by Ellie Margot
“I don’t think anyone was thinking there was a dead body inside,” said Riette. “That’s a special feature of your broken brain.”
“I am a deluxe model.”
“From a discount bin?” asked Cassian.
Riette smiled at him. It was normal for a beat, before she remembered that they didn’t have a normal anymore. Not really.
“Let me lead,” said Guy, turning to face the others.
Riette took in his stance. He hadn’t shaken whatever demons he’d gathered on their travel there.
Days of silence from Cassian and noise from everyone else, herself not included, seemed to weigh on his shoulders.
“I think not,” said Mekhi.
“No, we’ll follow him,” said Riette. She looked at each member in turn. “He does have the most experience with new people.”
“That’s been working out well so far,” said Mekhi.
“We’re not dead, so I’d say so,” said Riette. She turned toward Guy. “After you.”
She shared a brief look with Cassian, but they didn’t say anything else.
Guy took each step deliberately as if the ground under his feet were threatening to give way. For all they knew, it was.
There were people though. Creatures. Like many places before, they were in the workings of a city or at least the street of one. It wasn’t yet dark. The sun wasn’t at full height in the sky, but the heat still kissed her back, her arms.
She had tanned on the journey, her skin warming to an even darker hue, and it made her think of her mother again.
Riette forced herself to be present. To feel the ground beneath her feet.
She headed up the back. Guy was lead. When he got to the top of the landing, the door opened before he could knock.
A man stood there. He was tall but wiry. Tattoos were burned on his arms. None of the markings were civilized. All were etched and angry, old and worn. His skin was wrinkled with a texture only time could give.
He had a beard worked through with white, but the parts not that way were ink black. Like night. The sky that had never had a sun.
There was a deep set to his mouth, the sides tilted in what looked like a permanent fashion, and his eyes were a watered tea mixed with gray.
He looked at each of them in turn, an assessment.
For threat, if Riette had to guess.
Her tattoo seared beneath her shirt. Her finger twitched, and Cassian reached back to touch her hand again. It was just like he used to do when she didn’t have control, when the fire was a second away and burning. It wasn’t the constant simmer she had now.
Riette pulled her hand back, not quickly, but she saw the man notice all the same.
From his position at the top of the porch, she knew he saw more than he should.
“Who is it?” asked a woman’s voice from behind her.
A hand touched his shoulder, moving this man aside, and Riette stopped. She took a step back.
The woman. She was the closest Riette had come to seeing her grandmother’s face.
“Hadn’t gotten that far yet,” said the man. His voice was a scratchy, broken thing.
“Come on inside,” she said. “We can’t make friends with you all on the steps. You’re letting out my air besides.” The woman turned and walked in.
Cassian turned to face Riette.
“I’m fine,” she said. She took the steps past him and walked past Mekhi and Corin.
Guy entered with her.
The inside was colored in reds, blacks, and browns. Much of the material was velvet, and the furniture all looked soft to the touch.
The woman stood at the bottom of a great set of stairs that would take one to the high level. From the outside, the building looked large enough to have four levels at the least, but inside, it was larger still.
“I’m Ella,” she said, a smile on her face as she did.
“We know,” said Riette.
“Do you now? And I feel at a disadvantage.”
“We heard this place was beautiful, but it’s something else,” said Guy, stepping slightly ahead of where Riette stood.
“I do all right,” said Ella. Her eyes didn’t leave Riette for long.
“You were friends with my grandmother,” Riette started. She watched Ella’s eyes narrow.
“I’ll be,” she said, and the smile left her face.
She found herself and reapplied the expression, but it fit her like a rush job, something she slapped on to hide the sins beneath.
A voice came from the top of the stairs. “Grandmother?”
The newcomer was a redhead. She had delicate skin, lightly touched with makeup to make her look in constant blush, if Riette had to guess.
She was wearing a red dress with a neckline that showed off all of her curves. Her hips were rounded, and her lips were full.
If they weren’t so fully a study in contrasts, Riette may have felt self-conscious.
But that wasn’t a lane Riette was willing to tolerate in herself from puberty onward, so she shoved that thought away.
“Trinity, we have new guests.”
“I see.”
“Well, don’t just stand there, girl,” Ella said, her arm beckoning. She turned back toward the group. “She’s far from shy. Foolish business that shit is. Being quiet when you have a voice? Nonsense.”
Trinity’s face looked pinched, and her face looked flushed, but she stilled it quickly and hid it well. Riette watched her face like a movie.
Trinity took the steps easily. Her hand touched the banister to guide her, and they waited like royalty was among them.
“There’s nothing wrong with being quiet,” said Guy. The smile on his face could have broken it in two. He stood taller, and Riette fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Trinity smirked, but then her brow was pinched before she righted herself again. “Oh, I’m not shy.” She moved to stand by Ella’s side, with the man of many moods on the other side of her grandmother.
“Recognize her?” Ella asked Trinity.
Trinity looked at Riette, considering, but a flash of irritation crossed her features. “Should I?”
“You were hardly even a girl. It’s a lot of me to ask.” Ella walked and quickly closed the distance to stand in front of Riette. She took her hands in her own.
“This girl is the granddaughter of Vern. I could see it the moment she walked in.”
“You could?” asked Riette.
“Of course. Vern was kin to me in just about every sense of the word. Her blood will always be like blood to me.”
“You’re close to my mother then too?” asked Riette.
Ella laughed, but it was a quiet noise, quickly gone from the room. She released her before saying, “I couldn’t say that with a straight face.”
Riette opened her mouth to say something, but Cassian beat her to it. “We traveled a long way to see you.”
Ella considered him. “Well, look at you.”
Cassian’s cheeks turned red.
“Oh, and that reaction? You all are too cute to be real. It’s written all over you. This one with her edges.” She touched Riette’s arm again, but this time, Riette tensed.
“And you,” she said, losing herself from Riette to stand in front of Cassian. She looked him over fully, toe to crown. “They would love that pretty-boy face of yours.”
“They being?” Mekhi asked.
“And that hair,” said Ella as she moved to stand in front of Mekhi and Corin. She reached up a hand, but Mekhi moved back.
Ella laughed. “Sorry, I forget myself. We have visitors all the time, but I’m acting like I was raised in a cage. If Vern could see me now.” She shook her head.
“We were actually looking for a room for the night. I know Riette is eager to speak with you and—”
“Of course. My house is yours. We have many rooms. A lot of them are currently occupied of course. It’s the season after all, but there isn’t a way in this world that I wouldn’t make room for her.” She turned back to
Riette and snapped her fingers. The noise cut the quiet of the room and seemed to bounce off of every wall. “What was your name, dear?”
Riette’s shoulders tensed, and she gritted her jaw, but she answered all the same. “Riette.”
“Ah, pretty thing. Like music.” Whatever had been on Ella’s face in that brief moment disappeared. The shining hostess returned.
She clapped her hands together. “Billy, show them upstairs, the two on the end. They’ve already been cleaned.” Facing the others, she continued. “You’re lucky actually. We just had people leave. It’s a rarity, you know? Open space here. Leaf Landing has a bit of prestige.”
“We heard, ma’am,” said Guy. “It’s something else.”
“No, you are, you sweet talker.”
Guy looked at Trinity before focusing back on Ella. “We’re all very grateful.”
“As you should be. I don’t make it my business to give things away for free, you know?” She snorted. “I couldn’t be in business long if I did that.”
Cassian moved closer to Riette, and his arm brushed her shoulder. The movement was a reminder to keep her steady, still, as if he could feel the current brewing within her.
Trinity focused in on the movement of his arm, and Riette watched her eyes travel over Cassian. They did a slow perusal.
She looked at Riette a second after, and color touched her cheeks at being caught. Trinity shrugged, though. A small smile graced her face.
Billy turned toward the stairs and took the first one before turning back toward the rest. “This way.”
“Dinner is in two hours’ time. Bathroom’s fully stocked. Trinity will give you the tour. It’s a passion of hers, you see.”
“Being a hostess?” asked Guy.
“Doing what she’s told,” said Ella, but she said it with pride coloring her voice, as if what she said couldn’t be taken any other way than as a compliment.
“Billy will show you all upstairs,” Trinity said, not directing anything toward her grandmother. She crossed her hands in front of her waist and kept her head at a slight tilt.
Riette started up behind Billy, and Cassian and the others went quickly behind her.
Riette looked back to see if everyone was accounted for, and she saw Guy on the bottom step, staring at Trinity even as the rest of his body faced forward.
“Guy?” Riette called. She could see that Ella had seen Guy’s infatuation as clearly as she did.
He turned quickly, looking up at her from where he stood. He smiled and rubbed a hand down his face.
“Shall we?”
“Just waiting on you.”
Chapter 6
Mekhi and Corin took their own room, leaving Guy with Cassian and Riette.
She didn’t fight it because honestly, as much as it pained part of her to say it, she needed to talk to the other two more than parts of her wanted to avoid Cassian altogether.
The room, like all of their others, had two beds, but the colors of the room were all in the family of crushed berries.
Riette took one bed, and she watched as Guy and Cassian stood there staring at the one bed that was left.
“You think we’d be used to sleeping together by now,” Guy said.
“The day I get used to that—”
“A man can dream.”
“You’re going to make him blush,” said Riette.
Cassian’s head snapped toward her direction. “If I were going to go a different way, there are far better options for me to consider.”
“But you have considered it,” said Guy. He turned to Riette. “You’re a witness. My prowess is not for just foxy ladies.”
“We don’t have enough room in here for your ego, our stuff, and the contents already in the room,” said Riette.
“Perhaps I should see if Trinity has space.”
“She’s not your type,” said Cassian.
“Don’t be jealous. And since when is a tall, Coke bottle plus extra loving—”
“Coke?”
“It’s a—No, I’m going to rectify that. This place has a bar.”
“How could you possibly know that this place has a bar already?” asked Cassian.
“It’s like a tingle behind my ears. I know this shit. Besides, Leaf Landing is not going to be the type of place that would let someone leave to get booze elsewhere.”
“I still don’t like this place,” said Cassian.
“That’s because you can feel it,” said Guy.
“Feel what?”
“You feel an itchiness under your skin?” Guy asked the two of them. “Tattoo burning? Bad fucking vibes of the highest order?”
Riette thought back to the way she felt on alert outside, the cutting and confusing oscillation of tones from Ella. She nodded.
“She’s a dealer,” Guy said. “I guaran-fucking-tee it. I almost hate to say that Trinity would be involved in something like that, but—”
“What’s a dealer?” asked Riette. She sat up straighter on the bed and shared a look with Cassian.
“She sells power. It’s like an aura painted on the walls. And she had a star on the windowsill. It was small but there.” Guy stopped at seeing the look on their faces. “Stars? What do they do?”
Cassian and Riette shared another look.
“No, no wonder-power conversations. Use your words.”
“They sparkle?” asked Riette. Her face warmed at her answer, though.
“They light up the night. People in need of power need a light. Places with stars are providers.”
“What the fuck?” asked Riette.
“This is bullshit,” said Cassian. He turned toward the door. “We’re leaving,”
Guy stood. “Now hold on. We still have business here.”
“Stop thinking with your dick, Guy,” said Cassian. “We can’t stay in some power station.”
“Cassian—” Riette started.
He looked at her, and then he made a noise in the back of his throat. He shook his head and rubbed a hand on the back on his neck.
“Unbelievable,” Riette thought she heard under his breath.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“What will make you stop? Anything? Death only?”
“Cassian—”
But he turned away and walked toward the door. When he made it there, his hand gripped the doorknob, but he didn’t open it. He rested his head on it instead.
“The book—”
“We don’t even know what the book is going to give us,” he said, still facing the door. “Is it worth us being drained over?”
“I would never let that happen.”
Cassian whipped around to face her. “That’s the problem. You don’t control the world or what happens in it.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yes, yourself. Not all of us.”
“You guys—” Guy started.
“I’m not going to put us at risk,” said Riette.
“Being here is the definition of risk,” said Cassian.
“I almost had myself forget, you know that?” asked Riette. “I told myself to get over it and just be normal with you.”
“Don’t.”
“I—”
“No, you don’t get to be right at this moment. Not when you’re asking us to stay here.”
“You can’t protect yourself from everything, Cassian.”
“But that doesn’t mean I go out of my way to put myself into danger.”
“Hey!” Guy said. “Listen for a fucking second. Just because she deals doesn’t mean this is some shady shit.”
Cassian gave a bitter laugh. “People give power willingly?”
Guy swallowed. “You’d be surprised what people will do willingly.”
They all stood there for a second. Riette felt her tattoo burn. Her hand itched, and she looked down to see a small circle of flames hovering. She cracked the bones of her wrist and willed the flames away.
In a second, they were gone, and she watched Cassian’s
chest rise and fall with each look he gave her.
Then there was a knock at the door. They all stilled. Cassian looked at her, gritted his jaw, and then turned to open it.
Trinity stood on the other side.
She smiled when she saw Cassian, but then when she caught the eyes of the others, her face changed. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Guy stood up and walked to the door to open it wider. “No worries. You’re not interrupting. Standard-issue conversation is all.”
He gestured to let her enter the room with a sweep of his hand. Cassian stepped back to let it happen, and Riette settled on the bed, moving until her back touched the headboard and her bag sat nestled beside her.
“I hope the room is okay,” said Trinity.
She looked around as if wondering where to sit. Riette watched it happen before moving her feet and gesturing to the spot they left.
Trinity sat on the edge of the bed where Riette had left a spot. She was perched as if any minute, she’d run away or be called to do so.
“Are all of your conversations this heated?” Trinity asked.
Riette and Cassian shared a look, but he broke the eye contact first, a scowl coloring his face.
“No, they’re normally a barrel of laughs,” Guy said. “This guy in particular.” He gestured his thumb in Cassian’s directly.
Trinity eyed him again. “I’m sure. He looks like the fun one.”
Riette snickered, and Cassian flared at her again.
“I just wanted to make sure you all were getting on okay. My grandmother wouldn’t want it any other way. She takes a lot of pride in this place.”
“And just what kind of place is this?” Riette asked.
“Riette!” Guy exclaimed.
“I’m allowed to ask.”
“Are you, though?”
Riette turned to Trinity. “Am I?”
Trinity shifted in her seat. The dress that she was wearing looked all the more formal in the small room. It looked like she was dressed to sing on a stage, not entertain three people she had never met before.
“You’re allowed to do anything you like, I assume.”
“Isn’t everyone?” asked Cassian.
“You’d think so,” Trinity said softly.
“You didn’t answer my question,” said Riette. She sat up farther on the bed and leaned closer to where Trinity was. Her hair fell against her knees, and she moved some of it out of her face.