Read Wayfarer: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (Tales of Beauty and Madness) for Free Online

life . . .
    Thinking about the constant venom made her dizzy, and she gripped the edge of their shared desk. Cami’s fingers drummed once, silently, on the scarred wooden surface.
Fine
, that little movement said,
but I’m still worried
.
    There were things Ellie could have written, but none of them could possibly be construed as helpful. Instead, she took a deep breath and settled inside her skin, the subconscious
thump
as centering clicked into place familiar and comforting.
    You couldn’t charm unbalanced. Well, you
could
, but it wouldn’t take as well.
    Sister Mary’s desk was a towering achievement of organization. She had a cubby or a clip for everything, and the stacked papers were rigidly arranged according to a rule almost as iron as the Mithraic Order’s hedge of restrictions around its members.
    Like every regimentation, it had its weak spots.
    Ellie’s fingertips tingled, and the world went away. A thread of Potential slid ribbonlike through the maze of suppressive charms meant to keep Juno schoolgirls from pranking, and sweat prickled on Ellie’s upper lip, at the curve of her lower back, under her arms.
    Don’t get caught.
    The glass ink bottle in its scrolled silver stand had been recently refilled. Red-black liquid inside trembled. Grading ink, charmed so it wouldn’t come out and couldn’t be altered. That
particular
charm was so specific it was pretty impossible to subvert—but that specificity made it volatile when you knew your
Sigmundson’s Charms
and Tables of Correspondence
backward, forward, and sideways.
    Like Ellie did. At least she was sure the ring didn’t have much to do with that; she honestly couldn’t tell why some charmers had trouble memorizing them. They were so
simple
, a language of Potential and description that, unlike French, was instantly recognizable.
    Cami shifted next to her, but Ellie’s concentration had narrowed to a white-hot point. She had long ago perfected the schoolroom art of sitting still and apparently paying attention while doing something else, and a fierce spiked rose of joy bloomed deep in her chest as her charm, subtle and completely opposed to the one shivering in the ink’s uneasy fluid embrace, slid home with another satisfying
click
. The two reacted with equally satisfying violence.
    CRACK.
    Broken glass whickered through the air. Two ghoulgirls—Amy McKenna and Capriana Clare, both with black-varnished nails and jet-bead rosaries, playing at being black charmers—let out a shriek. Steam rose from a spray of boiling ink, and Sister Mary Brefoil, spattered and shocked, let loose a torrent of words in French
and
English that she would no doubt have to say a great many Magdalas on her own polished wooden rosary for.
    Ellie exhaled softly, a shocked and amazed expression sliding over her face like the mask it was. Cami’s fingers had clenched, and her pencil was in splinters. Ruby was totally awake now, dark eyes wide and her wide grin of delight a beauty to behold.
    There. My work for the day, done.
    Finally, for the first time since yesterday afternoon, she’d done something right. She finally felt . . . well,
human
again.
    At least, she would until she got home.

FIVE
    A FEW HOURS LATER, THE BLACK S EMPRENA SKIDDED. Ellie sank her fingers into the dashboard and cursed; Ruby’s disbelieving laugh pierced Tommy Triton’s wailing. There was no sound from the tiny shelf of a backseat—Cami pretty much always had her eyes shut and her lips moving in silent prayer while Ruby drove.
    It was, Ellie often thought, the only way to handle Ruby
at all
.
    “What the
hell
?” Rube yelled, and the brakes grabbed
hard
. Smoke rose, the smell of burning rubber thick and cloying as Tommy Triton wailed about being
born bad-charmed, baby, and wasn’t that always the way?
    Ellie tried to shriek, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Instead, her jaw hung loosely, her heart triphammering inside her ribs as if Tommy Triton’s drummer was thocking around in