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

the garden boy—Tor, a short hard sound of a name—actually laughed.
    “Me too. Were you, you know, here with someone?” He took a long draft of strawberry juice, and Cami glanced at the crowd again. No sign of Ruby. Her head felt strange, stuffed with cotton wool. When she looked back at him, something seemed different. It took her a moment to figure it out.
    His necklace was gone. Or had she imagined the silver gleam? The thought made her queasy, so she swept it away. It went quietly. “Y-yeah. Sh-she g-g-ot d-d-istracted, though. I g-g-guess.”
    “Lots to be distracted by here. You want to look for her? Or you want me to take you home? Because really, you shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”
    The jack behind the counter found this suddenly interesting, turning away from the grill. The scales on her cheeks flushed and popped with Potential, just like the grill behind her popped with heat. They crawled over her skin, and the red tint between them swelled, destroying the beauty of the pattern. “What, like you’re some sort of knight in shining, orphan boy? Please.”
    “Did I
ask
you?” His black eyes sparked, and Cami didn’t even think about it. Her hand shot out, closed around his wrist. The strawberry juice in its wax-paper cup splashed, and she pulled a little, just as if he was Nico and ready to go ballistic.
    The jack laughed, a nasty bitter little sound of jacktemper. “Oh, cute. Yeah, you hold him back, Juno bitch.”
    “Come on.” Tor slid off his stool. “Danna’s in a mood today. She’s all
jealous
.”
    The jack paled, and licked her thin lips. It was funny—she had such a small mouth and the rest of her was so hard, corded with muscle. It looked like she could knock the cart over without half trying, and the scales on her cheeks actually lifted a little, tiny muscles underneath swelling with anger. Cami slid off her seat, schoolbag awkward under her arm and the limon almost fizzing free of the bottle. Tor steadied her, and his hand was oddly gentle. “Fucking jacks,” he said, just loud enough to be heard. “We don’t want to stay around. It might be
catching.
”
    Why did boys always have to be so nasty? Cami pulled him away. “D-d-don’t. P-p-please.”
    He shrugged, his jaw set sullen. It was amazing how eyes so dark could be so scorching. “Fine. But just ’cause
you
say so.”
    Well, great. I’m a hero.
“She c-c-can’t h-h-help it. J-j-jacks—” Jacks usually had temper problems—not enough Potential to really charm, and they most probably wouldn’t end up Twisting, but still. They weren’t awfully employable, and had to live on the edges of the core. Almost-Twisted, just like they were almost-charmers. In-between and always angry. Or maybe they were scared of becoming Twists and being pushed even further down the chain.
    Sometimes,
angry
just meant
scared
.
    Ellie would be a strong charmer, maybe even Sigiled. So would Ruby, it was obvious. Cami wasn’t so sure. Her Potential tested high, sure, but you could never tell until it quit being invisible and started settling. Ruby always told her not to worry.
    Where was Ruby now?
    Tor’s grin lost some of its hurtfulness. He stripped his hair back from his face with stiff fingers, and for a moment he looked almost . . . vulnerable. “Yeah, a jack’s a powder keg. I know. So, you want to look for your friend? Or should I take you home?”
    Well, wasn’t he just taking charge of everything. Cami shrugged, dropped his wrist and took another pull off the limon. “I d-d-don’t want t-t-trouble.”
    “That’s a shame.” He cocked his head, tossing the leftover strawberry juice at a chained, dozing trashulk, hunched pluglike on a patch of verdant charmgrass in the midst of concrete and metal. The hunched gray green lichen-starred bulk snapped, catching the cup out of the air and munching, the collar at its throat flushing dull-red with pleasure. Its almost-snarl, vibrating just below the surface of the audible,