Page 41 of Spring's Arcana
Candy paused, studying Nat’s face. Her pretty painted lips moved slightly before she shook her head, obviously choosing her words carefully. “Baba might be able to use it for that, I wouldn’t know. Did shesayshe’d cure your mother?”
“I…” Now Nat couldn’t remember just what the old woman had promised.
“Well, think about it. The old chicken-legged lady doesn’t lie, but she doesn’t tell all she knows either.” Candy painted another long thin slice, the thick goop spreading welcome warm numbness.“I just know Dmitri will kill whoever keeps it from him. He said so, and he meant it.”
Yeah, I’ve got that part, thanks. “But my mom stole it?”
“From Baba herself.” Candy let out a soft whistle, almost admiring. “Gotta hand it to your mama, she always finds a way. I can tell you will, too.” A series of fast light taps on the front door made Candy straighten. “That’s Dima. He won’t want to leave you with me for long; he can’t stand conversations he can’t eavesdrop on. You just sit at the table over there with your hot cocoa—you look like the unicorn type—and drink like a good girl while Mama discusses things with her brother.”
“He’s your brother?” Nat wasn’t sure she could slither off the stool, much less make her legs carry her to the tiny chrome-legged table with its two orange-and-green flowered vinyl chairs.
“Kind of. Every one of my girls is a sister to his nephews, you know. Even if they sometimes don’t act very familial.” Candy shook her head again, capping the jar of “special iodine” with a savage twist of her wrist. “Welcome to the most fucked-up family possible, honey. Excuse me.”
Nat watched her sway down the hall, her skirt far too tight for her long, no-nonsense strides.I wouldn’t want to be in her way,she thought, very clearly, and a wave of nausea passed through her, hard and bright as a polished silver spear. The door closed, and Nat looked at the table.
The saucepan was dangling in midair over a huge white mug. No—the cup’s handle was a gilt unicorn’s head, and its white china sides were painted with the body of that golden, fantastical beast.
Nat knew that cup. She’d bought it with chore money at the thrift store one winter, and refused to drink from anything else until it broke in the sink while she was at school one day.
Or at least, that’s what Mama said had happened. Maybe Koschei’s mirrors would have told Nat otherwise.
What did it matter? You learned not to make a big fuss, because after all, there were plenty of nice matching cups in the cabinets. You learned to get along, to make do, to keep your mouth shut. To find a job, and another job, to work until you were almost free andthen to find a hospice for your collapsed and steadily ailing mother, to find a certain skyscraper downtown and a woman with winter-colored hair inside.
Nat was a champion at keeping quiet and finding things. The trouble was, she’d ignored what was right in front of her, and she had the sinking suspicion she wasn’t going to be able to stay quiet anymore.
She might not be a good little girl at all, either.
Not now.
ESSENTIAL TRUTH
“I don’t like you very much right now.” Candy stood on the top step, her arms crossed, and stared down at him.
“I wasgoodto her!” Dmitri didn’t like the urge to explain himself. “I took her to Coco, brought her champagne, took her dancing.”
“You and Baba dangled her out at Jay’s party hoping one of Maria’s little helpers would bite, and one did. Probably wanted to tenderize her for the banquet, too.” Candy’s lip lifted, not quite a snarl but certainly a warning. “Even for you this is something, Konets. Time was, you wouldn’t steal from the innocent.”
“I steal from who I fuckin’ please, Candy, and are we going to argue about this right here on the fuckin’ street?” He glanced at the two camouflaged Amazons flanking their goddess.
Some of them remembered when she was Astarte, and further back to a land where male children were sold to neighboring peoples at the border markets and a star-shaped shield was alive with a divinity’s consciousness. Even for the gods made of basic natural forces devotees meant more power, and as long as mortal men were raving idiots pulled around by their tiny heads Candy wouldn’t lack for followers.
Mortal, or otherwise. And good luck bribing any true Amazon. All Candy’s incarnations—not to mention her followers, conscious or not—were amenable to cold hard cash, but only on their terms.
The brunette goddess of those who healed with the body glared at him. “You know my rules.”
Of course, every one of their kind had little rules. The world was full of those hedges and restrictions, no refunds, terms and conditions applied. “Which one of them am I breaking, eh?”
“You’re going to let Maria eat her own.” The accusation, flatly delivered, almost stung.
It was certainly what Maschenkaintended,yes, but many was the slip ’twixt liquor and lip. In any case, nobody and nothing would touch the girl until she’d led Dima to his missing property, and the fact that he would have to turn around and surrender it to Baba again if he meant to continue as he wished to was beside the point.
It was the principle of the thing, or so Dima would have said if he gave a shit what Candy thought. He folded his own arms, hating the defensive motion as well. “Why should that bother anyone? Saves me bite or two.” The night was growing old, and he had one or two things to think about while roaming the city alone.
Or standing guard.
Not that he minded having to make this stop, really. After a night spent dancing, fighting, and singing, a little female companionship was a good thing. He had hoped Candy might be in one of her rare charitable moods—or that one or two of her highly skilled priestesses might be in the mood to earn a little of what he had to give.
“Maria eats her, you eat Maria and take your Heart, then what? You go back to the old country to see if you’ll transform?” A singularly inelegant snort at the thought, and Candy’s glare was underlit by the small red sparks in her pupils. “You’re being stupid, Dima, and it’s not like you.”
