“Oh, screw that,” Kimmie said, surprising everyone.“My family used to do that,” she explained, when they all looked at her.“Say things under their breath, or imply stuff, and then refuse to cop to it.”She looked back at Lee.“You’re better than that.Say it.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Say.It.”
“All right!You’re not clan, you’re not even proper auxiliaries.And pretending you are—”
“Pretending?”Sophie said, her voice low.
“—just makes it worse!You want me to say it?We need respect, all right?If we’re gonna survive as a clan, we need those damned High Borns to take us seriously, and we’re not gonna get that when—”
“You hang out with freaks?”Kimmie finished, her face hard.
“Oh, shit,” Andy said.
“It’s the truth, and you know it,” Lee said, looking at the others.“Or do you wanna be back on the streets?You want to live your lives fighting for scraps?Waiting for the fight you lose, when a bunch of guys gang up on you, and you find yourself lying in a ditch waiting to bleed out?‘Cause that’s where we’re all gonna be if we keep this shit up!
“And yeah, you can look at me like that all you want, but you’ve thought it, too.You saw how everyone acted when our clan was announced, how they turned their backs, and what have we done since to prove them wrong?Half of Fireborn are ancient losers their own clans didn’t want!And the rest—”
“Are freaks,” Kimmie said again.“Is that really all you see?”
“It’s what they see!”Lee yelled.“The High Born—”
“Fuck the High Born!”Andy said.
“Ditto,” Jace agreed.
Lee turned on Chayton, the only wolf left.“You gonna to say the same?”he demanded.“Or are you gonna admit that they run our world, and always will?We fit in with them, or we got nothing.Lia and Cyrus can’t protect us if the other clans all turn their backs on us.We need to find a way—”
“Damn, man,” Chayton said.“You say that to me?”
“Why not?Everyone else has gone crazy—”
“No, they just understand.”
“Understandwhat?”
“What my people figured out a long time ago.You can wear the right clothes, use the right words, go to the right schools, and jump through whatever other hoops you want.But that doesn’t mean you get accepted.You’re Other, and you always will be.Better to own it—”
“I don’t want to own it!I don’t want to be Other!I only took the Relic potion because Danny said we were gonna remake things, be on top for a change!But now he’s gone, and it isn’t even working right anymore, and just makes me—”
“A freak?”Sophie asked archly.“Well, at least you’re in good comp—” she broke off abruptly, and her head jerked around.
“What?”That was Jen, but I didn’t wait to hear the response.
The cat girl’s senses were acute, even down here, which was more than I could say for mine.But I heard them now, and when I burst out of the narrow crack in the wall, back into the main tunnel, I saw them: a group of mages coming toward me.I couldn’t tell how many, as they were still distant, and even the feeder tunnel was too narrow to allow them to walk comfortably more than two abreast, but there were enough.
And that was before the stench of dark magic hit my nose so strongly that I almost gagged.
Instead, I turned back around and surged down the crack of a tunnel, into the small cavern of a workshop, and then to the opening I’d found situated behind a ward to look like just another stretch of wall.It led to a tunnel the children couldn’t see, as it was heavily guarded: the mage’s escape route, one that he had never had a chance to access.But they did—if they left now.
But how to tell them?
“Shit!”Sophie said, as another spirit bounded into the room behind me—her Cat.Which she must have sent to investigate, using it to throw her senses outward—only it didn’t just see the human world, did it?It saw me and stopped so abruptly that it stumbled.
The girl whirled, and for a moment, we just stared at each other, her Cat lending her sight across the divide.“L-Lia?”she said, her eyes huge.
“This way,” I said, and showed her the warded exit.She could see it now through her Cat’s eyes as easily as I could.And to her credit, she didn’t waste time with questions.
