Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (18 page)

T
HE LOCK ON THE WHITE ROOM’S DOOR WAS ANCIENT
and flimsy, but she threw it anyway. Hot water in the bath stung the cuts on her arms and legs—the shimmersilk’s claws had been
sharp
.

Found it in a pawnshop . . . it belonged to you.

She sat shivering in the steaming cast-iron tub for a long time, hugging herself as the bathwater rippled with her trembling. Her hair flooded over her shoulders, dampness sticking it in tiny curls and streaks to her abused skin, and when she slid under the surface it floated around her just like a mermaid’s.

She stayed under a long time, everything above the water blurring as the heaviness in her lungs mounted. Burning crept into her nose. She surfaced in a rush, splashing, and the sound of her gasping echoed against white tile, charm-scrubbed white grout, the ecru towels and the blind eye of the misted mirror, the sink like an opening flower, and the gleaming toilet.

None of this is mine
.

Even the hot water wasn’t hers. It drained away with a gurgle.

Still dripping, naked because the nightgowns and pajamas weren’t hers either, she crawled into the bed like a thief. Some other girl belonged here, a girl with clear unmarked skin and a carefree ringing voice, one of the Family girls with their bright eyes and disdainful smiles. A girl who could make Nico less angry, a girl who could have kept Papa on the breathing side of transition, a girl the house could close around like the well-oiled machine it was.

She curled up and stared into the darkness. There was a faint edge of gray under the curtains—sunrise approaching, a late winter’s dawn. The gauze over the mirror, a stolen thing like everything else in this bloodless room, fluttered teasingly.

What will you see if you take the gauze off and look? Dare you to do it, Cami
.

Except that wasn’t really her name, was it? She didn’t even have a
name
.

My Nameless.
A slow, easy hissing whisper, a familiar stranger’s voice, in the very center of her brain.

Another steady whisper rose from the cuts and bruises, becoming audible in fits and starts. The gauze rippled, rippled, and behind it the mirror was a water-clear gleam. The muttering from the mirror mixed with low atonal chanting, blended with the throb and ache of contusions, scrapes, and thin slices, and now, at last, she knew what it was saying.

You are nobody.

Over and over again.

You are nothing.

And it was true.

The light under the curtain strengthened. The door rattled. Someone said something on the other side of it, but she closed away the sound of the voice.

They weren’t talking to her, anyway. Maybe to the ghost of the girl who should have had this room.

The girl she had tried, and failed miserably, to be.

After a while the sound stopped. It came back, twice, then the light under the curtains faded and welcome darkness returned.

It was dark for a long time. Her stomach growled, and she tried not to move until she couldn’t stand the jabbing pains, muscles protesting.

Soft taps at the door. “Cami?”

She squeezed her dry, burning eyes shut. Hearing
him
hurt almost as badly as the stiffened-up bruises and drying scabs.

Nico said other things, but she turned her brain into a soft droning hum. The door gave a sharp banging groan, shaking on its hinges, but she counted the words inside her head, rolling them like small metal balls on a dark-painted surface.

You are nobody. You are nothing.

It was almost a relief. No more struggling with her stupid tongue. No more being the third wheel. No more jumping at shadows. No more flinching.

Yelling, finally. But she clutched her hands over her ears. They, at least, belonged to her, and the yelling ended with a thud. The doorknob screeched, the ancient lock groaning against the doorframe. She curled even more tightly into herself, around the empty rock of her stomach, the smell of her own body wrapping in a close comforting fog.

My hands. I can’t be nobody if I have hands.

She tried to shove the thought away, but it wouldn’t go. Her bladder ached too, a steady relentless pressure. Her lungs, stupid idiot things, kept going even though she tried to stop them. Her hair lay damp-sticky against the back of her neck—she was sweating.

You are nobody
,
the whisper insisted.
You are nothing
.

Then who the hell was it talking to? Her fingers tensed, fingernails digging into her scalp.
Her
scalp, and the stinging was welcome. Some of her nails were broken, she could feel the sharp edges. Her mouth tasted bitter and nasty, there were crusties at the corners of her eyes.

My eyes. My hands. My mouth
. She shifted restlessly, every part of her jangling a discordant song of ache and pain, and her bladder informed her once again that it was
not
happy. Her stomach rumbled loudly, insistently.

Her stomach didn’t stutter. Her breath moved in and out, despite everything she could do. There was a thumping, regular and insistent, and she kept her eyes shut. Traceries of false light burned against the inside of her eyelids.

You are nobody. You are nothing
.

The
tha-thump, tha-thump
irritated her. It interfered with the whisper, shoved it aside, and demanded to be heard along with the need to pee. What was it? Someone banging on the door again?

Don’t be an idiot. It’s your heart.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump
. The rhythm didn’t vary. She felt it in her wrists, her throat, the backs of her knees. All through her, scarlet threads twitched as the beating in her chest went on. It was whispering too, and as soon as she realized it she moved again, restlessly, trying to figure out what it was saying.

Her bladder was going to explode, and the murmur from the mirror was getting more insistent. Was it hoarse now, a little desperate? It was scratchy, like a smoke-filled throat. She shook her head, slowly, every muscle in her neck shrieking, trying to figure out what the thumping in her chest was saying. It was a song, maybe? One of Nico’s favorites, with thumping bass shaking her into jelly?

No.

Her arms spasmed. So did her legs. Muscles locking, moving restlessly, annoyed at her. The whisper from the mirror pushed against the gauze; the torn material billowed, fingernail-scraping the wooden frame.

Cami scrambled out of the bed, tripping and going down, banging her knee on the floor. She lunged up, bare feet smacking the carpet, and just barely made it to the bathroom.

It was there, sitting on the toilet and a glorious relief filling her, that the noise in her head died down, and she figured out the thumping in her chest.

Tha-thud. Tha-thud. Tha-thud.

I am. I am. I am.

The pace quickened. The aching and cramping in her bladder subsided.

I am. I am. I am
.

She flushed, her hands moving automatically, and the chugging cascade of water drowned out the mirror’s fuzzy staticwhisper. As soon as she stepped into the white room, though, she could hear it. The gauze fluttered to the floor, stroked by an invisible hand, and the mirror’s surface was full of gray vapor, pouring out from the glass in defiance of its own unreality. Heavy, perfumed smoke. It crawled along the floor, reaching for her with begging, sharp-nailed fingers.

White fingers, on a broad soft hand.

Nobody. Nothing. You are nobody. Nothing! YOU ARE NOBODY NOTHING NOBODY NOTHING NOBODYNOTHINGNOBODYNOTHING—

“
Noooooo!
” The wail burst out of her. She flung herself across the room.

Punch from the hip
, Nico said in her memory. Teaching her how to fight one lazy summer day, while they played
banditti
in the woods.
That’s my girl
.
Hit ’em so they know they’ve been hit.

Her fist met bulging, smoke-bleeding glass. Her scream spiraled up, drowning out the other cry of female rage—the one coming from the mirror as it broke, crashing, a red jolt all the way up her arm.

The White Queen stumbled back, almost tripping on her long dress, her face graven, runneled with lines, a contorted picture of hatred. She screamed, and the mirror in front of her showed a withered, slobbering hag, the jewel at her throat dark heartsblood, flickering as her life faded.

Cami came to on her knees, her bleeding right hand clutched to her chest, the pale carpet silvered with glass. Running feet in the hall, a splintering jolt against the door. She hugged herself, sobbing, as the acrid smoke in the room thinned.

And through it all, her heart thundered.

I am. I am. I am.

I
T WASN’T
N
ICO.
I
T WAS
S
TEVENS, WITH
T
RIG RIGHT
behind him. The gaunt consigliere stabbed two fingers at the broken mirror, snapping a charm that flashed venomous-red in the darkness as the broken shards on the floor quivered; Trig’s hand closed around Cami’s arm and he lifted her bodily out of the glass, fingers slipping against blood and sweat. Her hand bled freely, and there was a stinging in her knees.

Stevens hissed a curse in another language, a long sonorous filthy-sounding term that ended with him jabbing his fingers at the mirror and hissing once more. Glass shards trembled as if they wanted to fly up from the floor; a shudder worked its way down the consigliere’s dusty, black-clad back. “Avert,
Bianca mala
,” he muttered, finally. “
Avert
.”

“Mithrus
Christ
!” Trig had a handful of material—it was her old terrycloth bathrobe, and he bundled her into it with quick efficient movements before half-carrying her toward the bathroom. He reached around the edge of the bathroom door and flicked a switch; sudden golden light stung her eyes. “Are you okay? Are you
hurt
?”

“I do not like this,” Stevens said, slowly but very loudly.

“S-s-s-s-s—” The stutter matched her frantic pulse.
Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just know I—

“
CAMI!
” Nico broke what was left of the door, skidding on the carpet, bare-chested and in his ragged pajama pants, his hair standing up and the red pinpricks in his pupils guttering like candleflames in a draft. He stopped dead, thinning smoke shredding and cringing away from him.

“
Biel’y
.” Stevens turned on his heel. Even at this hour he wore mirror-polished wingtips, and his suit wasn’t creased or wrinkled. The only thing missing was his tie, his collar unbuttoned instead of cutting into the papery skin of his throat, and it made him look, for the first time, oddly fragile. “The maggots are
here
. In New Haven, yes, and they dare to break the sanctity of this house.”

Nico’s nostrils flared. He wasn’t listening.

He inhaled, deeply, and Trig went very still.

“Oh,
fu
—” Trig shoved Cami through the bathroom door. He didn’t even get to finish the word before Nico was on him, a thundering growl throbbing in the new Vultusino’s chest and his fangs out.

Cami fell, barking both bleeding knees on white tile. Nico tossed Trig aside like the older man was made of paper, Trig’s head hit the doorframe with a sickening
crack
. A blink and the Vultusino was there, his fingers sinking into her arms like iron claws, and Cami kept screaming breathlessly, scrabbling to get away as his teeth champed just short of her throat.

It was Stevens, one thin knee in Nico’s back, who wrestled the Vultusino away from her. He had paused to grab the gauze from the floor and twisted it into a noose, pulling back on Nico’s throat as if dragging the reins of a maddened titon, his face set and still as it always was. He heaved Enrico Vultusino’s son back, and the scream of a blood-maddened bloodline Family member turned the air so cold Cami’s breath turned to a white cloud.

Trigger Vane lay very still, across a shattered door, his eyes closed. And the copper-smelling crimson tide, maddening Nico with its perfume, was
everywhere
.

B
OTH KNEES BANDAGED, HER RIGHT HAND BANDAGED
too—Marya hadn’t even scolded her, just observed a stony, worried silence—Cami clutched at her schoolbag and wiped at her cheeks. Behind her, the limousine purred.

Nico was locked up in the Holding Room, probably with Stevens standing guard at the door. It was a good thing the walls of the house on Haven Hill were thick, otherwise they could have heard the new Vultusino’s screams in the next province.

The cries had ceased, as if cut by a knife, the instant she closed the front door behind her.

Chauncey slept in a small apartment over the cavernous garages; Cami’s tentative knocks hadn’t even woken his wife Evelyn.

I need to go to Ruby’s
, she’d told him.
It’s an emergency
.

Chauncey hadn’t asked any questions, just rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned, grabbing the limousine’s keys off the pegs. He was used to being awakened to drive someone somewhere.

Now her stomach growled, and she lifted the brass knocker again. The garden lay under snow, the ruthlessly trimmed holly along the east boundary glowing green under a scrim of ice. The fountain, its snout lifted and its concrete jaws wide, was festooned with artistic icicles.

The gate was wooden and the fence was low, but you got the idea it was because she
liked
it that way, and furthermore, that Mrs. Edalie de Varre, Ruby’s formidable grandmother, needed no wall or gate to bar and no security guards to eviscerate any Twist or jack who stepped onto her property.

There were powers in New Haven even Family respected, and one of them rested here in Woodsdowne.

The locks clicked, the door opened, and a pair of bleached-gray eyes under a fall of bone-white hair, braided and banded across the top of her head, peered out. Gran was in her high-collared dragon-patterned silk housedress and embroidered slippers, and she examined Cami for a few moments before stepping back.

“Camille.” A faint smile, her parchment skin barely wrinkling. “Come in.”

She really does have very sharp teeth
, Cami thought, and stepped over the threshold. The limousine dropped into gear out on the street, and Chauncey pulled away.

Inside, it smelled of hot griddle and blackcurrant jam, frying eggs and bacon. “I’m making breakfast,” Gran said briskly, taking Cami’s coat and stowing it in the cedar-scented closet, just like usual. She never seemed surprised or ruffled, which was probably a blessing since she had to deal with Ruby all the time. “You like them scrambled, I recall. Ruby will be down as soon as I make coffee.”

“Th-th-thank y-y-y—”

“Oh, don’t,” the Wolfmother of Woodsdowne said, her faint steely smile widening a trifle. “Nobody has good news this morning, my dear. I can smell as much on the wind. Come and eat.”

It took some time. Gran didn’t make coffee until near the end of Cami’s stuttering recitation—unlike Ruby,
she
couldn’t lie to Gran, and she didn’t want to. There was just something about those pale eyes and the way the old woman moved, with such precise economy, that warned against any such impropriety. Spending the night at Ruby’s meant walking on eggshells, though Mrs. De Varre had never even raised her voice in Cami’s presence.

You got the feeling you didn’t
want
her to. At the same time, there was a curious comfort. Gran hadn’t batted an eyelash when Ruby brought Cami home one day after school.
Yes, the Vultusino girl
, she’d said.
You are welcome in my house, young one. Sit down, have a scone.

Cami left out some things, certainly—the flush that went through her every time she said Tor’s name, just how bloodcrazy Nico had gone, the wooden huntsman’s blue, blue eyes, the dreams . . . and Trig’s awful stillness, lying in the shattered doorway.

But she told about Tor and the pin and the shimmersilk, the mirror, and the smoke. Gran listened, her eyebrows coming together fractionally as she refilled Cami’s glass—
milk for a growing girl
, she always remarked—and snapped a charm to flip the pancakes on the griddle.

“And so,” she finally said, switching the coffeemaker on, “you came here.”

I couldn’t think of where else to go. I just need to sit for a little while. Just get myself together.

And even if Nico wanted to, he couldn’t step inside Gran’s door without her blessing. Not even Papa would have. Here was the safest place Cami could think of, even if she wondered just what might follow her out to Woodsdowne.

If some bad charming, bad magic, could reach through a mirror in the house on Haven Hill, it might be able to come here too. Cami’s midsection clenched at the thought. “I n-need h-help.” Her tongue had eased. At least Gran was invariably
patient
. She let you get everything out.

“Help. Well. Hm. You did well, coming to me. Shows you have some intelligence.” Gran poked at the fresh strips of bacon sizzling in their pan. Dawn, creeping through the wide window full of terracotta pots holding green herbs, was iron-gray. More snow before long. “But . . .
them
. The Pale Ones. Theirs is an . . . old magic.”

Here, in the cozy sun-yellow kitchen, warm and chewing on pancakes with blackcurrant jam, it almost seemed like she could handle all this. Maybe. “O-older than th-the R-r-reeve.” She nodded. Her scalp itched, her hair felt greasy. But her stomach had quit growling. It wasn’t like Marya’s oatcakes, but then, nothing was.

Marya probably wouldn’t ever talk to her again.

If Trig hadn’t been there, if
Stevens
hadn’t been there . . . Nico’d never Borrowed from Cami before. Ever. But still.

The coffeemaker gurgled, and a thread of heavenly scent stitched every other fragrance together. “It may be possible to buy you passage to another town. A place to hide.” Gran tapped one finger alongside her nose. “But they have very sensitive noses,
les Blancs
.”

Like dogs, you mean?
“L-leave N-New Haven?”
Go through the Waste, maybe? To another province, another city?

It was another nightmare. Only this time, she couldn’t wake up.

“Perhaps. I don’t know, Camille. And it is no guarantee.” She snapped at the pancakes again, and they obediently charmed themselves off the griddle and onto a waiting, charm-warmed yellow plate. “
Les Blancs n’oublient rien, ma cherie
.”

Her accent wasn’t the same as Sister Mary Brefoil’s, but Cami had no trouble with the words.

Les Blancs, they forget nothing.
“Is . . . ” She reached blindly for her milk glass. “Is th-th-there . . . I m-m-mean, h-how m-many of th-them
are
th-there?”

“They are carrion.” A slight wrinkle of Gran’s aristocratic nose. “There are as many as the suicides and the desperate will support. If a woman survives long enough in their halls, she may become a Queen herself. Like ants, or another insect. It is . . . not easy. Or pleasant. Good morning,
ma petite fille.
”

Ruby halted in the kitchen doorway, yawning, her hair a tangle of bright copper curls. She blinked and stared at Cami, pulling up the strap of her blue pajama tank-top.

She’s going to be so mad
. Cami searched for another apology, her tongue tangling over itself. “R-r-r-ruby—”

Ruby let out a whoop and leapt across the intervening space, flinging her arms around Cami. “You
bitch
!” she finally yelled, laughing, attempting to shake Cami and kiss her cheek at the same time. Gran made a spitting noise and rescued the dangerously toppling milk glass. “I should have suspected when I smelled bacon! God
damn
I’ve missed you!”

It was classic Ruby. Gran sniffed. “Language at the table must be cleaner, Ruby. Let the poor girl eat. She has enough problems.”

“Did you hear about Ellen?” Ruby could barely contain herself, plonking down in her usual cane-bottom chair at the breakfast bar. “Her dad. Train crash, out in the middle of the Waste. The Strep has custody. It’s horrific.”

The bottom dropped fully out of Cami’s stomach.
Mithrus. Oh, Ellie.
She stared at her plate, sticky with blackcurrant jam and half-eaten pancakes. “Oh.”

“
Ruby!
” Gran didn’t quite raise her voice, but her tone could have sliced through the walls. Every dish in the kitchen rattled. “Do
not
add bad news to her troubles!”

Ruby’s jaw dropped. Her eyes narrowed, and Cami braced herself for the explosion. Gran turned back to the coffeemaker and the griddle, the straight bar of her spine somehow expressing disdain and disappointment.

“Mithrus Christ,” Ruby breathed. “Cami, honey, what kind of trouble are you
in
?”

The heat and prickling behind her eyes almost overflowed. She took a deep breath.

Maybe, just this once, Ruby would let her talk.

“I f-f-found out wh-who I am.”

Gran vanished halfway through Ruby’s breakfast, reappearing in a long black coat and a jaunty blue hat perched on her pale, rebraided hair, and left them with the dishes. “Sparkling,” she said sternly, and Ruby waved a hand. “And no, your friend will not do them all while you chatter.”

“
Mais oui, chère grandmère, mais oui
.” Ruby’s accent was cheerfully atrocious, and Gran sniffed again before sailing through the kitchen without even glancing at Cami, moving through the utility room and into the garage. An engine roused with a sweet soft purr, the garage door rumbled unhappily, and she was gone.

“Thank God for bridge club. If she had to stay home Saturdays I’d kill myself.” Ruby applied herself to the rest of her breakfast. “What did Gran say? I mean,
really
say?”

“Th-there m-might be a w-way.”
I’ll have to leave New Haven.
She shivered. She knew there were other provinces outside the city’s borders, but it was like knowing there was a moon. She’d never expected to
visit
. “It’s d-dangerous.”

“Well, if anyone can get you through the Waste or overseas and into another province, the Valhalla Bridge Club can. But what about Nico? Why doesn’t
he
get off his ass? Family’s got to be good for
something
, right? Plus, you’re Vultusino. This charm-white bitch, queen, whatever—seriously, Cami, you think you might be
related
?”

Maybe I just belong to her.
She shivered, staring at her coffee cup. “I d-d-don’t know. T-t-tor s-s-said—”

“Oh, yeah. The garden boy. I’m with Nico on this one. Shame, too. He had nice shoulders.” Ruby crunched at bacon with her strong white teeth, so like her grandmother’s. You could see other similarities, their high cheekbones and long eyelashes.

What would it be like, to look at someone and see her own face reflected? Or even just a piece of it? It nagged at her. Something familiar; if she could just sit and
think
she could tease it out.

Why bother? You know what you have to do.

But oh, she didn’t want to.

“Seriously, though,” Ruby had her stride now. “Why doesn’t Nico just
deal
with this?”

He can’t
.
Besides, he . . .
She ran up against the memory of his teeth snapping close to her throat, his arms stiff as he held her down and away, struggling with himself and the bloodrage. The screams as Stevens locked his blood-maddened Vultusino in a safe room, until the hunting insanity wore off. But there was a simpler reason.

She found out she could say it, after all. “I’m n-n-not F-f-f-family.”
I wasn’t ever supposed to be here.

Ruby actually stopped chewing and stared. After a full ten seconds of silence, Cami began to wonder if she had, in fact, struck her speechless. It would be the first time ever.

She’d dreamed of such an occasion for
years
, but it didn’t seem quite worth it now.

Ruby took a giant mouthful of hot coffee, winced, and swallowed. “He said that?” Very quietly, and her dark eyes narrowed.

“N-n-no. B-b-but—”

“But
nothing
. You’re
his
family, dammit, and if he’s not gonna step up it’s his loss. You’re
my
family too, Cami, and if these child-beating weirdos want you, they’re going to have to come through me.” She nodded, coppery curls falling in her face.
That’s that
, the motion said,
now don’t be silly, Cami. I know best, I always do.

Except this time Ruby didn’t. What if the dogs came while she was here? Or something worse? Gran’s house was seriously charmed, but so was the house on Haven Hill. The White Queen had reached through the mirror with . . . something. If she could do
that
, break into the Vultusino’s fortress, what else could she do?

What could she do to Ruby? Or to anyone Cami turned to?

I shouldn’t have come here.
But where else was there to
go
, for God’s sake?

Only one place. You know where.

“Now.” Ruby crunched on a fresh piece of bacon. “Drink your milk. We’ll do the dishes and set up the guest room for you. I’ll see if I can call Ellie. I might be able to sneak her out, or talk the Strep into—”

“No.” It burst out so hard and clear Cami didn’t have a chance to stutter. “D-d-dangerous. It’s t-t-too d-d-dangerous, R-rube.”

“So’s her stuck in that house with the Strep, dammit. I’ve been planning a jailbreak for a while, this is as good a time as any. And she’ll have
ideas
. She’s all practical and shit. Drink your milk.”

Cami just sat and stared at it. White milk in clear glass, and a sudden sweat broke out all over her. She probably smelled unwashed and desperate, too.

Was Nico still screaming, locked up and crazed by her mere-human blood?

Or was she mere-human? So far, nobody had told her exactly what the
Biel’y
were, except a cult.
Maggots
, Stevens had said.

Well, wasn’t that a lovely thought.

The man in the tan trench coat definitely wasn’t just-human, though. At least, not completely. Wood and sap and sawdust, and his blue, blue eyes.