Page 54 of Spring's Arcana
“Well, it’s wrong. They just like us,zaika. Some boys, some girls. You like Motel 6 instead?”
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been. “It’s fine.”
He probably expected her to pay for her own room, too. Coco said money wasn’t a problem forour type; now Nat wondered. Mom and Leo pinched pennies, but Nat always thought that was because of the old country.
“Uncle” Leo. What other bedrock assumptions were going to vanish before this was over?
Assuming, of course, that it would ever end.
Dmitri finished his fourth bottle of sticky green pop laden with corn syrup. His own bladder, not to mention pancreas, must be iron for him to take down that much without stopping for a restroom. “How far west we goin’?”
“South Dakota.”Where it starts thinking it’s Wyoming but it’s not, not yet. Could you love someone so much there was no room leftover for your own child? Nat had always known herself a burden, a clinging vine on her mother’s pretty gracefulness, but every mother loved her kids, right?
Or did some of them just… not?
The question was more terrifying than magic, than flying vans or deathless sorcerers, than divinities or “things who eat.”
“Not much out there.” Dima wanted more information, and she supposed she couldn’t blame him.
“You asked.” Nat forced her hands to lay quietly in her lap. The heat blowing through the vents fought deep piercing cold outside, and the result was a perfect temperature. Maybe it was just good engineering instead of magic. Advanced technology was synonymous with sorcery, hadn’t someone said that? “That’s where we’re going.”
“That where it is?” He snuck a darting little glance at the passenger side; did his chest ache all day? How, exactly, did he live with his heart gone? How was any of thispossible?
“I don’t know, Dmitri.” Now she sounded like Mom, impatient with child-Nat’s questions. How long would Nat herself live, hearing her mother’s voice when she got irritated or even just brusque? “I have pieces of a puzzle, all right? Once I get to one, it’ll lead me to another. That’s what Mom said.”Scavenger hunt. Except the other scavengers have big teeth, and bad tempers.
“Your mama tell you why she stole it?”
“I didn’t know she stole anything.” Nat studied his profile. “I’m sorry. You must want it back really badly.”
His lip lifted, a snarl exposing those teeth that put the falling snow to shame. “Don’t need your fuckin’ pity.”
It’s not. But she decided he didn’t want to know, and gazed out the windshield again. Ice pellets tapslithered over glass; even a magical car’s heater couldn’t completely erase the fact of winter.
She could easily imagine his very white teeth closing on flesh, slicing through. He had a gun, but he hadn’t done anything to stop the robber. The blue car had been gone when she staggered outside to heave uselessly into a discolored snowdrift.
A nice clean getaway. Had Dmitri arranged it?
“So Candy’s a divinity.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but she might as well. Silence was dangerous. “And de Winter is too. And… my mother. And you. And that guy—Koschei—”
“Not him.” The gangster’s lip lifted, strong white teeth peeking out. “Filthy little sorcerer, that’s all.”
He said he was “the” sorcerer.Well, if she could believe in walking gods and hearts like blood-tinged diamonds, not to mention mirrors that showed the past, she could believe in sorcerers too. “So what are you a divinity of?”The Mob? Or all criminals? How does it work? Do you have family too?
“Asking the obvious. Should ask how to keep me from tearing you to pieces when we get where we’re going,zaika.”
I’ll figure it out. Or she wouldn’t and the whole thing would be academic. “My name is Nat.”
“That’s not all your name. But you’re a wise little girl, keeping it hidden. Never can tell what someone’s going to do with a name.”
There was no way to explain that the cats told her to choose a name and keep it close; child-Nat had liked having the secret. It was a warm glow on nights when Mama sent her to bed without supper, or when Maria and Leo shouted at each other in the old country’s rolling tongue. “Is yours hidden too?”
“Hiding something just an invitation for someone come along to lift it,zaika. I wear mine proud. Maybe you should too.”
Yeah, I’ll take advice from the guy who shoots sorcerers and threatens women. Spiffy. She pressed her knees together, hoping they’d stop soon, and said nothing.
Maybe he took pity on her, or maybe all the Mountain Dew was putting the pressure on below his belt buckle, because the gangster eased off the gas and worked them to the far right lane. “I take you to a nice place. Okay?”
I can’t afford a nice place. But maybe it didn’t matter. “Fine,” Nat agreed, and leaned to her right, resting her head on the cold, throbbing window while ice whispered along the car’s metal and glass skin.
