Free Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness by Lili St. Crow

noise.
    “Whoa, there.” He actually caught her arm as she swayed. “Mithrus, what are you doing
here
?”
     
    The dogs bayed and she scrabbled, desperately, the Queen’s rising scream filling whirling snow. The rats ran after her in a swelling tide, their sleek-oiled coats gleaming, and the cracking, rending sound of glass breaking tore the universe apart . . .
     
    Cami came back to herself with a jolt. She was sitting down, and the garden boy had a straw to her lips. “It’s just fruit juice,” he was saying. “It’s okay, it’s not—”
    Is it charmed?
She pushed the cup aside. Swayed again, almost falling off the stool. A striped awning flapped overhead, and Southking Street throbbed like a bad tooth. She blinked as something liquid splashed, and the garden boy backed off.
    “I’m sorry.” He had a nice voice, at least. It reminded her of Nico’s, but without the sharp-edge anger. “You looked like you were gonna faint.”
    The foodcart had a shiny chrome counter, and the burly female jack in a red plaid shirt behind it was studiously ignoring them as she messed with a hissing-hot grill, the scales on her wrists and the back of her neck bright green and glowing. The garden boy lifted the cup and sipped, carefully, the clear straw holding red liquid.
    “Strawberry juice,” he said after swallowing. “Fixes everything, and I’ve taken some so you know it’s not charmed. Plus I know I’m not supposed to even talk to you. Believe me, I know.”
    What the hell just happened?
She’d lost Ruby, and then . . . something. Like a bad dream, but during daylight. She swallowed hard, realized she still had her schoolbag, clutched to her chest like a drowning girl would hold driftwood. “I l-l-lost R-ruby.” The words tripped over each other. “I’m s-s-s-sorry.”
    He actually leaned back, gazing at her like she’d just produced a Twist charm, or started to sprout jackfeathers. She would have flinched, except it was impossible to hunch her shoulders any further. One of these days she was going to get over the effect her stutter had on people.
    But not today.
    “So you do talk.” He nodded, once, like he was surprised she could make words. So was she, right now. “I thought you just, you know, didn’t bother. Because you’re beautiful.”
    What?
“I s-s-s-st-st—”
    Another nod, just like Nico. The jacket was butter-soft leather, but scuffed and scarred. “Stutter. Yeah. So? Hey, Danna. Something nice for the lady.”
    The jack cast one disdainful glance over her meaty shoulder. The scales spread up her cheek, a fanlike pattern that was actually beautiful, if you looked close enough. “You payin’?”
    The garden boy tossed a couple crumpled paper credits on the counter, their woven surfaces alive with heavy-duty anti-charm ink. “I can take my business elsewhere.”
    It
was
kind of like being with Nico. Cami found her hands working again, and her brain too. She dug in her schoolbag, coming up with a crisp five-cred note. “H-here.”
    “My treat.” The garden boy grinned. “I’m Torin Beale. Tor, for short.”
    “C-c-cami.” She wished she could add more, but she could just
tell
her tongue was knotting up. But she did offer her hand, and he shook, gravely, his jacket creaking a little. His skin was warm, and not hard but firm. You could tell he worked hard every day.
    “I know.” But his smile took the sting out of it. The jack banged an unopened bottle of limon down on the counter, sweeping up Tor’s creds and making them disappear.
    Cami took it, cautious; the tingle in her fingers told her the bottling-seal was unbroken, and therefore safe enough. She cracked the top. “Thanks.” It was a miracle, the word came out whole.
    “No problem. Hey, what are you doing on Southking? Shouldn’t you be at that school? What is it—that’s right, you’re a Juno.”
    “S-sk-k-kipp-ping.” Of course it was too good to last. She made a face, sipping at tart cool fizzing limon, and