drunks passed out on the curbs. They were definitely heading in the right direction. Aster felt a brief rush of relief, grateful her trust had been rewarded.

  “Anyway, if you’re planning on staying in Northrock, you’re going to need to learn how things work at some point,” Cora said eventually. “It’s dangerous for a dustblood up here.”

  It can’t be worse than the Scab, Aster thought.

  “I’m not. Staying in Northrock, that is,” she muttered. But then she relented, grateful she’d found someone in this strange place willing to help her. “But … thanks. I appreciate the concern.”

  Cora shrugged. “You’ve clearly got some skill if you managed to escape the Scab and make it all the way here. My friends and I could use someone like you, if you ever change your mind.”

  Cora came to a stop then. They’d reached the end of an alley that opened onto an empty courtyard. Mansions stood on every side, large stone buildings aglow with yellow light from gated windows. At least half a dozen guards patrolled the area.

  “Tom Wells lives in that one,” Cora said, pointing to the mansion directly ahead. “This is where I leave you. Good luck.”

  Aster swallowed. “Right. Thanks.” She turned to say goodbye, but Cora had already disappeared into the darkness.

  Aster was on her own. And if Violet wasn’t here …

  No, there wasn’t time to think like that.

  Aster darted out of the alley before she could second-guess herself again, sticking to the shadows for cover. These guards were mortal men, not raveners, but it would still be tough to avoid them.

  Sneaking around the city’s different than sneaking around the Scab.

  Aster picked up a broken brick underfoot and hurled it as far as she could to the opposite side of the courtyard. It landed with a crack. The nearest guard ran to investigate. Aster hurried along the perimeter until she’d reached the other side, then squeezed between the bars of the iron gate in front of Tom Wells’s house. A short path led up to the front door, splitting around a small decorative fountain. Aster crept forward, focusing on the trickle of the water rather than the hammering of her own heart.

  Almost there.

  Movement up ahead. Aster froze. Reached for her knife instinctively
and cursed when she remembered it wasn’t there. Someone was sitting on the porch, mostly obscured by a large bush.

  Aster hesitated. It wasn’t a lawman or a guard, she could tell that much. But whoever it was would probably shout for help as soon as they saw her.

  Or they might know something about Violet. Aster had come this far. She wasn’t leaving without answers.

  It was only once she got closer that she realized the person on the porch was Violet herself, hunched over, crying softly. Holding Aster’s knife to her own throat. Violet had removed her dustkerchief, and the blade pressed against her favor.

  “Violet?” Aster whispered, shocked. She pulled down her own dustkcherchief so Violet would recognize her, but she didn’t move any closer. She was afraid of scaring Violet into hurting herself.

  What in the name of the dead is going on here?

  “I … I couldn’t do it,” Violet stammered. “If I were still on the Sweet Thistle, I could’ve done it, I think. But I feel too damn much now. I couldn’t make myself.”

  “Violet, I have no idea—what are you talking about?” Aster asked, edging closer. Violet had lowered the knife, but her knuckles were still white from gripping it.

  “I saw my father, Aster. With his real daughters. There were two of them, about half my age. They looked just like me—just like him—the same hair, the same eyes. He hugged them and kissed them and swept them up into his carriage. They’re living the life I was supposed to have. I watched it all from right here.” She used her knife to point at the low-lying shrubs that framed the house like frosting on a cake, the blade trembling in her hand.

  It was as if Violet were speaking another language. Aster struggled to piece the words together to make sense of what she saw before her: Violet, with a knife pointed at herself. All the anger that had driven Aster to come here, all her sickening fear of betrayal—it drained away slowly, to be replaced by a feeling of unreality. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but it certainly hadn’t been this.

  “I don’t understand,” Aster said finally.

  Violet looked up at her. Her eyes were rimmed red, the blue of them bright with tears.

  “I came here to kill him, Aster,” she said, each word hard and clear as a diamond. “I came to Northrock to kill Tom Wells for what he did to my mother, and then to kill myself to end all the suffering he’s caused me. But I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough. Even after everything we’ve survived since Green Creek, I wasn’t strong enough.”

  Her voice cracked, and a fresh sob racked her body. She buried her face in her hands. Aster finally closed the distance between them, sitting next to her on the porch, as hidden behind the bush as she could manage. After a brief moment of uncertainty, she placed her hand around Violet’s shoulder and let Violet lean into her.

  “Violet, you’re about the strongest person I know,” Aster said—and she meant it. Violet had been many things, but she had never been weak. She had never let anyone see her fear back at the welcome house, and even since leaving, she had never let it stop her. “The fact that you didn’t go through with this only proves it.”

  Violet shook her head. “I failed. I’ve wanted this for years, Aster. My whole life. Most nights it was the only thing that kept me going. I knew I had to live long enough to watch that man die. I never hated any brag as much as I hated him. And when I saw you and Clementine were getting ready to run away, I realized it might be my only chance to get to Northrock and make him pay.” She let the knife drop from her hand in frustration. “And I failed. So what’s the damn point? Tell me. Why am I even still drawing breath?”

  “Because you deserve to be here,” Aster said urgently. “Violet, hear me now: you don’t need a thing from Tom Wells. Not his mansion, not his carriage, and certainly not his acceptance. And you don’t need his remorse, either, hear? You can walk away without it and you’ll still be whole.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Violet muttered.

  “No, actually, it isn’t.” Aster set her mouth. “You know me, Violet. When have I ever turned my back on a fight? I came all this way just now to fight you.” Violet raised her eyebrow and coughed out a laugh. “I thought you’d left us for dead back there.”

  “No, I’d never! I—I left the letter. My mother’s letter,” Violet said quickly. “I wasn’t lying about Lady Ghost. She’s real. My mother always said so. Didn’t it explain everything?”

  Aster furrowed her brow. “Not exactly.” She pulled the letter out. “This is the letter you’re talking about, right? Your mother’s last words before she took her own life? I have to admit, it doesn’t read like that kind of note at all. Maybe you left us the wrong one?”

  “No, there was only the one…” Violet said, staring at the brittle paper as if it might bite her. “What … what did it say?”

  Aster hesitated. “What do you think it says?”

  “When … when my mother gave it to me, she said it would tell me how to find Lady Ghost when I was older, if we couldn’t go together, like we planned.” Violet paused. “See, she’d always told me that when we went to live with my father, he’d pay for us to get our favors removed, because he was rich. But she said the letter was just in case, and not to worry.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand before continuing. “But the day after she gave it to me … that’s when she died. When she left me. Alone. And … and I … I don’t know. It was another year before I even learned how to read, and by then I was too afraid to read it, to see what else my mother said. Knowing why she … killed herself.”

  Violet hesitated. “Can you read the letter out loud, Aster? I’m still … I can’t.”

  There was an almost childlike fear in her voice that Aster had never heard from her before. But there hadn’t been anything in this letter for Violet to be afraid of, had there? Aster held it to the moonlight and began to read the words uncertainly, watching Violet from the corner of her eye.

  Violet let out a wracked sob before Aster could even finish. “She was trying to save me?” she choked out. She snatched the letter from Aster, looked over it herself. “I’ve always thought she abandoned me, but here she says she wanted—she would never—”

  At the sound of the pain in her voice, the last of the anger Aster had felt towards Violet melted away.

  “Violet,” she began, working through her own confusion, “are you sure your mother killed herself? If this letter is the only proof you have … it’s just, it’s clear she had other plans.”

  Violet took in a wet breath. “Mother Fleur was the one who told me how my mother died. I never had any reason to doubt her…” But doubt had crept into her words now. “Mother Fleur lies. I know that. I’d even help her tell her lies sometimes. But she never lied to me, Aster. She was different with me. She said she loved me the way my mother never did. She said my mother regretted I had ever been born, and that was part of why she killed herself—because my mother could never have him, and because she could never love me, not when I’d only remind her of the man who broke her heart. It’s my fault she killed herself.”

  Ripping hell. Aster felt sick.

  “Violet, listen,” Aster said. “Whatever your mother did or didn’t do, it was never your fault. Never. You have to know that.”

  Violet blinked at Aster and just shook her head.

  “Mother Fleur must have just been saying those things to control you,” Aster went on. “To keep you loyal.”

  “Then it worked,” Violet said hollowly. “I didn’t want to believe her at first. Of course I didn’t. But then she told me—I remember her words exactly—she said, If it ever seemed like your mother loved you, it was only because she was very good at faking things she didn’t feel. As all Good Luck Girls must be. As I have been, ever since.”

  Sudden understanding hit Aster like a gut punch. “So … all this time, you thought that the letter…”

  “I don’t know, Aster!” Violet said, sounding frustrated now. “I tried not to t
hink about it at all. But, yes, deep down, I thought the letter would be some sort of confession of not loving me, of regretting that I was ever born. That she’d wanted to get it off her chest before crossing the Veil.” She folded the letter carefully and tucked it away. “You have to understand, I never would have left this with you if I didn’t honestly believe what my mother first told me, too: that it shows the way to find Lady Ghost. I wanted that much—needed that much—to be true. I just didn’t realize her directions would be hidden in our bedtime story.”

  Violet picked the knife back up and handed it to Aster, whose mind spun.

  Had Violet really been so certain that the letter would lead them to Lady Ghost, given the lies she’d believed about her mother? Aster studied her face. Violet looked utterly exhausted, unable even to find relief in this moment from all the pain that had come before it. And seeing her bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, Aster couldn’t bring herself to question Violet any further—maybe she had truly believed in Lady Ghost deep down, or maybe she’d just convinced herself to believe, because it was the only way she could make it through her grief. Aster would never know for sure, and in that moment she realized it didn’t even matter. Not anymore.

  “Anyway,” Violet said, heaving a sigh, “if you want to forget the whole thing and leave me here for the law, I won’t blame you. I’m as bad as Mother Fleur, lying to you all. And it’s not as if I have anything left to live for, anyway. My real mother’s still dead, after all.”

  “Violet, no. You’re coming with us. Mother Fleur is … she’s wicked, for what she did to you. And the brags are wicked, too, for all the pain they caused. But I’m damned if I’ll accept that wickedness is what it takes to survive this life. We’ve only made it this far because we trusted each other and looked out for each other. So that’s what we’re going to keep doing, hear?” Aster swallowed, realizing the words were as much for herself as they were for Violet. “As much as they’ve taken from us, they still haven’t taken that. We still have our humanity. And that’s more than they can say.”