Wayfarer: A Tale of Beauty and Madness (Tales of Beauty and Madness) Read Online Free

Even the foliage and wildlife in the Waste got Twisted in places, without charmers to drain off the excess Potential and make it manageable.
    So to go through, you had to pay for passage on a sealed train—
and
an indemnity in case you were contaminated en route. Diplomats and inter-province lawyers, not to mention some corporate bigwigs, had travel insurance, but it didn’t cover accidental Twists—and sometimes, even true-iron didn’t hold back the shifting, and a train derailed.
    If it did, your best hope was to die in the accident, because whatever lived out in the Waste would finish the job. Or you’d Twist, and that would be the end of it. Or, one of the hunters from the cities would find you, and you’d be killed on sight.
    The risk of bringing contamination into the cities was just too high. Only fey could move between Waste and city, or Waste and kolkhoz. The huge communal farms were where criminals were sent, true, but they were better than the alternative.
    Anything was better than the Waste. So everyone said.
    Sometimes, Ellie wondered.
    She breathed out, then in with shallow little sips. Her stomach still hurt. The after-dinner calm had been punctured only by the Strep’s angry scream when Ellie slip-charmed yet another pair of high-heeled boots; the application of Potential had been complex but performed perfectly. It was a charm Laurissa had been working on for days—and not having any luck with. They were waiting for Laurissa to add her Sigil . . . and to sell. They’d fetch a high price.
    I shouldn’t have done it right. She’s just going to sell them.
If she didn’t bend too much, it wouldn’t hurt. The Strep’s scream had punched her, Potential like a mailed fist right in the solar plexus, and she’d spilled to the stone floor of the workshop, unable to breathe. The thought that maybe she’d suffocate and save Laurissa the trouble had made a shallow choked sound come out—one her stepmother had to have thought was a whimper instead of a traitorous laugh, because she didn’t hit Ellie again.
    At least the Strep was going to be more careful about hitting her where it would show, now. Mother Hel had accomplished
that
much.
    Hooray.
    Her pale hair lifted on a breath of cinder-laden wind, and Ellie hunched her shoulders. If she held herself
just
right, she could breathe well enough.
    “
Seeeeeeal intaaaaaact!
” the platform master yelled, grabbing and spinning the spoked breakwheel with callused hands. Ellie watched the shifting, cascading Potential wed to true-iron, and the train settled with a massive mechanical sagging sound. “
Breaaaaaaak now!
”
    She could sense, almost-See, the breakwheel’s heavy-duty charming interacting with the train’s seal, folding it away in layers and feeding it back into the wheels and rails crackling with pressure and live Potential. Those who worked in the railyards had to have Affinity for true-iron—at least it was
some
insurance against Twisting.
    Sometimes Ellie wondered when her own Affinity would begin to show. It would be a sign that her Potential was settling, and that would be a happy day. One step closer to freedom, or at least a better cage.
    “Come on,” the Strep muttered. Her scarf fluttered, cinders catching in her long frosted mane. She didn’t bother with a crackcharm to shed them, and they didn’t stick to Ellie’s school uniform.
    Juno wool repelled a lot of things.
    The hatches opened, compressed air blowing and the train taking in fresh instead of mostly recycled.
    “The Ten-Fourteen, New Aaaaaavalon to New Haaaaaaven, now docked!” the platform master, his greased hair with its crust of cinder-crown bobbing, yelled in a singsong. “Liiiiiine up, ladies and gen’lmen! Continuing service to Pocario, Old Astardeane, and Loden Province!” The words reverberated, a simple charm to make them ring over the train’s grumble and the noise of those gathered on the platform turning them oddly flat and soulless.
    Going through