Flicker (9 page)

Sitting at the desk,
F
ilo continued to label bottles and sneak
glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Her long red hair was spread across her pillow, some of it falling across her face, some of it spilling onto her shoulder. She looked as peaceful as death.

Neman
sat
on a nearby chair, her chin in her hands.
Her dark wings were folded neatly across her back, and she regarded the
red-haired girl thoughtfully through
black eyes
.

“Troubled, Filo?”
Neman
asked, her gaze
never wavering
.

Filo’s han
d slipped a little as he
placed
a bottle
back
on the
table
. The smal
l glass bottles clinked merrily
, their contents shimmering softly in the blue candlelight. “You think?”

Beside him,
Morgan
snorted. She sat
on the edge of the desk, watching him
work
. She hadn’t been pleased to find the girl in the apartment—Filo had the welts on his
fore
arms to prove it—but she hadn’t touched the girl.

“You dislike her already,”
Neman
continued quietly, as if he hadn’t spoken.

Filo narrowed his eyes. He didn’t have to
like
the girl to do what Nasser had asked. All he had to do was make sure she didn’t starve to death o
r walk out under a bus
, and he could do that. He’d fed her twice
,
sloppily-made sandwiches that she had
eaten slowly, and without a word.
He’d even given her a sweater to wear over the dress.
She didn’t talk, but she followed directions if he said them clearly and made her look at him
:
Come here. Sit down. Eat.

She seemed only partially aware, like a sleepwalker—except when he tried to remove her shoes, an hour ago. She’d been staring out the window, transfixed by the city lights. But when he tugged at the knotted laces, figuring she shouldn’t sleep in her shoes, she yelped and twisted away from him, drawing her knees to her chest defensively. She wouldn’t let him touch those red sneakers. They must’ve been hers before the revel, a piece of her old life that she recognized and clung to, even through the magic haze.

This trance-like state wasn’t uncommon among normals who had prolonged contact with the fey, or other
magical creatures. In fact, he’d read
accounts of victims of supernatural theft lying about in a stupor for three full days upon
returning to the mortal realm.

The magic sickness
would wear off. Probably.
He only hoped it wouldn’t take three days.

“How would you
know if I
—”
Filo
began, but
Neman
shushed him.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said.

Morgan
looked up
. “I do dislike her. And with good reason.”

“Oh?”
Neman
asked.

Morgan
raked a hand through her short black hair. “
Sometimes
I forget that you are
just a boy,” she sighed
. “Old en
ough to
run the shop, but young enough to make a mess of things. You have not been tested enough to know what to do in a tight spot. You are not always the cleverest of boys.”

“We chose him, sister,”
Neman
said, and
Morgan
sighed.

“It seems a mistake we are doomed to repeat,” she said.

“What
are you talking about?” Filo
fixed his eyes on
Morgan
.

“Had
Neman
or I been present, we would not be saddled with this
…
burden
.” She gestured toward the girl with a wave of her hand. Her black talons glinted in the candlelight.

“I don’t know about that,”
Neman
chirped
.
“I see no harm in it. Good fun for all—even you, sister
. Call it sport
.”

“Hardly the sport I prefer,”
Morgan
frowned. “She
is an inconvenience.”

“The interaction will be good for the boy,”
Neman
replied. “He’s been
here alone for so long, he’s nearly gone feral.”

“She doesn’t talk
,” he o
ffered, glancing between them
. He hated it when they got so involved in their own conversations that they forgot he was there.
“M
agic-sick.”

“You mustn’t be impatient.”
Neman
turned to the red
-haired girl. Filo felt a wave of magic pulse out from
Neman
and settle over the girl. A sizzling sensation spread through the air, raising the hair on Filo’s arms
and the back of his neck
. She was using her own magic to dissolve the magic clinging to the girl, then letting the excess dissipate into the air.

“She will speak by morning,”
Neman
said.

It was ingenious. He would never have
thought of it. Filo felt a twinge
inside his chest when he thought of all he had left to learn. He was good at magic—with masters like
Neman
and
Morgan
, he had to be—but he wasn’t
that
good. Not yet.

Morgan
s
cowled and hopped off the desk. She crossed to the window and pushed it open. Cold air rushed inside. “How you love to sow confusion, sister.”

“And how you love the chaos that I cause.”

“I loved the chaos you
once
caused. Do you
even
re
call
the
taste
of
Fomorian
blood?
Do you remember the kingdoms und
er the ground, the Courts of the Tuatha de Danann?
I do.” Morgan shook her head, hands curled into fists
and black eyes burning
. “This is but a trifle in comparison.”

With that, Morgan melted into
a
crow and fluttered out the window.

Filo turned to
Neman
. She was staring at the window now, pensive.

“Pay it no mind, Filo
.
Morgan
simply feels
…
caged
. It has been quiet for so long
, and she was never one for domesticity.
And,” she added, with a sideways glance at him, “I think seeing young Nasser has made her regret not spilling his blood when she had the right.
She thirsts for it anew.
”

He shivered, only partly from the cold. “Will she
…
?”

“No.
We gave up our claim to his life.”

But you haven’t given up your claim to mine,
Filo thought. Then he stuck one hand in his pocket and pinched his leg, punishment for such a mutinous thought.

“No matter what it seems like,” she went on, “it is good that Nasser has broken up the monotony a bit, for all of us.”
Neman
rose
and went to the window
. She sl
ipped her feet over
the sill, sitting with her legs dangling outside.
When she looked back, she didn’t smile.
“On the morrow, Filo.”

A second la
ter, in a whirl of crisp air
, she
became a
hooded
crow and dropped off the sill and into the darkness.
Filo hurried
to the window and closed it, rubbing his arms to warm them.

He moved his hand in a wide arc, extinguishin
g candles that burned atop
towering stacks of books or on the ends of shelves. When the room was dark, with only a blend of streetlamps and moonli
ght shining through the window, he gathered a few blankets and ma
de himself a pallet beside the bed
. The floor was cold beneath
him, but he fell asleep all the same.
 

* * *

Lee was falling.

Her throat ached from the screaming, but she heard nothing but wind raging in her ears. She was falling to her death, tumblin
g helplessly through empty space
.
Her whole body was cold and aching with a nameless fear.

Darkness
rushed
over her skin
like ice water
. S
he shut he
r eyes against the glaring void
, but there was no difference
.
This isn’t real.
She thought firmly that, any moment now, she would wake in the warmth and safety of her own bed.

But
her body felt like it was coming apart,
crumbli
ng like clay
,
and
she was still fallin
g.

This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real
realreal
…

* * *

And then, abruptly, it was morning. Brilliant shards of sunlight streamed through the window, cutting into her eyes. Lee stumbled out of a bed she didn’t remember climbing into, nearly tripping over the pile o
f rumpled blankets on the floor.

There was a dress on her
.
The
thin, gauzy
material
moved
around her legs
like
blue
mist
as she staggered
into a small, grimy bathroom. It puddled around her as she knelt down beside the toilet and vomited.

She wore a sweater,
t
oo, pulled over the dress. Brown
and wrinkled and didn’t fit. Socks on her feet, and her own red sneakers, but they were dirty and torn at the sides. Frayed laces. She wasn’t sure how long
she stared down at herself
. Moments and days seemed very similar.

There was some kind of commotion going on in the other room. Lee gathered herself up, crawled shakily to the
bathroom
door
,
and peered out.

A
tall boy dressed in old jeans, hiking boots, and a
long-sleeved
burgundy shirt
stood by the bed. He had wavy, dark blond hair. Beside him was a slightly smaller, dark-haired boy in a T-shirt and jeans. The blond was speaking, and when she listened, she understood the words.

“Where is she, Filo?”

“
Who cares?
I doubt she’s gotten far,” the dark-haired boy, Filo, dr
awled. “She was asleep
when I got up, and she couldn’t have gotten
out.
She’s around here somewhere.”

“If anything’s happened to her—”

On the far side of the room, a door opened and a woman glided through
, her footsteps silent
.
Her body was long and wiry, her skin
fair
. Thick black hair swayed ar
ound her hips. She wore loose-fitting black trousers and an ash-gray top with slits in the shoulders to accommodate her huge black wings.
Lee’s breath caught in her throat, more in fear than awe.

The blond boy froze
when the woman entered the room. Lee
recognized
fear on his face
, because she felt it, too
. His whole body seized up
with terror
as he spun to face the dark woman.

“
Neman
.”
His voice was dry; it cracked like old leaves.

“Nasser,” the woman cooed,
a
thin
smile on her face.
She stretched her wings slightly, throwing twin shadows on the floor.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Nasser. You can believe that. It would spoil the morning’s entertainment.”
She had an Irish accent.

Turning,
Neman
caught sight
of Lee. Their eyes met.
Neman
was so beautiful that Lee winced and looked away.
Then
Neman
redirected the boy
s’ attention with a nod
of her head.