Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (5 page)

“He was p-p-p-
prot-tecting
me.” But she was saved from explaining further by Marya’s sudden flurry, her skirts swishing and her nut-brown face wrinkling against itself like she tasted something awful.

“If he not
take
you to horrible place, you not
need
protecting. Here, sit, sit, dinner. Growing girl needs good food.” She snapped a single word, and a pot on the stove ceased bubbling over and subsided. Fey lived and breathed Potential, and they didn’t Twist. They were just . . .
different
, and even with the low ones you had to be careful around their prickly notions of politeness—and their fickle, fluid notions of “truth.”

Marya was certainly the most stable fey Cami had ever met. Most of them had attention spans no longer than a hummingbird’s, and they flitter-fluttered around selling charms, or working at odds and ends for as long as the wind blew from a certain quarter.

On the other hand, anything outside Papa Vultusino’s walls did not interest Marya very much, if at all. Her concerns were immediate—the woodwork that needed waxing, the feeding of those in her domain, the scouring of the copper-bottom pots that hung, shining suns, in the russet-tiled kitchen. A brick hearth and a fire for pizzas and other things—
can’t cook without smoke
, Marya was fond of muttering—gave a comforting crackling; the gas range held bubbling pots, and the dishwasher chuckled. In the warm womb of the kitchen, Cami let Marya fuss over her, and by the time dinner was over she had almost forgotten about the wooden man.

But not quite.

T
HE NIGHTMARE WRAPS ITS FLABBY, TOO-LARGE
fingers around my entire body, and will not let me go.

The beautiful woman smelling of cloves and perfumed smoke, her golden hair a fountain of clean light, leans down. Her red lips are set in a slight smile, just the barest hint of amusement that will not wrinkle her soft white face. Winged eyebrows, high cheekbones, everything about her is so lovely. The heavy velvet of her indigo dress drags in the soft ankle-high dust. Her hands are broad and white and soft as well, oddly large for such a delicate frame, and her eyes are blue as summer sky. They are darkening, those lovely blue eyes, and when they are indigo to match her dress, it will be my time.

She whispers, as the frantic barking of the dogs grows nearer.
You are nobody. You are nothing.

I know it is true, but still, I struggle. She strokes my dirty face with those big cold soft hands, rings glinting on her fingers, and my head snaps aside. The rest of me is held down, throbbing with nips and crunches of pain from the last beating.

My teeth sink in. I worry at that hand like a rat with a bone, and she jerks back, shrieking with fury. The shape behind her is a man, and as I thrash against the handcuffs his expression twists. It is familiar, a lean dark face; he is in a leather jerkin and breeches, a collage of brown and green muted by the dimness of my cell.

Her shriek ends, and her contorted face smoothes itself. She hisses between her teeth, a long catlike sigh, as the silver medallion at her breast, its spot of bleeding crimson in the center, runs with diseased pale light.

This one’s heart is fiery
.

They leave, the cell door swinging shut, and I am alone. No, not alone. There is a strange lipless voice throbbing all through me, and my head feels funny from the smoke. Empty and too-big, as if I am in a place I cannot remember, not this small concrete cell. The voice always says the same thing.

You are nobody. You are nothing.

And I know it is true, but I pull against the handcuffs. I twist them back and forth, and I am making a sound like a bird’s thin cry, because my throat is crushed.

“Shhh.” Nico’s hand at her mouth. “It’s me.”

Cami sat bolt-upright, pale sheets and blankets caught to her chest, her sides heaving and sweat dewing her forehead.
Nightmare.
It was familiar, and she had felt it coming as she lay stiff as a poker, waiting to fall asleep.

The white bedroom was full of shifting shadow. The curtains were drawn over the huge bay windows, but the glimmer of the parchment walls, the creamy carpet, the pale wood and white-painted furniture made it brighter than night should be—only by a shade or two.

She let out a garbled sound, the high piping of a bird, and Nico’s hand eased. “Shhh,” he whispered, again. “It’s just a dream, I’m here.”

You are nobody. You are nothing
. “N-n-n-ni—” Even
his
name wouldn’t come.

“Cami.” He caught her hands. His skin was warm, solid, real. “Book.”

The same old charm. “B-b-book.”

“Candle.” He was kneeling on her bed, and she saw the mess his hair had become. How late was it?

“C-candle.” Her breathing evened out. Her heart still hammered, but it wouldn’t explode. She could tell, now, that it would calm down. If she just gave it a little time.

He smelled of cigarette smoke, copper, the tang of whiskey. So he’d been at the decanters again. “Nico,” he whispered.

“Nico,” she whispered back. Relaxed all at once, a loosened string.

“There it is.” He relaxed a little too, but stiffened when she moved to hug him. “Easy, babygirl.”

“What h-h-happened?” But she knew. The cuts on him would be closing, the weals healing themselves slowly. By morning he would be good as new, not even a scar left to mark the punishment.

Family healed fast. And it used to be that this sort of punishment made an impression on Nico.

Now, though . . . nothing much did.

“I deserve it. Move over.” He lowered himself gingerly, hissing as his bare back met the sheet. “Mithrus, move
over
.”

“I
am
.” Irritable now, she scooted, freeing the topsheet. She’d thrown her pillows somewhere, but he rescued them, and in a little while they were safe together, her head on his bare shoulder, her nightgown caught on his pajama-clad knee. She tried not to hug him too hard, but he tightened his arm and pulled her closer, only tensing a little as it hurt. “Why d-did y-y-you—?”
Why did you take me out? It’s like you wanted to get punished on your first night home.

“Shhh. Listen.”

She did. The wind was up, trees making an ocean noise, branches creaking, and the house’s corners whistling to themselves. How many nights had they spent like this?

She used to scream when the nightmares came. Now, not so much—but it was easier when he was there, warm and close and safe. Nobody had ever caught him—Papa had once or twice given her a penetrating look at the breakfast table, asking how she had slept, and Cami had blushed without knowing why.

I don’t like it
, Nico had said the first time he’d appeared in the darkness, whispering fiercely.
Tell me what it is. I’ll hurt it. I’ll
kill
it for you.

As if she could. The words wouldn’t come. The dreams faded as soon as she jolted into waking. There was only the feel of the soft, large hands, and the directionless voice in the darkness.

You are nobody. You are nothing
.

She shivered, and Nico rubbed his chin against her head. It scratched a little. In prep school he’d liked the stubbled look until she complained that it was scratchy and made him look dirty. The next day he’d shaved, and grumbled when he nicked himself. As if it didn’t heal immediately.

“Winter’s coming.” He let out a sigh. “Go to sleep.”

The heat all through her was different now. She’d noticed it before, her hands shaking a little and her heart in her throat, a pleasant excitement like when he drove too fast. A curious safety, but the nervousness in her itching all over, and she couldn’t figure out why. “How b-bad d-d-does it h-hurt?”

He made a slight movement, as if tossing away the question. “Not bad.” But his voice broke, and he lay stiff and unbending while the tears trickled down his temples and vanished into their hair—his and hers, mingled together on the white pillow. When they were done he relaxed, slowly, bit by bit. Cami fell asleep after his breathing evened out, and as usual, he kept the bad dreams away.

And, as usual, when she woke up in the morning there was only the dent on the pillow next to hers, and a deep tingling on her cheek, as if he had kissed it before ghosting out her door.

T
HE POOL, A LAZY BLUE EYE, THREW BACK
uncharacteristically
fierce autumn sunlight with a vengeance. Cami drew her knees up under the umbrella’s shade; Ruby, applying crimson lacquer to her nails, made a clicking sound with her tongue. “It’s just
sunshine
, it’s not going to
kill
you.”

“CANNONBALL!” Thorne yelled, barreling past them, a lean brown streak with a shock of wheat-gold hair and orange trunks. Hunter was right after him, dark-haired and sleek in bright yellow. They hit the water with a shattering double splash, and Ruby made a little
eww
sound and leaned back.

“J-just water.” Cami settled back in the chair, adjusting her sunglasses a little. “N-not g-gonna—”

Ruby pointed with the nail brush. “You just watch yourself, missy.”

Cami pursed her lips and made a raspberry, and shared laughter rose.

You didn’t get leftover summer like this in New Haven very often, but when you did it was to be seized with both hands. Which explained why Marya had been chattered into providing notes for the three girls; Thorne and Hunter—Woodsdowne cousins, and warring for Ruby’s attention, like always—were on their own for track-covering. But Marya had long ago become adept at counterfeiting parental scrawls on St. Juno-charmed paper, and Papa turned a blind eye as long as Cami didn’t skip more than once a month.

I was young once too
, Papa had said long ago, patting Cami on the head.
Be reasonable, eh, bambina?

He never let Nico skip, though. The Vultusino-in-waiting couldn’t afford to.

Ellie emerged from the changing room in a bright blue bikini that hugged her lovingly. The bruises on her arms were fading and yellowgreen, and the one on her thigh wasn’t bad.

Ruby whistled. “Look at that. Fits you like a chaaaarm!” She giggled as Thorne heaved himself up out of the pool, shaking his head, bright droplets splashing. He went right back in with another gigantic splash, graceful as an otter.

“I am not even gonna
ask
why you have a bikini in my size,” Ellie said darkly, settling on the lounge chair next to Cami’s shade.

Because I know what the Strep does to all your clothes, and then she tells your dad you did it. And you get it from both sides, so this is just easier, right?
“G-good.” Cami snagged the cocoanut-oil sunscreen. She passed it over, pulling her hand back quickly.

“White girl thinks she’ll explode if she catches a ray or two.” Ruby’s eyeroll was so pronounced you could hear its mutter in the mountains.

“She just wants to avoid skin cancer.” Ellie began the process of slathering on sunscreen. “As do we all. What time is it?”

Red sighed again. “Not even
eleven
, worrywart. Chill. The Strep won’t find out.”

“She knows things,” Ellie muttered darkly. Of course, the Strep was a charmer strong enough to have a Sigil of her own—the two high-heeled shoes, a symbol of her work and talent. She was the best couturier in New Haven, and her work was sent overWaste, too. No doubt Ellie’s dad, reeling from the loss of his first wife, had thought the Strep quite a catch.

Even Ellie had been cautiously happy to have a mom again. Until the Strep showed her true colors, that was. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t Twisted yet, she was so full of spiteful rage directed right at Ellie.

Rube snorted. “What, like how to be the biggest bitch in Haven County? Gran could eat her for lunch.”

Ruby’s Gran lived in a tiny cottage in the Woodsdowne area, full of the smell of baking good things, the scorch of an active charmer at work, and pretty small for a woman who controlled a good chunk of the import traffic through the Waste or the port. The de Varres were an old clan, almost as old as the Family and allied to the Seven in New Haven.

In some other provinces, though, Ruby and Nico wouldn’t just snarl at each other. There might have been actual blood. But here in New Haven, a treaty held, and Gran’s house was the closest to absolute safety you could find outside a Family home.

At least, if she liked you.

Ellie’s laugh was laced with hard bright bitterness. “I wish she would. But that would poison your dear sweet Grannie.”

“Good luck.” Ruby critically examined her pinkie, drew another stripe of polish down it. “Hel-
lo
. What’s that?”

Cami glanced up. Across the pool, something moved in the greenery. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears for a moment, and she hugged her knees even tighter. “N-new g-garden b-b-boy.” The head groundskeeper had just hired four more since some of the old ones were off to college; Trig and the security team had cleared the applicants and Marya had given her approval. They were like all the rest—silent plain-normal humans, young men without any Twist to them, low Potential and low prospects too, probably from the fringes of New Haven’s crumbling inner core where the minotaurs walked, the dead-eyed hapsters hawked their drugs and gave the Family a percentage, and the gunfire echoed. Working for the Families was one way to get out and away from the coreblight—and Papa Vultusino gave college scholarships in return for loyalty and discretion.

Some of the other Seven weren’t so kind. But the boys from the fringes kept coming. They didn’t have many other chances.

This particular garden boy was tall and lanky, with messy coal-black hair. He kept it shaken down over his eyes, and something about him made Cami uneasy. If she said anything, he’d be sent back to the core; once, there had been an under-groundskeeper who had told her she was such a
pretty
girl while he tried to touch her scarred left arm. She’d flinched just as Nico came around the corner to call her for lunch.

That had been awful.

“Nice shoulders.” Ruby capped the polish, deftly. “Cami, dearie, I could get accustomed to this summer stuff.”

Cami silently agreed. Even if she hated the naked way her scars flushed in this kind of weather.

“Too bad tomorrow’s going to rain.” Ellie finished her anointing and wiggled her toes, luxuriously. The garden boy started trimming something on the far side of the pool, while Thorne and Hunter did their best to duck each other. They must have been hoping Ruby was watching.

Cami relaxed a little. It was just the right temperature under the umbrella, a breeze redolent of mown grass and autumn spice moving over her. Her one-piece cream swimsuit and the matching sari-skirt covered up just about everything. There were the dimpled burn scars on her arms, and there were her wrists. But if she stayed out of the sun they wouldn’t show much, and the long thin white marks from cuts didn’t show too badly anyway.

Nobody ever said anything about it. Nobody but Nico did, anyway. And he only wanted to know if they hurt anymore. Or if she remembered anything before being found in the snow.

He didn’t like things he couldn’t fix.

“God
damn
it.” Ruby sighed. “Can’t you ever be wrong about the goddamn weather?”

Ellie shrugged, picking up a thick battered copy of
Sigmindson’s Charms
. She’d tested ultra-high on Potential. It was a good thing—it kept the Strep from being
too
awful, because of the risk of Twisting Ellie with hate and rage. But still. “Wish I could, Rube. It would be nice.”

“Lottery numbers,” Ruby muttered darkly. “Minotaur races. Even something at the Avalon Casino.”

“Improper use of Potential.” Ellie began flipping. The conversation was so familiar, they could have had it in their sleep. Cami watched the new garden boy trimming, his shoulders broad-muscled under a white T-shirt. He moved a little oddly, but she couldn’t figure out just how. “The risk of Twist increases with each—”

“—use of unsanctioned or unsafe charm,” Ruby finished. “Being responsible is so
boring
.”

“Being responsible doesn’t bite you in the ass like being irresponsible does.” There it was, Ellie’s Words To Live By boiled down to a single sentence.

“What if you like your ass bitten?” Ruby arched her eyebrows, her oiled skin brushed with gold.

“Hey, what?” Hunter heaved himself up on the edge of the pool, water-jewels on his skin sparkling in bright sunshine. “I can help with that.”

Right on cue. Cami suppressed a sigh. Rube seemed genuinely oblivious to the way the two cousins kept showing off for her.

“Ha.” Ruby waved a languid crimson-tipped hand. “Ask Thorne. I hear he likes that sort of thing.”

“What are you getting me into?” Thorne rose from the pool, sleek and lean. Cami looked away. “You guys are in
swimsuits
. Why don’t you ever
swim
?”

“Maybe because you’re all spazzy and scare them,” Hunter sniffed, and it was on. Thorne grabbed him and they thrashed in a roil of brown limbs and crystalline water. The garden boy moved to another shrub.

It didn’t look like they needed trimming, but what did she know about bushes? His hair was really black, with odd undertones. Blue glimmers, like hers. You didn’t see that color a lot.

“You’re staring,” Ruby mock-whispered, not opening her eyes. “Are you actually showing interest in something male? Other than you-know-who?”

Cami dropped her face into her skirt-covered knees. Her cheeks burned.

“You
are
. Wow.” Ruby sounded genuinely amazed. “Is he cute?”

“Can’t tell at this distance.” Ellie continued flipping through the charm-book. “Oh, look. Here’s one to save someone from drowning.”

Ruby’s aggravation was a long, drawn-out sigh, rippling the air with a ruffle of Potential. “Oh, Mithrus.”

“I’m just being
cautious
.”

“You are not going to die by drowning, Ell. Not while I still find you amusing.”

“Your arrogance is almost as large as your ass.”

“Come closer and say that, my dearest.” Ruby chuckled, a low throaty sound. “Cami, you can
look
, you know. It’s actually a good sign if you do. Remember Puberty Ed?”

Cami almost flinched. Now
that
had been uncomfortable. Sister Eunice Grace-Atoning was the oldest, dottiest teacher at Juno, and listening to her mumbling explanations of how to keep from getting pregnant or diseased—or worse—in a classroom full of blushing, giggling girls while outside spring sunshine drenched the world with gold . . . if there was anything more deadly boring and stupid, she hadn’t come across it yet.

Ruby had, quickly and frankly, told Cami everything she needed to know in sixth grade, during one of their many sleepovers. The blush had been hot enough to still feel—
they do
what
? Ewww, gross.

Shhh!
Ruby had looked very serious.
They say you can catch Twisting that way too, so you’ve got to be careful.

I’m
never
doing that.

Gran says
, Ruby had nodded sharply, in unconscious imitation of Gran de Varre,
some day you might change your mind, so it’s best to be prepared.

“Leave her
alone
.” Ellie sighed dramatically. “Thorne! Go see if you can talk Marya into getting us some beers!”

Cami peeked up from her knees. The garden boy had stopped, his handheld clippers paused. The scissor blades gleamed in the sun, and sweat darkened his white shirt. He had lifted his chin, and he stared back at her.

“He’s looking.” Ruby whispered for real this time. “I can tell he’s looking. Cami, are you looking?”

“N-n-no.” But she was. The heat was all through her, a rose stain like some of the windows in the long shaded hall near the library where all the paintings hung, and the scars would all turn white against that flush. It felt as if she was near Nico, charm-voltage all through her, and she shifted uncomfortably.

“You’re
lying
. How soon they grow up.” Archly amused, Ruby snuggled down on her lounger. It had to be her russet-golden length the garden boy was staring at. “
Thorne!
Fetch us some booze, we’re thirsty!”

“I’ll get—” Hunter was half out of the pool already. Thorne tackled him. Par for the course. As if being the first to bring Ruby a beer would make her settle, once and for all, on one of them.

“Oh, Lord.” Ellie sighed again.

“I’ll g-g-get it.” Cami was up off her lounger in a heartbeat, and she retreated from the sunny poolside. Marya would scold, but she could be persuaded to part with some honeywine coolers—the fey had funny ideas about alcohol. Ruby would bitch, of course, but the list of things Ruby would bitch at was so long there was no point in letting it run your life.

Past the changing-house, down a leaf-shaded pathway, the slate pavers gritty and warm underfoot, she was almost clear when she heard a rustle.

It was the garden boy. He must have cut around the back of the changing-house, even though it was a tangle of thorny-wild rosebushes. Cami flinched, stared at the pavers, and hunched her shoulders.

“Hey.”

He was actually
speaking to her
. Mithrus, what was she supposed to
do
? She pulled further into herself, hunching more, and he’d somehow stepped right in her path.

“Hey,” he repeated, very low. Confidentially. “Princess girl. Can I talk to you?”

Oh, God
. She weighed her options. Walking through him was one, but he might try to touch her. Retreating was a better option, but then Ruby would ask her what the hell and Ellie would probably guess what had happened and sooner or later Nico would find out—

Caught between several unappetizing alternatives, she had a wild idea of diving into the rosebushes pressing against the side of the path and the changing-house. There was no good reason for him to be talking to her, and if someone found out there would be trouble. Not just trouble but Trouble, underlined and in neon.

“
Shit
,” he muttered, just as Thorne and Hunter bailed around the corner.

“Hey, Cami, take us with you!” Bursting with energy and a haze of warm water, they splattered up to her, Thorne halting and shaking his head. Cami flinched from the spray of droplets, and the garden boy had vanished.

It wasn’t until later, pleasantly buzzed on honeywine and watching as Ruby leveled herself effortlessly into a clean skimming dive, that she realized she was almost disappointed about that.