Per Dr. Strattori’s orders, and Roger’s insistence on following them, I was bedridden for an entire week with nothing to do but read. Visits from Roger’s family helped, but most of the week they raced between rehearsals for the election night extravaganza and their nightly shows. By the time Luxe offered to bring me to her grandmother to show her my photo, I’d dulled my knife carving caricatures of Roger and Trys on the soft barn wood.
A midsummer rain kept the tourists indoors as we made our way down Main Street. “You can share my umbrella,” Luxe offered.
“I don’t mind getting wet.” I paused to look down each street of the intersection. “Besides, I want to see if I recognize anything.”
“Do you?”
Nothing. Everything.
Roger and Trys were worried I was reading into things, but Luxe simply seemed curious.
“The cobblestones,” I admitted. “The way they crisscross.”
She peered over the curb. “If it’s still raining at high tide, these streets will be covered in seawater, and you won’t be able to see a thing.”
Even that image was familiar. I offered her my arm to help her over the puddle, but her smirk was all Roger as she leaped gracefully to the other side. “What do you remember about your family?”
“Very little.” I sidestepped broken glass. “I was raised in a religious orphanage from around four years old to sixteen. The friars said my parents were still alive, that they surrendered me willingly because I was too much trouble for them.”
She halted. “Who would say such a thing to a child?”
“Bad people. That’s why I don’t believe them.”
The rain beat down harder as we turned south, and Luxe lifted her umbrella to share. I took it and made sure she was fully covered.
She stole a look upward. “What about before the orphanage?”
I had plenty of fragmented memories, like a warm blanket tucked to my chin, or a soft kiss on my forehead, but only one clear recollection. “I remember waiting for them. For years, I was convinced they were looking for me but couldn’t find me because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Once I ran away from the orphanage to try to get back to them.”
That punishment was the worst: months of isolation in a locked, windowless room. No visitors. No books. No nothing. If you want to be alone, we’ll leave you alone.
Luxe remained silent, the rain pelting the umbrella.
I forced myself to swallow the knot in my throat. “I know how clichéd that sounds, an orphan pining for his parents. It’s ridiculous—”
“It’s not. It’s just—”
“Sad?”
“A little.” She danced around another puddle, pausing so I could catch up with the umbrella. “I suppose I’m an orphan, too.”
“What about your father?”
“A mainlander. He left before I was born.” She pranced to the next curb, each little leap in sync with the music from a nearby hotel. “Why does that surprise you?”
She was even better than Roger at reading emotions. I followed her, my gait long enough to step over the deep puddles without making a fool of myself trying to jump. “Your family just seems so perfect. It’s hard to picture someone walking away from all this.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I mean, sure, there’s a whole world out there, but Charmant is home. I’d never leave.” She nodded down the next street. “Anything familiar here?”
“Nothing solid.” I fell into step beside her. “So you have no interest in traveling?”
“Traveling is for people without families depending on them. Or people with money.”
“I don’t have a dollar to my name, and I’ve traveled quite a bit.”
“Ugh. Dollars.” She scrunched her face. “Why would I want anything to do with ugly mainland money?”
Revelles and their jewels. “So even if you could leave, you wouldn’t want to?”
“Of course not. I mean, a long time ago, I wanted to go everywhere.” She paused, balancing on the edge of a curb. “When I was little, I found a magazine in the pit filled with all these pictures from around the world. Jungles, pyramids, cities that looked nothing like Charmant. Like New Orleans, with its old-world charm.” Her smile softened, just like it did when she was around Colette and Millie. A rare glimpse behind her poised, indifferent mask.
“New Orleans is incredible,” I told her. “You’d love it.”
“You’ve been there?” As if remembering herself, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I was just a little girl who was avoiding dance lessons.”
The rain came down in sheets as we turned down the narrow alley. I slowed, unable to shake the strange sense that we were being watched.
“If I really am from the Night District, is it possible that I have a tiny bit of magic in me?” I’d considered asking Roger or Trys, but they had their doubts about my history with Charmant.
“Probably not. One of your parents would need to be a member of one of the five magical families here. A few people have magic from more than one bloodline, but even that’s rare. Most people on Charmant have no magic at all.”
Like I suspected. Odds were, I was absolutely ordinary.
Under the persistent downpour, I could just make out another man walking ahead of us, a dark umbrella protecting his sleek black coat.
Luxe’s step faltered. She threw out her arm to stop me.
“Who is it?”
“George Chronos,” she whispered.
Trysta’s other brother. The one who’d tried to drop a crate on me.
As if hearing my thoughts, his head whipped toward us. Luxe pushed me against the brick wall and tugged on the umbrella, blocking our faces from his view. “Don’t look at him.”
As if I could tear my gaze from her.
Rain hummed over her skin, sliding down the soft lines of her face, inches away. Her clever eyes remained on mine, but her attention was fixed on the arrogant man whose footsteps splashed closer and closer. Not afraid, but listening. Waiting. She was always planning, always thinking ahead.
Not yet, she mouthed. That perfect mouth—if only I could forget how soft it had felt on mine.
“And here I thought you were my brother’s girl.” A deep voice chuckled.
I pushed off the wall, stretching to my full height as I looked down at George Chronos.
He examined us from beneath his black umbrella, raindrops gliding down his long trench coat. “Silly of me to assume a Revelle would be faithful.”
“What fun would that be?” Luxe simpered at him. “Here to try to kill your brother again?”
“Such vicious rumors you’ve been spreading. Trying to turn brother against brother?”
“You do a good enough job of that on your own.”
“I had nothing to do with his attack. Yet.” He tilted his head, a bird examining its prey. “You know, if I ever do eliminate someone from the Night, I don’t think it’ll be my brother. Watch your back, ‘Radiant Ruby.’”
I hardly heard Luxe’s tart response, hardly felt the rain as I dropped the umbrella. “Did you just threaten her?”
George pressed forward, his face inches from mine. “Let me tell you what comes next. I call her a whore, and you throw a punch, which is a stupid thing to do, because I’m a Chronos. You can’t win a fight against me.”
Can’t win. All my life, I couldn’t hit a friar, couldn’t fight back whenever they lifted their staffs to me, couldn’t do a damn thing when they went after the little ones.
Men in power. Fucking bastards, all of them.
I’d hardly formed a fist before George’s slammed into my cheek, right into my bruise.
“I told you, kid. We always win.”
Pain radiated from where he’d struck, drowning out his laughter as he walked away.
“Damnit.” I pressed my fingers against my cheek. “He sucker punched me.”
“I thought you were supposed to be smart!” Luxe yanked my wrist before I could go after him. “Were you really going to fight a time traveler?”
I watched as he disappeared around the corner. “Somewhere, in some unfinished timeline, I got him good.”
“Well, in this timeline, you didn’t. Because he’s a dirty cheater!” she yelled down the empty street. “One who’s going to lose in two weeks!”
I checked my jaw. Didn’t hurt. If he hadn’t hit the same spot as Frank Chronos did last week, it wouldn’t have stung much at all.
“Why did you do that?” Her soft fingers prodded my hot skin, the bruise forming just beneath the surface. “‘Whore’ isn’t even an insult. It’s a profession as old as this world.”
“I know, I just hated how he said it.” I cleared my throat, looking away as she touched my cheek gently. “Let’s keep going.”
She hesitated.
“He barely got me. Really. And I’ve waited long enough for this.”
With a nod, she meandered down the alley, her fingers grazing the brick wall. “My uncle’s going to be furious that I left Trevor behind.”
She glimpsed over her shoulder—still no sign of the Chronos—before she turned down a residential block. Identical houses lined both sides of the wide street, with chain-link fences around some of their front yards.
My feet slowed. I knew this street.
“What was he even doing in the Night District?” Groaning, she shook her head. “Dewey will want even more security now. I’m going to have an army following me everywhere.”
The roar of memories drowned out the rest of her words. Neat little brownstones, each with a cement stoop. Each startlingly familiar.
Luxe stopped. “What is it?”
Behind her was an unassuming house: a few yards of green lawn, a tiny front porch with two wrought iron chairs, and a rusty playground behind the chain-link fence. The backyard was out of view from the street, but a tire swing hung from the thickest branch of an old oak tree.
“I’ve been here before,” I managed to say.
“You mean with Roger?”
“No. A long time ago.” My heart raced as I pointed to the slide, the royal-blue paint grayed by years in the sun. “You can see the ocean from the top of that slide.”
Her eyes widened. “The beach is only a block away.”
All the blood in my body rushed to my head. Before I could fall, I staggered to the curb.
She stood in front of me. “You’re absolutely certain that you recognize this house.”
Blurred images flooded me. Unfamiliar adults exchanging worried glances. My mother’s voice. Eyes blue, like mine, wide with fear. Stay here, my love. We’ll find you when it’s safe.
“Jamison?”
I blinked at her, at the house behind her. “There’s a living room when you enter, with a fireplace.”
“Jamison.”
“Stairs in front of the door, and a little kitchen behind it.”
“Jamison—”
“And there’s a tire swing in the back.”
She crouched in front of me, her eyes wide. “Jamison, this is an orphanage.”
“What?” Her words were distant, impossible.
“It’s an orphanage,” she repeated slowly, “but it’s only for Night District children.”
