Chapter 1. Cami
Elmwick is a town like any other.
To the untrained human eye, it’s unimpressive and dull. For a legacy like me, it’s the safest hideout. A place to live peacefully, tucked under the haze, instead of on the run. That is, if I can forget why my family left ten years ago.
Technically, Elmwick is my home.
The sign we blow past reads, “Population 2463”. Make that 2465 now.
I turn back in my seat, the seatbelt pressing on me. I don’t spot any trace of the haze at the town’s border. Impressive.
Dad’s hands tighten in his two-and-ten grip on the wheel. “Are you all right, Cami?”
I give him a forced smile. He has been handling my legacy gracefully for a human, even now that I’ve started manifesting in the weeks before my seventeenth birthday.
Through the window, I focus on the heaps of snow gathered by the side of the road.
I can already hear them. Voices mutter over each other in a low hum, like a melody.
“You can talk, you know, even though we’re here,” Dad says. “Your mother used to.”
“I know.” My voice is but a whisper.
In five minutes, we reach Town Square, marked by a small church, an unimposing statue, and a few shops. My eyes are drawn to the statue—a man and a woman, carved from a bronze-tinged dingy old metal. A wolf stalks by the man; a lion by the woman. And a snake slithers at their feet. A half-dome cradles the five of them from the wind. Or at least that’s how the humans might interpret the detail representing the charmers’ haze.
I focus on the candle in the woman’s hands and smile at the token of the rarest legacy. Mine.
We drive by on our way to the north end of the city, at the foot of the forest. The streets are empty and covered in deep snow.
After ten years in the city that never sleeps, this town—stranded in the mid-west, separated from civilization by miles of forest in every direction—couldn’t feel more foreign. No crowd to get lost in. No dizzying lights and maddening rush to distract people from focusing on me for too long. No glancing over my shoulder out of fear that a hunter might have picked up my trail.
We slow down on a familiar street. Even though it’s been a decade, I remember the houses well. All have a similar two-story structure with a garage on the side and a lawn covered in snow up front. That’s where the similarities end, though.
The first two we pass are the lions’ and wolves’ houses, left and right. Their houses seem the most normal. Christmas decorations hang on the front doors, and lights in all colors frame the windows.
Next are the other two extremes—vipers and charmers. Glossy black paint gives the vipers’ house an ominous vibe. Somehow, even the snow covering it seems tinted—darker under the shadow of an ancient walnut.
Across the street, sparkling snow covers the charmers’ ginger brown house like icing. The swing seat on the porch looks cozy with a pile of chunky knit blankets on it. I stare at it for what feels like an eternity before I realize we’re stopping.
Dad has pulled up in front of our old house. White sheets cover the windows, though they’ve turned a smeared gray with dust. The house’s eggshell paint has peeled off in patches, revealing the ash wood beneath.
We never once rented out this property during the ten years we’ve been away. None of the other families would let humans move in. This quarter is for legacies only. The nearby streets are all vipers, charmers, wolves and lions, with the occasional mixed marriage between a legacy and a human.
Some cold ones still live here, though not as many. Dad told me most of them fled to a derelict castle out in the woods after the War of Powers.
Entire families of legacies live here, but there’s no one quite like me.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second. The voices are intelligible now—fighting, joking around, murmuring to themselves when they think no one could be listening. A swish of icy air snaps me out of it.
Dad has opened the trunk. “Care to give your old man a hand?”
I put on my mittens and get out of the car. A deep breath releases into a cloud in front of me.
“I hear them already,” I say sullenly.
“It’s normal.” Dad sounds nonchalant. “And you’ll only be growing into your powers more.”
We go back and forth, bringing boxes to the front porch. My nose starts running in this cold. I shudder, imagining how freezing it would be inside.
When Dad gets the door open, I realize I’ve been wrong, though. The air inside feels warm. I must be more sentimental than I realize, but I feel at home. I lift the white sheet covering the couch, desperate to make the space look as cozy as it suddenly feels to me.
A piece of our old home comes alive with every dusty sheet I remove. I don’t stop until all the furniture—from the two couches and coffee table, to the pouffes and vases—is free from its cover.
The only sheet still hanging hides the old portrait over the fireplace.
I steel my spine and approach it. Gently, I undo the tape at the painting’s corners with fingers turned stiff and white from the cold. When the dusty sheet falls, Mom’s circle of six looks at me from the canvas.
She’s front and center, sitting on a plush couch between two girls. The sight of her—pale skin, bushy honey-blonde hair and knowing, mysterious eyes puts a spear through my heart. I’ll never get used to seeing her like this—a mere remnant of the vibrant woman she was.
So, I focus on her circle.
On Mom’s right is a regal beauty, her blood-red lips painted perfectly and pearls gracing her thin, bone-white neck. The deadly cold one is Allegra Gianni.
On Mom’s other side is another enigmatic woman with high cheekbones and perfect eyebrows—Amynta Hawk, the lioness. Luscious, glossy black hair falls straight on the sides of her tawny face. Her dark brown, hooded eyes seem to follow me.
Standing behind the three ladies are the gentlemen of the circle, dressed in old-fashioned suits, a size up from what they should be wearing according to current trends.
The wolf, Bleiz Valtyk, has messy sandy hair, a grin that gives away his nature completely, and striking icy-blue eyes. The charmer, Eddie Rendall, is the bulkiest of them—broad shouldered and tall. Even though the artist has captured the glow of his deep bronze complexion, Eddie’s beetle-black eyes carry a sadness. Was this painted before or after the hunters caught his wife?
I press my lips together, my eyes moving to the last one of the circle—the viper. Sal Rivera, his black hair pulled back into a bun, looks a year or two younger than the rest. While his clothing matches the others’, there’s no hiding his specific style. With the top buttons of his shirt undone, a thick golden chain glimmers against his olive skin, and multiple rings cluster on his fingers.
Mom is glowing with the lot of them surrounding her, her freckled face turned peachy at the cheeks. I doubt that will be me with their children at school tomorrow.
Forcing myself to go back outside, I reach for the boxes on the porch. I wish I could feel the crisp quiet of winter, but I’m jolted by a bang instead. At least it sounds like a bang to me. To a normal ear, it’s just the dull thump of bouncing a ball.
My eyes dart in the sound's direction. A house as big as three of the others blocks our street into a one-way. The make-do basketball court in front of it has been shoveled from the snow. A girl about my age and her older brother are playing a fast-paced game. The sound of the ball slamming into the wet ground and their shoes scraping against the pavement makes me want to scream.