Nameless

Where was Ruby now?

Tor’s grin lost some of its hurtfulness. He stripped his hair back from his face with stiff fingers, and for a moment he looked almost . . . vulnerable. “Yeah, a jack’s a powder keg. I know. So, you want to look for your friend? Or should I take you home?”

Well, wasn’t he just taking charge of everything. Cami shrugged, dropped his wrist and took another pull off the limon. “I d-d-don’t want t-t-trouble.”

“That’s a shame.” He cocked his head, tossing the leftover strawberry juice at a chained, dozing trashulk, hunched pluglike on a patch of verdant charmgrass in the midst of concrete and metal. The hunched gray green lichen-starred bulk snapped, catching the cup out of the air and munching, the collar at its throat flushing dull-red with pleasure. Its almost-snarl, vibrating just below the surface of the audible, sent a shiver up Cami’s spine.

Or maybe it was the way Tor was looking at her. Serious and intent, his eyebrows coming together and his mouth relaxed. “Seems to me you could use a little trouble. The right kind, I mean.”

Did he really just say that? Heat rose up her neck, as if she was the jack’s sizzling grill. “R-r-right k-kind?” As in, is there a right kind of trouble?

Oh, my God, I’m actually flirting. Ruby would be thrilled.

The thought of Ruby jolted her, and she looked around again. The crowd had thickened for lunchtime. The sun was high enough to pierce the lowering gray that was autumn sky in New Haven, but it looked like rain soon.

“Yeah.” Tor’s smile was like sunrise, all the anger gone. His teeth were very white. “Maybe not today. And I can understand, if you don’t want to be seen with me. You’re Family, right?”

Not really. She contented herself with a shrug. He kept changing on her, she couldn’t keep up. “I th-think I sh-should—”

“There you are!” Ruby chirped, her lacquered nails digging into Cami’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

When Cami turned back, he had vanished into the crowd. Just evaporated, and good luck getting Rube to slow down enough for Cami to explain. So she just held the sweating-cold bottle of limon to her hot-throbbing forehead while Ruby, glowing with excitement, scolded her and dragged her along, telling her all about this fabulous shop where they could get earrings and hair ribbons nobody else had, and Ellie was just going to expire of joy.

NINE

THAT FRIDAY NIGHT SHE TYPED OUT THE STORY, hesitated, and punched the send key.

There was a long pause, and Cami was seriously considering chewing her nails as she watched the Babbage’s flat glowing screen. Rain fingered the window, heavier than a mist but not heavy enough to be a downpour. The Dead Harvest was probably going to be cold and wet this year. All the costumed revelers would be buying turnaside charms to keep dry, and even the lure of free candy and tiny cheap flash-loud charmpoppers dropped into bags like party favors wouldn’t bring so many of them to the door to scream their traditional Trick’s-treating!

On the other hand, the house parties would be spectacular this year. If Nico was home still, he might even drive her to a few. She would go as the Moon, of course, just like every year. The costume was simple, it covered everything, and even had a veil. Maybe Nico would go as Hellequin again, prodding sinners and Twists toward the underworld as fausts leapt to obey his every bidding. Last year he’d been Gaston Wolfhunter, complete with ax and staff, and it had been a job keeping Ruby distracted enough not to snap at him. He hadn’t made it easier by poking at her while driving between parties, and Rube had announced flatly that she would never be in a car with Nico Vultusino again.

Cami heaved a sigh. The white room sighed around her too, smelling of beeswax and lemon polish.

Finally the cursor blinked, and the BlueEllen is typing message showed up, faint and sparkling. They were supposed to be babchatting about Calc homework, but Cami had hijacked the conversation, for once.

At least Ellie let her get it all out, and fingers on keyboards didn’t stutter. One of these days someone was going to figure out how to shrink a Babbage so Cami could stick it in her pocket and have it talk for her.

Wouldn’t that be a dream. Of course, they’d have to discover how to ground it so a stray burst of Potential didn’t fry everything. Once they did that, electronics were going to get a lot better. If the Great Tesla hadn’t Twisted in 1919 when the Reeve hit, maybe he would have figured it out. There were legends of him heading into the Waste instead of waiting to be hunted down as a Twist, and the blue Potential-lightning out in the dangerous wilderness was called Tesla’s Folly.

Ellie finished typing.

BlueEllen: So you’re going to see him again, right?

CV528491: I dunno. Should I?

BlueEllen: Was he cute?

CV528491: I guess.

BlueEllen: What EXACTLY did he say?

CV528491: He asked me if I wanted the right kind of trouble.

BlueEllen: THEN HELL YES.

Well, that was as unequivocal as it got. Especially from Ellie.

CV528491: I dunno. What did you get for #4?

BlueEllen: Do NOT change the subject. When you gonna see him?

CV528491: He works here. I guess he’ll be around.

BlueEllen: You need a plan.

CV528491: I have a million plans. Unfortunately none of them are applicable.

BlueEllen: I can bring a quart of charmsauce and a couple grenades.

CV528491: You have grenades?

BlueEllen: I could always use one of the Strep’s tantrum tampons.

Cami grinned. “Tantrum tampon” had been one of the few times she hadn’t stuttered, and it had made Ellie laugh instead of crying. There weren’t many jokes just the two of them shared, without Ruby being in on it . . . but that was one of them. And she had hugged Ellie so tightly that evening, the first time the Strep went all jack-mad on her.