Page 8 of When Among Crows
He straightens the straps of the guitar case he wears onhis back, and steps backward into the pool of light cast by a streetlamp. At the edge of the circle that lights the cracked concrete, he sees a pair of glittering eyes.
“Can we hurry this up?” he says. “I know you’re following me, so you may as well reveal yourself.”
He expects a zmora, maybe; someone who sniffed him out at the theater and decided to find out what he was up to. Or a wraith, some cousin to the noonwraith who flayed him open and has her own use for the fern flower in his pocket. What he isn’t expecting is a woman.
Specifically his sister, Elza.
She has the same cool brown hair as him, though she wears hers in a braid, and the same mouth—too full for a man, his older brother used to say, teasing, as he poked Dymitr in the lip. But her eyes are honey-warm in color, and there’s a dimple in her left cheek even when she isn’t smiling.
“I don’t know how you can stand to talk to them like that,” she says, with an exaggerated shudder. “They want toeatyou, you know.”
He scowls at her and demands, in Polish: “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Keeping you from doing something stupid,” she replies. “Father told me you had left on some fool’s errand—”
“I proposed a mission based on information I collected in the field,” Dymitr says, and he can hear how his voice changes when he uses official language, pitched lower and without inflection. “Grandmother approved it. So I’m sure Father didn’t tell you it was afool’s errand—”
“No, I decided that all by myself,” Elza says, scowling right back at him.
She’s dressed for a fight, her black boots laced tight and her black canvas pants loose enough to allow movement. When she’s not anticipating danger, Elza loves ruffles and bows, airy fabric that floats around her body like gossamer, bright lipstick and pointed shoes. Fragile, impractical things that fill her closet with color.
“Baba Jaga is your target?” she says. “Really?”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Funny, I thought that’s what we were doing right now.” She rolls her eyes. “If you’re going to do this, you’ll need backup—”
“Backup will get me killed,” he replies. “I need to be as unobtrusive as possible, I can’t charge in with the entire Order at my back—”
“I didn’t realize you thought of me as an entire army unto myself.” She folds her arms, and he can see a knife sheathed along her forearm, the handle peeking out from her jacket sleeve. “I’m not stupid, Dymek. I know you didn’t propose a mission inAmericajust because, what? You stumbled across some random tip—”
“A thread connects this place and ours, and it has for almost two hundred years,” he says. “Today I ordered golabki at a diner and didn’t even have to speak a word of English.”
“Yes, the wonders of Polonia never cease.” She reaches for his arm, pinches the sleeve right over his elbow. “I know you. You’re acting strange. Tell me why.”
“I,” he says, stepping toward her, “am doing what’s necessary. And if Grandmother thought I needed you here, she would have sent you.” He lowers his voice, hardens it. “If I wanted you here, I would have asked you.”
He tugs his arm from her grasp, and steps back.
“Go home, Elza,” he says, and he leaves his sister standing in the circle of light, a crease between her eyebrows.
3A RED LINE
Every train station has magic in it, not that Ala can feel it. Some of her kind swear they can smell it, and maybe they can; all zmory have good noses, but hers is average at best.
It’s because of how they were built—the train stations, that is, not the noses. They were hoisted above Chicago’s brick buildings in the mid-1910s, with the city refusing to close down cross streets for their construction, so the builders had to get creative. It took them over a decade to complete just the Red Line.
There’s always sacrifice in building something that’s never been built before, and sacrifice creates a debt, and debts create a space for magic to rush in. So if the Thorndale Red Line stop hums with it, well—that makes sense to her.
The station is empty at this hour, with the trains running every fifteen minutes or so, depending. She pays for a single-ride pass and pushes through the barrier. As she climbs the steps to the platform, the Purple Line Express rushes past in a smear of greenish light and chattering college students on their way to Evanston.
Slumped on one of the benches under the awning is anold woman with a battered suitcase between her feet—not who Ala is looking for. But at the end of the concrete, leaning against a pillar, is a young man, probably in his late twenties, his hair a dusty shade of brown and his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket.
Bingo.
She recognizes him from the bar. He ordered red wine—no, beer, after she told him about the chalice she was required to serve the former in. He had an accent and a nice smile, if you’re interested in that kind of thing. Ala isn’t.
She’s tempted to just take the fern flower from his pocket. Tom told her which one it was in—right, not left, and wrapped in paper, so she could probably get away with touching it, even though quasi-mortals aren’t supposed to be able to. She could distract him with an illusion and pick his pocket, no problem. She’s done it before.
