Kin (Tales of Beauty and Madness) - Softcover

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PROLOGUE:

SHORTCUTS

T WO DARK-HAIRED YOUNG MEN, LEANING ON EACH other as if drunk. One of them reels, retching and coughing, the other makes soft soothing noises. There is a faint gleam-something silver, plucked from the drunkard's pocket. He grabs for it, almost topples, and his helper speaks softly.

This is a small town, and the train is waiting. The two have twenty minutes before the train is resealed and plunges through the Waste, flora and fauna both Twisted from stagnant and wild Potential. Sometimes a train derails, other times, things attack the metal intrusion. So far, though, this journey has been uneventful.

There is an alley close to the station. Its shadowed mouth swallows both young men. The darkness is complete, except for a few faint gleams-silver, again. A swaying, a sharp arc of brilliance. A meaty, thudding sound.

When a young man boards the train later, he looks faintly troubled. But he has plenty of time to reach his sleeper compartment, and is settled on a wide, comfortable seat folded down into a bed when the whistle blows, a high piercing demand. Layers of charm seal the train again, and anyone left behind for any reason has to stay in this small town. To leave anywhere, you must pay for a fresh ticket. And a new indemnity, in case the Waste eats the train.

Or worse.

Steam billows. Cinders fall, dirty snow, and the metal beast heaves forward.

Afterward, the station is deserted. The town slumbers, too small for its sleep to be troubled by the problems of cities-urban cores full of slopping-over Potential, a Waste of its own. There was always the small, remote chance that the Waste might move in, and swallow the town whole. The next train to come through could well encounter a wilderness, its walls shattered and its buildings jumbled, its inhabitants no longer draining off Potential to restore their surroundings to normality.

Around the station, unTwisted trees planted beside ruler-straight sidewalks rustle, their thin branches shaken by a hot wind from the Waste as a maggot-cheese moon rises higher in an uncaring sky.

The train's whistle, in the distance, is a lonely, mournful song.

PART I:

INTO THE WOODS

ONE

NEW HAVEN RECLINED UNDER THICK SUNSHINE AND fluffy cotton-wool clouds, isolated trees turning to autumn flames early this year. The rest were still that peculiar darkening green they wore right before dressing up for Dead Harvest.

Less than a week of freedom between the end of summer classes and the beginning of the last year at St. Juno's, which meant that if you wanted to have some fun you had to grab it with both hands. It was even better when you had friends to help with the grabbing and pulling.

Which sort of explained why Ruby de Varre was sitting cross-legged on her Semprena's still-warm bonnet, at the park on top of Haven Hill, completely alone. Summer was stuttering to a stop, so it was still warm in the sunshine, but here under a huge spreading oak tree that probably predated the Reeve there was an edge to the breeze. This tree hadn't started turning yet, still green and vital, the sound of its leaves rubbing against each other a snakescale whisper.

Cami and Ellie had both promised to meet her at Stellar's to get milkshakes before figuring out how best to waste this pretty nice day together. After fifteen with no sign of either she'd bailed, because who had time to wait around with so little summer left?

That just meant she was up here all alone, staring at New Haven spread out below the Hill like a fresh banquet in front of a glutton too stuffed to eat another bite. All that excitement, all that life pulsing under the ribbons of pavement, from the blighted core to the Moving Wall that separated city from Waste . . . and here she was, in jeans and a red tank top instead of school