Nameless

TWO

“RACK ’EM, KID.” NICO DRAGGED ON HIS GITANELLE. Smoke wreathed his head as if he was a perpetual- burning scarecrow; but a faust wouldn’t be out during the day. Besides, fausts and Family made each other very nervous. It used to be Family sport to hunt them, back in the days before the Reeve.

It probably still was, in some places.

Cami leaned over the table, made sure the rack was tight, and lifted the triangle off with a ceremonial flourish. The pool balls gleamed, each one a different jewel against worn green felt. Her job done, she retreated to the booth and dropped down and took a sip of expensive imported-through-the-Waste Coke. The only way through the Waste was sealed in a train; the iron in the tracks kept the blight, the random Twisting, and the nasty creatures that lived outside the order of the cities and kolkhozes mostly at bay. The collective farms were full of jacks and Twists, but someone had to grow the food, right? And you couldn’t farm the Waste without reclamation to drain off the blight and channel the wild magic into systematic forms.

Thinking about the Waste was always bad, too. Cami heaved a sigh, returned to the essay she was supposed to be outlining.

Lou’s was full—but then, it almost always was. A long low pool hall, the bar at the front a reef in a sea of cigarette smoke, its mirror a giant cloudy eye behind racks of bottles. The tables marched in orderly ranks, just enough space around them for the players. Older men with open collars and cigars, young whip-thin hungry men working on their shots, the cracks of good clean breaks and the serious murmur as money changed hands all familiar and soothing. Green glass shades hung from long cords, the electric bulbs over some tables blinking a little as the dampers wedded to the shades suppressed Potential. Not the free-floating stuff the entire world was soaking in, but the kind that would tell a ball to roll a certain way, or whisper some English-spin onto it.

Lou’s was straight gaming. Anyone caught charming, consciously or not, was thrown out. Cami had only seen that once or twice, and the thought still made her a little sick. All the yelling, and the blood.

You had to be careful with blood in a Family place.

The booths were empty. Nobody really sat there, but Cami had a favorite one near Nico’s usual table; it was kept dusted and ready. Whenever he was home from Hannibal, Nico played here, and Lou never made a peep about little sis bending over her homework while Vultusino’s son ran games. At least Nico didn’t play for money.

Well, not often.

And he didn’t tell Cami not to tell when he did, but he would often give her that considering look. Just one more secret for them to share.

My little consigliere, he used to call her, back when he was twelve. Not anymore, but she didn’t miss it. That was one job she could do without.

Cami tapped her pencil against her teeth. She should be at home typing this stupid essay, or even working on French or practicing the short list of safe charms to be mastered this year. Instead it was this stupid essay about the First Industrial Expansion, 1750–1850, machines and factories replacing cottage industry and cities turning into sooty hellholes.

Not like they were much different nowadays, but at least they were safer than the Waste. The Waste used to be just empty land, or small farms—country was the term they’d used back in the day.

Cami shifted again, uncomfortably. History was boring as shit.

Who cared about the Industrial Expansions now, for God’s sake? Especially after the Reeve (for maaaaaaa-gic Reeeeeee-volution, Ruby would say, rolling her eyes). Post-Reeve studies weren’t until next year, along with serious charmwork and the settling of Potential.

Even the Reeve wasn’t that interesting. It was just there, like fausts and Family and minotaurs, charms and griffs, and all those other things that had been hiding during the short Age of Iron.

They had been hiding only to burst out when the World War ended, 1918, the last Year of Blood. Something about the War—the blood, the trenches, the masses of death—shook everything loose, and when it all settled in 1920, the Reeve had exploded and everything was different. The Deprescence had hit, and the ones that didn’t die as the country turned to Waste ended up Twisted, the first jacks—Potential-mutated babies, horns and feathers and fur—were born, and even being rich wouldn’t save you from starving to death. Or worse, being eaten by something nasty.

The Family didn’t talk much about the Reeve or the Desprescence.

Population movement from rural to urban, she wrote, and circled it as Nico muttered something and the rack was cracked. His opponent, a weedy man in a shiny blue jacket with a toothbrush-thin fair moustache clinging to his thin upper lip, lit a cigarette. A puff of harsh smoke, not silky like the Gitanelles—he was smoking cheap, and Cami suspected the guy was new and thought Nico was a pigeon.

Oh well. He’ll find out. She hunched further down, pencil scraping. Effects on rural society. One, wages down. Two, breaking of social bonds. Three, the encroachment of the Waste and the Wild.

Ruby was great at bullshit essays. She was good at bullshit in general, but she had a special genius for packing an assignment full of enough vocab to dizzy one of Juno’s Mithraic Sister teachers. She joked that it was her Potential, as if the teachers weren’t full-settled, their own Potential respectable and staid, and immune to schoolgirl pranks.

Cami sighed, scratched at an itch on the side of her neck. She’d undone her braid, her hair fell over her shoulder. True black, deep black, sometimes with blue highlights under strong light. She didn’t look like Nico; the darkness in his hair was underlaid with red. She didn’t look like anyone, really.

Some days she didn’t mind. Today was one of them.

Her neck still itched, and she glanced up to find the guy with the toothbrush moustache looking at her.

She dropped her gaze, hurriedly.

“Pay attention to the game.” Nico sounded pleasant enough. Nobody else, maybe, would hear the danger in his tone.

“Ain’t she a bit young to be in here?” Moustache Man had a surprisingly deep, harsh voice for such a skinny guy. Cami restrained the urge to roll her eyes. The door thudded open and everyone paused, but it was just a man in a long tan overcoat headed for the bar. He slumped a little, shuffling as if he was tired. He couldn’t be visibly drunk, smoked, or Twisted, though, or Lou would send him right out.

“You gonna check her ID?” Nico’s laugh now definitely had an edge. He stalked around the side of the table, sighted, and sent the yellow and the red careening into separate holes with one shattering crack. “What are you, a cop?”

Oh, no. Cami very carefully kept her head down, as if she was studying intently. But her pencil had halted, and she had both of them in her peripheral vision.

Moustache Man laughed. “Hell no. Just wondering.”

“That’s my girl.” Nico sighted again, and sent the solid green thudding home. “Don’t wonder.”

My girl. A warm flush went through her. Nobody else would know what he meant by that, they could take it or leave it. Just like pretty much everything he said.

They settled into serious playing, and Cami relaxed a little. Maybe she could just put the damn thing down for a bit; it wasn’t due until next week. It wasn’t like she was going to fail, even if her Potential was invisible. Especially not with Papa making donations to St. Juno’s like he did. Still, she worried.

Having anything half-done nagged at her. She chewed at her lower lip while she scribbled, grateful that her fingers, at least, didn’t stutter.

“Hey.” Nico leaned over her, setting down his empty, red-streaked glass and reaching for a fresh ashtray. “Get me another one, huh?”

Not a good idea. “Y-y-you’re—”

“Driving. Yeah.” He nodded, a vertical line between his dark eyebrows. “Don’t worry. Get me another one.”

Fine. But if you get pulled over it’s not going to be pleasant. “K-kay.” Her stupid mouth wouldn’t work right. She blinked, the smoke suddenly stinging, and Nico squeezed her shoulder before turning away.