Kin (4 page)

“W
HAT
'
S
HE
LIKE
?” E
L
LIE
'
S
BREATHLESSNESS
WASN
'
T
about the news, of course. Rube got the idea she'd almost forgotten about today's Big Event, and it had taken a little while for Ellie to run to the phone. Which meant some uncomfortable small talk with Avery Fletcher while they waited for Ell to show up and release them both from torture.

It wasn't that she didn't
like
Fletcher, it was just that . . . well, he wasn't Ell. Or Cami.

He wasn't
safe
. No mere-human really was, but her friends were . . . safer. At least, she'd always thought so. The thought that she might not be safe for
them
was uncomfortable, and it kept circling nowadays, just like everything else.

“He's tall.” Ruby twisted the cord around her fingers. Her closet was small and stifling, but carrying the phone in there was such a habit she barely noticed anymore. It was dark, and color-coded outfits—she kept the closet door closed to hide its neatness—brushed her head. “Nice smile.”

“Okay. But what's he
like
?”

She could imagine Ell hopping with impatience, the phone to her ear and her pale hair a wind-rippled drift over her shoulder. It was almost white now, and some of the girls in summer school thought she bleached it. Ruby could have told them she didn't, that the color had been
drained
somehow . . . but why bother? Let them gossip. “He went straight to bed. Still sleeping. I don't know yet, but he seems . . . nice.”

The line crackled with a short silence. “I don't think I've ever heard you say that about a guy before.”

That's because most of them aren't.
“Well, Gran plans to marry me off to him, I might as well look for something to like.”

“Yeah, about that.” Ell's tone dropped, became worried and confidential. “Are you sure you're okay?”

Danger, kiddo.
If she drew Ruby into talking, Ell would figure out a few things, not the least of which that she was terrified. Really, Ell didn't need that kind of thing when she was settling into her nice new life with the Fletchers. Mithrus knew she deserved all the help she was getting now, just for suffering through the hell that had been her stepmother.

So Ruby put on the cheerful, careless voice again, familiar as an old coat. “Whoops, gotta go. I can't make our date today, got to show him around town. Tell Cami, will you?”

“Ruby—” Ell didn't give up easily.

“Maybe tomorrow. Ciao!” She hung up and shut her eyes. Comforting darkness, fabric softener and her own scent, familiar as that lying, cheerful voice. Conrad was in the spare room next door—had he heard her? Had Gran? God, this place was so
small
.

Gonna have to get used to it.
Collaring made the world even smaller. They were made in two parts, collar and key, and if you were good your keyholder would let you take the thing off for short periods. She'd seen collared kin before, the thin, liquid-silvery gleams cinched tight around their vulnerable baseform throats. Thin and nervous, with a haunted, faraway look, denied the shift and a kin's sensory acuity.

Would Gran actually, really do that to her?

If I disappointed her enough, maybe.

She used to be so
sure
. Petted and told she was the rootfamily's hope, Gran's heir and bright star, given primacy among all the cousins as a matter of course . . . and there was this looming thing in the distance that she hadn't really thought about as a kid. Hope depended on her marrying, spawning, and taking Gran's place.

Maybe she'd just had too good a time and now had to pay for it. Was that what
adulthood
really meant?

Nothing was certain anymore. First Cami had started acting odd and vanished into that nest of pale, dripping foulness under New Haven, then Ell had fled her stepmother and ended up with that fey thing, and neither of them were the same even though they'd been dragged back. There were shadows in dark corners, and Ruby was always saying the wrong thing.

Try not to be a selfish bitch
, Ell had flung at her, last school year.
I realize it's your default, but just try.

The worst thing, the thing that hurt the most? Ellie was right. If Ruby wasn't so selfish, she wouldn't be feeling this way. She'd be grateful for the clan, and it would be small potatoes to give back to it.
Clan is kin and kin is clan
, as the old saying went, and you were nothing without that net.

She should have been grateful. She should have been just
aching
to get her marriage settled, get through college, get knocked up and assure her place in the whole goddamn thing. You weren't a real Clanmother until you had at least one kid. You could be just a regular old Tante, but the clan would be adrift after you died until the Moon gifted one of the branches with a sign of Her favor.

“It's going to be fine,” she whispered to her clothes. She wanted for nothing. Gran's allowance for her was really comfortable, to say the least, and Ruby never even had to whine to get what she liked.

A cage with a nice lining was still a cage. Still, she owed Gran, didn't she? She owed
everyone
. Because the clan had birthed her, raised her, protected her—the list went on and on.

Clan. Like
adulthood
, it was one of those words that seemed cool when you were a kid, but then it shifted and ran around howling.

Movement elsewhere in the house. She strained her ears, listening. Footsteps too heavy to be Gran's, not as precise.

He was awake.

The padding footfalls paused outside her door. Ruby gapped her mouth, breathing silently. Would he think she was weird? Her door was solidly closed, but could he sense her in here? Nobody else hid in closets just to talk on the phone, did they?

He kept going. Down the hall, familiar squeaks and creaks odd now that someone new was making them. If she was a good kingirl she'd probably have been downstairs already, making breakfast. She'd probably already know how he liked his eggs, too. She'd be making him feel comfortable and doing all the boring hospitality stuff.

Did she want to impress him? Or did she want Gran to send him back to his clan and maybe pick someone else? Maybe even someone old enough to be her father.

She'd worked up the courage to ask Gran directly about her father only once, but the old woman simply pinched her mouth shut and shook her head, slightly. The way her steely eyes lightened was enough to warn Ruby off the subject for a good long while. Oncle Stephen had been buzzed at a barbecue later and told her that her father was
really
outclan, which was probably true. Stephen wouldn't say more, and none of the other kin could be induced to talk about it. Except for Gran once saying that he was outclan, and that Thorne or Hunter weren't close enough to give the bloodline problems.

If Hunter knew, he'd probably tell her; Thorne wouldn't be able to stop tormenting her about having a secret. It was more likely that even the branchkin just didn't talk about it.

Ruby eased out of the closet. Her room, with its new and unfamiliar neatness, closed around her. She hadn't even made her bed yet. As a delaying tactic, that kind of sucked, because it would only take three minutes.

Then she would have to go downstairs and make small talk.

She waited, listening, heard a formless murmur of conversation. Footsteps again. He was wearing shoes, sounded like boots. The front door swung open, then closed with a quiet, definitive thud.

Wait, what?

•  •  •

T
he kitchen was neat as a pin, the only marker of Conrad's presence a cereal bowl in the sink. He must have scarfed it pretty quickly, but probably with good manners, seeing as how Gran was at the kitchen table, frowning at a layout of playing cards. Kings, queens, jacks, and charmers, red and black and white, familiar glares on the slick much-handled surfaces. Her braid was perfectly in place, but there were shadows under her eyes. Her dragon-patterned housedress was almost long enough to conceal her embroidered slippers, and her back was ramrod-stiff as always.

“Good morning!” Ruby chirped. “Is he up yet?” As if she didn't know.

“He said he did not wish to intrude upon us this morning, and left to visit with kin.” Gran's mouth was a straight line while she finished a thought, the lines bracketing it deeply graven today. “He remarked that you might be . . . shy.”

For a second Ruby just stared, the words refusing to make sense. Then a laugh slid out sideways, hiccupping in the middle as she tried to pull it back. Gran's barely noticeable frown deepened.

Still, she couldn't help herself. “Well, at least he's polite.”

“You are not
shy
.” The old woman looked down at her cards. Sometimes charmers could see things in the patterns, though Ellie often sniffed and called such divination unscientific.

At least Gran was talking. Maybe she'd forgiven Ruby for the other day. “Not with people I know.” Nettled, Ruby swung the fridge open. “Or people I
want
to know. What do the cards say?”

“Not much.” Gran's strong, slim fingers moved quickly, brushing the laminated rectangles together into a neat stack. “Sometimes they are silent.”

She snagged the orange juice. His fingers had touched the milk carton. At least he didn't hang around and try to be awkward or funny with her in the morning. He was giving her a little space.

Maybe this whole thing was just as weird for him as it was for her. What if she didn't measure up? Sending someone back was one thing.

Being rejected was something else entirely.

Guess that makes me shallow.
For once, she didn't drink straight from the carton. She also wondered if he'd looked for the glasses, if he'd opened this cabinet or that one. If Gran had told him,
To the left of the sink, young man.

She took a deep breath. “Do you like him? Will he do?”

Gran eyed her for a long moment, as if Ruby had started shifting right in the middle of the kitchen. “Do?”

She kept an eye on pouring into her glass, pretending to be absorbed in the simple task. “Yeah, are his clan connections good enough? Will he negotiate passages and tariffs well? Do you think he'll be an asset?”

“Such questions.”

“Well, that's the whole point of this exercise, right?” She concentrated on pouring. “To further the clan. So, do you think he'll be an asset? He's got a twin brother, right?”
So there'll be even more of a bond there to ally us with the Grimtree, which will make intercity trade easier. Might shave a few points off tariffs.

“This is quite a change.” Did Gran actually sound
uncertain
? Nah, couldn't be. “Might I ask what brought it about?”

“If you don't like it, I can go back to being a brat.” She shrugged, and popped the fridge open again. “Seriously, though, you're right. I owe the clan everything. I could have died as an orphan for all I know. So if what it takes is me promising to marry this guy, okay.”

“You are no orphan.”

Did you adopt me? You never talk about it, and nobody else will either.
“Hey, when is he coming back? I should drive him around. Or should I go wherever he went? He's probably visiting the Ardelles first, you think? Didn't they have a Grimtree marry in?”

“I am surprised you remember.”

Ruby took a deep breath and tried again. “I remember
lots
of stuff. Anyway, yeah, there was a Grimtree girl who married in. Sonja. Car accident, when I was eight. Everyone cried, and you led the run through the Park.”

There had been gossip afterward, too. That Efraim Ardelle had threatened to collar Sonja, and that it hadn't been a car accident, but an escape attempt. She'd been heading for the province border, if the whispers were true.

Which was really interesting. Oncle Efraim was a lean, dry-eyed, hatchet-mouthed kin, and some whispered that he believed his nephew Peter should resurrect the old, old ways and share his mate with the head of his branch—at least, as long as they were childless.

Poor Sonja
, everyone said. And,
It's a good thing Tante Rosa isn't here to see this
. Tante Rosa, Efraim's mate, had passed on after a long, mysterious illness, and sometimes Ruby caught whispers about
that
, too. Rosa had been held to have certain relationships with the fey, and some of Efraim's hardness and lack of kinfeeling was blamed on that.

The end result of all that clan history brought up a new, uncomfortable line of thought. A handsome young Grimtree wasn't the worst that could happen. What if there was a way-older guy in another clan seeking alliance, one bitter-mouthed and stone-hard like Oncle Efraim? There might be overriding reasons to promise her in marriage to someone else.

There was always Hunter, and Thorne. It hadn't been until middle school that they started the rivalry dance. If all else failed, maybe she could take one of them? Since she had to put up with someone. Maybe Hunter. He was pretty easy to redirect, not like Thorne.

Thorne had
never
been easy. And if she was honest, she liked that he wasn't, even if she would probably pick Hunter just to make things . . . safer. Smoother. Less intense.

Gran sighed. Of all her sighs, this one was the most patient. “Sonja was . . . fragile.”

I know how you feel about weaklings.
“Everyone says she was nice. But seriously, should I go over to the Ardelles'? Or should I wait for him to come back? What's the etiquette? I know I should know, but I don't.”
At least I know not to ask him about dead kin. Awkward.