Audrey couldn’t handle being responsible for the deaths of two kids. In her head, it wasn’t even George and Jack specifically; it was all the Jacks and all the Georges who lived in the Edge. All the lives her stupid caper had put at risk.
Some things even a Callahan couldn’t live with. “Then there is only one solution.”
Kaldar crossed his muscular arms. “Please. I’m all ears.”
“I have to get the diffuser bracelets back.”
She had to set it right. She would fix this, whatever it took.
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
Audrey shrugged. “Who else is going to do it?”
“Me.”
She gave him a drop-dead stare. “Please. You got yourself Tasered and tied to a chair because you were too busy watching me eat little mints.”
Kaldar grabbed her. One moment he was there, and the next he clamped her to him in a firm grip. Suddenly, his face was too close. His eyes were pale brown, like old whiskey, and he looked at her the way a man looked at a woman when wanting her had pushed every other thought out of his brain. A little electric thrill danced through her. She was pretty sure that if a volcano suddenly erupted in the cabin, neither of them would’ve paid it any mind.
“Mmm, Audrey,” he said, his voice low and intimate. The sound of her name caressed her like velvet against her skin. Tiny hairs rose on the back of her neck.
“You should let go of me now.”
“You know what the difference between you and me is?”
“I can think of several.” Oh yes, yes she could, and what fun differences they were. And at a different time and in a different place, she might even consider exploring them, but not now.
Kaldar leaned over her. His whisper touched her ear. “The difference is, I don’t need a Taser.”
He turned, his mouth so close to hers, the distance between them suffused with heat. He looked at her, drinking her in, his gaze sliding over her eyes, her cheek, her mouth...
She felt his breath on her mouth, the first light, teasing touch of his lips on hers, then the stronger, insistent pressure of his mouth, and, finally, the heated touch of his tongue. She let her lips part, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. They met, and his taste washed over her—he tasted of toothpaste and apricot and some sort of crazy spice, and he was delicious. He chased her, teasing, seducing, and she pretended not to like it, then teased him back again and again, enticing, promising things she didn’t intend to deliver.
They broke apart slowly. Her whole body was taut as a string stretched to its limit, and just before she took a step back, one of those differences he mentioned earlier pressed hard against her stomach.
Audrey looked straight into his smug eyes and slapped him. It was a good slap, too, loud and quick. Her palm stung.
Kaldar let her go and rubbed his face. “Really?”
“I told you no, and you still did it.” And it had been glorious. When she was old and gray, she’d remember that kiss.
Kaldar looked at her, amused and slightly predatory. All of his smooth polish had vanished, and the part that was left was dangerous, reckless, and very much up to no good. Audrey had heard about the Mire before. It was a savage place, and Kaldar had grown up there, which made him both savage and crazy. Now all his sleek manners had sloughed off, and the real man emerged. And he was hot.
He must’ve been a feral terror at eighteen, especially with that face. Now he was older and wiser, and he hid his crazy better, but it was still there, buried deep under the surface, and he had let it out for her benefit. Well, wasn’t she privileged.
Kaldar winked at her. “You enjoyed it. It made you feel alive. You were looking kind of green.”
You bastard. “Oh, so it was a lifesaving kiss.”
“Well, if you want to put it that way . . .”
Arrogant jackass. “Do me a favor: next time you think my life needs saving, just let me die. I’d really prefer it.”
He laughed.
She shook her head. “I’m going to the front with the boys. Don’t follow me. You and your paramedic kisses need time to cool off.”
Audrey swiped Ling off the floor and marched to the front of the cabin.
THE wyvern dipped down, banking above the clearing, which felt only slightly less thrilling than plunging down a drop in a roller coaster. Audrey clutched on to her seat. The front of the cabin offered only two seats, and the boys had graciously let her sit next to Gaston and the enormous windshield, which she now sorely regretted.
“It will be fine,” Gaston told her. “The wyverns are difficult to stop, so we’re just going to spiral down for a minute. Landing is actually kind of fun.”
Jack bared his teeth at her from his perch on top of a trunk. “He just says that because he isn’t human.”
Gaston laughed.
Audrey tried to look anywhere but at the rapidly approaching trees. “Not human?”
“His grandmother had sex with a thoas,” Jack told her.
“Why thank you, Jack.” Gaston showed him his fist. “You’re so helpful.”
“I like to be helpful,” Jack told him.
“I have strange teeth, and my eyes glow, while you turn into a lynx and run around spraying your spunk on bushes. And you’re calling me not human? That’s rich.”
George cleared his throat.
Gaston looked at him. “What?”
George nodded at Audrey.
“What is it?”
George heaved a sigh. “We have a lady in our company.”
“I’m aware of that. I am not blind.”
“He’s telling you to watch the crude language,” Kaldar said, emerging from the cabin. He stopped between their two chairs, leaning on the backs with his arms. “How does it look?”
“Looks good,” Gaston said. “We’re in the clear.”
“Take him down.”
Gaston leaned forward to a complex, polished set of levers and knobs and pushed several switches.
“So how does the wyvern know what you would like him to do?” Audrey asked.
“He’s wearing a receiver device over his spark glands, just under his chin,” Kaldar told her. “When Gaston adjusts the magic frequency of the console, the receiver sends the new signal through the glands. The wyvern is trained to recognize the specific commands.”
“Just like a dog,” Gaston told her. “He knows ‘sit’ and ‘stay.’ Except in his case, ‘sit’ takes about five minutes.”
“Why?” Audrey asked.
“He’s very large,” Kaldar said. “So for him to land, everything has to align just right: approach, speed, wind, and so on.”
“What if he decides that ‘sit’ means turn upside down in the air?” she asked.
Kaldar leaned closer to her. “Then we all die a horrible death.”
Great. Audrey squeezed the chair’s seat, willing the wyvern not to fall out of the sky.
“Afraid of flying?” Kaldar asked.
“No, I’m afraid of falling to my death.”
“If it will make you feel better, I could hold you.”
“In your dreams . . .”
The wyvern plunged down. Audrey gasped. The ground rushed at her as if she were in the cabin of a train hurtling at full speed.
Audrey dug her nails into the seat cushion.
The trees jumped up. The cabin jerked, and the wyvern’s feet smashed into the ground, skidding. The huge reptile careened and stopped.
Kaldar leaned toward her ear. “You can breathe now, magpie.”
Magpie? “I don’t need your permission, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”
Argh.
“Beautiful landing,” Kaldar told Gaston. “Your best thus far.”
Gaston grinned.
If that was the best, what in the world did the worst feel like?
“Let’s go,” Kaldar called. “We need to make camp. The sky is clear, so we’ll be sleeping outside today. Audrey can have the cabin.”
“That’s all right,” she told him. “I can manage. I can sleep outside just fine.”
Four pairs of eyes looked at her with a distinctly male skepticism.
“It’s only proper that you have the cabin,” George said.
“You’re the only lady,” Jack added.
“What they said,” Gaston said.
“Then it’s settled.” Kaldar pointed at the cabin. “Quilts, pillows, sleeping bags. Once we’re done, Jack, you find us something to eat, and George, you set up some sentries. Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later, their sleeping bags were on the ground by the wyvern. Audrey had always pictured dragons as fast and agile. But lying in the grass, the wyvern appeared barely alive, like some monolith carved from blue stone, with a blanket of green moss on his back.
Kaldar extracted a foot-long bronze box from one of the trunks and opened it. Inside, on a bed of green velvet, rested a large mechanical insect. Another gadget. The people from the Weird called them automatics.
Kaldar opened another box, pulled out a small printer with a cord sticking out of it, and plugged a camera into it. The printer whirred and spat out a picture. Audrey peered over Kaldar’s shoulder. The blond blueblood woman stared at her from the cliff. Her haughty face radiated scorn.
“You took a photo? When?”
“When we landed in the cabin. I don’t know her, and she isn’t in any of the Hand’s roster available to me. I would’ve recalled that face, but I need to identify her, and I can’t simply patch myself through the Mirror’s network.” Kaldar waved the photograph around to dry the ink. “Any magic contact will be intercepted, and given that we’re in the field, we’re under strict orders to limit our communications.”
He took the insect out of the box, flipped it on its back, and gently pressed the thorax. A bronze panel slid down, revealing a small, clear crystal. Kaldar held the photograph to it, rattled off a string of numbers, and said, “Activate.”
Tiny gears turned within the insect with a faint whir.
“Scan.”
A ray of light stabbed through the crystal from the inside. The light slid over the photograph, and the crystal went dull.
“Encode,” Kaldar ordered.
The insect’s long legs moved and trembled. The panel over its thorax slid closed, hiding the crystal. Kaldar flipped it back on its feet.
“Home base.”
The insect’s back split. Gossamer wings emerged, shook once, and blurred into movement. The insect rose from the box, hovered above the grass, and streaked into the sky.
“We’ll get an answer in a few days.” Kaldar stood up. “Gaston, you and I have to see to the wyvern.”
A moment later, Kaldar and Gaston went to get some water to mix some sort of special food for the wyvern.
Jack walked up to Audrey, holding Ling. “Could you please put her in the cabin for the next hour?”
“Of course.” She took Ling from him. “Why?”
“Because I need to change, so I can hunt, and I don’t want her to freak out.” Jack went behind the cabin. Audrey took Ling inside and deposited her into a large wicker trunk where the quilts had been stored.
“Now stay here.”
She shut the lid. Thin tendrils of magic extended from her hand, and she clicked the lock shut and went back outside.
A lynx trotted out from behind the wyvern on massive paws. As big as a large dog, his fur thick and luxurious, the big cat glanced at her with green eyes.
Audrey held very still.
The lynx’s large ears with black tufts on the ends twitched. The lynx opened his mouth, showing her his pink tongue, winked, and took off for the trees.
Wow.
She turned to George, who was unrolling the sleeping bags. “Was that Jack?”
“Yes, my lady.”
This was getting weirder and weirder and not in a good way.
Audrey perched on top of a heap of blankets. “You know, you really don’t have to call me ‘my lady.’ I’m just an Edger.”
George gave her a small smile that lit his angelic face. “I’m just an Edger, too.”
“But I thought Kaldar said you were a blueblood?” That wasn’t exactly what Kaldar had said, but fishing for more information never hurt.
“Our sister married a blueblood. We’re just Edgers. People in the Weird remind us of where we come from quite often. In case we forget.”
Ouch. They must’ve had a bad time of it. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” George told her. “We’re well taken care of. We go to a very good school, we have a large allowance, and Rose, our sister, and her husband love us very much. Someone would dislike us because of all that one way or another. The Edge is a convenient excuse.”
Audrey sat next to him on a quilt. “If you’re so well taken care of, why did the two of you stow away in Kaldar’s cabin?”
“Because of Jack. The Weird has problems with changelings.” George smoothed the sleeping bag in place. “Jack is difficult. He cares about other people, and he’s kind, but he doesn’t always get how people think. And he’s very violent, which scares people. In Adrianglia, changelings like him are sent off to a military school. It’s a very bad place. Jack is in a lot of trouble right now since he almost killed someone, and he thinks that Rose and Declan—that’s her husband—are getting ready to ship him off. He thinks that Declan’s best friend, who is a changeling, can convince them otherwise, but he’s gone on a trip. We’re buying time until he returns.”
She caught the faint hint of disapproval in his tone. “So that’s what Jack thinks. What do you think?”
George grimaced. “Jack is spoiled. Things are hard for him, but he isn’t the only one who doesn’t have it easy. He gets away with crazy things because he’s a changeling and he’s different. Jack could behave better, but he stopped trying. He decided that he’s worthless and that nothing he could do would make any difference.”
George rose and reached for a large cooler sitting by the wyvern. The muscles on his arms bulged. He strained. Audrey got up and took the other handle of the cooler, looking straight ahead without meeting his eyes. No need to make the boy self-conscious.
The weight of the cooler nearly toppled her over. The stupid thing was huge and likely full of ice. Eighty pounds at least. They dragged it over to the patch of clear grass.
George knelt by the cooler, and she sat in the grass across from him. Neither of them mentioned dragging the cooler, as if it hadn’t happened.
“When we were little, Rose worked a really crappy job,” George said. “It made her bone-tired, but she did it because she wanted us to have a better life. You asked me what I thought. I think Rose would work herself into the ground just so she wouldn’t fail me and Jack. My brother misinterprets things. I don’t know what he heard, but I doubt he’s getting sent off. My sister loves him too much, and Declan never came across a problem he didn’t attack straight on. He wouldn’t palm Jack off on someone else. It would mean giving up.”
Talking to George was almost like talking to an older wise adult. At fourteen, she supposed he was almost an adult by some standards, but still, his maturity was startling. Was there a fourteen-year-old boy somewhere in there, hiding behind all of that logic?
“I get why Jack ran away, but why did you?”
George popped the cooler open. “Because he needs someone to look after him. We barely know Kaldar, and Gaston and Jack don’t care for each other.”
She grinned. “You don’t say.”
“Jack baits him all the time until Gaston loses his patience and hits him, and then it’s on.” George rubbed the back of his head. “Gaston hits very hard.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Yes. I don’t take it personally. We are a pain in his . . . head. I came because without me, my brother would do something rash and stupid. Wouldn’t you do the same for your brother?”
Audrey shook her head. “No.”
“Why?” George reach
ed into the cooler and pulled out a big bird. It was black and very dead.
Audrey stared at it. Another bird joined the first one on the grass, then another. What in the world? “It’s a long story, and you probably don’t want to hear it. What are these?”
“The sentries,” George explained. He picked up the first bird and closed his eyes for a moment.
The bird shivered.
Oh, my God.
The bird rolled on its feet. It spread its large wings.
“Go on,” George murmured.
The bird flapped its wings and flew into the woods. George watched it go. “I’m a necromancer. The birds will keep watch, and I’ll know if anyone comes close.”
Wow. They were some pair. One was a lynx, and the other one brought corpses to life.
“I would like to hear your story.” George picked up the second bird.
“My childhood wasn’t nearly as bad as yours, so this will sound like I’m throwing myself a pity party, and I am. To you, my problems might be small, but to me, they’re huge. Funny how it always works that way. Ask a man how much a dollar is worth, and he’ll tell you, ‘Almost nothing.’ Try to take a dollar away from him, and you’ll get yourself a fight.” She smiled.
“You’re right, my problems are the biggest problems ever,” George said. “No, honestly, it’s horrible to be me. I’m rich, talented, and I make girls cry.”
“How do you make girls cry, exactly?”
George turned to her. His blue eyes widened. His lovely face took on a forlorn, deeply troubled expression. He leaned forward, and, in a theatrical whisper, said, “My past is tragic. I wouldn’t want to burden you with it. It’s a pain I must suffer alone. In the rain. In silence.”
She laughed. “That was pretty good, actually.”
George shrugged, back to his normal self. “It works sometimes. Still, I’d like to hear about your parents. Please?”
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