Page 8 of Butterfly Effects

Some of the challenge faded, replaced by guilt. “This is a Mark visit, huh?”

Malena never met Mark—he showed up well after the producers of Dance or Die decided it was a good idea to summon a giant snake from another dimension on live television—but she knew his deal. He’d been at St. Giles’s for long enough to have become a fixture, and Verity had visiting privileges, just in case he woke up while I wasn’t available. As the only adult we knew of in the city with Kairos heritage, she stood the best chance of putting him down if he opened his eyes and started breaking things.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Is it a good Mark visit?”

“Not so much, no. I think Dr. Morrow needs the bed. That, or they’ve seen something on their scans that worries them enough for them to want to discuss it with me in person. Either way, I can’t see that meaning anything great, can you?”

“No,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Sarah. And I didn’t mean to snipe at you. Of course you can come home whenever you need to. It’s your room. You’re a better roommate than someone who’d want to actually be here all the time. It’s just been a hard week.”

“Problems in the building?”

“Just the usual. Rats got into the basement again.”

“I thought free snacks were a part of your payment.”

Even I could tell that the number of extremely sharp teeth in her grin was unusual. “Oh, and they are. I just have to catch them live and keep them for three days to be sure they haven’t been poisoned with anything that might upset my stomach. No, rats got into the basement and half the tenants wanted to parlay that into a rent reduction.”

I winced. A rent reduction is never an easy ask in Manhattan. A rent reduction in a dragon-owned building is sort of like asking the sun to turn blue for the weekend to fit the aesthetics of your outdoor wedding. “How many evictions?” I asked.

“None. But things were tense and shouty around here for days.”

“Ick.”

“Tell me about it.” She put the lid on the blender and hit the puree button. The blender’s contents mixed into an unpleasant shade of greasy brown, streaked with red from the pig’s blood jelly. I watched impassively.

My diet isn’t precisely human-normal, and it takes more than a blood smoothie to upset me. Malena turned off the blender and poured its contents into a glass, sticking a straw into the slurry and taking a long drink. She watched me as she did, and I could feel her confusion grow as I didn’t recoil or look away.

“I don’t know why you want to fight with me right now, but I’m tired and I’m worried about Mark and I only came through the apartment so I could check in with Verity, not because I needed some recreational arguing,” I said. “I’m gonna go.”

Malena lowered her glass with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight, I’m just—I’m in a rotten mood, and you surprised me.”

“I hope you feel better,” I said, and started for the door.

It always feels a little odd to get around normally right after I’ve opened a spatial tunnel between two points. Like being able to do it means I should do nothing else. But even birds walk, and they have wings. Sometimes the supposedly easy method isn’t the best one available.

Malena didn’t follow or call me back, just let me go. That was almost certainly for the best. She might be in the mood to fight, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to hurt Verity’s most reliable babysitter. People tended to assume that because I wasn’t a physical fighter, I would be a soft or easy target.

People can be so good at being wrong.

The hallway outside the apartment smelled of boiled cabbage and fried onions, which wasn’t indicative of anything currently being cooked. Those halls were virtually designed to trap and retain smells, developing unique olfactory footprints over time. You could tell a lot about a building’s demographics by the way the hallways smelled. I liked it. It was a very domesticated method of peeing on a fencepost, a way to mark territory without breaking any social norms. I passed closed door after closed door on my way to the elevator, then pressed the call button and stepped inside.

Verity had been managing this building for the dragons since the family drove the Covenant of St. George out of the city. It was part reward for the work she’d already done, part bribe to keep her from heading back to Portland to raise her kids. See? it said. We couldn’t save your husband, but we can provide you with affordable housing near a good school district.

Verity preferred to live away from the bulk of the family, and property management seemed to suit her well. She liked her apartment, and I could feel her general contentment as I made my way toward the door. Well, contentment and deep frustration: David, still too young for solids, had dumped his entire bowl of soft cereal on the kitchen floor, and Livvy was laughing so hard that he was taking it as incentive to throw more of the contents of his tray. Ah, the life of a single mother.

I had a key, and from the level of chaos I was picking up on, Verity wouldn’t thank me for taking the time to knock. I unlocked the door and let myself inside. “I’m just a burglar,” I called.

Her laughter drifted from the tiny dining room. “You know if I believed you, this could get real messy, right?”

“I know you never believe me about that sort of thing,” I countered, and followed her voice.

Livvy was sitting in a grown-up chair, as befit a five-nearly-six-year-old. Her booster seat brought her up level with the table, and she watched me gravely as I approached, eyes going enormous and laughter cutting off. David, on the other hand, kept making happy baby sounds and flinging things onto the floor. He had moved on to his napkin and sippy cup, and was going to be entirely out of throwables very soon.

“Because I can feel you coming,” said Verity, crouched over and wiping cereal off the floor.

“Fair,” I allowed.