Midway Relics and Dying Breeds: A Tor.Com Original by Seanan McGuire Read Free Book Online Page A

mastered it. At the same time, I was far enough from the light to blur my edges, and our show was rich with girls who wore their dark hair to their shoulders and their skirts to their ankles. I might be seen. I wouldn’t be known.
    Davo had wanted to keep me away from Billie. Why? It could be taken as a punishment—he knew that she was precious to me, and so he was assigning her to Bay, who didn’t know her like I did. It could be taken as a test run. If he was planning to offer me to Grandpapa as a caretaker for Grandmamma until she passed, and then as her executor and replacement at the Bone Yard …
    I shook my head, chasing the thought away. Davo didn’t have the authority to take Billie away from me. Her genework had been purchased on Uncle Ren’s thumbprint and my own, making me her owner in the eyes of the law. Now that Uncle Ren was gone—
    The shock hit so hard that I actually stopped, my bare toes digging into the spongy covering of our artificial stage. Uncle Ren was gone. Davo was Big Man in his place. He could claim the right to make decisions on behalf of Uncle Ren’s property, and while I was Billie’s owner as much as Uncle Ren was, within the carnival itself, a Big Man’s word was law. Davo could order me to let him trade away my half of her deed, and I’d have no choice but to obey.
    “Stupid, stupid, stupid ,” I whispered, and broke into a run, hiking my skirt up around my knees to make it easier. Davo had wanted me away from Billie, and he’d wanted me away until close, which wasn’t until two o’clock. He’d given me a job that would keep me busy and distant and out of my comfort zone, and there was only one reason for him to have done that.
    He was really going to do it. He was really planning to sell her.
    *   *   *
    I came back to my senses when I was halfway to Billie’s pen. I turned and kept running until I came to the low-slung cluster of tents that had been positioned around the edge of the stage, as if to show the people of Portland what good, obedient visitors we were. See? Even our private space doesn’t endanger your precious meadow.
    My tent was in the third row back. This time, the seal was still in place, and there was no need to wait for a connection; the cloud was strong and stable in the space near Portland, undisrupted by natural forces. I called up the Bone Yard and waited, pacing back and forth in the limited space afforded me by the tent.
    He couldn’t. He couldn’t . Oh, but he could, and he would, and that was the real problem; power isn’t dangerous unless it comes wedded to intent, and Davo had intent enough for twenty men.
    “Ansley?”
    My grandfather’s voice made me jump. I spun back toward the screen, jabbing a finger at it, and said, in a tone that was more accusing than I had intended, “He’s really trying to sell her. He thinks I’m going to let him sell her!”
    “Ah.” Grandpapa didn’t have to ask who “he” was, and with that piece in place, the rest of my sentence made perfect sense. “You should calm yourself, my little crow. This much excitement isn’t good for you.”
    “I should—”
    “Someone could hear you.” This time, there was a stinging rebuke in his words, and I caught myself before I could say anything more. He looked at me coldly, assessingly, and not for the first time, I remembered that this was the man who had held us together through these last eighty years, who had sat on the council of Big Men and decided what technology we would embrace and what we would deny as we made our way, unbowed and undiluted, into the ever-changing future. “I do not think you want to be heard right now, granddaughter.”
    “I … I’m sorry, Grandpapa.” I bowed my head, trying to show contrition through my posture.
    His voice was soft as he said, “What would you have me do? You are with the carnival. You chose to stay with the carnival, knowing the way that business is done, knowing the bounds of blood and loyalty and