Nameless

“Camille.” A faint smile, her parchment skin barely wrinkling. “Come in.”

She really does have very sharp teeth, Cami thought, and stepped over the threshold. The limousine dropped into gear out on the street, and Chauncey pulled away.

Inside, it smelled of hot griddle and blackcurrant jam, frying eggs and bacon. “I’m making breakfast,” Gran said briskly, taking Cami’s coat and stowing it in the cedar-scented closet, just like usual. She never seemed surprised or ruffled, which was probably a blessing since she had to deal with Ruby all the time. “You like them scrambled, I recall. Ruby will be down as soon as I make coffee.”

“Th-th-thank y-y-y—”

“Oh, don’t,” the Wolfmother of Woodsdowne said, her faint steely smile widening a trifle. “Nobody has good news this morning, my dear. I can smell as much on the wind. Come and eat.”

It took some time. Gran didn’t make coffee until near the end of Cami’s stuttering recitation—unlike Ruby, she couldn’t lie to Gran, and she didn’t want to. There was just something about those pale eyes and the way the old woman moved, with such precise economy, that warned against any such impropriety. Spending the night at Ruby’s meant walking on eggshells, though Mrs. De Varre had never even raised her voice in Cami’s presence.

You got the feeling you didn’t want her to. At the same time, there was a curious comfort. Gran hadn’t batted an eyelash when Ruby brought Cami home one day after school. Yes, the Vultusino girl, she’d said. You are welcome in my house, young one. Sit down, have a scone.

Cami left out some things, certainly—the flush that went through her every time she said Tor’s name, just how bloodcrazy Nico had gone, the wooden huntsman’s blue, blue eyes, the dreams . . . and Trig’s awful stillness, lying in the shattered doorway.

But she told about Tor and the pin and the shimmersilk, the mirror, and the smoke. Gran listened, her eyebrows coming together fractionally as she refilled Cami’s glass—milk for a growing girl, she always remarked—and snapped a charm to flip the pancakes on the griddle.

“And so,” she finally said, switching the coffeemaker on, “you came here.”

I couldn’t think of where else to go. I just need to sit for a little while. Just get myself together.

And even if Nico wanted to, he couldn’t step inside Gran’s door without her blessing. Not even Papa would have. Here was the safest place Cami could think of, even if she wondered just what might follow her out to Woodsdowne.

If some bad charming, bad magic, could reach through a mirror in the house on Haven Hill, it might be able to come here too. Cami’s midsection clenched at the thought. “I n-need h-help.” Her tongue had eased. At least Gran was invariably patient. She let you get everything out.

“Help. Well. Hm. You did well, coming to me. Shows you have some intelligence.” Gran poked at the fresh strips of bacon sizzling in their pan. Dawn, creeping through the wide window full of terracotta pots holding green herbs, was iron-gray. More snow before long. “But . . . them. The Pale Ones. Theirs is an . . . old magic.”

Here, in the cozy sun-yellow kitchen, warm and chewing on pancakes with blackcurrant jam, it almost seemed like she could handle all this. Maybe. “O-older than th-the R-r-reeve.” She nodded. Her scalp itched, her hair felt greasy. But her stomach had quit growling. It wasn’t like Marya’s oatcakes, but then, nothing was.

Marya probably wouldn’t ever talk to her again.

If Trig hadn’t been there, if Stevens hadn’t been there . . . Nico’d never Borrowed from Cami before. Ever. But still.

The coffeemaker gurgled, and a thread of heavenly scent stitched every other fragrance together. “It may be possible to buy you passage to another town. A place to hide.” Gran tapped one finger alongside her nose. “But they have very sensitive noses, les Blancs.”

Like dogs, you mean? “L-leave N-New Haven?” Go through the Waste, maybe? To another province, another city?

It was another nightmare. Only this time, she couldn’t wake up.

“Perhaps. I don’t know, Camille. And it is no guarantee.” She snapped at the pancakes again, and they obediently charmed themselves off the griddle and onto a waiting, charm-warmed yellow plate. “Les Blancs n’oublient rien, ma cherie.”

Her accent wasn’t the same as Sister Mary Brefoil’s, but Cami had no trouble with the words.

Les Blancs, they forget nothing. “Is . . . ” She reached blindly for her milk glass. “Is th-th-there . . . I m-m-mean, h-how m-many of th-them are th-there?”

“They are carrion.” A slight wrinkle of Gran’s aristocratic nose. “There are as many as the suicides and the desperate will support. If a woman survives long enough in their halls, she may become a Queen herself. Like ants, or another insect. It is . . . not easy. Or pleasant. Good morning, ma petite fille.”

Ruby halted in the kitchen doorway, yawning, her hair a tangle of bright copper curls. She blinked and stared at Cami, pulling up the strap of her blue pajama tank-top.

She’s going to be so mad. Cami searched for another apology, her tongue tangling over itself. “R-r-r-ruby—”

Ruby let out a whoop and leapt across the intervening space, flinging her arms around Cami. “You bitch!” she finally yelled, laughing, attempting to shake Cami and kiss her cheek at the same time. Gran made a spitting noise and rescued the dangerously toppling milk glass. “I should have suspected when I smelled bacon! Goddamn I’ve missed you!”

It was classic Ruby. Gran sniffed. “Language at the table must be cleaner, Ruby. Let the poor girl eat. She has enough problems.”

“Did you hear about Ellen?” Ruby could barely contain herself, plonking down in her usual cane-bottom chair at the breakfast bar. “Her dad. Train crash, out in the middle of the Waste. The Strep has custody. It’s horrific.”

The bottom dropped fully out of Cami’s stomach. Mithrus. Oh, Ellie. She stared at her plate, sticky with blackcurrant jam and half-eaten pancakes. “Oh.”

“Ruby!” Gran didn’t quite raise her voice, but her tone could have sliced through the walls. Every dish in the kitchen rattled. “Do not add bad news to her troubles!”

Ruby’s jaw dropped. Her eyes narrowed, and Cami braced herself for the explosion. Gran turned back to the coffeemaker and the griddle, the straight bar of her spine somehow expressing disdain and disappointment.

“Mithrus Christ,” Ruby breathed. “Cami, honey, what kind of trouble are you in?”

The heat and prickling behind her eyes almost overflowed. She took a deep breath.

Maybe, just this once, Ruby would let her talk.

“I f-f-found out wh-who I am.”

Gran vanished halfway through Ruby’s breakfast, reappearing in a long black coat and a jaunty blue hat perched on her pale, rebraided hair, and left them with the dishes. “Sparkling,” she said sternly, and Ruby waved a hand. “And no, your friend will not do them all while you chatter.”

“Mais oui, chere grandmere, mais oui.” Ruby’s accent was cheerfully atrocious, and Gran sniffed again before sailing through the kitchen without even glancing at Cami, moving through the utility room and into the garage. An engine roused with a sweet soft purr, the garage door rumbled unhappily, and she was gone.

“Thank God for bridge club. If she had to stay home Saturdays I’d kill myself.” Ruby applied herself to the rest of her breakfast. “What did Gran say? I mean, really say?”

“Th-there m-might be a w-way.” I’ll have to leave New Haven. She shivered. She knew there were other provinces outside the city’s borders, but it was like knowing there was a moon. She’d never expected to visit. “It’s d-dangerous.”

“Well, if anyone can get you through the Waste or overseas and into another province, the Valhalla Bridge Club can. But what about Nico? Why doesn’t he get off his ass? Family’s got to be good for something, right? Plus, you’re Vultusino. This charm-white bitch, queen, whatever— seriously, Cami, you think you might be related?”