Junk magic, p.40
Junk Magic, page 40
But either way, it hadn’t been a show for Cyrus, and that made three boys he’d lost in less than a week: Jayden, Colin and Danny.
It was in his voice when he spoke again, the loss, the grief, and the despair that everything he’d tried hadn’t been enough. “He was wrong in what he did,” he told me. “But not in what he said. We do need change—and now, not whenever the war ends. There will always be another war, another problem, another reason to keep things the way they are. There will never be a perfect time to act.
“So, we don’t wait for the perfect time.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“There are a lot of vargulfs. Some deserve it, many don’t, but either way, their clans don’t want them back. But leaving them on their own . . .” he shook his head. “Weres don’t do well on their own. They attack someone and the Corps takes them out; they kill themselves out of loneliness or desperation; or they’re preyed upon by others. There are a thousand stories but they almost always end the same way.
“But what if they didn’t have to?”
“It’s the way it’s always been,” I pointed out.
“But not the way is has to be! I asked Sebastian, what if we could establish clans for the outcastes? Places they could go where they’d be welcomed, where they could belong again. Where they could have a name, have brothers and sisters who cared for them? If they get thrown out again, if they can’t learn to live in peace with others, then so be it. They’re on their own. But a second chance—it’s all some of them need. It’s all any of my boys needed, and most of them I think will make it in the end.”
I thought back to what Danny had said, about how it was three outcasts who had come after me, who had insisted on saving me, and for what? Because I made them dinner? Because I talked to them like people for once? It didn’t seem like much, but it had meant enough for them to spare my life.
“How would it work?” I asked.
“We’re still ironing out the details, but there will be a number of second chance clans established, in all quarters of the Were world. There’s even going to be one here in Vegas,” he said, and then let it trail off, before looking at me hopefully.
“You’re not going back to Arnou, are you?” I asked evenly.
He shook his head.
“Are you sure? You bled for it. You risked your life for it—”
“And I love my old clan. I always will. But . . . it doesn’t need me. They do.”
“And you want me to come with you?”
A dark eyebrow raised. “It wouldn’t be a clan without a Lupa.”
Three clans in a lifetime, I thought. It wasn’t unknown, but it was unusual. Still . . .
“Sounds intriguing,” I said, and Cyrus grinned.
“Don’t promise too soon,” Caleb said. Glancing back at me. “You got a lot on your plate.”
“Like what?”
“Like whatever Hargroves is going on about. He received a proposal from Sebastian about making a joint Were/mage force to fill out our numbers, and also to investigate Were crimes. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Yeah, I thought. From Sienna. It looked like she’d been busy.
“It might be nice to have some extra hands on board,” I said mildly.
Caleb shot me another look. “It might. Might be kind of wild, too.”
That, I thought I could guarantee.
“What about us?” Someone blurted out.
I turned around to notice that all of the kids were looking a little lost, suddenly. Even Sophie had gone quiet, and was staring down at her hands. But not Jen.
The mousy young woman seemed to have found her voice, and she was the one who had spoken, with eyes blazing.
“I don’t hear anything about a place for us in all this,” she added. “Or are we supposed to do a Chris and just melt away? Go back and be locked up like nothing ever happened?”
“Go back?” I asked, confused.
“Chris already did, this morning,” Sophie told me quietly. “He said his chances of survival were better at school.”
I remembered his expression at Wolf’s Head, when the private army Whirlwind had brought were climbing the stone seats toward him. And I couldn’t say he was wrong.
“But you didn’t go with him?” I asked. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did—”
“We want to be here,” Aki said quickly, and Dimas appeared out of nowhere to nod in agreement.
“It’s been . . . weird,” he said softly. “But I like weird.”
Kimmie didn’t say anything. But the sandwiches she’d been multiplying, because even the council’s heaping baskets hadn’t been enough for Were appetites and the kids had missed out, suddenly cascaded down to the floor, threatening to bury the backseat in salmon paste and turkey clubs. She looked up, her dark eyes huge.
“I like weird, too,” she whispered.
“We all do, or we’d have gone back with Chris,” Jen said impatiently. She glared at me. “The question is, do you?”
I held up a furry hand. “Don’t really have a choice.”
They didn’t seem reassured by this, so I spelled it out. “What? You didn’t really think I’d leave you guys behind?”
And then Caleb was yelling and swerving off the road, as the front of the van was mobbed by screaming, crying kids.
* * *
It was a long way back to Vegas. Apparently, Relics can cover some damned ground, and we had. Four hours’ worth, to be precise.
Fortunately, Were trackers had been able to find us. Unfortunately, that left us jouncing over dirt roads, when they existed at all, for hours until we finally hit some blacktop. And then we still had miles to go.
I watched us eat up the road and wondered how life could change so much so fast. Someone once said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” And it felt kind of like that. Or like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, and wondering where it went.
I guessed I was going to find out.
“So, does it help at all?” Cyrus asked me quietly.
The kids were eating sandwiches, and playing some game where you had to guess the pop song in as few notes as possible. Only Aki couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, adding an extra layer of difficulty. People were laughing and throwing things at him when he told them his latest answer, which had sounded nothing like the song it was supposed to be.
I watched them with a small smile, and then looked back at Cyrus. “Does what help?”
“It seems to me that you’ve saved a lot of kids lately. The five of them, from those internment type schools, Jack from imprisonment by that bastard of a mage, and you’re joining me in my mad crusade to save who knows how many from the streets.”
“What’s your point?”
“Does it help? With the one you lost? With Adam?”
I finally realized what he meant. And for a moment, I was back there, standing in the doorway of my laundry room, watching a boy’s blood seep out onto the blindingly white tiles. I felt a shiver rip through me.
“Does all this help you?” I asked. “With Colin and Jayden and Danny?”
He smiled slightly in understanding. “No.”
“Me either.” I thought some more. “But it’s nice.”
He pulled me close, and his warmth immediately banished the chill. “How about we go home and do some laundry?” he whispered, against my hair.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “Yeah.” I said. “That sounds good.”
Also by Karen Chance
The Cassie Palmer Series
Touch the Dark
Claimed by Shadow
Embrace the Night
Curse the Dawn
Hunt the Moon
Tempt the Stars
Reap the Wind
Ride the Storm
Brave the Tempest
Shatter the Earth
Ignite the Fire: Incendiary
Ignite the Fire: Inferno
The Midnight’s Daughter Series
Midnight’s Daughter
Death’s Mistress
Fury’s Kiss
Shadow’s Bane
Queen's Gambit
Standalones
Masks
Siren’s Song
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Junk Magic (epub), Junk Magic
