Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (2 page)

PART I:
A Princess

ONE

S
T.
J
UNO’S WIDE GRANITE STEPS COULD CRACK YOUR
head like an egg. Which was maybe why Cami always slowed down, dragging her glossy black maryjanes over the white and black linoleum squares, when they hit the wide, high-ceilinged main hall, minnows in a sea of girls set free for the afternoon.

And it was definitely why Ruby always sped up, tugging Cami’s arm, her candygloss lips going a mile a minute. Ellie ambled alongside, always gliding at the same clip. Lockers slammed, and the surf-roar of girlchatter was a comforting blur punctuated by squeals, catcalls, laughter, and groans.

In the middle, Ruby’s running narration, a bright thread as she batted her eyelashes, heavily mascara’d in defiance of both St. Juno’s archaic rules and her grandmother’s iron old-fashionedness. But everyone forgave her. “And so I thought, oh my
God
, if you’re going to do this you might as well do it right, and of course Hunt was there—”

You just
had
to forgive Ruby. She would cock her head and smile at you, the grin that lit up the world, and that was that. Cami’s long heavy braid swung; she tugged at her skirt with her free hand, getting it to fall right, and juggled her notebook. There were never enough hands for what you needed to get done at the end of a school day.

“Hunt’s always there,” Ellie threw in, tucking a bit of sleek blonde hair behind her ear. “And of course Thorne didn’t like it. You’d think they were best friends or something.”

Ruby tossed her auburn curls, tugging at Cami’s arm. “Who’s telling this story? Anyway. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

For what? But Cami grinned. Ruby was on her own clock, and it was at variance with the rest of the world more often than not.

She finished wedging her notebook safely into her bag and got the strap settled. As long as Ruby was on one side and Ellie on the other, she didn’t have to think about where she was going, and she didn’t have to talk. They would take care of it for her.

What else were friends for?

The hall was awash with white blouses, rounded turndown collars, the traditional ugly Juno blazers with their itchy blue wool and embroidered crests, the blue and green tartan skirts swinging. This autumn the white wool socks were all the way up to the knee, and little silver luckcharms were attached to maryjane buckles, chiming sometimes. They didn’t work inside, but you still had to wear them if you wanted to be
in
. Headbands were
in
, too—the thin ones, you could only find them in certain stores. Ruby, of course, knew exactly where. And Cami would make sure to buy far too many, and Ellie would later find them in her bag and might as well wear them because well, they were there, right?

That was the way the cookie crumbled, so to speak. The way it always had, the way it always would. Or if not always, then as long as the three of them lasted.

“
So
.” Ruby found her stride again. The doors were choked, as usual, but their last class of the day was High Charm Calculus, math and charm working together, and Ruby had declared that if she
had
to stay inside
one more minute
she would
die
. So instead of their usual stop at their lockers near the main stairwell to preen, they were heading for the front door when everyone else was, even the bobs and the ghoulgirls. “Hunt says, ‘I was here first’ and Thorne says, ‘It’s a free country’ and I say, ‘You two are
soooo
immature,’ and I ended up leaving with a guy from Berch Prep—”

“Who had sweaty hands,” Ellie mock-whispered. “They
all
do.”

“
And
a hip flask!” Ruby crowed triumphantly. “I didn’t get slammed, though. You’d be proud of me, Miss Stick-In-The-Mud.”

“Oh, she
only
got a little bit hazy.” Ellie’s eyeroll was a wonder of nature. “Why aren’t we skipping to get a charm to keep you from spawning?”

“Because, and this is what I’m trying to
tell
you, prepboy lost his starch.”

Breathless silence. Then Ellie and Cami both exploded into bright bird-laughter, and Ruby grinned, white teeth behind crimson-glossed lips.

“Get
out!
” Ellie crowed, and manhandled the door open. They tumbled out into rich golden fall sunshine, the sudden slice of a crisp breeze against bare knees, lifting Ellie’s sleek blonde hair and wringing hot water from Cami’s furiously-blinking eyes.

“
Seriously
!” Rube had the bit in her teeth now. Cami checked the stairs.

They were still there. Still granite, still with sharp edges, and still too steep.

St. Juno’s was a pure-human charmschool; it only took in girls with rich families and unTwisted Potential. The Family sent all their daughters to Martinfield, but Cami wasn’t pureblood. So it was St. Juno’s for her, along with the young girls of New Haven’s aristocracy of money, magic, and social standing.

The stairs were . . . troubling. Sometimes she thought the hedge of defenses that kept anything non-human or Twisted out of the buildings would smell the Family on her and rise, veils of flickering Potential ready to rip her into bits. And then there were the dreams, of stairs and a tall draped figure shimmering-pale.

Don’t think about that.
The dreams didn’t belong in the daylight, so she just shivered. They left quietly, this time. “N-no w-way!” she managed, very carefully.

“
Way!
” Ruby almost wriggled with delight. “So things are looking good, right? Things are looking flat out
great
in the front seat of the Cimarro—did I tell you? He had a Cimarro, positively
antique
, cherry too.”

Considering Cimarros had been popular when Papa was a boy—there was a yellow one in the capacious Vultusino garage, lovingly tended by Chauncey—it gave new meaning to the word “antique.”

The first few steps went by in a rush, and Cami let out a half-whistle of relief. Ruby knew she hated the stairs, but she was always of the opinion that if you hated something, you just had to run right through it. Ellie was more of the sneak-up-and-hit-it-with-a-shovel persuasion.

Cami didn’t want to take the time to stammer through an explanation of her own philosophy, which was more “live to fight another day” than Charge of the Twist Brigade. But that was a Personal Choice, and her Personal Choices not to speak were okay, or so the speech therapist she’d seen for four years—before the woman’s Potential Twisted—had said.
Your choice to speak or not is your own. Let’s try it very slowly, if you feel like it.

Cami had liked Miss Amanda. But once the Twisting had struck, there was no way Papa would let her go back. The risk of the Twist spreading was just too high, and plus, Twists sometimes . . . snapped. Miss Amanda’s hands had trembled, the bones sprouting claw-spurs through the skin, her Potential eaten up either by an anger she had never given voice to or just plain ill-luck, or maybe a bad charming. She’d had just enough Potential to qualify as a charmer, not good as a Sigiled or anything but able to heat a kettle of water to boiling with a snapped word or two, or make colored light dance in the air to form letter-shapes her struggling students could read. When the proper sound was made, the letters would glow and change to other shapes.

It was dangerous to have a lot of Potential, but it was less likely to Twist you than just a little was. Still, Cami’d gotten more from four years of weekly meetings with Miss Amanda than she had from plenty of other teachers.

But that was in the past, and the past was never helpful. So she just nodded as Ruby plunged into the story again and dragged them all down the steps, her hair a bright copper flame.

They arrived at the bottom breathless, in a wider crush of girls waiting for buses and cars crowding the curb. This year bigger utility vehicles from overseas and overWaste were popular, hunkering on shiny black tires with charm-spinning, gleaming hubcaps, the glass darkened and crawling with Potential. Watchwards, defense-charms, charms to keep dust and rain from smearing the glass—pickup time at St. Juno’s was like an exercise in conspicuous charm-viewing.

“And so Berch Prep Boy says, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna make it,’” Ruby confided. “And
sploosh
, there it goes. All over the seat.” The giggles were shaking all three of them now, and hard. Cami’s midriff ached.

Fortunately, laughing didn’t stutter.

Ruby jolted to a halt between one word and the next. “Hel-
lo
. Cami, sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me?”

“T-T-Tell you wha—” But as soon as she followed the line of Ruby’s glance, she figured it out.

The sleek black ’70 Ivrielle—another antique, though not as old as a Cimarro—crouched, in lazy defiance of the yellow Bus Zone paint. And leaning against its front was a tall, rangy young man with slicked dark hair and the indefinable stamp of
other
on him all the Family displayed. Their cheekbones were arched oddly, their eyes spaced just a fraction differently, the line of the jaw too sharp and the musculature visible in shoulders or arms or legs, even the girls’, was . . . unusual.

“
Nico!
” Cami shrieked, and the fact that she didn’t stutter over his name was lost in the wave of muttering schoolgirl envy. Ellie caught Cami’s dropped schoolbag, Ruby rolled her eyes, but Cami pounded across the pavement and flung herself into Nico’s arms.

“Mithrus
Christ
,” he managed, “watch it! Break my ribs, kid!”

“You d-d-didn’t—”

“Tell you I was coming.” He smelled of fresh air, a faint breath of cigarette smoke, and bay rum—Papa Vultusino’s aftershave. Though Nico would probably just get That Look if she tried asking him about it. “Wanted to surprise you. Hey, Rube. Ellen.”

“Vultusino.” Ruby showed her teeth. “Look at you, parking in the fire lane.”

“It’s bus parking, not fire lane. Gonna give me a ticket? Cite me for being Family on school grounds, too?” His smile didn’t change, and Cami hugged him tighter, reading the tension in his shoulders.
Not now,
she told him silently.
She’s my friend.

“You wish. Guess we know who’s driving her home today.” Ruby’s baring of teeth was more of a smile now, Potential-haze like heat over pavement crackling on her shoulders. Her Potential was vivid, not soft like Ellie’s or invisible, like Cami’s. “Come on, Ellie. Buzz you later, Cami.”

She let go of Nico once she was sure he wasn’t going to say anything else. “Y-yeah. B-b-babchat.”

“But of
course,
my dear.” Ruby pecked her on the cheek. “Still have to tell you how the night turned out,” she whispered, a hot wash of Juicy Charm gum from her teeth and chocolate-salt smell from her skin.

Cami choked on a laugh, and Ellie handed her schoolbag over. “Babchat,” she said, softly. “Nine-thirty? High Calc’s gonna kill me.” Gray eyes wide, her blonde hair pulled sleekly back, the faint dusting of freckles on Ellie’s nose turned gold in the light. This close you could see her collar fraying, and the shiny patches worn into her blazer.

I’m going to have to do something about that.
But the words wouldn’t come.

So Cami just nodded, and her two best friends in the world other than Nico linked arms and were away. Ruby would drive Ellie home, stopping at the gate and making the usual cheerfully obscene gesture safely behind the smoked glass of the windshield so Ellie’s nasty-tempered stepmother didn’t see her, and later when the Evil Strepmother was occupied, Ellie would use her Babbage-net connection—St. Juno’s required one and logged student times, and the principal Mother Heloise knew some about the Strep so the Strep couldn’t take the Babbage set away—to confer about the homework.

Cami hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and looked up at Nico.

He was just the same. A little taller, like he grew every time he went off to Hannibal College up-Province on the ribbon of safely-reclaimed highway, green and gray kolkhozes lurking on either side behind electrified fences.

His dark hair combed back, the moss-green eyes, the wide cheekbones. You could see Papa in him, just a little. He’d had time to change out of uniform too—Hannibal was a Family school, and it kept to old ways. So it was jeans and a black T-shirt, his heavy watch glittering silver, the old leather jacket with all its scrapes and wrinkles. “See something green, schweetheart?” He waggled his eyebrows, an oddly childish expression. “Get in. I’ve got places to be.”

Still, she waited, watching his face. Watching the shadow of anger, dull rage that never completely receded. She dug one polished maryjane into the pavement, biting her lower lip, and didn’t give up until he broke and grinned at her, his shoulders relaxing and the anger draining away until it was just a shadow.

“Jeez, you just never quit, do you? Come on. I hurried back to see you, babygirl.” He opened the door for her, as usual, and Cami tried not to notice the envious glances. The girls dawdled, and the ones who knew whispered to the bobs—the new girls, still finding their way around St. Juno’s hedge of restrictions—about it. The ghoulgirls, playing at being black charmers with teased-out hair and long dagger-shaped earrings, hissed and jabbed their fingers at him and his shiny black car, muttering to each other.

Nico Vultusino. He’s supposed to be her brother, but he’s one of those on the Hill. Shows up every once in a while to pick her up.

They didn’t know anything. They
couldn’t
know, and even if she could talk without her tongue twisting on her, Cami wouldn’t tell them. Nico was
hers
, and he had been since the moment he stamped into the library years ago and announced he hated her and would never like her, because she wasn’t pureblood like him.

He dropped into the driver’s seat. “I’m not gonna do this when you get to college, you know.” Twisted the key savagely, and music blared—Gothika’s driving beat, Shelley Wynter singing over the top of it about a minotaur in snow and the bass line popping like a runner’s pulse. He grimaced, spun the volume down, and tossed a battered pack of Gitanelles into her lap. “Light me up.”