Nameless

She dropped her gaze, suddenly acutely aware that he was in a battered, scuffed tan leather jacket and jeans that probably did nothing against the cold. Aware as well of her black wool-and-cashmere coat just long enough to cover her skirt, a gift from Papa at Dead Harvest last year, and her expensive silver-buckled maryjanes. She edged for the gate, and he watched her.

“I’m not gonna bite you.” Now he sounded . . . what? Desperate? Angry, like Nico.

They’re not even remotely alike.

Then why did she think of them together? And why was she blushing, uncomfortable heat prickling at her throat?

“I kn-kn-know.” The words surprised her. She stepped over the threshold and the gate stopped quivering. “S-sorry.”

The snow was a blanket. Bare branches reached up, the driveway ribboning between their grasping hands. Hummocks and hillocks where there used to be gardens, a deceptive layer of white blurring everything. Waiting to catch an unwary foot, just like her goddamn tongue waited to trap the simplest words.

“You’re not like them.” His boots ground against the driveway, scraped free of ice and snow and sealed with charms. Had he maybe charmed part of it, too? She didn’t see Potential on him, but then again, hers was invisible too.

At least for now, and maybe once it settled too. You couldn’t ever tell with Potential.

What does he mean, not like them? Family? Of course I’m not. She shrugged, tucking her school scarf a little tighter and setting off for the house. Ruby could have taken her up to the door, but she’d been letting her off outside the gate instead. Cami didn’t blame her. Of course Rube was pissed when Cami said no, not today. Because Cami could always be relied on to give in and go with. It was her job.

“Hey. Look, I’m always saying the wrong thing to you.” He caught up with her. The gate screeched a little as it swung to, steel jaws closing gently. “I don’t know what to do. Help me out a little here, huh?”

Oh, man. Here it comes. She swung to a stop and faced him, her heel digging into a patch of odd charming on the concrete, scraping roughly and striking a single colorless spark. A long strand of hair fell in her face, working its way free from the cap Marya had knitted her. “What.” The word came out whole and hard, on a puff of frost-laced breath. “Do you. Want?”

“Bingo.” His smile was instant, and it looked genuine. His nose was raw-red from the cold, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunching his muscle-broad shoulders. “Hi. I’m Tor.”

I know that, do I look subnormal? “I know.”

“And you’re Cami. You’re beautiful, and you don’t talk because you’re nervous. So people end up talking to you a lot, because you listen. And because they want things out of you.” He dug one toe into the pavement, stopped. Tilted his dark head. Snowflakes stuck to his hair, some melting. He was crowned with winter.

Well, don’t you get a prize. Irritation stung her, but she kept her mouth shut. Instead, she just nodded. The wind grabbed at her knees, sinking into unprotected flesh—the cashmere was barely longer than her skirt, and the knee socks were pure wool but didn’t help as much as they could. She spared another nod, and started taking mental bets about what game he was playing. Would he want money? A date? Something to do with Nico, maybe—more than a garden boy’s scholarship?

If I went to public school, would Nico ever look at me? Or would I be invisible to him, like the maids?

More and more these days, Cami was wondering about that.

“I want to talk to you. And hear you talk, too.” His shoulders hunched even further. “I want to hang out sometime, maybe. If you can stand to be seen with a poor kid. That’s it.”

That’s never it. Her mouth opened. “That’s n-never it.” And maybe I was a poor kid too. There was no way for him to know that, really, but it still bugged her. People always had all these thoughts. Assumptions. And her stupid tongue would never let her make them see, even if she felt like doing so.

A shrug and a wry expression, as if he understood. His nose was red from the cold and their words were clouds, hanging uneasily between them as if on singing wires. “Yeah, well, you can get me fired. You’ve got all the power here. I’m not even supposed to look at you. I know that.”

Chip on your shoulder much? But she knew what he meant. She hitched the bag strap higher. A cup of hot chocolate and one of Marya’s scones sounded really good right about now, and there was double HC Calc homework. Plus there was Ruby’s French to get in before it was Babchat-time. “Why?” Why me?

“Because you’re not like them.” Patiently, but not as if she was an idiot. “I dunno. I just . . . it’s stupid. Fine. Never mind.” He took two steps back, then shook his dark head, dislodging little crystals of snow. Had he been waiting for her? Out here in the cold?

Maybe not. But she could ask.

“D-d-d-do you w-walk here?”

Tor actually blinked, as if she’d said something extraordinary. Another head-tilt, and those eyes of his were really black, she decided. Not just too dark to tell, not just a deep brown. Black.

Was it a Twist? But Marya was thorough and careful. Fey could smell Twists, and didn’t like them. Some said it was because they were unpredictable, like the fey themselves. Marya was predictable, really, but she was a hearth-fey. Her world was the kitchen, her universe pretty much bounded by the house walls. Even Cami was only worth noticing because she belonged to the house.

“The bus drops me off on Hammer. Then I walk.” He paused. “It’s not bad.”

“Aren’t y-you af-f-fraid?” Maybe boys didn’t have to worry so much.

“Why? This is a good neighborhood. It’s not Simmerside. Or the core.”

Simmerside. Where the Twists lived next to the normal too poor to live anywhere else. Where the sirens and gunfire spilled out of the core and into the waking world. “The c-c-core?”

“No, I haven’t been there, you think I’m crazy? I’m a Simmerside kid, Joringel Street Orphanage. So out here, nothing much to be afraid of. Plus, those wackos kidnapping kids mostly go for girls. See? We’re talking.”

Kind of. But she nodded. She’d heard of Joringel; another branch of the Mithraic Order used to run it before there was some scandal and the city had taken over administration some ten years ago. It was still a bad place to grow up.

Would she have ended up there?

“It’s not so rough, right? You look like you could use a friend. Or at least someone to talk to.”

And you’re going to fill that gap, right? Riiiight. “I h-h-have f-friends.”

“Yeah, ones that leave you on Southking alone. Or who don’t even wait for you to get inside your gates.” He made a dismissive gesture, his hand chopping down. A healing scrape across his knuckles was vivid red, the skin a little chapped.

“D-d-do y-you have f-f-f-friends?” At least he waited for her to get all the words out, and didn’t act like waiting was a big deal.

“No.” Quiet and very definite, like he’d thought about it. A lot. He unzipped his jacket, and she almost took a step back. When he lifted up his T-shirt—how was he out here in just that, without shivering too hard to speak?—Cami actually did step back.

Welts and burns crisscrossed his torso, most of them scars and a few still ugly-colored, as if his skin hadn’t forgotten them yet. A wave of nausea pushed hot bile up to the back of her throat.

She knew those scars.

“No,” he repeated. Not angrily. He pulled his shirt back down, zipped his jacket up. “Now you know about me. I’m angry, and I’m mean, and I’m halfway to Twisted, rich girl. I’m not gonna lie. Come on. Your nose is red.”

He turned, and set off down the black streak of the driveway. Snow whirled down, and Cami finally made her voice work.

“Wh-wh-who d-d-d-did—”

That brought a scowl, and he was suddenly familiar. “Don’t know. Had ’em when I got to Joringel. Come