Table of Contents
TO GATES:
Still holding the line.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the usual suspects: Mel Stirling, Christa Hickey, Maddy and Nicky, Miriam Kriss and Jessica Rothenberg. This is getting to be a habit...
I am lying in a narrow single bed in a room no bigger than a closet, in a tiny apartment. The pad of paper Ive been drawing on this trip is a collection of hard edges against my chest; I hug it harder. Outside the window, Brooklyn rumbles like a big sleeping beast. Its the traffic in the distance, speaking in its own tongueless grumble. Theyve come back from cleaning out a rat spirit infestation, and theyre bushed. Outside the cracked-open door I hear the clink of glasses, liquid being poured, and my father speaks again.
You have to, August. I cant leave her anywhere else, and Ive gotta
Augustine interrupts. Jesus Christ, Dwight, you know how dangerous this is. And shes just a kid. Why leave her with me?
I snuggle into the pillow. Its Augies pillow. He had made the bed up fresh for me, in the only bedroom in this crackerbox place. He and Dad thought I was asleep. I took a deep breath. It smelled like a place only a man cleans, frowsty and tainted with a breath of cigarette smoke.
The slam of a shot glass on the kitchen table. Dad was drinking Jim Beam, and if he was doing it in shots instead of sipping, it was going to be a long night. Augie stuck to vodka. Shes safer here than anywhere else. Ive got to do this. For... for reasons.
Elizabeth wouldnt
My ears perked up a little, drowsily. Dad never talked about Mom much. And apparently he wasnt going to tonight either.
Dont. Glass clinked againa bottle mouth against the shot glass. Dont you tell me what she would and wouldnt do. Shes dead, Dobroslaw. My little girl is all whats left. And shes gonna be here. I think that bastards up Canada way, and when I come back
What if you dont, Dwight? What if Im left with all this to deal with?
Then, Dad said softly, shell be the least of your worries. And youve got friends who know what to do.
Not any I can trust. August sounded morose. You have no idea what youre up against. I suppose it would take tying you up and sitting on you to stop you.
Youd have to kill me, Augie. Lets not push it, not with my little girl in there. Raw bald anger under the edges of the words. If Id been out there, I would have made myself scarce. When Dad sounded like that, it was best to just leave him alone. He never got violent, but the cold scaly quality of his silence when he was this pissed was never comfortable. Besides, this could be another wild-goose chase. The bastards slippery.
Dont we know it, August muttered. It wasnt a question. A month. Thats as long as I can hold off telling anyone, Anderson. And Im not doing it for you. That girl deserves to be with her own kind.
Another silence, and I could almost see Dads eyes turn pale. All the depth would drain out of the blue and hed look like hed been bleached. Im her own kind. Im her kin. I know whats best for her.
I wanted to get up, rub my eyes, and walk out into the kitchen. To demand to be told what they were talking around. But I was only a kid. What kid can get up and march out and demand to be told something? Besides, I didnt know half of what I know now.
I still dont know enough.
When I woke up in the morning, August greeted me with almost-burnt scrambled eggs, and by the look on his face I knew Dad was already gone. The kid I was just shrugged, knew hed be back, and decided that I was going to be doing the cooking from now on. The kid I was then knew everything would be okay.
The kid I am now knows better.
CHAPTER ONE
A long despairing howl split the night.
It could have been mistaken for a siren in the distance, I suppose, if you ignored the way it burrowed in past your ears and pulled on the meat inside your head with glass-splinter fingers. The cry was full of blood and hot meat and cold air. I sat bolt-upright, pushing the heavy velvet covers aside. My left wrist ached, but I shook it out and hopped out of bed.
I grabbed my sweater from the floor and yanked it over my head, glad I hadnt worn earrings in a dogs age. The floor was hardwood and cold against bare feet; I was across the room and almost ran into the door. Threw the locks with fumbling fingers. A blue-glass night-light gave just enough illumination to allow me to avoid stubbing my toes on unfamiliar furniture. I hadnt been here long enough to memorize anything.
I wasnt sure I would be, either. Not with the way everyone keeps trying to kill me.
Thin blue lines of warding sparked at the corner of my vision. Id warded the walls my first night here, and the hair-thin lines of crackling blue light ran together in complex knots, flashing just on the edge of visibility. I woke the rest of the way and cursed roundly at the door, the howl still ringing inside my skull.
Gran would be proud. I was warding without her rowan wand or a candle, and it was getting easier. Of course, the practice of doing it over and over again was probably responsible. I wasnt going to sleep anywhere without warding now. Hell, I probably wouldnt even sit down without warding a chair, if I could.
I wrenched the door open just as another bloodcurdling howl split the air and shook the hallway outside. Hinges groanedthe door was solid steel, four locks and a chain, two of the locks with no outside keyhole. There was a bar, too, but I hadnt dropped it in its brackets.
Id kind of guessed I wasnt going to be sleeping through the night without a fuss.
Light seared my eyes. I ran straight into Graves, who was fisting at his eyes as he stood in my door. We almost went down in a tangle of arms and legs. But his fingers closed around my right biceps, and he kept me upright, pointed me the right way down the hall, and gave me a push that got me going. His hair stuck up wildly, dyed-black curls with dark brown roots.
He was supposed to be down in the werwulfen dorms. His eyes flashed green, startling against the even caramel of his skin. He really rocked the ethnic look nowadays. Or maybe I was just seeing what had been there all along under his Goth Boy front.
We ran down the hall in weird tandem. My mothers locket bounced against my breastbone. I hit the fire door at the end. It banged against the wall, and we spilled down the uncarpeted stairs.
Thats the thing about the Schola Prima dorms, even the cushy wing where svetocha are supposed to sleep. Behind the scenes its concrete industrial, just like every other school. Just because I had my own room didnt make it any less, well, school-like.
And just because there was a whole wing for svetocha didnt mean that there were any more. Just me. And one other, but I hadnt seen her since the other Scholathe reform school someone had stashed me atwent down in flames.
Down two flights, a hard right, my shoulder banged into a door frame, but I just kept going. This hall wasnt even carpeted, so everything echoed, and the doors on either side had barred observation slits.
There wasnt a guard at his door. The whole hall shook as he threw himself against the walls and howled again.
