Page 16 of Magic for Nothing

Verity nodded. “There’s a bunch in the envelope. All cash, so no one can use them to track us down, all either things that make sense for a carnival girl attending college to buy before going back to her family, or things she would have bought after learning they were dead.”

And the dates and locations would be good, too: I knew that much. Verity might be self-centered and a little shortsighted at times, but she was smart, and she knew her shit. She wouldn’t give me something that could blow my cover, and I wouldn’t insult her by checking each individual receipt in front of her. I’d check them later, at the airport; maybe even discard a few, creating a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone who wanted to use psychometry to verify that I’d really flown out of New York. “ATM code the usual?”

“Yeah. There’s about eight hundred dollars in the account. Try to avoid using it unless you have to, since we’re not in a position to refill it right now. Save it for emergencies.”

“Do my best.” I began swapping my new self into the wallet, sliding IDs into place, shoving receipts in willy-nilly. “Social?”

“In the envelope.”

I looked. It was there, along with a stack of bills. Mixed dollars and pounds; good. I put them in the wallet with everything else. “How am I getting to the airport? You can’t drive me.”

“We’re going to drive you across town and drop you off. You can hail a cab from there.”

That way my starting point wouldn’t be the slaughterhouse or the decrepit bodega. It was good thinking. I nodded. “Artie was supposed to be arranging my tech?”

“New phone and laptop are preloaded with your files and ready to go,” she said. “The phone has a lot of local numbers, and a bunch of entries for people who died at the Black Family Carnival. We even put in some ‘local friends,’ in case they try to do a background check by calling random people from your phonebook. They’re all cryptids we know, and they’ll answer any calls from your new number by addressing you by name and asking if you’re enjoying your London vacation.”

They seemed to be thinking of everything. I nodded again. I was starting to feel like a bobble head toy. “Did he remember to send me a new iPod?”

“He did. Preloaded, through the new laptop, so it won’t have any relict data that could give you away.”

“Cool. I think we’re good.”

“I hope we’re good.” Verity looked at me gravely. “You’re the only sister I’ve got, Annie. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Be safe over there, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.” On an impulse, I offered her my free hand. Looking confused and pleased, she took it. “Keep things going over here, all right? I don’t want to come home to a smoking wasteland.”

Verity laughed unsteadily. I realized, with dull surprise, that she was probably trying not to cry. “I’ll do my best, too.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say after that. We sat in silence, waiting for Istas to come and wash the henna out of my hair; waiting for the next step of my voyage to begin.

Five

“No matter how fast you run, you can’t change who you are.”

—Jane Harrington-Price

London, England, walking down Charing Cross Road, approaching Cecil Court, one transatlantic flight later

I WAS DONE.

No. That wasn’t quite right. I was a hundred miles past done, cresting into the Fjords of Nope, heading for Fuck-That-Ville. The sidewalk was uneven, traffic was moving in the wrong direction, pedestrians kept looking at me like I was an accident about to happen—which, let’s be honest, I probably was—and I was ready to lie down in the street and sleep for a month. Which was exactly why I had to keep going.

Antimony Price, cryptozoologist, derby girl, and sensible person, would have gone straight to a hotel upon arriving in the United Kingdom, where she would have slept and showered and done all those other wonderful things that make the world a less unrelentingly awful place. Antimony Price would never have done this to herself. But I wasn’t Antimony Price anymore. No, I was Timpani Brown, last survivor of the Black Family Carnival, and I wasn’t here to have fun or take care of my physical needs. I was here for revenge. And revenge did not need a nap.

(That was another advantage to doing this while sleep-deprived: as long as my story didn’t slip, the screwed-up chemicals rampaging through my brain would make it harder for a lie detector, magical or mundane, to tell that I wasn’t telling the complete truth. Staggering through their door exhausted and miserable made me more credible, not less.)

Dominic’s intel said there I’d find a Covenant recruiting office hidden in an antiquarian bookstore on Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road. Which was all well and good, except for the part where the entire damn neighborhood was made of antiquarian bookstores. I’d never seen so many old, dusty, potentially creepy books shoved into window displays like it was no big deal. If I’d been more awake, they would have been incredibly tempting. As it was, I wished there were a few less of them, just to make this easier. Making things even more fun, England does not believe in American-style street signs. I wound up standing and scowling at a dead end, trying to figure out what to do next. Going back to the airport was sadly not an option.

A hand tapped my shoulder. I suppressed my first impulse, which involved breaking fingers. I suppressed my second impulse, which involved stabbing. Jet lag does terrible things to my nerves. In the end, lacking any other nonviolent options, I turned around.

The man behind me was tall, thin, and dressed like a clerk, which hopefully meant he worked in the area. His wire-framed glasses somehow looked more “scholar” and less “hipster,” maybe because his bow tie was accessorized with a camel-hair jacket and a cross-body book bag.

“You look lost,” he said. Oh, definitely a local: his accent would have gotten him a dozen dates and a marriage proposal at a Harry Potter convention. “Tourist, yeah?”

“First time in London,” I admitted. I flapped my free hand helplessly at the buildings around us. “I’m looking for Cecil Court, but I can’t figure out what any of these streets are called. I only know I’m on Charing Cross because the man at the ticket booth told me so.”

“There’s no housing on Cecil Court,” said the man, visibly perplexed. “You know that, right? If you’re looking for a hotel, or a hostel, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.”