Caren hadn’t been able to sleep that night.
Her dreams were too full of Luke. And snow.
And a darkness, blooming out of some dank, shuttered corner of her mind. A thing she couldn’t yet name.
She shook her cigarette pack—just one left.
Mental note: Make a trip to the supermarket.
Caren released a drag, watched it droop beneath the weight of the moist morning air. Gripped the rain-dewed fire escape railing, eyes absently trailing the dingy brick alley her apartment wall shared with a dozen-ish others.
A lanky amber-skinned girl about twelve scampered into the alley from around the corner, giggling and typing on a phone. A boy a little older chased after, trying to grab the phone out of her hands. She dodged him. He threw his arms around her, picked her up and spun her. She kicked and shrieked and laughed.
Late afternoon sun from the window lay in streamers across Caren’s bed, dappled by trembling tree-shadows. She could feel the light, soft and warm on her skin.
Max Bemis was crooning “Every Man Has a Molly” from Luke’s laptop on her dresser.
“What do you want more than anything else in the world?” Luke asked.
He lay on his back next to her in her bed, fiddling with the ties of his hoodie, making the little frayed ends touch each other like he was completing a circuit. He always did this on lazy days—asked Caren random silly questions.
Caren stared at the ceiling. Picked at one of the scabs on her knuckles. “I dunno.”
“C’mon, tell me. Anything you want. I’ll get it for you.”
Caren rolled her eyes and shoved him. “Don’t be fucking dumb. You can’t.”
“Can too. Wanna bet?”
They both fell silent at the sudden sound of screaming from the bedroom at the end of the hall, and furniture slamming so hard it shook the house. Caren balled her hands into fists—started punching herself in her thigh, zoning out on the fan blades whirring overhead.
Luke sat up suddenly and reached for his laptop. Cranked the music up till Mom’s and Vince’s voices were all but drowned out.
“C’mon. Tell me,” he urged again, flopping back and rolling to face Caren.
“I dunno,” Caren mumbled. “I want…lots of things.”
“What kinda things?”
She was silent a moment. “I want Vince to go fuck off and die.”
Luke got his phone off the nightstand, recited out loud as he started typing: “‘Murder Caren’s mom’s boyfriend.’ Got it. What else?”
“Boobs. Not too big though. Like a B cup maybe. C at most.” Caren rubbed her upper lip. “Also not to have this fugly crustache.”
“You don’t have a ‘crustache,’ Jesus. Your whole face is as smooth as a baby’s ass.”
“I have to shave it every day now. You can totally see the stubble.”
“I never see any stubble.” Luke lunged forward and placed a peck on Caren’s upper lip; sank back, beaming his heat lamp of a grin. “You’re, like, so super goddamn cute, and you have no fucking idea.” Caren gazed at him, dizzy. “What else?” He resumed typing on his phone, his long fingers flying.
“I wanna be a fucking badass,” said Caren. “Like you.”
Luke’s grin widened. “Really?”
“Yeah. No one ever fucks with you, ’cause they know they’ll get their ass kicked. I want agimat of my own. I wanna know how to fight.”
“Caren.” Luke put down his phone, curled up in a ball, cuddling her extra pillow. “Agimat kinda suck, you know? Like, getting them implanted really hurts. And they throw off your whole mana system for a while. Sometimes permanently, if you don’t work with them super diligently during the adjustment period.”
“I don’t care if it hurts. And I’ll be diligent as fuck.”
Luke smiled at her in that way of his that always annoyed her, like she was only five years old. “…Maybe when you’re older?”
Caren scowled. “You just said whatever I want, you’d get it for me.”
Luke chuckled. “I’m an idiot, you know that. I say a lot of fucking shit.”
Caren once more started punching her thigh. “If I could kick ass like you, none of the Academy kids would fuck with me, ever again.”
Luke suddenly looked scary. “Tell me who’s been fucking with you. I’ll make sure they never fuck with you again.”
“And if I could kick Vince’s ass,” Caren went on, “he’d sure as hell never call me a fag again. ’Cause the next time he did it I’d break all his fucking teeth. And pull out his tongue. And sew his eyelids to his knees.”
“Vince is a fucking shitbag,” said Luke. “I really will fucking kill him if you want me to.” He reached for Caren, wrapped her tightly in his arms—an irresistible, sheltering vise-grip.
His voice came low in her ear:
“…Do you want me to?”
Caren’s heart thump-thump, thump-thumped against his chest.
Caren rubbed her throbbing breastbone. Stamped out her cigarette butt on the rusty metal floor of the fire escape. The girl and boy had darted back out of sight around the corner. The alley was empty now—silent and overcast.
She headed back inside, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the relative darkness. Kicked off her slippers, sloughed off her jacket, let it spill over her IKEA desk chair that was already unrecognizable as such under its perpetual burden of dirty clothes and towels and other random things.
Now down to her HIRS t-shirt and pajama pants, Caren sank down on the edge of her futon. Gazed at the slight figure barely visible thereon under all the motley blankets.
…Felt a stroke of panic when she couldn’t detect motions of breathing.
“Um. Hey. Hey!” She gave the human-shaped lump a panicked shake.
Peri Sauvage’s cow-licked, maple-hued pate surfaced out of the depths, her Coppertone-girl face screwed up in a groggy pout. She rolled slightly toward Caren; gave her the stink eye. “The fuck, Care,” she slurred. “I was deep asleep.”
“Dude…sorry.” Caren burrowed under the blankets, gathered them up to her chin.
With any luck, Peri would chalk up her shivering to the cold.
“What’d you want?” said Peri.
“Nothing.”
“So you shook me awake for no reason?” Peri rolled all the way face-up and propped herself on her elbows, squinting at Caren. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
“You sure?”
“Yep, just…bad dream. Thought you were someone else.”
A pause. “Luke?” Peri asked.
Caren’s chest ached.
After a moment, “It’s fucked up, right?” she muttered. “Him being gone is so normal it’s boring. So why the fuck is it…” She grabbed her phone, fiddled with it. Thumbed around between apps.
Opened Luke’s text feed.
Still unread.
Tossed the phone aside.
“…fucking you up so bad?” Peri supplied.
Caren threw off the blankets and stood up, paced a little, beating her fist against her thigh. Saw the grisly photos pinned to her cork board, of the heads of the eleven Martial Magi.
In Langit’s case…the head was actually the only part not found.
Saw Luke’s head, detached, grinning on her pillow in her childhood bedroom.
“Like, now that I know I’m never gonna see him again,” she ground out, pain radiating through her ribcage, “I just…keep seeing him everywhere.” Her hand flinched toward her coat, toward the pocket that contained her Marlboro pack. Nah, bitch. Only one left. Save it. “It’s just…it’s bullshit. It’s pissing me the fuck off.”
“It makes sense,” said Peri. “Luke was the love of your life, wasn’t he?”
“Oh, please, Imperia. That’s some YA-novel bullshit.” Caren decided to go for her last cigarette after all. “You’re, like, the best relationship I’ve ever had, and it’s ’cause you and I both know that shit is fucking horseshit.”
“Of course it is. But it was formative—you-slash-Luke. You grew up with him. You were more attached to him as a kid than you were to your parents. Just because we know where all our brain bullshit comes from doesn’t mean we can just snap our fingers and make it go away.”
Caren released her first drag, closed her eyes, shifted her weight back and forth. “It’s fucking stupid. I fucking hate it. Fuck feelings.”
Her phone buzzed on the bed.
She dove for it, nearly dropping live ash on the sheets.
“What the fuck,” said Peri.
The text was from Grenville:
Roll out of bed yet? 9_9 Any luck getting closer to SDM? On fifth crime scene now, not a lot of new info so far. Pls keep me updated
Peri eyed the screen from over Caren’s shoulder. “How’s it going so far with the Boy Wonder?”
“All due respect”—Caren flung her phone back down; resumed her puffing and pacing—“I really don’t know what your old man was thinking putting that toddler on the case. He’s about as savvy as a newborn fucking seal.”
Peri arched her eyebrows. “Yeah…I really wouldn’t knock ’im till you see what he can do.”
“Don’t tell me you, too, are all hype about the ‘unprecedented forensic capabilities.’”
“Oh, sure, that. But also, Ashton Grenville is deadly as fuck.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it. Kid’s scared to death of women, cigarette smoke, and diner food.”
Peri laughed. “I mean, he’s pretty sheltered, sure. His dad’s been wheelchair-bound ever since the alchemical explosion that killed his wife.”
Caren paused. Nursed her square. “Yeah, he mentioned something about that. Shit’s super fucked up.”
“No way is Scipio Grenville ever gonna produce another heir, so he’s overprotective of the one he’s got. I peer-mentored Ash for a few months when he was first starting out with the Alchemists’ Guild. Honestly, he’s not a bad kid, for a Mercurii brat.”
“Fraternitas Mercurii’s disgusting.” Caren stubbed her cigarette out in the ash tray on her desk, so roughly she almost singed her fingers. “I’d like to wipe every one of those Old-World toxic-male assholes off the face of the Earth.”
Peri gave a mighty yawn, stretched her sapling limbs. The blankets slid off her, exposing the spare arc of her torso. “Oh, now, Care. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”
Naked Peri was an archetypal vision—flawlessly architected flesh and bone. Sleek hair strands streaming in rivulets over faint points of breasts.
Caren clambered onto the futon, which groaned loudly in protest. Curled an arm around Peri’s waist.
Peri caught Caren’s chin firmly in one hand. “Down, girl.” Her lips were smiling, but her eyes left no space for argument. “We had our fun last night. I should really be getting back to Arcadia.”
Caren made a pitiful sound but promptly let go, sat back on her haunches. Peri got up, grabbed her tote bag from the floor beside the futon. Ran a brush a few times unnecessarily through her hair; laid out her neatly-folded clothes and started to dress.
Caren’s phone gave another buzz. She grabbed it.
Some idiot part of her kept half-hoping, half-fearing it would be a text from Luke.
Of course, it wasn’t.
That said, she wasn’t altogether disappointed at what she saw:
Oh hell yeah wow so good to hear from you!!!! Of course we can meet up that would be so dope
Caren felt Peri’s chin alight on her shoulder. “Well, well. Who’s ‘Sylvan’? Another of your boy-toys?”
“Mm. You know how it is.” ur place? Caren texted back.
“You, my girl, are afflicted with a bottomless thirst.” Peri shrugged on her houndstooth wool coat. “Can’t say I’ll ever understand the guy thing…” She flipped her long mane free of the collar, scrunched her button-nose. “Boys are G-ross, with a capital G.”
“Yeah,” replied Caren, absently. “Can’t say I really understand it either.”
“Oh, hey. Before I head out, got somethin’ for ya.”
Caren looked up. “Ooo. Goodies?”
Peri rooted around in her bag. “Made you a couple more lunaria flares.” She handed Caren one box, then another, which she paused to tap with her finger. “These are pretty fucking cool, if I do say so—Morphean miasma bombs. Good way to drop someone without killing them, if you can keep them trapped in the cloud long enough and avoid breathing the fumes yourself. Then there’s my new personal favorite thing I’ve ever made…” The third box she opened, revealing to Caren a stack of long, dark cylinders. “I’m calling these ‘lightning sticks.’ Hollow fulmenine alloy—pretty brittle, so be really careful with them. You break one of these, it’ll release an electrical charge, and make a pretty loud, freaky sound too. And finally.” She produced a small pill bottle. “Saturnine capsules. I think I finally got these pretty much odorless and tasteless—as long as you don’t put the powder in unseasoned grits or something, no one’ll ever be able to tell it’s there.”
“Damn. You went all out this time.”
“Well, you know.” Peri shrugged slightly, became very intent on rearranging the contents of her bag. “Some scary shit going on out there. A ratcatcher’s gotta be prepared. It is fucking frigid in here, by the way. Did you forget to pay your gas bill again?”
“Not forgot. Just didn’t have the money.”
“What about your Lenny money?”
“That was for the fucking nursing home payment. Which is hella late too.”
Peri got out her wallet. “You need me to spot you?”
Caren grimaced. “Put that fucking thing away. I’ve got a big advance coming for the Lex case. It’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Please. Keep your smelly Old-World money.”
“If you say so. I’m going.”
Caren stood.
Peri grabbed her face and kissed her. Slapped her lightly on the ass. “Seeya, bitch.”
“Bye, bitch.”
Caren watched as Peri headed for the door, battling a sudden overwhelming urge to say something—anything—to keep her from walking out.
“Hey,” she blurted, just as Peri was pulling the door shut behind her.
Peri poked her head back in.
Caren blanked for a moment, then said, “Just—you know. Be fucking careful out there. There’s a murderer on the loose. Targeting Martial Magi. And you’re the Master-General’s daughter.” She hesitated. “Maybe I oughtta walk you to your—?”
“I can take care of myself, Care,” Peri cut her off, with a tight little smile. “I’ll text you…okay?”
The door latched with a terminal click before Caren could reply.
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