She watched as they began to file off the train, disheveled, with red eyes—recycled air wasn’t good for anyone’s tender tissues. Still, it was better than maybe getting a lungful of spores or Mithrus alone knew what from the Waste. Part of the high price of interProvince passage, for those who couldn’t afford to drive or didn’t want to take the risk, was the cost of sealing the iron bullet.
The rest was overhead, and indemnity in case there was a derailment. Sometimes even a lot of iron didn’t help out in the Waste. All that Potential slopping around without charmers to shape and tame it, bleeding off the excess, made the risk of Twisting exponentially worse.
Not only that, but there were things out there. Dangerous, uncontrolled things, untamed Potential even corkscrewing the flora and fauna. That was why they called it the Waste.
A shape looming through the steam. Her spine knew before the rest of her, a zing like biting on tinfoil all the way down her back. Ruby inhaled, sharply, and Thorne tensed beside Gran. Having them both here was vintage Gran—she thought it would give them a lesson. Friendly rivalry was okay, but anything even a fraction of a step above that was frowned upon.
Because it could hurt the clan.
He was taller than her, ink-black hair cropped aggressively short. A strong jaw, the familiar high cheekbones, and a kin’s supple movements. There was an oddness about him, rasping against her instincts, but then, he was from another clan and would naturally smell a little . . . strange.
Did he feel the trap closing around him, too?
A flash of mellow gold. Even among the moon’s children his gaze would be called spectacular. Sun-eyes, too warm and deep to be yellow. Bad-luck eyes, glowing like the Moon’s sister-enemy.
Uh-oh. She tried to remember if anyone had said anything about that before. He had a brother; did they have the same eyes?
He carried a single large dun-colored duffel, easy grace and broad shoulders handling it like it weighed nothing. A wilted blue button-down, sleeves rolled back to show tanned forearms, a pair of jeans just as thrashed as hers, and very nice boots. Ellie would know the brand off the top of her head, but Ruby just took in the quality of the stitching and nodded internally.
There was a clan cuff on his left wrist. Wide age-darkened leather with silver snaps, the Grimtree crest stamped deeply and creased. Something about the cuff seemed a little weird, but he bowed properly to Gran, just enough insouciance mixed with the respect to denote strength.
He was definitely dominant. Just how dom remained to be seen.
“Clanmother de Varre.” A nice deep voice, and Ruby’s entire body flamed, a scalding icebath. “Grimtree sends greetings, and respect.”
The veil stirred at its edges, either from a slight movement or a stray bit of breeze. When Gran spoke, it was just above a formal murmur. “Woodsdowne returns the regard. You have changed much, young Conrad.”
“Almost fifteen years will do that. Except to you. They say Woodsdowne is as beautiful as the Moon.”
Ruby’s jaw almost dropped. Was he flirting? With Gran? The boy straightened, and boy was a relative term. He was nineteen, but damn if he didn’t seem, well . . . pretty effortlessly self-possessed.
“Some branches are always blessed. Thorne, please take our visitor’s bag. Ruby.”
“Gran.” She kept her feet right where they were, although she was supposed to step forward to greet him as well.
That golden gaze turned to her. Cheeks hot, her messy hair every which way, why had she deliberately not even combed? Or washed her face? There were probably crumbs on her chin from dinner or something.
His pupils dilated a little. Ruby watched, fascinated, as her tiny image in those black holes vanished behind the shutters of his eyelids. He even rocked back a little on his heels, and the whole rest of the train station went away. For that moment, there was just the two of them, and a broad white smile rose on Conrad Tiercey’s face, a crescent of perfect teeth.
His bag dropped with a thump, almost as if he couldn’t hold onto it any longer. “It’s true,” he said, just to her. “More beautiful than anything.”
It should have been cheesy. It should have been a warning.
A tightness she hadn’t even been aware of loosened in Ruby’s chest. The smile on her face felt dopey, but she didn’t care. “Hello.” Oh, my God, is that really all you can say? Good one, Ruby.
He swallowed, visibly. “Hi. Ruby, right? Conrad.”
She held her hand out. He stepped forward and took it, gently, strength underneath. His skin was warm, rougher than hers. A slight movement, as if he wanted to kiss her knuckles, but that was old-fashioned. So they just stood there until Gran coughed.
Ruby found her throat was dry. “Moon’s greeting,” she managed, traditional words of welcome. “How was your trip?”
“Boring.” The smile returned, a private joke. “I had to make my own fun.”
She grinned back, and it felt completely natural. “I’ll bet.”
“You are most welcome here.” Gran took a single step forward, and Conrad dropped her hand. “Our guest is no doubt exhausted. Thorne—yes, thank you. Hunter, please take word to your mother that he’s arrived safely; the Elder Circle will want to know.”
“Yes ma’am.” Hunter bumped into Ruby as he went past—not hard, but not accidentally either. There was a line between his eyebrows, and his mouth was pulled tight. “See you later, Rube.”
“Sure.” Later, she would think back and notice how he’d looked worried. The breeze shifted, and she caught a good whiff of healthy male kin, a fascinating new scent without the underlying musk and black earth of Woodsdowne.
There was a harsh angry undertone that should have raised her hackles, but all Ruby felt was a raw unsteady relief.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
SIX
“WHAT’S HE LIKE?” ELLIE’S BREATHLESSNESS WASN’T about the news, of course. Rube got the idea she’d almost forgotten about today’s Big Event, and it had taken a little while for Ellie to run to the phone. Which meant some uncomfortable small talk with Avery Fletcher while they waited for Ell to show up and release them both from torture.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Fletcher, it was just that . . . well, he wasn’t Ell. Or Cami.
He wasn’t safe. No mere-human really was, but her friends were . . . safer. At least, she’d always thought so. The thought that she might not be safe for them was uncomfortable, and it kept circling nowadays, just like everything else.
“He’s tall.” Ruby twisted the cord around her fingers. Her closet was small and stifling, but carrying the phone in there was such a habit she barely noticed anymore. It was dark, and color-coded outfits—she kept the closet door closed to hide its neatness—brushed her head. “Nice smile.”
“Okay. But what’s he like?”
She could imagine Ell hopping with impatience, the phone to her ear and her pale hair a wind-rippled drift over her shoulder. It was almost white now, and some of the girls in summer school thought she bleached it. Ruby could have told them she didn’t, that the color had been drained somehow . . . but why bother? Let them gossip. “He went straight to bed. Still sleeping. I don’t know yet, but he seems . . . nice.”
The line crackled with a short silence. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that about a guy before.”
That’s because most of them aren’t. “Well, Gran plans to marry me off to him, I might as well look for something to like.”
“Yeah, about that.” Ell’s tone dropped, became worried and confidential. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Danger, kiddo. If she drew Ruby into talking, Ell would figure out a few things, not the least of which that she was terrified. Really, Ell didn’t need that kind of thing when she was settling into her nice new life with the Fletchers. Mithrus knew she deserved all the help she was getting now, just for suffer
ing through the hell that had been her stepmother.
So Ruby put on the cheerful, careless voice again, familiar as an old coat. “Whoops, gotta go. I can’t make our date today, got to show him around town. Tell Cami, will you?”
“Ruby—” Ell didn’t give up easily.
“Maybe tomorrow. Ciao!” She hung up and shut her eyes. Comforting darkness, fabric softener and her own scent, familiar as that lying, cheerful voice. Conrad was in the spare room next door—had he heard her? Had Gran? God, this place was so small.
Gonna have to get used to it. Collaring made the world even smaller. They were made in two parts, collar and key, and if you were good your keyholder would let you take the thing off for short periods. She’d seen collared kin before, the thin, liquid-silvery gleams cinched tight around their vulnerable baseform throats. Thin and nervous, with a haunted, faraway look, denied the shift and a kin’s sensory acuity.
Would Gran actually, really do that to her?
If I disappointed her enough, maybe.
She used to be so sure. Petted and told she was the rootfamily’s hope, Gran’s heir and bright star, given primacy among all the cousins as a matter of course . . . and there was this looming thing in the distance that she hadn’t really thought about as a kid. Hope depended on her marrying, spawning, and taking Gran’s place.
Maybe she’d just had too good a time and now had to pay for it. Was that what adulthood really meant?
Nothing was certain anymore. First Cami had started acting odd and vanished into that nest of pale, dripping foulness under New Haven, then Ell had fled her stepmother and ended up with that fey thing, and neither of them were the same even though they’d been dragged back. There were shadows in dark corners, and Ruby was always saying the wrong thing.
Try not to be a selfish bitch, Ell had flung at her, last school year. I realize it’s your default, but just try.
The worst thing, the thing that hurt the most? Ellie was right. If Ruby wasn’t so selfish, she wouldn’t be feeling this way. She’d be grateful for the clan, and it would be small potatoes to give back to it. Clan is kin and kin is clan, as the old saying went, and you were nothing without that net.
She should have been grateful. She should have been just aching to get her marriage settled, get through college, get knocked up and assure her place in the whole goddamn thing. You weren’t a real Clanmother until you had at least one kid. You could be just a regular old Tante, but the clan would be adrift after you died until the Moon gifted one of the branches with a sign of Her favor.
“It’s going to be fine,” she whispered to her clothes. She wanted for nothing. Gran’s allowance for her was really comfortable, to say the least, and Ruby never even had to whine to get what she liked.
A cage with a nice lining was still a cage. Still, she owed Gran, didn’t she? She owed everyone. Because the clan had birthed her, raised her, protected her—the list went on and on.
Clan. Like adulthood, it was one of those words that seemed cool when you were a kid, but then it shifted and ran around howling.
Movement elsewhere in the house. She strained her ears, listening. Footsteps too heavy to be Gran’s, not as precise.
He was awake.
The padding footfalls paused outside her door. Ruby gapped her mouth, breathing silently. Would he think she was weird? Her door was solidly closed, but could he sense her in here? Nobody else hid in closets just to talk on the phone, did they?
He kept going. Down the hall, familiar squeaks and creaks odd now that someone new was making them. If she was a good kingirl she’d probably have been downstairs already, making breakfast. She’d probably already know how he liked his eggs, too. She’d be making him feel comfortable and doing all the boring hospitality stuff.
Did she want to impress him? Or did she want Gran to send him back to his clan and maybe pick someone else? Maybe even someone old enough to be her father.
She’d worked up the courage to ask Gran directly about her father only once, but the old woman simply pinched her mouth shut and shook her head, slightly. The way her steely eyes lightened was enough to warn Ruby off the subject for a good long while. Oncle Stephen had been buzzed at a barbecue later and told her that her father was really outclan, which was probably true. Stephen wouldn’t say more, and none of the other kin could be induced to talk about it. Except for Gran once saying that he was outclan, and that Thorne or Hunter weren’t close enough to give the bloodline problems.
If Hunter knew, he’d probably tell her; Thorne wouldn’t be able to stop tormenting her about having a secret. It was more likely that even the branchkin just didn’t talk about it.
Ruby eased out of the closet. Her room, with its new and unfamiliar neatness, closed around her. She hadn’t even made her bed yet. As a delaying tactic, that kind of sucked, because it would only take three minutes.
Then she would have to go downstairs and make small talk.
She waited, listening, heard a formless murmur of conversation. Footsteps again. He was wearing shoes, sounded like boots. The front door swung open, then closed with a quiet, definitive thud.
Wait, what?
• • •
The kitchen was neat as a pin, the only marker of Conrad’s presence a cereal bowl in the sink. He must have scarfed it pretty quickly, but probably with good manners, seeing as how Gran was at the kitchen table, frowning at a layout of playing cards. Kings, queens, jacks, and charmers, red and black and white, familiar glares on the slick much-handled surfaces. Her braid was perfectly in place, but there were shadows under her eyes. Her dragon-patterned housedress was almost long enough to conceal her embroidered slippers, and her back was ramrod-stiff as always.
“Good morning!” Ruby chirped. “Is he up yet?” As if she didn’t know.
“He said he did not wish to intrude upon us this morning, and left to visit with kin.” Gran’s mouth was a straight line while she finished a thought, the lines bracketing it deeply graven today. “He remarked that you might be . . . shy.”
For a second Ruby just stared, the words refusing to make sense. Then a laugh slid out sideways, hiccupping in the middle as she tried to pull it back. Gran’s barely noticeable frown deepened.
Still, she couldn’t help herself. “Well, at least he’s polite.”
“You are not shy.” The old woman looked down at her cards. Sometimes charmers could see things in the patterns, though Ellie often sniffed and called such divination unscientific.
At least Gran was talking. Maybe she’d forgiven Ruby for the other day. “Not with people I know.” Nettled, Ruby swung the fridge open. “Or people I want to know. What do the cards say?”
“Not much.” Gran’s strong, slim fingers moved quickly, brushing the laminated rectangles together into a neat stack. “Sometimes they are silent.”
She snagged the orange juice. His fingers had touched the milk carton. At least he didn’t hang around and try to be awkward or funny with her in the morning. He was giving her a little space.
Maybe this whole thing was just as weird for him as it was for her. What if she didn’t measure up? Sending someone back was one thing.
Being rejected was something else entirely.
Guess that makes me shallow. For once, she didn’t drink straight from the carton. She also wondered if he’d looked for the glasses, if he’d opened this cabinet or that one. If Gran had told him, To the left of the sink, young man.
She took a deep breath. “Do you like him? Will he do?”
Gran eyed her for a long moment, as if Ruby had started shifting right in the middle of the kitchen. “Do?”
She kept an eye on pouring into her glass, pretending to be absorbed in the simple task. “Yeah, are his clan connections good enough? Will he negotiate passages and tariffs well? Do you think he’ll be an asset?”
“Such questions.”
�
��Well, that’s the whole point of this exercise, right?” She concentrated on pouring. “To further the clan. So, do you think he’ll be an asset? He’s got a twin brother, right?” So there’ll be even more of a bond there to ally us with the Grimtree, which will make intercity trade easier. Might shave a few points off tariffs.
“This is quite a change.” Did Gran actually sound uncertain? Nah, couldn’t be. “Might I ask what brought it about?”
“If you don’t like it, I can go back to being a brat.” She shrugged, and popped the fridge open again. “Seriously, though, you’re right. I owe the clan everything. I could have died as an orphan for all I know. So if what it takes is me promising to marry this guy, okay.”
“You are no orphan.”
Did you adopt me? You never talk about it, and nobody else will either. “Hey, when is he coming back? I should drive him around. Or should I go wherever he went? He’s probably visiting the Ardelles first, you think? Didn’t they have a Grimtree marry in?”
“I am surprised you remember.”
Ruby took a deep breath and tried again. “I remember lots of stuff. Anyway, yeah, there was a Grimtree girl who married in. Sonja. Car accident, when I was eight. Everyone cried, and you led the run through the Park.”
There had been gossip afterward, too. That Efraim Ardelle had threatened to collar Sonja, and that it hadn’t been a car accident, but an escape attempt. She’d been heading for the province border, if the whispers were true.
Which was really interesting. Oncle Efraim was a lean, dry-eyed, hatchet-mouthed kin, and some whispered that he believed his nephew Peter should resurrect the old, old ways and share his mate with the head of his branch—at least, as long as they were childless.
Poor Sonja, everyone said. And, It’s a good thing Tante Rosa isn’t here to see this. Tante Rosa, Efraim’s mate, had passed on after a long, mysterious illness, and sometimes Ruby caught whispers about that, too. Rosa had been held to have certain relationships with the fey, and some of Efraim’s hardness and lack of kinfeeling was blamed on that.
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