Wayfarer: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (Tales of Beauty and Madness) by Lili St. Crow Read Free Book Online Page A

tell,” Ellie whispered back.
Poor kid, stuck with her all day. Is she gonna send you to school? Where, public? Mithrus.
Public schools in New Haven were
not
fun. At least nobody got knifed in the hallways at Juno.
    No, we just get driven home by Ruby and almost get eaten by minotaurs.
    Rube was going to want some groveling before she forgave Ellie for losing
her
temper. Another wave of weariness swamped her. Why was she the one always apologizing?
    Because you’re a useless charity case. It’s your role in life, Ellen. Get used to it.
    Rita vanished up the stairs, a swift shadowy scuttle. “Thanks,” Ellie whispered in her wake. The girl might even have heard.
    Maybe Rita could be . . . an ally, sort of. Couldn’t she? If she was smart, she’d see that banding together might afford both of them some cover. Laurissa was impatient with the new girl, but not
angry
. Not like she was with Ellie, who for the life of her could not figure out what the hell she’d ever done to make the woman so furious. At first she’d tried harder to maybe make Laurissa like her, but that never seemed to work with any predictability.
    Did Rita have some trick to it, one Ellie could learn?
    What would it be like to grow up with the Strep? At least Ellie could remember something different. Something better, no matter how far away.
    A short, high cry came from the depths of the house. She flinched.
    It was the sound of a charmer’s rage, and even more dust blew itself through the halls in swirls and eddies. The hurrying sounds became cleaning staff, probably hired for the day, and an involuntary half-laugh escaped Ellie as she realized two things.
    One, the Strep was charming in her workroom, and as usual lately, things weren’t going well. Which meant Ellie would be called in to help.
    Two, it looked like Laurissa was throwing another party. A real one, not just a charmweed bender for one of her boyfriends. Instead of getting some room to breathe while Laurissa and her toy of the moment smoked and laughed and made animal noises behind closed doors, there would be a whole houseful of people the hostess had to impress.
    It would be the first party since Dad’s . . . accident. Derailing.
    Death.
    Laurissa would be sugar with the guests, but if anything went wrong—and Mithrus knew
something
would—guess who would feel it most?
    Great.
    • • •
    A stone rectangle cut into the heart of the house, nothing to soften the bare walls, full of the smell of dampness, heated dust, and the faint odor of live charming changing from day to day, a Twist of its own. Today it was the sharp yellow of vinegar desperation. Yesterday it had been strawberries, sweet just before rotting. They weren’t precisely smells, sometimes, but that was how the brain translated them. At least, that was the theory nowadays.
    Laurissa stood in front of a stone plinth, her spray-stiff, mussed hair all but crackling with frustration. Her hands were fists, and Ellie saw with some small traitorous satisfaction that a vein at her temple was pulsing. The back of her suit jacket held a large, visible crease, and her pink stiletto-heeled Pak Chin shoes had been kicked into a corner. Barefoot on cold stone, the Sigiled charmer snarled silently and watched thin threads of steam-Potential unravel themselves from a pair of narrow, knee-high leather boots propped on the plinth. A pricey custom job, it looked like, probably already late to the client since Laurissa had overbooked again. Ellie’s gaze swiftly unraveled the failing charm, tracing it back to its source.
    Wow. She’s really slipping if that’s not working right
. The repair would be easy, just a tweak of a few threads of throbbing Potential to get them to settle into the leather right.
    There was no reason the charm should have been misbehaving at all. It was a ridiculously simple set: surefoot, lookgrabbing, rain proofing. A Sigiled charmer should have been able to do that in her sleep, especially if she