Read Online Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness by Lili St. Crow - Free Book Online Page B

explain why she was skipping—and why on earth she was on Southking, of all places.
    And
that
would not be pleasant. She’d never gotten in trouble before, but what if Papa’s patience snapped, so close to his transition? The unsteadiness was under Cami’s feet all the time now, and she didn’t want to take any chances.
    She set off through the crowd, her schoolbag hitched high on her shoulder and her blazer welcome warmth, a chill wind, threading between jacks and humans, cold lipless breath touching her bare knees. She shivered, scanning for Ruby’s bright hair, and saw only backs and legs, jacks and humans hurrying in the frosty sunshine. Her breath came fast in a thin white cloud. False summer was long, long gone.
    Smoking peanut oil from the foodcarts, signs proclaiming
Real Meat
, spices, the dusty scent of imported cloth, the hawkers crying their sellsongs. Cheap jewelry, more expensive jewelry, tailor stalls, a ringing clatter from a blacksmith shaping anti-Twist charms, the forge a blare of heat and a young jack working the bellows, his clawed hands oddly graceful. He blinked one cat-pupiled yellow eye, then the other as Cami stood and watched for a moment.
    If she’d been born jack, with feathers or fur, or if her Potential had turned that way when the hormone-and-charm crisis of puberty first hit, would Papa have taken her in? Or kept her for this long? Or would she have been abandoned, maybe sent to a boarding school far away? There were jack-only schools in the cold North, past the Province border and overWaste, and the stories about them were terrible. Accidents happened around jacks.
    Bad
accidents.
    Don’t think about things like that
.
    A stray dog barked as it ran between two canvas tents. She flinched, turning away. A bookseller—a normal, with an iron anti-Twist pendant at his neck on a leather thong—eyed her curiously. Cami blushed, looked around for Ruby again. Scarves fluttered, a fortuneteller’s tent stood tall, purple, and motheaten, spangled with tarnished gilt; a knifemartin stood behind his table of bright blades and watched the flow of foot traffic with narrowed eyes. Some of the darker tents were accorded plenty of space—one had the serpent-sign of a poisonmaker, and everyone hurried past
that
awning. People would wait for dusk and go in through the back.
    New Haven was a hub, with both the port and the sealed over Waste trains bringing goods in and exporting charmwork and finished products. The de Varres took their percentages, and the Family took theirs, and everyone else crowded around the rest like grinmarches around a pile of husks and clippings, getting their fair share and making credits any way they could.
    The trouble with wondering about where she’d be now if Papa hadn’t kept her was that it made the unsteadiness under her feet so much worse. Windchimes tinkled and good-luck bells chattered uneasily as the wind picked up, and her stomach turned over, hard.
    Screw this
. Cami spun on her heel and set off, her head down, with a purposeful step. If she went up two blocks she could cut over to Highclere, find Ruby’s Semprena, and sit on the hood until Rube noticed she wasn’t around and—
    “It’s Camille, right?”
    She almost ran into him. White shirt, tan leather jacket, faded jeans, a glitter of silver at his throat. She mumbled an apology, moved aside, but he stepped to the side too, as if they were dancing.
    So she
had
to look up.
    The garden boy, his messy black hair actually pushed back from his forehead, had an odd face. He was tanned—of course, he worked outside. Strong jaw, too-strong cheekbones, like he hadn’t quite grown into them yet. His eyes matched his hair, pupil and iris blending together to make a dark hole. Bad-luck eyes, but he couldn’t be Twist, not if Marya had given him the okay. Cami dropped her gaze, confused, and the silver at his throat was a small medallion, some kind of star engraved on it.
    Her head filled with rushing