Page 65 of Queen of Nothing

I pick through my backpack. “That’s from your jacket pocket?”

She nods.

Illusion-free, her dark hair slips over her shoulder. Once, it was long, like spilled ink down her back. Now, it’s cropped to her collarbone, and a little on the oily side.

I don’t even want to know what I look like right now. I’ve been avoiding the mirrors in here.

I flick through the notes in my hand, pulled out from a pocket in the backpack. “That’s two hundred. How much was in your purse?”

“Four hundred and twenty-one.” Serena takes the cash from me, just to drop it onto the mattress between us on the pathetic, meagre pile. “So, in total, we are screwed.”

Given how much we started with, it’s a blow to the gut to look down at only a smattering of notes.

Now that I’ve worked jobs in the krum world and counted the meagre amount of cash I earned at the end of the week, I know this won’t go very far at all.

Sofía’s monthly fees don’t help.

If only we didn’t need her to shield us against tracker witches. She’s needed, and she knows it, so she charges grossly for her service.

I can barely make enough cash to keep up with it all, the groceries, the rent, the fees, the bills.

My only day off in two weeks, and I get stuck with Sal and a parade, and that didn’t go well.

It’s not like Serena can work. Not while she’s constantly teetering so close to her lassitude limit, since she keeps us both under illusions most of the time.

If she rests some now, she might be able to illusion the pages of the bible on the nightstand into hundred-dollar bills.

I reach into my back pocket, the denim of my jeans scraping against my fingers.

I pull out the watch, then toss it onto the mattress. It jingles faintly, a sound that sweeps me back home for a heartbeat.

Serena stares down at it for a long moment.

The television blares on, flashing blues and reds and oranges all over the motel walls.

I glance at the other bed.

Sal has fallen asleep. Or passed out, since he’s sort of folded over and rolled onto his side.

Serena reaches for the watch.

Her fingertips glide over the smooth, polished gold. “Is this a Jacob?”

“It’s Oliver’s.”

I can say it now that Sal is asleep. There are things we don’t talk about around him.

Serena’s sharp grey eyes lift to mine. “How did you get this?”

“He gave it to me.”

She blinks, once, a stunned look, confused, and then her face hardens into something dangerous.

“Oliver caught me.” I glance at the sleeping boy on the other bed. “Us. He caught us.”

Her olive complexion pales into something ashy. And, as I tell her everything, her face is more and more horrified.

It takes everything in me to hold onto that numbness I find solace in. A numbness that I think I live in every day.