Flicker (14 page)

“Good night to both of you.”
Neman
nodded politely toward
Lee, then pushed herself off
the sill, dropping into the black night.

Lee gasped. She rushed to the window and leaned out, fully expecting to see a crumpled body on the sidewalk below, blood pooling all around.

But all she saw was a quiet street, tinted blue with light spilling from streetlamps. No mangled corpses. No puddles of blood. No signs that anything had happened at all.

She spun toward Filo. He
stood
calmly by the bookcase, watching her. She stared at him, mout
h open,
until he sighed and
joined her.

“Calm down—y
ou look like you’re going to
pop a blood vessel
.”
He nudged her out of his way. Lee stood on her tiptoes and looked over his shoulder.

“
Neman
!”
Filo
called
, his breath clouding in the cold air
as he leaned out the window
. “Come on,
Neman
! You’re scaring her!”

A moment later, a gray-breasted crow
sailed past the
window, cawing loudly, then
glided out of sight.
“
It’s just shape-shifting,” he assured her. “Just magic.”

“Magic, huh?”
Lee squinted at him suspiciously. “Can you use magic, too?”

“Yes.”

“C
an you shape-shift?”

He
looked
at her
like
she’d sprouted horns. “Of course not!”

She
shook her head. “
I heard you’re taking me home tomorrow.”

“Yeah. But only because
Neman
’s making me.”

“Do you do everything she tells you to do?”

“I
…
have
to,” he admitted.

“What, is she your mother or something?” Lee asked sarcastically.

“I don’t have a mother.” His voice was frosty.

“Oh.” Lee blinked, swallowed. “Your boss, then?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You know what? You can explain it to me later,”
Lee sighed
. “Thanks in advance, though, for taking me. Even if you don’t want to.”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line.
“Don’t thank me just yet
.”

Chapter Five:

The Strangers

In the morning, flares of light stabbed brutally through the curtains, but that wasn’t what woke Lee. It was the shuffling, clattering
sounds
that finally roused her, and when she opened her eyes
and sat up
, she was only a little surprised at what she saw.

Filo stood at the table, shoving objects into a patche
d messenger bag.
He wore
a
white
T-shirt with a gray vest
covered in pockets
thrown over it
. His hair was mussed. Lee
scooted to the edge of the bed, watching
him
pack a plastic
bag filled with
pieces of
chalk
and a black-handled knife with the blade wrapped in cloth
.

Barely glancing
at her,
Filo
said
, “About time you got up. I was getting ready to throw something at you. We’ve gotta get moving or we’ll miss the
train
.”

“
Train
?”
Standing, Lee
realized
she was still wearing
the
blue
dress and
borrowed
sweater
. Her shoes sat on the floor beneath the window, where she’d put them last night.

“Yeah.” Filo was fastening the large metal buckle on the front of the bag. “The
train
to catch the bus that’ll take us to Bluewood
.”

“Right.”

Filo looked pointedly at her
freckled
legs, which the dress only covered to her knees. “It’s cold outside. You should change.
There’s some clothes for you.”

He nodded toward a pile of clothing
waiting at
the foot of the bed
: a
long-sleeved
violet
sweater
made of thick wool
and
a pa
ir of jeans
.

“Well, go on,” he said, ma
king a shooing motion
.

“Right.” Lee rose and hurried int
o the dim bathroom.
Lee
peeled off the scratchy brown sweater
and unraveled the gauze wrappings still on her arm, figuring it was
safe to look.

There was no wound
beneath the wrappings
, no cut, not even a scab. Only faint pinkish scars remained to
show that she’d ever been hurt:
one on her palm, and one at the base of her wrist. The two scars were mesmerizing, all smooth, precise l
ines, clear as a realization. Lee’s heartbeat kicked up
. Yet another impossibility. She forced herself to stop thinking about it for now and set about getting dressed.

Once she’d changed and washed up, Lee felt more awake
.
The clothes smelled
faintly of cinnamon and smoke.
The pants were an inch or two on the short side
, but they fit well enough.
They were clearly a girl’s cl
othes; she wondered where Filo had
come across them.

She felt strange wearing them, much like she’d felt last night when she realized that she would be sleeping in Filo’s bed, and that he would be sleeping on the cold, hard floor. He’d carefully explained that, since she was now lucid, he no longer felt obligated to babysit her constantly, and would thus be moving his pile of blankets into the other room. She’d protested and offered to switch, but he’d flatly refused.

When she was finished, Lee returned to the front room
and pulled on her shoes.
Filo waited near the door,
now wearing a long dark
coat that was patched in several places
. The coat hung around his
lean,
wiry frame like a shadow.

“My arm,” she said. As she stood, she held her arm out to him, wrist-up, like an offering. “It’s completely healed.”

“Of course it is,” he said coolly, slinging the bag over his shoulder.

“But I only got cut last night. How—?”

“Nasser did it. You’re lucky it was him,” Filo
added
, “and
not me. I don’t have the touch
or the patience, so my healings are much sloppier. If I
’d done it,
you’d have a much worse scar.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “But
ho
w?
”

“Healing salv
es,” he said simply. “A little
magic to get it working
. Nasser did a nice job. He
made me fork over some supplies so he could make a fresh salve, just for you.
Now let’s go.”

She
followed him
as he opened the door and stepped into the narrow corridor.
Filo clomped loudly down the stairs. Lee hurried
after him
down the first flight of stairs, across a short landing, and down a second flight. When she rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the rail, she found herself in a large, dim room.

The ro
om was filled with tall cases,
low tables and stacks of boxes. What walls weren’t occupied by
rows of
shelves were papered with yellowe
d posters advertising magic shows
and circuses that had long since mo
ved on. Many of the cases were too tall to see over
. They formed aisles that ran through the room.

One case was filled with
multicolored glasses and jars in twisting shapes, filled with copper coins or smooth, pale stones. Nearby, a
table
was piled with packets of old parchment bound together with ribbon and covered in thin, spidery handwriting.

Lee wandered slowly around the room, with Filo a step behind, watching her every move. She paused to study a corkboard covered wi
th black-and-white photographs
and old postcards complete
with stamps and messages.

Lee passed
a
counter covered in small revolving glass cases.
Turning, she
saw t
hat the room had a glass front.
A
large
carved wooden dragon
with a long, winding body
crouched before the window, staring through the glass.
The
ornate
saddle behind the dragon’s shoulders
suggested it
was once part of a carousel menagerie.
Lee drifted
toward the lithe, elegant carving, her footfalls
soft
against the dusty
floor.

Short horns jutted from the dragon’s brow, and its lips were drawn back to reveal
sharp teeth. Its expression was
somewhere between a smirk and a snarl.
The dragon
had been
painted a rich royal blue—the color of
the
ocean, or some fantastical dream of deep water—with a shimmering gold underbelly and
accents of gold
and turquoise
around its individually-carved
scales
, but the paint had faded, and was flaking badly in places.

Lee’s heart ached suddenly for the dragon.
Even covered in a fine layer of dust, it was a dynamic carving that looked as if it might come alive at any moment. The dragon
had clearly once been maje
stic,
iridescent under the
bright
carousel
lights
. Yet
n
ow it moldered in a dusty shop. With the right paints, and enough time, Lee was sure she could restore some of its former splendor.
…
She found herself
reaching toward the fierce, beautiful
dragon’s
head, as if she could comfort it with her touch.

Filo slapped her hand away, and she drew back with a little gasp.

“Don’t touch that,”
he growled. “
That dragon has a
strong
animation spell on it
.
It
came
alive every time the carousel started
up and
took
its passengers on a totally different kind of ride
.
I’m guessing it has some kind of
enticement charm on it, too.”

Lee
’s gaze slid between Filo and the dragon
. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t break the spell entirely—it’s stubborn as
hell—but I was able to put a light seal on it
and take it off the owner’s hands.
You have no idea how hard it was to truck the damn thing out here.
So don’t touch the dragon. You might wake it up, and I don’t want that thing
loose in my shop.”

“Right,” Lee said, stuffing her hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t be tempted.
The dragon was still beautiful, but she
wrenched her gaze
from it and hurried after Filo as he swung the front door open. The cluster of bells hanging from the top of the door jangled.

Once she was outside,
Filo
shut the door behind her. There were several locks on the
door, and he tapped each one
before starting away.
She almost asked why he didn’t use key
s, but that was far from the strangest thing she’d seen lately.

It felt strange to stand
outside again, in such an utterly unfamiliar place. The sky was light gray, and the air was crisp.
“What time is it?”

Filo checked his watch. “Half-past nine. Tra
in leaves at ten
.
Come on.
”

Lee
trotted
after him, glancing over her shoulder
at the building
. Above the window, a
large painted sign
revealed
that
the odd array was a shop called Flicker. The creaking sign’s paint was flaking.