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 reached 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?”
Oh well. Why not.
“My parents were grifters. I don’t think either one of them earned an honest dollar in their entire lives. Every day there was a new con or a new heist. Sometimes we’d have a ton of money. Dad would check us into a great hotel, we’d have steak and lobster, and he’d buy Mother jewelry. And the next week we’d be sleeping in some abandoned car. It was chaotic, but it was fun.
“My brother was eight years older than me. He was handsome and so funny, and I thought he could do anything. All the girls fought over him.” Tears heated her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Alex could teleport short distances. That was his special talent. He was a really good thief, too. He would steal ice-cream bars for me from gas stations. I thought he was so cool.
“We worked a lot, my brother and I. We’d steal things, and our parents would sell them. And then, when Alex was twenty, it all went to hell. He became a drug addict. And it was our own father who got him addicted. Dad was always looking for that big score. Every con was supposed to make us rich for life, just like the one before it.” Audrey paused, then asked, “Do you know what the Internet is?”
George nodded.
“People in the Broken sometimes use debit cards instead of money. They’re small plastic cards with a magnetic strip. When you swipe one through a card reader, it subtracts the price of whatever you bought from your bank account. Criminals steal the debit-card numbers and the little code you have to use to authorize the money. It takes some technical skill to do it. Then they sell the card numbers on secret forums on the Internet. You can buy the numbers, sometimes for ten or twenty bucks each, and you can make your own cards. You can take these cards to ATMs—do you know what those are?”
George nodded again. “Automated banks that give out money. They’re very heavy.”
“That’s right.” Audrey nodded. “I once tried to steal one, and they have to be made of lead, because we tried to winch it onto our truck and the winch broke. But anyway, if you have fake cards loaded with debit-card numbers, you can go to ATMs and withdraw money straight from the people’s accounts. You could clean out one ATM, then go to the next, for several days even, until the banks caught on. You could make thousands. My dad loved this idea. In his head, it was ridiculously easy free money. You see, the bank insures people’s accounts, so if the money is stolen, the insurance company replaces it. My dad thought it was a victimless crime. Oh, if only we’d get in on this scam, we would all be rich and happy forever.”
KALDAR paused behind the wyvern. Audrey’s voice carried over. She was talking about her parents. She kept it light, but he heard the underlying tension in her tone.
Kaldar put down the two buckets of water he’d carried from the stream and held up his hand. Behind him, Gaston stopped, and murmured, “What?”
“Shhh. I want to hear this.”
Gaston shrugged, set his buckets on the grass, and sat near the wyvern, his long, dark hair spilling down his back.
Kaldar leaned against the wyvern’s scaled side. The boy had talent. Getting Audrey to talk must’ve been difficult. She was smart, and she guarded herself carefully.
Her reaction to the Hand’s magic might have played a part. The Hand’s agents were so twisted by the magic, they emanated it. Magically, they stank like roadkill left to bake in the sun for a few days, and most people “gagged” when they came into close contact with them for the first time. The reaction lasted a few hours, depending on the intensity and brand of magic and how sensitive the victim was to it. Some exposed felt invisible bugs on their skin; some panicked; some went into convulsions. Audrey was the burn type: they reported the feeling of being set on fire and the sensation of being skewered or chewed on. That reaction came coupled with lowered inhibitions. Whatever brakes Audrey had were malfunctioning. She was hurtling out of control down an emotional highway, and Kaldar wanted to be there for that ride. Curiosity was killing him. He wanted to know what she liked, what she didn’t like, what made her happy. He wanted to know why she lived in the Edge by herself.
The more he knew about her, the easier it would be to impress her. The more impressed she became, the more she’d like him. And he wanted Audrey to like him. Standing next to her was like standing in the sunlight.
AUDREY’S voice caught a little, and she cleared her throat.
“My parents never understood the Internet. They didn’t realize you couldn’t just go on to the debit-card forums to buy the numbers. You had to be introduced or get a password from someone.
“Dad found this guy—Colin—a real scumbag. Colin was a big shot on one of the forums, so Dad told Alex to make friends with him and get the password. He told him to do whatever it took. ‘Get the password, Alex. Just get that password.’”
She sounded so bitter. Audrey felt bitter too, bitter and angry. “Colin was a cokehead, and the only way to get to him was to supply him with drugs. So Alex would sell him coke, and Colin wanted him to sit there and do it with him, so that’s what Alex did for two months. Finally, Colin ODed. He took too many drugs, and they killed him. We did get the password to the forum, and Dad bought a bunch of numbers. Drained our reserves completely. And then on the fifth ATM he hit, an off-duty cop noticed him feeding a bunch of cards into the machine, and Dad got arrested. It was a huge mess. When Dad got out three months later on some technicality, he and Mom put Alex into rehab, but it was too late. He likes . . . liked being an addict. It was an easier life than being Dad’s errand boy all the time, and he would guilt-trip Dad into buying him drugs. He never stopped after that. All we did from that point on was work to get enough money to put Alex into a new rehab.”
Audrey paused. She didn’t want it to sound all “oh-poor-me,” but there was no help for it. “Sometimes I went to school, but mostly I didn’t. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t get to do any of the normal things twelve-year-old girls do. I guess I still had hope that my brother would come back to us. Then, when I was almost seventeen, Alex sold me to a drug dealer. He wanted some prescriptions, and he didn’t have the money, so he told the guy that he could do anything he wanted with me. The guy cornered me as I was coming back to the Edge. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”
SO that was it. Kaldar clenched his teeth. How could you trade your own sister? How could you trade Audrey? Beautiful, sunshine Audrey. His mind understood, but the part of him that was a brother and an uncle seethed at the thought. That was not done.
In the Mire, he would’ve put Alex Callahan down like a rabid dog.
“The drug dealer took everything I had on me,” she said. “And then he told me that I could either steal more drugs for him, or he would rape me and kill me. So I did it. He took me to a bad neighborhood to a drug house owned by a gang. I snuck inside, stole the drugs, and gave them to him. Then he beat me. The first punch knocked me to the ground, and he kicked me for a while. Broke two ribs. My face was messed up for months. Still, I got off easy.”