Nameless

lay in a private hospital room, fed by tubes and monitored by beeping machines and crackling watch-charms, under a steady glow of healcharming, Trigger stood guard in a chair by my bedside. Stevens and Papa conferred in low tones. Once it became apparent I was feral, things became easier. A human magistrate was rousted, papers signed, and I’m sure money changed hands, as it always does in New Haven. By the time the sun rose, I was legally if not the property then at least under the protection of Enrico Vultusino, who left early that morning with Stevens and Chauncey. Trigger Vane stayed, and when I was brought to the house on the hill two weeks later, it was Trig who rode beside me in the big black car, staring out the window. I still had not spoken.

Whatever had happened to me before the alley I could not or would not remember, and I seemed to have forgotten how to talk—if I had ever learned. A hired psychologist came while I was in the hospital, a human woman with long blonde hair—and I cowered away from her into the bed, making a small whimpering sound.

I never saw her again.

The snow lasted two months, shrouding New Haven in white and making traffic difficult. But the snowplows and the drags ran night and day, and by the time winter raised its icy back higher and New Haven crouched submissive under its grip, I was safely in the house on the Hill, settled into my new life.

Papa named me Camille. It was his dead mortal wife’s name. And so I was rescued from the snow, on Mithrus Eve, by the man they called “the Vulture,” one of the living Seven of the Families.

PART I: A Princess

ONE

ST. JUNO’S WIDE GRANITE STEPS COULD CRACK YOUR head like an egg. Which was maybe why Cami always slowed down, dragging her glossy black maryjanes over the white and black linoleum squares, when they hit the wide, high-ceilinged main hall, minnows in a sea of girls set free for the afternoon.

And it was definitely why Ruby always sped up, tugging Cami’s arm, her candygloss lips going a mile a minute. Ellie ambled alongside, always gliding at the same clip. Lockers slammed, and the surf-roar of girlchatter was a comforting blur punctuated by squeals, catcalls, laughter, and groans.

In the middle, Ruby’s running narration, a bright thread as she batted her eyelashes, heavily mascara’d in defiance of both St. Juno’s archaic rules and her grandmother’s iron old-fashionedness. But everyone forgave her. “And so I thought, oh my God, if you’re going to do this you might as well do it right, and of course Hunt was there—”

You just had to forgive Ruby. She would cock her head and smile at you, the grin that lit up the world, and that was that. Cami’s long heavy braid swung; she tugged at her skirt with her free hand, getting it to fall right, and juggled her notebook. There were never enough hands for what you needed to get done at the end of a school day.

“Hunt’s always there,” Ellie threw in, tucking a bit of sleek blonde hair behind her ear. “And of course Thorne didn’t like it. You’d think they were best friends or something.”

Ruby tossed her auburn curls, tugging at Cami’s arm. “Who’s telling this story? Anyway. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

For what? But Cami grinned. Ruby was on her own clock, and it was at variance with the rest of the world more often than not.

She finished wedging her notebook safely into her bag and got the strap settled. As long as Ruby was on one side and Ellie on the other, she didn’t have to think about where she was going, and she didn’t have to talk. They would take care of it for her.

What else were friends for?

The hall was awash with white blouses, rounded turndown collars, the traditional ugly Juno blazers with their itchy blue wool and embroidered crests, the blue and green tartan skirts swinging. This autumn the white wool socks were all the way up to the knee, and little silver luckcharms were attached to maryjane buckles, chiming sometimes. They didn’t work inside, but you still had to wear them if you wanted to be in. Headbands were in, too—the thin ones, you could only find them in certain stores. Ruby, of course, knew exactly where. And Cami would make sure to buy far too many, and Ellie would later find them in her bag and might as well wear them because well, they were there, right?

That was the way the cookie crumbled, so to speak. The way it always had, the way it always would. Or if not always, then as long as the three of them lasted.

“So.” Ruby found her stride again. The doors were choked, as usual, but their last class of the day was High Charm Calculus, math and charm working together, and Ruby had declared that if she had to stay inside one more minute she would die. So instead of their usual stop at their lockers near the main stairwell to preen, they were heading for the front door when everyone else was, even the bobs and the ghoulgirls. “Hunt says, ‘I was here first’ and Thorne says, ‘It’s a free country’ and I say, ‘You two are soooo immature,’ and I ended up leaving with a guy from Berch Prep—”

“Who had sweaty hands,” Ellie mock-whispered. “They all do.”

“And a hip flask!” Ruby crowed triumphantly. “I didn’t get slammed, though. You’d be proud of me, Miss Stick-In-The-Mud.”

“Oh, she only got a little bit hazy.” Ellie’s eyeroll was a wonder of nature. “Why aren’t we skipping to get a charm to keep you from spawning?”

“Because, and this is what I’m trying to tell you, prepboy lost his starch.”

Breathless silence. Then Ellie and Cami both exploded into bright bird-laughter, and Ruby grinned, white teeth behind crimson-glossed lips.

“Get out!” Ellie crowed, and manhandled the door open. They tumbled out into rich golden fall sunshine, the sudden slice of a crisp breeze against bare knees, lifting Ellie’s sleek blonde hair and wringing hot water from Cami’s furiously-blinking eyes.

“Seriously!” Rube had the bit in her teeth now. Cami checked the stairs.

They were still there. Still granite, still with sharp edges, and still too steep.

St. Juno’s was a pure-human charmschool; it only took in girls with rich families and unTwisted Potential. The Family sent all their daughters to Martinfield, but Cami wasn’t pureblood. So it was St. Juno’s for her, along with the young girls of New Haven’s aristocracy of money, magic, and social standing.

The stairs were . . . troubling. Sometimes she thought the hedge of defenses that kept anything non-human or Twisted out of the buildings would smell the Family on her and rise, veils of flickering Potential ready to rip her into bits. And then there were the dreams, of stairs and a tall draped figure shimmering-pale.

Don’t think about that. The dreams didn’t belong in the daylight, so she just shivered. They left quietly, this time. “N-no w-way!” she managed, very carefully.

“Way!” Ruby almost wriggled with delight. “So things are looking good, right? Things are looking flat out great in the front seat of the Cimarro—did I tell you? He had a Cimarro, positively antique, cherry too.”

Considering Cimarros had been popular when Papa was a boy—there was a yellow one in the capacious Vultusino garage, lovingly tended by Chauncey—it gave new meaning to the word “antique.”

The first few steps went by in a rush, and Cami let out a half-whistle of relief. Ruby knew she hated the stairs, but she was always of the opinion that if you hated something, you just had to run right through it. Ellie was more of the sneak-up-and-hit-it-with-a-shovel persuasion.

Cami didn’t want to take the time to stammer through an explanation of her own philosophy, which was more “live to fight another day” than Charge of the Twist Brigade. But that was a Personal Choice, and her Personal Choices not to speak were okay, or so the speech therapist she’d seen for four years—before the woman’s Potential