Page 19 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

She lifts the edge of a jewelry box with the tip of her finger, dust puffing out around her as she tips the top back all the way. The pearls inside look pristine, ethereal in the low light of the room, and she reaches out to grab them.

Kane, still on her shoulder, nips at her ear. “I wouldn’t do that. Can’t you smell it?”

Calliope frowns and bends forward. Kane adjusts his grip, talons snagging on the strap of her tank top. The smell of burned rubber lodges itself in the back of her throat, and she coughs, taking a step back with her hand pressed in front of her mouth. “Cursed?” she chokes out.

Kane nods. She snaps the lid shut quickly, then gives him a sidelong look. “You haven’t always been a bird, have you?”

Kane lets out a throaty caw.

“Don’t bother,” says Rory, rifling through a steamer trunk. The swaths of fabric draped over the edge look promising. “I’ve been trying to get him to admit that for years.”

“But you’ll tellme, right?” she asks, a small smirk hiding in the corner of her cheek. She strokes the soft plumage at the top of his head and his golden eyes close briefly in appreciation, before he lets out another squawk. “Fine. Keep your secrets for now, Cursed One, but I’ll needle it out of you soon enough.”

Another squawk and Kane’s nails pinch hershoulder as he tugs one of her wayward curls about himself, settling down into a feigned nap.

She makes her way over to Rory who is frowning at a scrap of lace. “What’s that?”

He inspects the white lace, yellowed with age. “I think it’s a bridal veil?”

“Or just a scrap,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “There’s got to be something I can wear up here.”

Kane seems to have found his words again. “You could try asking the house.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure. Hey, house, can I please have—”

A box stacked precariously on top of the chest of drawers to Calliope’s left topples over onto the floor. The sudden movement startles her, and she jumps, dislodging Kane from her shoulder as she grasps at Rory’s arm.

He frowns down at her, though she can’t tell if it’s annoyance that she’s clinging to him or concern because, once again, she is acutely aware of their temperature difference: his skin is cool as if he’s been standing by an open window on a crisp winter day, while she is warm, as if there is a fire simmering inside of her.

She redirects her attention to the box, as Kane flutters back into view and lands on Rory’s shoulder. A quick glance tells her that Kane’s suggestion has yielded the most promising results so far. The clothing is slightly out-of-date, the fabrics, patterns and collars reminding her of something her grandma would haveworn when she was Calliope’s age now. Still, the garments are well-kept and smell freshly laundered even though they’ve surely been stored in this cardboard box for at least a few years.

Rory carries the box across the hall and drops it just inside the entrance to her room. “I’ll see you downstairs in two minutes.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She holds her arms out, nodding toward the manacles.

Rory is already shaking his head. “No. They stay.”

She holds her arms out straighter. “How am I supposed to change while handcuffed? Look.” She angles one of the cuffs so that the light catches on the edges of the master sigil. “The magic is in the manacles. Can you at least just break the chain in the middle?”

Rory looks askance at Kane, who is perched on his shoulder. Kane’s nod is small, almost imperceptible. “Fine,” he says gruffly. He grasps the iron chain with both hands and with barely a grunt of effort, he pulls. The iron snaps in half like dry rotted wood. “One minute, now.”

11

Something Cursed

Calliope

She stands in front of the mirror and sighs. The once familiar feeling of shoulders lifting and falling, chest expanding and deflating, is awkward and stiff. She misses it—the sensation of taking air in her lungs—and she wonders if she’ll start to miss her heartbeat too.

She won’t have a chance to miss her physical faults though. Her flat green eyes. Her slightly upturned nose that a schoolmate once called a “pig snout.” The dusting of freckles that adorn her cheeks like speckles of spilled paint. She’ll be stuck with those for an eternity. She knows that much about vampires, at least. They never age. They never grow. She opens her mouth and prods at her red, angry gums. She presses a finger just above one of her canine teeth, which is slightlymore pointed than a human’s should be. She wonders when they will stop hurting. Her jaw aches as if she’s been grinding her teeth for a week straight.

She holds a plain white cotton dress in her hand, but the clawfoot porcelain bathtub seems to call her name from where it sits, tucked into a corner she hadn’t seen earlier. Her Hunger hums in her bones.I won’t be too long, Hun, she thinks, pressing a hand to her stomach.

She draws the bath a little cooler than she would have a few days ago. Vials of oils in blue-colored bottles are lined up neatly on a small shelf next to the tub and she adds a few drops of lavender. The morning sun is quickly filling up the room, bringing corners and flecks of dust out of the shadows, when she finally slips in, feeling the tension ease from her muscles as the cool water claims her. She spends a moment cataloging her body, her awareness traveling from her sore throat and aching teeth, down the smooth column of her neck bearing no evidence of Rory’s bite. She stops at her sternum, feeling the long expanse of bone beneath her skin and a small scar on the underside of her breast.

She moves on quickly to her stomach, which, like her neck, shows no evidence of what happened to her the night before last.

She can hear her grandma telling her about vampires. “They heal quick, so even if you manage to hurt one of them, it won’t last long,” she said with aknowing nod, though Calliope, even at six, knew enough to be certain that her grandma’s seemingly extensive knowledge about other magical beings was not always accurate. But her grandma had at least one sentence for everything. Like, “Always leave a penny under your doormat so you have good luck whether you’re coming or going,” or “Never leave your shoes facing west lest you invite the devil inside your room.”

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