On the Edge te-1 Page 16

  “Did you try to help him?”

  “Yes. I left the military and assumed the title, because my status as a peer would give my words greater weight. I petitioned, I lobbied, I argued that if an ordinary soldier were in his place, he wouldn’t have received the death penalty.”

  He’d abandoned his career to rescue his friend, and he said it without any bravado, like it was the obvious logical thing to do, not even deserving a second thought. Ten years of his life, and he’d turned his back on it for the sake of another person. Not many people would do that. She wasn’t sure she could’ve done it. That was admirable.

  Rose bit her lip. “Did you save him?”

  “No. I failed.”

  He’d said it with such bitterness. His eyes had turned distant and mournful, as if dusted with ash. She wanted to reach out and touch him. To somehow make it better.

  “At the last moment, Casshorn, the brother of the Duke of the Southern Provinces, adopted my friend, assuming complete responsibility for his actions. Because Casshorn was childless, and a high peer, he claimed the bloodline privilege. Basically, my friend was his only heir, and as such, the realm couldn’t kill him. Casshorn paid an exorbitant sum for his release.”

  “That was very kind,” Rose said.

  Declan gave her a flat look.

  “What did I say?”

  “Casshorn is a brigand. He’s a slimy stain upon the honor of the Duke’s house. He didn’t adopt my friend out of kindness. He adopted him because that was the only way he could’ve saved him from execution. See, my friend is lethal with a blade, and he hates—”

  A clammy touch of foul magic brushed her. Rose froze. She didn’t really believe they had killed all the beasts, but she had hoped. Apparently, she was wrong.

  “Keep talking,” Declan said. “I doubt the creature understands what’s being said, but it’s likely sensitive to the tone of our voices.”

  “Where is it?” she asked lightly.

  “On the left, near a small shed. Let’s get up and stroll a bit.”

  He rose and offered her his hand. She took it mechanically, before realizing she had done it, and they walked side by side, wandering toward the road. Her hand rested in Declan’s calloused fingers, as if they were a couple of teenagers going steady. He was building his magic for one hell of a flash, his whole body wound tight, full of barely contained violence. It was like walking next to a tiger who decided that he liked you: Declan held her hand lightly, but he wasn’t about to let her get away.

  He squeezed her fingers. In that moment Rose felt a connection between them, an alarmingly intimate bond. She glanced at him to reassure herself she was imagining this and saw the same thought mirrored on his face: he had her hand and he liked it.

  She turned away.

  “A little closer.” Declan applied subtle pressure to her arm, but didn’t let go of her hand.

  The creature crouched in the myrtle by the shed. To see it out like this, unafraid in full daylight, was eerie.

  Declan’s voice was steady. “When I say duck, you—”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I don’t want you to kill it. You’ll do your big kaboom thing and blow my shed to smithereens.” And Grandpa Cletus with it. She didn’t even want to think what it would do to Georgie.

  He glanced at her, indignant. “I don’t go kaboom.”

  “Tell it to Amy’s roof.”

  “That kaboom is the reason all of us are still breathing.”

  The creature watched them, making no move to advance.

  “I’m not saying it wasn’t necessary. But that was her house. She isn’t a noble swimming in money. She can’t just wave her hand and get another roof. You didn’t even warn her first. People need to have a moment to prepare for that kind of shock.”

  Declan halted, and so did she. They stood entirely too close. Her back was to the creature. Its magic dripped onto her skin, squirming along her spine in a slippery trickle.

  Declan locked his teeth. It made his jaw even squarer. “That hound is less than two feet away from the shed. There’s no way I can strike at it and not singe the shed. It’s physically impossible. And I’ve left my swords inside.”

  “That’s why you should let me take care of this.”

  “How, pray tell, will you manage that?”

  “Like this.” She spun around and whipped a blindingly white line of magic at the beast. The flash snapped, slicing the beast’s head off its neck like a giant razor blade. The headless torso froze in a half crouch for a long moment and toppled over. The oppressive magic vanished.

  Declan stared at her, openmouthed.

  Rose smiled.

  Declan released her fingers and strode to the headless body. “Hmm,” he said.

  “Hmm back at you,” she told him and went to check the brush for signs of other beasts. She didn’t feel any, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  They searched the bushes, but no other beasts were in attendance.

  “Where do they keep coming from?” Rose wondered. “And why?”

  “Why is simple. They hunger for the magic.”

  “I guess I better get a shovel. We should bury that damn thing.”

  “Who taught you to flash?” He said it like he expected her to lie.

  “Nobody taught me. I practiced for years. Several hours a day. I still do, when I have time.”

  Declan’s face reflected disbelief.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she told him. “I’m the Edger girl who flashes white, remember? The reason for your trip to this horrible, awful place where you have to mingle with unwashed commoners.”

  “I knew you could flash white. I didn’t know how precise you are.”

  “You’re precise. You knocked aside my bolt.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t aim for the bolt specifically. I just sent a wide pulse of magic from the front of my body, like a shield. It would’ve knocked away one bolt or ten.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you for the tip! Now I know how you did it.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Just how precise are you?” he asked.

  She gave him a sly Edger smile. “Do you have a doubloon on you?”

  He reached into his pocket and produced a coin.

  “I’ll make you a deal. You throw it in the air, and if I hit it with my flash, it’s mine.”

  Declan looked at the doubloon. It was slightly larger than a quarter from the Broken. He tossed it high above his head. The doubloon spun in the air, catching the sunlight, shining like a bright spark . . . and fell into the grass stung by a thin white whip of her flash.

  Declan swore.

  She grinned, plucked the still-hot coin from the grass, blew on it, and showed it to him, taunting him a little. “Groceries for two weeks. A pleasure doing business with you.”

  “I’ve only met one person who could do that,” he said. “She was a flash-sniper in our unit. How can you do this with no proper training?”

  “Did you study flashing?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the best weapon available, and I wanted to be good at it. And everybody in my family was good with it. I was a noble, and I had to uphold the honor of our name.”

  “I had a much better motivation than you,” she said. “When I was thirteen, my mother’s parents died in a house fire. Grandpa Danilo always smoked like a chimney. The whole house was covered with cigarette butts, and one night he’d smoked one too many. Nobody got out alive, not even my grandparents’ cat. Their death broke my mother. She just kind of died right then, but her body kept on living. She started sleeping around and didn’t stop. She’d have anybody who’d have her. Married, blind, crippled, crazy, she didn’t care. She said it made her feel alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It must’ve been very painful for you.”

  “It wasn’t fun. People called my mother a slut to my face. Leanne, who lent you
the clothes? She used to chase me around the school, chanting ‘whore’s bitch.’ She’d written it on my locker once in big letters. You were the son of a nobleman, handsome, wealthy, probably well liked. Poor little rich boy. I was the daughter of a whore, penniless, ugly, and despised. I had a lot of motivation to flash well. I wanted to ram my flash down the world’s throat to show everyone that I was worth something.”

  “How did it work out for you?”

  “Not so well,” she admitted. “But now playing with my flash is a habit. I taught myself a lot of fun tricks.”

  “Aha.” Declan pointed to the tree. “Double slicer.”

  The magic slashed from him in two even streams, running low through the grass, and collided in a brilliant explosion at the tree. He had used a mere fraction of his power, just to show her the move. Declan had better control than she had thought.

  “Don’t be upset if you can’t do it right away,” he said. “It takes a bit of pra—”

  He clamped his mouth shut with a click as she sent two identical streams of magic into the tree.

  “Oh my . . .” she murmured innocently.

  “Ball lightning.” A sphere of magic ignited over his shoulder and smashed into the tree in a shower of sparks.

  She hadn’t seen that one before, but she had practiced making spirals for years—mostly because she thought they looked neat—and a sphere was just a folded spiral. The trick would be to snap it with a spin, the way he had done. She concentrated and watched in satisfaction as a white ball formed over her shoulder. It was a bit lopsided and it didn’t spin as well as his, but she was able to send it flying into the bark.

  Declan shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “It’s killing you that you can’t stump me, isn’t it?” Rose grinned. She never got to show off. To have him here as her audience was satisfying beyond words. She’d managed to impress a blueblood from the Weird. An earl and ex-soldier. It didn’t get better than that.

  Declan planted his feet into the grass and concentrated. His eyes shone. A ghostly breeze stirred his hair. A crisp line of white burst from his back to rise two feet above his head. The top of the magic line curved down, stretching all the way to the grass in a white half arch, and began to circle him, drawing a perfect ring in the dirt.

  Wow.

  “Ataman’s defense,” he said, letting it die.

  Rose tried it. She had no problems creating the straight upward line, but as she tried to bend it down, it struck at the grass under a sharp angle, not curved gently the way Declan’s had.

  Declan smiled.

  “Let me see it again, please.”

  He reconstructed the arch. “It took me a year of constant practice to learn how to do this.”

  Rose watched the arch go around him. Turn. Turn. Turn. Like a whip. Turn. “Give me a few minutes.”

  “You have time.” He sat in the grass.

  “Are you just going to sit there and watch me?”

  “Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.”

  “Peasant?”

  He shrugged. “You started the name-calling.”

  She snorted and went to work. It was harder than it looked, and for the first few minutes the sight of him on the grass distracted her. He looked like a painting with his strong body, long lean legs, and absurdly handsome face. There was humor in his green eyes, and when their gazes met by chance, he winked at her. She nearly singed herself with her own flash. But soon, she sank into the task, and Declan and the rest of the world faded.

  Sometime later Declan stirred on the grass. “Do you want me to tell you how it’s done?”

  “No!”

  He grinned.

  She struggled with it for another half hour, until it dawned on her to put a spin into the line. At first it merely sagged, but the harder she pushed, the lower it curved, until finally her line of white arched down gracefully and spun about her, like an obedient pet.

  She turned, thrilled, and saw him striding across the lawn to her. He paused and ducked under the spinning line of her flash. He was so close, they practically touched. She let the flash die.

  “That’s incredible,” he said quietly.

  “It’s not that incredible,” she said.

  “It took me a year to learn it.”

  “I practiced a lot more than you.”

  “I can see that.”

  She glanced at his face, and all thoughts scattered from her head. She saw admiration and respect in his eyes, an acknowledgment one would give an equal. They looked at each other. Slowly his eyes darkened to deeper green. The way he looked at her made her want to take the half step to close the small distance between them, open her mouth, and let him kiss her. She could almost feel his lips on hers. Like playing with fire. Rose moistened her bottom lip, biting it a little to get rid of the phantom kiss, and saw Declan’s gaze snag on her mouth.

  Oh no. No, no, no. Bad idea.

  He took a step forward, his hand reaching for her. Rose sidestepped.

  “Thank you. It means a lot to me, coming from someone like you. I think we better dig a grave for that thing. The stench is killing me.”

  She headed to the back of the house for a shovel.

  “Rose,” he called. His voice was deep and touched with a hint of command. She pretended not to hear him and hid behind the shed.

  She’d done precisely the same thing for which she had berated Georgie during lunch. Declan had won the first challenge, and if he did have any doubts about her abilities, she had shattered them. Now he knew that not only could she flash white, but she did it extraordinarily well. And the way he looked at her left her with no questions: Declan wanted her. She had to stump him on the second challenge, or in a few days she’d be packing her things and following him into the Weird.

  FOURTEEN

  THE first word that came to mind when one saw Max Taylor was “solid.” About two hundred and fifty pounds, he had the build of a pro wrestler gone to fat. His bullet-shaped head was shaved bald, and his small gun gray eyes were the very definition of unfriendly as he stared at Rose’s truck through his store’s front window.

  Rose slid her vehicle into the parking spot in front of Taylor’s Metal Detectors. The yellow script in the window, bright and shiny in the morning light, promised to purchase rare coins and scrap gold for the best prices.

  Georgie fidgeted in the backseat, uneasy. Yesterday’s chicken episode reminded her that placing all her eggs in one basket wasn’t the most prudent course of action. True, she wanted Georgie to earn good grades, and go to school in the Broken, and possibly get a decent paying job there, but in the end Georgie lived and breathed magic. He was an Edger. She had neglected the Edger part of his education, and it was time to correct that oversight.

  “There are two people in Pine Barren who can fence precious metals,” she said. “Gold, silver, jewelry, anything like that. One is Peter Padrake and the other is Max Taylor. Peter is very straightforward in how he deals. He’ll charge you a flat forty-five percent fee. That means that for every hundred dollars, Peter takes forty-five and you keep fifty-five.”

  Georgie’s smart eyes turned calculating. “So he takes almost half?”

  “Yes. He won’t try to cheat you, but he also won’t haggle. Peter’s comics store is doing well, and he has money. He doesn’t have to hustle to make a living, so he can afford to let some deals go. That’s why you must only go to Peter as a last resort. Always come here first.” She glanced at Max through the windshield. “Max Taylor will try his best to dupe you. He’ll claim your stuff is fake, and he’ll try to give you some ridiculously small amount for it. He’s a big man, and he’ll get loud and try to intimidate you. He also keeps a gun in his desk, and he likes to take it out and wave it around during haggling. Now, I heard a rumor that the gun isn’t even loaded, but we know what the golden rule for guns is, right?”

  “Every gun is loaded,” Georgie recited.

  “That’s right. We treat every
gun as if it’s loaded, with a round in the chamber and the safety off. We never point guns at other people, even when we think they’re not loaded, unless we intend to shoot the person, yes?”

  “Yes,” Georgie agreed. “We hold the gun to the side and down, so we don’t shoot our feet by accident, or barrel up.”

  “Very good.” She nodded. “So the golden rule says, we must treat Max’s gun as if it’s loaded.”

  “Would he shoot us?” Georgie shifted in his seat.

  “Not very likely,” she assured him. “His store is a front. Nobody buys metal detectors. The only way he can stay in business is to make money off people like us. If he shoots someone, what would happen?”

  “People would go to Peter instead,” Georgie said.

  “That’s right. If we’re smart, we can get Max to come down on the fee. Anything below a third is good. So, we’re going to sit here in our truck for a bit more, as if we’re deciding what to do, and then we’ll go inside and haggle. No matter how loud or stupid Max gets, keep calm.”

  “Okay,” Georgie promised.

  Rose dug in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper.

  Jack joined me for the morning exercise. We’ll be back before lunch.

  Declan

  She had awakened to find this piece of paper on the table. She was a light sleeper, but Declan moved like a wolf, and nobody could hear Jack when he didn’t want to be heard. They had snuck out of the house like two thieves in the night.

  Rose frowned at the note. When he was tiny, Jack used to run off into the woods. Left to his own devices, he’d be gone for days, and so Rose kept some of his fur and hair and claw and nail clippings so she could find him. She had done a quick scrying spell, but it had a short range, and Jack was nowhere within two miles from the house. That meant Declan had taken him into the wilderness of the Wood.

  Her initial impulse was to run after them, but Rose stopped herself. First, she had no idea where they had gone. Second, her kitchen was empty—they literally had nothing to eat. The last of the cereal was gone. Georgie had finished it. He was still hungry, and she was hungry as well. Georgie couldn’t go too long without a snack, not with the drain his magic placed on his body. She could spend a couple of hours searching for Jack, or she could go and get some money and buy food. So she had borrowed four dollars from Grandmother—it nearly killed her to do it—put a gallon of gas into the truck, and drove out to see Max Taylor.