hands, looked at the primer, and drew in a long breath. Sometimes she really hated vampires.
“Three hundred. And,” she added over his faint growl, “and I’ll tell that arithmancy student to come to you for her orrery. That’s a guaranteed four hundred within the next twenty-four hours.” Then, because she figured she could hardly lose any more ground by it, threw in, “Take it or leave it.”
The growl deepened, wavered, and gave way to a throaty chuckle. “You are your father’s daughter, aren’t you? Well, then, darling, I’ll take it.”
She stuffed the book into her patched satchel as Carl turned to the cabinet behind the counter, unlocked it, and removed a long black box, its surface gleaming from repeated use. He set it between them and flipped open the catch. The faintest scent of antiseptic wafted up from the crystal vials, plastic tubing, and graduated cylinders tucked inside, the purpose of each Melee had learned intimately, repeatedly, and painfully over the last few days. She rolled up her sleeve—her right one, as she didn’t want him seeing how much she’d already paid with her left—and rested it against the glass.
The one thing you could say for Carl, or any vampire in business on Pawn Row: they worked quickly. Leather cuff and tourniquet, iodine swab and tubing laid out, needle drawn (“Brand-new and sterile, I promise,” he said at her look) and a stool dutifully pulled up. Then the needle prick, the slow bleed, and the world narrowed to the warm red line traveling from the crook of her arm to the cylinder carefully spread with anticoagulant, the reflection spilling across the glass in strange patterns she felt certain any signometry major would tell her spoke of life and death in no uncertain terms.
“Make a fist, darling,” Carl said absently, his eyes fixed on the rising red line. “Helps it move faster.”
Melee obeyed. Three hundred milliliters was more blood than she’d thought. It was always more than she thought. She closed her eyes. The last purchase. This was the last thing she needed today, the last thing she needed at all. Tonight, she would recover, stuff herself silly with ice cream and sticky rolls and wine, watch her dad’s favorite movie, maybe take the dragon out for a quick flight beyond the edge of the city. Tonight would be a good night.
Tomorrow, she would worry about the upcoming term.
“There you are, my dear. All done.”
She opened her eyes at the sharp pinch of the withdrawing needle. Carl pressed a square of gauze to the inside of her arm and directed her to bend her elbow as he busied himself with cleaning up the residual payment on his equipment. His touch was cool and firm and clinical, but she knew better than to expect gratitude, or even gentleness. She didn’t know a single vampire with good counter-side manners. A thick feeling crawled up the back of her throat at the sight of three hundred milliliters of her swirling in that glass cylinder. Only it wasn’t her, not anymore, and certainly not by the way Carl was eyeing it. She hoped he’d at least have the decency to wait until she’d left to start drinking.
Melee reached across the counter and tore a piece of tape from its dispenser near the gauze. “Thanks, I’ve got it.” She slapped the tape over the gauze and hopped down from the stool. Now—
That’s strange. For such a fastidious vampire, Carl’s liger-skin carpet was in terrible need of dusting. Her nose itched, and ten thousand pins prickled along her spine, and she wondered how many dead skin cells she had just inhaled. There was a rushing sound in her ears. Her arm hurt. Is that a dust bunny, or something alive? He really needed to vacuum, and—
Why am I on the floor?
“Easy!” Carl scurried around the counter and hauled her upright. “Not too fast. You know how this works, darling.”
Her stomach roiled, half queasiness, half shame, as she sat on the stool again. She could almost hear the gossip circulating around Pawn Row. Did you hear about Old James’s girl? Poor thing can’t count, apparently. Let herself get drained dry. Passed out, quick and clean as you like on the floor of de Rosia’s …
“I’m fine,” she panted. “Carl, really, I’m okay.”
“Yes, and I’m an inebriated gargoyle. Here.” She flinched at the touch of cold metal and even colder skin as he slipped an iron thaler into her palm. “Dinner is on me. Go get yourself something with sugar in it.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Nonsense. For three hundred and a reference, it’s the least I can do.”
Melee blinked and looked at the coin in her hand. Stamped on one side of the thaler was the mark of the Pawnbroker’s Order: three circles hanging, staggered, from a Cupid’s bow. They should have been spheres, but the engraver hadn’t made much effort at shading. What was the old student joke? “What does it take to be a genuine pawnbroker? Brass balls, of course.” She flipped it over. On the reverse was the asymmetrical lily of Family de Rosia. She’d asked Carl once why they didn’t use a rose, but he’d only smiled and said he’d tell her when she was older.
One iron thaler, properly stamped and sealed. Freely given and freely received, no restaurateur in the city could refuse it. She held a token of credit centuries old and stronger than any human, even a man like her dad, could ever hope to build up. She clutched the thaler tightly. Not one of the half-dozen pawnbrokers she’d visited in the last week had offered her a token. “You know, Carl, for a vampire, you’re pretty decent.”
He gave her that perfect cat smile and bowed. “You make my great-grandmother weep.”
“I didn’t mean it like—”
“No, no, it’s an old family saying. Granddam is a sadistic hag and all of us civilized de Rosias like disappointing her. Now go on, darling. You’re going to need some rest if you want to start term on Monday.” Gently but firmly, he ushered her to the front of the shop, avoiding the bars of sunlight that snuck through the slats around the door. “The café on the corner is owned by a friend of mine. He’ll give you two meals for that token if you ask nicely.”
Melee made sure he was clear of the sunlight before opening the door. “Thank you, Carl. For everything.”
“Thank you, my dear. Now, ah, this first year. I can expect her … when?”
“I’ll ask her to come around tomorrow.”
The street outside was nearly empty, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The dinner crowds would be out soon, hawking their blood and other valuable living assets to the vitally challenged for tokens and textbooks and practical tips on how to pass Professor Boynya’s first alchemy exam. Both diners and dinees were waiting for the sun to slip behind the spindling brick façades of Pawn Row, but for now, Melee had the street to herself. Nearly. The gargoyle winked at her from the corner of the roof. Next to him, the dragon sat rigid and watchful, its eyes still burning standby red.
She whistled the unlocking sequence, and at the final note, the dragon came to life. Golden fire flared in its eyes and flowed beneath its alchromium scales, tracing the sleek lines of its silver chassis. It blinked once, shook itself, and dropped from its perch without leaving a scratch on the stone façade. The street was narrow, so it folded its wings and dived, falconlike, toward the cobbles. Melee could almost hear her insurance man gasp all the way from his office across town. Its wings snapped out just above her head, casting an early twilight over a few square meters of street and setting the three brass balls over Carl’s shop door swinging in the sudden gust. Gracefully, with what she could only assume was the mechanical version of pride, it glided down the last few meters until its steel claws touched the curb. Steam and the sharp, bracing scent of drakeoil hissed out from settling joints as it folded its wings against its chassis. It tilted its head and looked at her with a gleam in its eye.
Good job, buddy, Melee thought, and smiled.
It wasn’t alive. It could never be alive. She knew as well as anyone the limits of magitech, and yet there was always that something,