On the Edge te-1

by Ilona Andrews

  At the last moment, the crow dropped right and snagged the braid off the gears.

  A tendril of dark magic snapped from the device, stinging the bird’s wings. Rose held her breath. Come on, George, come on, you can do it.

  The crow faltered, jerked, beating its wings furiously, and flew up, higher and higher, disappearing beyond the trees heading back to East Laporte.

  Rose dropped her head facedown into the dirt. He did it. Her brother did it.

  Declan’s hand gripped her shoulder and jerked her up, hard. In the ravine below them, the hounds were rising. Declan’s face was dark. At the other end of the ravine, William retreated, crawling away.

  They slithered from the cliff. Ten feet. Twelve. Fifteen. Twenty. Declan hauled her upright and breathed one word.

  “Run!”

  They dashed through the woods, running as fast as the terrain would allow. The tree trunks flew by. She leapt over the branches and crashed through the brush.

  “Faster,” Declan called directly behind her.

  Rose squeezed out a burst of speed. The air seared her lungs. Her side began to hurt. She kept running. The woods blended into a blur, punctuated by her hoarse breaths.

  They burst into a small glade. Declan caught her arm and spun her around. “We make a stand.”

  She doubled over, trying not to vomit. He didn’t even look winded.

  Declan pulled a sword from the sheath on his back and turned it over once. “Use short-range flash,” he said. “The less noise we make, the better.”

  The first hound padded out of the bushes into the open. It tensed, the muscles along its long limbs contracted, and it leapt into the air.

  Declan swung. The blade cleaved the hound in two, and he sank flash into the ruin of the body. Acrid fumes surged from the hound’s carcass. Rose coughed and moved away from him. Short-range flash. She could do that.

  A hound burst through the shriveled brush. It made for her, jumping in great leaps, maw gaping, bloodred fangs ready to rip. The four eyes glared at her with luminescent gray. The hound lunged, and Rose flashed. Her short, controlled burst of magic cleaved across the creature’s shoulder all the way deep through the chest. The top half of the beast slid aside, betraying a glimpse of soft purplish innards filled with gray slime, and crashed to the side.

  Another hound dashed at her from the right. Rose flashed again and watched its head roll through the dead grass.

  A dark flood of the beasts came loping through the Wood, stark against the dull, magic-drained trees. It headed straight for them. In a moment they would be overwhelmed.

  Rose leaned back and took a deep breath. A line of magic thrust from her, curving to the ground. It split into three and began to circle her.

  The foremost beast sprinted, muscle flexing under the bruise-colored pelt, legs pumping, horrible teeth bared. It leaped at her and fell aside, cut in three pieces.

  They made right for her. With her flash blazing bright, she made an irresistible target. She concentrated on rotating the arches as fast as she could, slicing through the hideous bodies until the ground grew wet with their gray sluice. To the left, Declan struck at the stream of hounds, his blade a lethal whirl. He cut with deadly precision, fast and unstoppable. Every time his sword sliced, something died. He was absolutely beautiful.

  The last hound paused on the edge of the clearing. Rose dropped her flash and sent a single sharp bolt of blinding white at it. Declan flashed at the same time, the two flashes connected, and the hound went down.

  The clearing was wet with gray blood and littered with smoking bodies.

  Declan looked her over. “Unhurt?”

  She nodded.

  “How many did we kill?” he asked.

  She surveyed the carnage. “Fifty?”

  “Twenty-two.” He wiped his sword and slid it back into his sheath.

  “Only twenty-two?” She couldn’t believe it. It seemed like many more . . .

  “Twenty-two.” He took her by the arm. “Run. Before the rest get here.”

  They ran through the woods.

  “I don’t think William’s helping Casshorn,” she said.

  “I don’t think so either.”

  “Then what is he doing here?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  If William had been in league with Casshorn, he had only to make a noise, and the entire swarm would’ve been on them.

  “What was that?” Declan asked.

  “What?”

  “The sphere of flash you did back there?”

  “It’s a modified Ataman’s defense,” she told him. “When I saw William for the first time, I got scared he’d get through and split the arch into three. For some reason, I can rotate them a lot faster this way. Why, you never saw something like this before?”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever seen anything like this before,” he told her. “Keep running.”

  THEY reached the palisade in record time. Grandma waited inside by the gates.

  Declan did a little bow. “Madame.”

  “Yes, yes,” she told him with a sour face. “Tom wants to see you inside.”

  Declan nodded.

  “Did you get the hair?” Rose asked.

  “We have it.”

  Declan disappeared into the building. Rose collapsed on the ground. She lay on her back, her arms and legs flung wide. Her body felt like wet cotton put through a washing machine.

  “Are you all right?” Éléonore’s face blocked the sky.

  “Fine,” she said, breathless. “I’ll just lie here for a bit. He’s made of iron: he runs very fast and never gets tired.”

  “The hooligans escaped,” Éléonore said.

  “What?”

  “Jeremiah called me on your phone. He took them and Leanne with her boy out into the Broken, just as agreed. They sat all quiet and nice, until he stopped to make a right onto the freeway at the gas station, and then they threw the truck’s door open and bolted.”

  Rose closed her eyes and groaned. Why me?

  “Jeremiah and Leanne tried to catch them, but they’re gone.”

  “They went back to the house.” Rose pushed off the ground and sat. She felt a thousand years old. Where else would they go? “It’s Jack’s fault. He’s convinced we’ll all fail to fight Casshorn without his help, and he must’ve talked Georgie into it. I’ll get them and take them out to Leanne. I doubt they’ll come out for anyone but family, so it’s either you or me, and it will have to be me, since you’ll be cursing Casshorn.”

  “Hurry,” Grandma said.

  “All right.” Rose pushed herself to her feet.

  “Go!” Éléonore waved.

  Rose headed for the gates. She briefly considered getting Declan but decided against it. He’d need to protect the palisade while they cast their curse, and she knew the Wood like the back of her hand. She’d be back in a couple of hours, after she dropped the boys with Leanne. The boys had to be taken to safety, and the faster she managed it, the better it was for everyone involved.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ROSE jogged at a brisk trot down the road. Her body ached. There was clearly wisdom in all that running Declan did in the mornings. If she ever hoped to keep up with him, she’d have to take up running, even though she hated it with a passion. She walked a lot, but there was a world of difference between walking a few miles down the road and running for your life. And cleaning offices for ten hours a day didn’t exactly improve her athletic ability. She’d have to ride better, too. She did well enough at slow speed, but a canter would have her hanging on for dear life, and the gallop was right out.

  She recalled Declan being all indignant about the boys not being able to ride a horse. Like everyone had a damn horse in the Edge. The only reason she knew how to ride was because Grandpa had insisted on keeping his half-blind old mare, Lovely. She remembered riding her as a child. Lovely died a few years back, and Grandpa had never replaced her.

  She wondered if Grandpa Cletus would’ve approved of D
eclan.

  Rose rounded the turn and glimpsed the house. She braced herself. There would be angry yelling and tears. She’d get her way in the end, but it would take some harsh words.

  A tall, dark-haired man stepped into the road from between the shrubs. He wore jeans and a black leather jacket over a faded T-shirt. Wild eyes looked at her, glowing like two pieces of amber.

  William.

  Rose halted.

  He made no move to approach her. His face was grim, his mouth a severe line. “The kids are safe,” he said. “I’ve watched over them.”

  Fear trickled down her neck. She reminded herself that she could fry him with her flash at any moment. “Why are you here, William?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  She searched his face and saw a blank uncertainty tinted with wariness. That’s exactly what Jack looked like when he blundered into the unfamiliar territory of human emotions and clenched up, not knowing what to say or do next. If Jack was any indication, William was stretched to his limit. He could snap and lash out at any moment.

  “Come sit with me,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “We’ll talk.”

  He followed her to the house. She removed the ward stones, letting him in, and pointed to the porch chairs. He sat on the steps instead, and she sat on the other side, keeping enough distance between them. She glanced at the kitchen window and saw two faces. They ducked, but not before she hit them with a first-rate scowl.

  Rose looked back to William. He was at an emotional cliff, and one wrong word or look could push him over. She’d talked Jack from this same edge more than once. Of course, an eight-year-old boy and a trained killer approaching his thirties were two different things. She’d have to tread very carefully. Honesty was paramount. Jack instinctually sensed her lies, and William would probably do the same. It was best to stay away from subjects that might agitate him.

  “I saw you with Declan,” he said. “Are the two of you . . . ?”

  There went the careful treading. “I love him,” she said.

  “Huh.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Does he love you?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t discuss it, so he doesn’t know how I feel.”

  “Why him? Why not me?”

  He had delivered the questions in a perfectly neutral tone, but she glimpsed the emotion behind it—a lifetime of rejection. He deserved an honest answer, and she took a moment to think about it.

  “It’s difficult to explain. We’re alike in many ways. You wouldn’t think it, but we are. He makes me feel wanted and safe, and he makes me laugh . . . He also irritates the daylights out of me. I almost flashed at him at one point.” She paused. “It’s very hard to break love down to explainable pieces, William. It’s a force, a feeling. You know when you feel it and you know when you don’t.”

  “So you feel nothing for me?” The question was delivered in a flat, neutral voice.

  “That’s not quite right,” she said. “I don’t know you well, but there are things I like about you. I like that you’re honest. I like that you’re patient and kind to the boys and that you’ve watched over them. I didn’t like that you hung Emerson upside down on the tree and then scared me half to death.”

  “I was frustrated,” he said. “You weren’t happy.”

  He had made her a present and didn’t understand why she wasn’t thrilled. Just like Jack. “I appreciate the thought behind it. I still wish you hadn’t done it.”

  William gave her a suspicious look.

  “Once George and an older boy got into a fight. The older boy hit George in the mouth and knocked him off his feet. Jack decided to jump in. He beat the older boy very badly. Broke his nose and knocked out a tooth. He thought he was a hero. I grounded him for a week. If he had punched the boy and left it at that, I would’ve let it go. But he had done too much. Hanging Emerson off the tree was too much.” She sighed. “Believe it or not, Declan and I had this same discussion. I don’t want anyone to fight my battles for me. It’s my business, and I’d like to handle it myself.”

  He considered it. “Fair enough.”

  “I do have feelings for you,” she said. “Gratitude for trying to watch out for the boys and for checking on me when I’d lost my job. But they aren’t the same feelings as I have for Declan. When Declan’s gone, I miss him very badly. It’s like something isn’t quite right with the world.”

  “I get it,” he said. “But what does that make you and me then?”

  “We could be friends,” she said. “Friends make the world bearable. It’s an honor of sorts. Of all the people that a person knows, they pick you to be their friend, and you try to be worthy of that friendship. Or at least I try. I don’t really know you, but I feel we could become friends if we had more time.”

  William’s face darkened.

  “You can tell a lot about the person by the company they keep,” Rose said. “For example, you have a friend—Declan. You must be a glutton for punishment.”

  William said nothing.

  “He’s been trying very hard to find you,” she said. “That time when you were on the phone with me and I wouldn’t give it to him, he almost bit my head off.”

  No response.

  “What’s the deal with you and Declan?” she asked gently.

  “We were in the Legion together,” he said. “Did he tell you that part?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s easy to be in the Legion.” His voice went dull and toneless. “They tell you when to get up, when to sleep, when to eat. What to wear. Who to kill. All you have to do is be where they tell you when they tell you and don’t ask questions. We were in for a long time. Most people don’t survive that long. He kept to himself, I kept to myself. We’d talk once in a while. Never said much, but he had my back and I had his. He dragged me out of a burning ship once and swam through the night until a cutter picked us up. I was out of it, a dead weight. I asked him why he did it, and he said because I’d do it for him. I thought he was like me, you see? A damaged twisted sonovabitch with no place to go.”

  He looked up. His eyes were full of fury.

  “Do you know he has a family? His parents love him. He has a mother, and she loves him. His father thinks the sun rises and sets on Declan’s word. They’re proud of him. He has a sister, and she loves him, too! I went to see them when I became a noble, and she hugged him. He stood there, and in my head I saw all the blood we spilled dripping from him, and I knew that they wouldn’t care. All this time I was thinking he was fucked up and alone like me, just hid it better. But no. The bastard could’ve left the Legion anytime and they would take him back and love him anyway. You tell me, what kind of a sonovabitch walks away from a family like that?”

  She didn’t know what to say. “It isn’t his fault that he has a family, William,” she said finally.

  “No. But I can’t forgive him for it. I have nothing. The clothes on my back? I stole them. What you see is everything I own. The Legion was everything I had, until they took it away from me. Even that Declan threw away.”

  Rage emanated from him. William would kill Declan if he got his hands on him; she was sure of it. She had to steer him away from violence. “Declan didn’t want to leave the Legion. He doesn’t care for being a noble. He doesn’t want the responsibility. He did it to help you.”

  “I didn’t ask him to do it,” William snarled.

  “But he did it anyway,” Rose said. “I didn’t ask you to attack Emerson, but you did it anyway.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “It is. Sometimes people try to help us even when we don’t want the help. What would you have done in his place, William?”

  “I would’ve broken him out,” William said.

  “And some people would’ve died in the process, you would be wanted criminals, and then Declan would be pissed off at you.”

  William leaned back. A long growl reverberated in his throat.

  “Why did you follow Casshorn out here?”
she asked. “Because you knew Declan would come and you’d get a chance to fight him?”

  “No. Once Casshorn ‘adopted’ me, he started hinting that he wanted Declan out of the way. I told him no. The thing between me and Declan would happen on my terms. It didn’t sit well with him. He gave me a house on the edge of some woods, made sure food was delivered to me, but other than that, he let me be. Then three weeks ago he invited me to come with him ‘on a little adventure.’ I declined. He smelled . . . odd. After he left, I went to his place and broke into his study. He had papers prepared blaming me for this entire mess in case things went sour. So I tracked him down, but he had too many hounds by the time I found him. He tried to hunt me, and I went into the Broken.”

  “So you’re here for revenge?”

  William shook his head. “No. What he’s doing is treason. I swore to protect the realm.” He looked at her. “There are rules I will never break. They’re in me too deep. Treason is unthinkable.”

  “Declan’s here to enforce the rules as well. If the two of you murder each other now, Casshorn will win.”

  William growled again, a purely animal sound of warning and contained aggression. Every hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  Rose forced herself to sound calm. “Casshorn’s gone insane. He wants to eat the boys. I don’t want my brothers to die. I don’t want to die either. Is there any way you and Declan can act like adults and postpone your reckoning until we kill him?”

  William gave her a wary look. His eyes had cooled to an almost normal light brown.

  “You’ve waited this long. Surely you could wait a little longer. Please?”

  He leaned back and sucked in the air through his nose. “All right.”

  “Thank you.” Rose smiled.

  William’s head snapped up. He bared his teeth, his eyes flashing amber.

  A moment later she heard it, too, a thudding of horse’s hooves. A rider burst from around the curve: Declan atop Jeremiah’s dark horse.

  Rose stared, speechless. He just had to show up right this second.