Nameless

about it. It would have been nice to talk, but her tongue was a knot of anxiety by now. She shrugged, ducking her head and spreading her hands. Then she mimed inquisitiveness—pointing at the door, raising her eyebrows.

“Nico’s in for it,” Trigger said shortly, and stepped aside. “He was supposed to bring you straight home. Sir wanted to see you.”

Well, I’m here now. Another shrug, this one with a helpless motion.

“I know.” Trig patted her shoulder, awkwardly. “God only knows what Nic was thinking. If he was thinking. Go on, sweetie. He’s tired today.”

He’s always tired. I wish . . . But she knocked, softly, on the carved-oak door. The knob was red crystal; she turned it gently and stepped in.

The windowless room was lit only by a single candle on the nightstand. It smelled of copper, bay rum and leather, and the faint everpresent tang of illness and age. For a moment her throat closed to a pinhole, the air dead-still and the dark wainscoting and heavy maroon brocade wallpaper threatening to fall in until they crushed all her breath out.

It passed, and she inhaled deeply. The closeness was scary at first, but then it was comforting. Like a heavy coat on a cold day.

Nothing bad could happen to her here.

Papa Vultusino, close to the culmination of the Kiss, lay on the massive four-poster bed. His barrel chest rose and fell steadily, and his breathing wasn’t a wheeze today. The candle flickered as she approached, and he opened his eyes.

Propped on the snowy pillows, he didn’t look very ill until you got close. Then the red spark in his pupils, strengthening daily, became apparent. So did the papery thinness of his skin, and the deep- scored wrinkles as well as the fine dry lines.

The Kiss took its own time, and it was burning away his mortality. When it finished he’d be one of the immortal Unbreathing, an Elder instead of a daywalker, and his only son would take his place as the living Vultusino of the Seven.

If Nico could just stay out of trouble long enough.

The chair pulled up to the bedside had a thick pink cushion and a straight back. The fireplace was empty, so he wasn’t cold today. That was a good sign. A large leatherbound book with yellowing pages lay open on the red silk comforter, and Papa’s wide capable hands—bony and spotted now, but still hard and solid—lay discarded on either side of it.

Those hands held all the gentleness in the world. She remembered Papa bandaging a scrape on her knee as Marya fluttered in the background. Little girl sometimes need Papa to bind up the wound, Marya. Let me.

Cami lowered herself down, gently. Her left hand was awkward with the bandage, but she scooped it gently under one of Papa’s, closed her other one over it. His skin was cooler than hers, and dry, calluses rasping.

The rasp reminded her of the wooden man, but she didn’t want to think about that. So she just patted Papa’s hand, watching his face as it shifted and the red spark dimmed a little.

He came back, bit by bit. Wet his lips with a paper-leaf tongue, and she glanced at the cut-crystal water pitcher on the nightstand next to the candle, rainbows shimmering in its angles. His hand squeezed a fraction—no, he wasn’t thirsty. His left eyebrow lifted a tiny bit, and he squeezed again. Very, very gently, with the strength of the Family that could injure or crush running in his bones, especially as he lay so close to the Kiss.

He could feel the bandaging.

Cami patted his hand once more, very gingerly. “It’s a-all r-right,” she whispered. Her stupid tongue wasn’t too bad in here. Papa had never told her to hurry up. He had always waited, with no trace of impatience. “J-just a scratch.” She decided to plunge right in. “N-nico b-b-bandaged it. D-don’t be m-m-mad—”

Papa’s eyebrows drew together, a faint thundercloud. Cami stopped. Listened to the dry hiss of the candle burning, to his breathing, to the absolute stillness.

She decided to risk a little more. “He w-w-wants you t-to be p-proud of him, Papa.”

Papa sighed. If he only knew, that sigh said, and Cami nodded in agreement.

Should I tell him about the wooden man? Maybe not. It’ll upset him, and he’ll be even madder at Nico.

So instead she told him about Potentials class and the shattering beakers, how Ruby’s of course had broken with a terrific crack and Cami’s own had crumbled into fine crystalline dust—proof that she had Potential, and further proof that it hadn’t settled yet. You could never tell where someone’s ability to charm would end up. Air, water, earth, sometimes fire, metal, wood, crystals and light, Affinities showed up generally about the end of puberty. Always assuming, of course, that you didn’t Twist.

Ellen’s beaker had turned into a solid jewel of water and glass, scintillating, and Sister Frederick’s Sainthood had nodded with warm approval, her apple-cheeks glistening.

Papa listened, breathing steadily, and she plunged onward, into the stupid paper she had to do. His expression lightened as she spoke, slow and halting, the stutter receding as she relaxed and he began to look a little less gray. His hand warmed too, and when she talked about the Reeve a different gleam entered his gaze. After a little while his hand loosened, and Cami picked up the bone comb on the nightstand. She set his salt and pepper mane right again with careful, gentle strokes, leaning over the bed and smiling every time she glanced at him.

It was just like crouching under his desk, in the long-ago. She would hide there, playing with his mirror- polished wingtips or just half asleep and listening as he made phone calls and attended to paperwork, Stevens murmuring advice or giving information in a monotone. Marya had turned the house upside down a few times looking for Cami until she started checking under Papa’s desk first; Nico had sometimes tried hiding there with her but was always summarily dragged out into the hall and sent back to his practices with Trigger.

A Vultusino man must fight, Papa would say. Go learn how.

Well, Nico had. Now Cami wondered if he would ever learn how to stop.

When she’d set his mane to rights and talked about Ruby and Ellie some more, and explained the current crop of High Charm Calculus problems, she took his hand again. Lifted it gently, and pressed it against her cheek. “I’m s-sorry I w-was late,” she whispered.

Papa was still for a long moment. His other hand lifted, slowly, and he patted her hair, very gently. Once, twice. She smiled, and his thin lips twitched in his still, pale face. The red sparks strengthened, and he gently took his hands away.

She rose, slowly, lit a fresh candle from the old one. Left both burning, and gave his hand one last squeeze before padding quietly to the door.

The hall was bright and oddly loud after the hush of the Room. She blinked, pulling the door shut, and found not just Trigger but Stevens too, standing poker-straight and staring unblinking at the mirror at the end of the hall, and Nico, who had changed into a light woolen suit, cloud-gray, and a maroon tie. His hair was slicked back, and his shoulders slouched just a little. He looked miserable, his chin set defiantly and the bloodring gleaming on his left middle finger.

The Heir’s ring, worn for formal occasions.

Uh-oh. She brushed her hair back, tugged at her skirt, and basically stalled for a second or two. “H-h-he’s—”

“Expecting us,” Stevens said. The flat tone took on a richness, and the gaunt man’s dark face slackened a little.

Which meant Papa was inside him, looking out.

“Marya’s got your dinner, sweetheart.” Trig had folded his arms, and was staring at Nico. “Run along.”

There was nothing else she could do. But she dragged her feet, lingering a little so she could brush by Nico, hoping he could tell she’d done all she could. Before she was halfway down the hall the door had opened and closed behind Vultusino’s wayward son and his consigliere, and Cami flinched at the little snick of the lock echoing all the way to the stairs.

Outside the windows, dusk had finished falling into night, and a chill soaking rain pressed against the panes. The red-tiled kitchen was a relief, warm and full of the smell of tomatoes and fresh bread.